Creative cooking

I don't have an oven.
Well I do, but not really.

My kitchen used to be a living room and so it has no plumbing (YET!) and no cooker point.

For ages I had a toaster oven, but it finally died, so I decided to take stock of what I have...

• Microwave.
• Slow cooker. 
• Rice maker.
• Toaster.
• Log burner.

The Microwave is a combi so it has an oven feature on it, but its balls.... seriously, it only cooks around the edges and the bottom stays soggy. Its not bad for crumbles, but nothing with pastry.
I use it for browning veg to go in the >

Slow cooker damn it! Everyone needs one of these! Not just for soups and stews,you can make curries , chinese food, chili. You can steam puddings in it, stew fruit in it. Best thing is, you can prep your food and leave it cooking all day. Its also bang on for keeping food warm for a while if you need to.

Rice maker, not just for rice. I was always baffled by rice makers. Who eats so much rice that they need an actual appliance to cook it?! Oh how wrong I was. A rice maker is basically a bowl on a hot plate, I've cooked pasta, sauces, sausages AND rice in it so far and its a cracking little machine. And I have to say... perfect rice.

Toaster. I make toast in it..... that's it.

Log burner. Its no secret I love my log burner. I can fit like 3 big pots and a kettle on it in one go. It cooks food in a far superior manner to any conventional hot plate, and in the winter it costs nothing to cook on as I already have it going for heat and hot water.
I admit it though.... I lust after a rayburn or aga or ANY sort of range cooker.
Alas its not meant to be, so how do I MAKE one out of what I already have?

BEHOLD!!!! Two roasting tins!!

Ok, basic doesn't really cover it, but I thought, what the hell.... An oven is really only a metal box that gets hot right?

So I made cupcakes.

They didn't really brown on top, as the heat is coming from below, but as you can see they cooked through and tasted fine!

There is a stove top oven called the "Coleman Camping oven" which looked pretty good, sadly though, in American they're about $35 and in the UK you can't buy for less than £70 :(

Although its meant to go on the Coleman gas range, it seems lots of people use them on log burners.

                                       

So anyway, that's what I have at the moment. Kim's thinking about making a Coleman style box for us to use so watch this space! 

  

Meet Mini Fridge, he only has to work 4 months a year!!!

So wow! Its been 4 months without the fridge!! But like all good things we needed a little help over the rough patches. The humid warm summer was not kind to some of our fridge-less foods.

Temps over 15oC are especially harsh to open soya milk and open pre-cooked/made goods. So while a pack of tofu unopened could tough out some high temps, as soon as it was open  little microscopic beasties started work on covering it with a lush white coat.

So... anything still sealed was great but once opened had to be consumed within a few hours.

As this meant that for three weeks in a row we found ourselves throwing out a carton of soya milk almost daily (although rice milk lasted just fine bizarrely enough!) we decided we needed some help.

The "mini" fridge!!!

We deliberated for a while as to what to get. A teeny tiny "fun" fridge? A full sized fridge? In the end we went for a table top fridge which is roughly half the size of a regular under counter fridge.

The point was I didn;t want something so big that we started filling it with rubbish again but at the same time  is we're running one you want to have the room to fit the occasional extra in (like fridge cake!!!).

                                  

Inside. Plenty of room for "milks", yogurts and spread as well as some luxury items like smoked tofu and veggie sausages!! 

Inside there is plenty of room for the stuff that needs to cooler temps, with enough scope for re-arranging for extras.

It is nice not waking up to soya milk the consistency of thick cream and smelling of fish!!

The only fruit that goes in the fridge are strawberries, everything else is perfectly happy in the cool pantry/cupboard, and no salad or veg has to go in the fridge.

This is not a permanent fixture though. As soon as the ambient temperature drops to less than 15oC again the fridge will be turned off, so we can expect to have the fridge going from say late May to late September and the other 8 months of the year we will still be electric fridge free! 

The new electric free fridge system!

Such a long time since my last post!!!

Ah real life..you always come into your own as the weather improves! My ranting is at its best in February!

But I've not been idle! Oh No!

Allow me to present the newest fruits of our green labour......... The pantry!!!!

Ok, so its actually a modified butchers block gifted to us by emigrating friends last year, but its working pretty damn good!

Holes have been routed put of the floor and covered with fine mesh. This allows cool air IN but keeps pests OUT!

The bottom of the cupboard is blocked up to channel the air up into the main body.

Et voila! The electric free "fridge"!!

On a hot day it really does feel cooler in there when you open the doors. In the warmer weather we've been having (humid and @ 20oC+) the "fridge " has stayed @ 12- 15oC inside.

It could be made more efficient by putting some mesh covered holes in the doors at the top so that cool air flows freely through the cupboard, but its still doing ok as it is.

No more food spoiled in a week than there was when we ran a real fridge and of course as a family of 5 an open carton of soya milk or orange juice barely has time to breath before its empty!

We've not ruled  out getting a little "fun" fridge, the kind that holds 6 cans of drink for emergency heatwave use *LOL!* but so far we've not needed to.

Well, whats in my fridge and how long does it last?

* Vitalite spred (7 days +)

* Tomatoes (upto 7 days)     

*Cucumber (7 days +)

*Salad leaves (upto 4 days)

*Strawberries (upto 7 days)

*blueberries (upto 7days)

*Soya/rice milk (upto 3 days)

*Smoked tofu (unopened) (upto 7 days)

*Courgettes (7days +)

*Soya yogurt (unopened) (upto 5 days) 

I keep most of the vegetables like carrots and potatoes elsewhere i the dark, and they last weeks!

So...what do you think?

How to improve on the idea?

Let me know what you've been up to!! x 

Fridge-less update...

A quick update on how its been without the old fridge.
Its been over a week now and you know what? It's been just fine!

Temp has got to withing a degree or two either side of 19oC over the last few days and that's been fine too.

The only casualty from the change over was a punnet of strawberries but.....well, what idiot buys strawberries out of season anyway!! And to be fair they where on the turn the day I brought them so its hard to appoint blame.

Anyway. The corner of the hall where the fridge food lives stayed between 15-19oC all week, and the wooden cupboard below it managed to keep an extra 4-5 oC cooler.
What we are planning to do now is to build a cupboard/pantry in that corner and rout out holes in the floor (covering said holes with fine mesh to stop "visitors") and draw up the cold air from under the house, as below the floor in the hall is an @2foot crawl space where the water pipes live and it is very chilly down there.
That's the theory anyway.

If anything I would say I am happily surprised at how well our fridge food has done this week.
The temp rising and the snow melting meant no safety net for us and of course the tiny fear that we might all go down with food poisoning and have to eat our words :P

In actual fact some food has kept better. Salad and fruit (like grapes and blueberries) have kept longer and more edible out of the fridge. They no longer start to brown and get that delightful slime that salad especially can get after a few days in the fridge.

Really is you think about it, the normal temp of a fridge (5oC) is aimed at keeping meat and milk from spoiling, putting it in suspended animation until you wish to consume it. But would you expect a cucumber to thrive outside at that temp?
For the omnivorous among you a workable solution could be to have a mini fridge for your meat and dairy and a cool pantry for the rest?

Its fascinating working it all out, learning to trust your senses (open, sniff, decide freshness, ask husband to taste it ...etc ;).

Dare I say it?

Is the fridge the metaphor for all that is wrong with the human race?
Are we now so unsure of our own abilities to tell if something is fresh that we have to run a "safe cold electrical wardrobe" 24 hrs a day so we DON'T have to think about it??

Maaaybe that's a little broad sweeping, but when you buy a bottle of pickle or tomato sauce and it now says "once open keep refrigerated" and you think "Holy Moly! When did I have to start doing that!! I've been leaving it in a cupboard for YEARS! I even leave it in full sun for 10 hrs at a time in BBQ season...Hmm better put that in the fridge then..you can't be tooooo careful!!"

Do we really need to be afraid of our food?         

Goodbye fridge, hello interesting times!

A few days ago we pulled the plug.
Our old(ish) upright fridge freezer, dowager with a leaky midriff and an over frozen bottom, is now officially decommissioned.
Sleep tight old girl.

Although it isn't, not really.
We have cunning plans and clever tricks for this now defunct white good, and electricity will play no part in it.

At the moment our fridge stuff is located in the hall in a cool corner, not 5oC for sure but cool enough for most things.
A more reliable and permanent solution will need to present its self in the next few weeks, if the front door is left open and the sun is shining our "cool" spot becomes decidedly warm!
In an ideal world I have the perfect room for a traditional cold pantry. Thick stone walls, north facing, potential to stone clad the floor for maximum humidity.

Only trouble is, its in the kids bedroom *sigh*.

We have wracked our brains for ages trying to work a way around this. 

There MAY be the possibility of buying a really nice insulated mobile home that we could have in the garden and convert into outside bedrooms. We COULD try to work out a way to build something ourselves.

We''ll see.
There are plenty of options available if the money is there but..well..insert slightly hysterical laughter HERE :P

So, failing turfing the kids out of their beds and making them sleep with the dogs there are other options, but sadly none so perfect.

But hey life is all compromise right!!? 

One thing that is interesting is the way we are re-thinking our food again.

For example, no more eating half a tin/jar of something then putting it in the fridge for a week, or worse still, forgetting about the left half and throwing it away.

Tonight I made stir fry with half a jar of Tempah. Usually I would put the rest in the fridge and wait for another stir fry night, but instead I am going to make a casserole for dinner tomorrow and put the remaining Tempah in it.

For years I have brought the egg free mayonnaise in squeezy plastic bottles (because even before we gave up commercial eggs altogether I could never find a free range mayonnaise that didn't taste nasty!). I am truly awful at making mayonnaise but DAMN IT!! I have eggs coming out of my ears some days I should bloody well LEARN to make mayonnaise! That way I can make only what I need and have no extra to store AND no plastic to recycle!
On Saturday I made tomato soup and for lunch the next day I turned the left over into pasta sauce.

Using snow to cool cider and fruit juice!

Everything like this is used within 24hrs.

I'm also experimenting with replacing margarine (spread) with vegetable oil in baking. So far its working really well, with some interesting muffin textured cakes. Margarine tubs are one of those things we can't recycle so it will be great to cut those down anyway.

Its been insightful anyway and will probably be even more so over the next few weeks.

                   

Musings, reflections and life altering decisions.

Power Off Weekend mark II over.

Diary written, photos posted, backs slapped all round.

These weekends to me seem to be the perfect chance to reflect on things.
Not just the family stuff. Spending distraction free time with your family and loved ones is always a fantastic thing to do, but on some more practical elements to our lifestyle.

Malcolm Handoll has already suggested having four POW's a year, at each solstice and equinox and the suggestion set my mind racing as to how I can make my home, my life, even more electric free friendly.

As though the gods of coincidence were listening (and laughing no doubt) my fridge freezer went on the blink.

Well in all fairness its been a bit dodgy for a while.
There is a permanent puddle in the bottom of the fridge, even though the drain bit is clear, the freezer used to over freeze at the best of time but now the seal is broken.

What to do then?

Well, a quick look inside the beast told me all I needed to know.
The fridge contained......

1 UHT carton of rice milk
1 UHT carton of orange juice

1/2 cucumber

1 carrot
4 tubs of vitalite
1/2 can of chick peas
small ball of left over pastry.

....and all spread over 4 shelves...bit echo-ie in there..

Best of all was the contents of the freezer....I kid you not...

2 ice cube trays
4 peas.

Hmmm...and I'm running this 24 hrs a day why?

Anyone ever see fight club?? Edward Norton's lament about the contents of his blown up fridge "A fridge full of condiments and no food. How embarrassing."

You said it buddy.

A quick look online threw up a lot of people asking the same question. Some had ditched the fridge and never looked back, some were dithering and others where plain aghast at the idea.

Funny to think that a white appliance that really only became common place in the 70's has become the ONE thing people can't imagine living without.

Seriously, you find blogs about people who compost their poo and weave their own clothes out of dandelions but ask whether they would give up their fridge and they shrink away in horror!!

Understandably, modern homes (post 1960's) are not designed for the fridge-less. 

Up till then, all houses possessed a pantry/larder/cupboard in a cool part of the house and that's where "fridge" food went.

An argument against going fridge-less is that our grandmothers would shop almost daily for fresh food so little would need to be kept.
This is true, and its also very true that many families are too busy to shop like that now BUT it has to be said that back then you didn't have the wealth of preserved food that you have now.

For example our soya/rice/oat milks are all UHT and do not need refrigeration before opening and only need to be kept moderately cool after.
Eggs and cheese do better at a slightly higher temperature than a fridge will provide.
Many MANY items found in a fridge now don't even need to be in there.
Condiments, pickles, jams, peanut butter (yeah!! People do that!!) fruit, most vegetables.... none of these need to be kept at 5oC and yet we stuff our fridges with them!

So once we take all that stuff out what are we left with??
Spreads? Yogurt? Leftovers?
Not really enough to run a wardrobe sized appliance for is it?

So we run an appliance that we stuff full of things we don't really need in there. We go nuts buying 2 for 1 deals to shove in the freezer and always ALWAYS its half crammed full of things like soup (from 3 years ago), some frozen veg you brought but didn't like (WHY havent you thrown it out??) the 2nd packet of the 2 for 1 deal (it was 2 for 1 because it taste like cack) and, of course, a couple of mystery meal tubs of leftovers stuffed in the back, covered with permafrost.

Anyway. After chatting to Kim about it we've decided to give it a go.
No pressure.
The plan is to wind down the VAST contents of our fridge freezer and then decommission it (I have plans for it though, don't worry!) and then see how it goes.

If it all goes horribly wrong we can still buy a fridge, although a much smaller one without a freezer, maybe just a small ice box.
If the summer is stupid hot we might buy one of those little mini fridges you can get 6 cans in so things like the spread will be ok.

There are a lot of if's.

Some of it depends on how other things to do with the house pan out.
Some of it doesnt matter.

Do I sound cryptic??
Sorry, nothing sinister meant by it, just too much STUFF to explain here!

So there you have it.
I'm open to any suggestions re: keeping food good and hopefully I can let you all know how it goes!

.
    
    

Why I love Power Off!!

The fire pit!!

Let me tell you a story, a story that started 8 years ago. 

When we up'd sticks from Somerset to Scotland we did the most important thing of our lives. Not the move that is.

We left the TV behind.

I was concerned about Ollie, then 2, about the amount of TV he watched and also the amount I was watching.

It would be fine, I thought. Easy peasy!!

Reader. 

If I had been coming off Smack I think it would have been easier.

I went cold turkey and suffered greatly.

You see, I had grown up in the time where TV started to take a hold of the nation. A time where you had 4 (!!! Count 'em!! 4!!!!) Channels and the box was switched on in the morning and turned off at bedtime.

I had no idea what a huge force it was until it wasn't there anymore.

Suddenly there was no reassuring voices in the room when I was on my own. No distraction, no reason to sit glazed eyed on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon.

I heard noises in the house that had been masked by the constant prattle from the TV, and I was afraid.

Do I do without visual stimuli all together?

Nope. I love a good movie and have a stupid amount of DVD's. But there is a difference.

A movie is (mostly) 1 and 1/2 hrs of concentration time, no adverts, no rubbish. If you have jobs to do a movie will wait or in the case of kids homework/bedtime/whatever can be turned off and watched again the next day.

The point is a DVD does not demand your time and fidelity in the same way as TV.

You are never afraid that you might be missing something.     

You never find yourself working your life around a favourite soap or quiz show.

You never EVER have to have your movie split into two so the news can come on for 1/2 an hour.

You control the medium rather than the medium controlling you.

So.

Power Off Weekend mark II?

Fantastic!

Again!!

Food.

  

Mmmm..Veggie sausages!!

Owen and Alfie "cooking". 

Alfie cooked his bread :)

Power Off soup! This soup was potato and cauliflower and was "blended" using a potato ricer.

Home made Mango chutney. A pack of frozen mango pieces meant a "Arrrgghh!! What do I do with these!?" moment. Hence mango chutney!

Power Off Bread, made in the dutch oven on top of the log burner.

By using baking paper it was possible to flip the bread over in the dutch oven and therefore brown both sides.

Entertainment.

This time we were better prepared!

Junior monopoly. A cut throat power game in the hands of my children.

Picnic up the top of the hill over the road to us. Beautiful sunny day.

Run my doggies! Run!

Merle and Jenny mushing on!

Some beautiful trees up the hill.

Life as usual.

Washing still has to be done when there are five of you in the house!

Even boiled up some skanky rags, or was that dinner?? Hmmm....

The more expensive candles I brought this time (rather than the cheap Tesco ones!) Threw out enough light to read more than comfortably in.

The log burner. It really is the heart of the home and worked like a trooper for all out heat, hot water and cooking needs.

So will we do it again?

Is a bear in the woods Catholic??

The next Power Off Weekend is in June, so this time we will need to have a long think about refrigeration. We *just* got away with it this time, but any warmer and we would have struggled. So I will need to prepare more for that.

Any of you guys do Power Off this time?

Let me know how you got on and share your ups and downs.

Also, if anyone has any ideas how to keep fod cool in summer let me know!

Time to Power down for Power Off Weekend II

In five hours and 10 mins I will be turning off the electric for 48 hrs!!

Candles...Check.
Solar light....Check.
Baking like the wind....Check, check, check...

In actual fact I don't feel like I've made any great effort this time. Perhaps because I know what to expect this time. For a start its not snowy or dark by 3pm so this time it feels like it will be easy peasy! (Please don't point out I said that if something goes horribly wrong!!)

I've tided the house and garden, but that's more because I have friends coming for a Power Off lunch tomorrow.
I dug a fire pit to ***hopefully!!*** cook out for lunch.

The fact that it will still be daylight at 6 or 7pm makes the whole thing a lot more relaxed.

So anyway..signing out! Will be keeping a diary and taking pictures so look out for a new post some time on Monday 23rd!

Happy weekend folks! xx

The great heat Myth...

I have an old house.
I love my house but it is old, and while this means we have a lot of history and have come across some great surprises as we continue to renovate, it also means that we suffer in other ways.
Maybe its a karma thing ;)

When we moved in eight years ago we had single glazed windows and the first thing they tell you to do when you do a place up is to get double glazing in. So we did and for a while it was great, "No more condensation running down the windows!" We shouted, but what we failed to realise is that condensation is a tricksy beast.
Now the windows were too warm for it to cling too it sought out all the other cold spots in the house and clung to them.
So now, instead of wet windows we have things like wet walls.....not nice.
Our bathroom gets mouldy, the kids bedroom has to be wiped with a towel every day.

This winter has been a real problem as its been stupid oC for months and of course we've had the fire going all the time. So yes..condensation has become he bane of our lives  ....

BUT..... (and this is why I love the Internet!)

Last week I stumbled across the No Impact Man blog by Colin Beavan, and while perusing through his posts I came across a guest post by a family living in Japan.
Sean Sakamoto was worried about his first winter in Japan. His wife, Japanese born, couldn't believe that in America the whole house is heated! The whole post goes onto describe how they live happily without the fuel/electric guzzling whole house heat and what he learned about himself through that winter.
Go read ithe whole thing HERE its fantastic!!

Anyway, that night, before bed, I gave the kids and extra cover each and opened all the vents in the house and some of the windows a crack so they would still be locked, and guess what?
In the morning, little to no condensation!

The whole thing gave me pause for thought.
WHY do we feel the need to have our interior spaces hot enough to wear light clothing in?
Outside temperature has no bearing on your internal temperature. The trouble is, we've all heard about old people getting hypothermia in their homes and dying, but what we fail to realise is that the few who do die don't die from exposure, but from the inability to regulate cour body temperature. So if your very old and a little wooly thinking and you don't eat well enough you will get hypothermia and die.

Think about some of the coldest places in the world.
Do they have central heating in the mountains of Afghanistan? Is the wall of a Mongolian Yurt double insulated and fitted with radiators? Did the Native Americans abandon their TeePees in winter for an oil heated new build?
I saw a program about scientists at a base in Antarctica and they lived in glorified TENTS!! You could see light though the walls! In the height of summer its still -6-10 oC!!

In the winter we all tend to eat a little more. Its the bodies way of keeping you alive. So if your eating winter rations but living in summer heat (and many homes and offices are heated to 24oC and over all year!)you won't be burning off the extra calories will you?

Right now I would say its probably warmer outside than it is in my house! But I am sitting in the North end.
There is no heating, no fire, no nothing.
Windows are open, its not windy so why not?
I don't know how cold it is temperature wise but my breath is still steaming!
I'm dressed well and I'm not cold. Not even chilly. I put an extra sweater on, job done :)

So how can you cut the heat and still stay warm?
Here are some gleefully obvious tips!

1. Wear more clothes! Seriously, if there is snow outside you should not be wearing jeans and t-shirt inside. Layer up, wear a light fleece over the top of everything, always wear socks, two pairs if need be.

2. Eat well. Not an excuse to pig out but make sure you eat 3 hot meals a day. Skip the salad and go for vegetable soup instead. Have a bowl of porridge instead of cold cereal, eat warming carbohydrates for dinner.

3. Don't forget your drinks. You still need to stay hydrated and we all know about drinking your 6 -8 glasses of water a day but a cold glass of water is NOT what the doctor ordered! Try warm water with lemon or a herbal tea to get your water intake (normal tea and coffee don't count!) and for a treat a hot chocolate hits the spot every time!

4. Go outside! It's easy to sit inside all day if your heatings cranked up. Go outside for a few hours, get a walk, work in the garden. When you come inside you'll notice how warm your house really is, even without heating on!

5. Bedtime bliss! Make sure you have enough covers on your bed. A good trick is to have a second duvet UNDER your bed sheet as it helps to trap your body heat better than having the sheet directly on the mattress. Wear socks in bed, cold feet are responsible for most night time waking. Wear enough in bed..so jammies and a sweater in very cold weather!! And I don't have to point out the number one way of getting snuggy in bed do I?? Just remember to put the layers back on after ;)

6.Getting chilly watching TV or reading at night? Pull up a duvet or some blankets to snuggle under, much warmer than having the heating on!

Why not give it a go?
Your not only letting your house breath but yourself as well, condensed, stale air is no good for anyone!
Turning the heat down, leaving it off for part of the day, these are ways we can connect back with the seasons, and when the sun DOES shine it feels marvelous again.

PowerOff Weekend mark II !! Friday 19th March - Sun 21st March 2010.

I'm sure you all remember the fantastic PowerOff Weekend last December, if not you can read the diary I wrote for that HERE.

Well its time for round two! And this time I want you all to join in with us!!
No excuses now ;)

So what does it involve?
Simple, 48 hrs without electric, so no TV, internet, radio, computer games, electric cooker, electric hot water. electric heating, fridge, freezer, microwave.. You get the idea.

"Oh horrible! Terrible! Besides..." *shift eyes, wringing hands* "I can't do it...I have work/ friends visiting/ kids......(add extra get out clauses here!)"

I KNOW you guys and I KNOW you want to do it SO I want you all to know that I am here (along with Malcolm Handoll from Orkney) to hold your hand, to guide you through the problems. If you have a concern or question for gawd's sake ask me!! You could even plan to just do one day or only daylight hours? A little this time and maybe the whole 48 hrs next time.
Life isn't an all or nothing!

We learnt a lot from the last POW and I feel I can answer most questions sensibly.

Malcolm posted a FAQ spot on the last post about POW dec '09 HERE so you can have a little look there and maybe find your concern answered satisfactorily.
Unlike Malcolm I have kids and so can answer first hand your fear about how kids handle electricity deprivation, as well as basic safety concerns (ie, naked flames etc).

A nice touch is that this POW falls over the Wiccan celebration of Ostera (You know, the ones the Christian church stole and called Easter ;) so what better way to celebrate the re-birth of the land than doing something to protect it, even for one weekend.

You are brave passionate people, you can do this little thing!
So Comment!! Share your enthusiasm as well as your worries and reservations and we can support each other.

xx