Friday, December 2, 2011

Garden goings on

What kind of things are you growing in your garden?  I'm not a brilliant gardener, but I'm learning on the job ;D.

 This is a zucchini I picked last week.  I had to self pollinate, which involved picking the petals off a male flower "He loves me, he loves me not..." (hehehe), and using the stamen as a paintbrush on a female flower.  So much easier than having to use a cotton bud.  This zucchini only took a week to grow.  It was used in a zucchini slice we devoured.


 Mushrooms on special at Aldi for 99 cents a tub.  My children love mushroom chips.  I spray the mushrooms slices with oil, then do a very light sprinkling of salt.  Dry until they are crispy.  You don't have to add the salt, but it tastes great and is a healthier alternative to deep fried potato chips.  I did 6 trays of dried mushrooms and used up two tubs.


 Purple climbing beans thriving.  These are amazing beans that turn green when you cook them.  I picked a dozen of them to use in Shepherd's Pie last night.  Yum!  My tomato plant is a giant one with cherry tomatoes all over it.  I was silly and put straw on the dirt to slow down the slugs, but I don't think the tomato plant appreciated the gesture.  It is still hanging in there though.


Some shallots I pulled up this morning.  They're now in the sun drying out until the roots go crunchy.  I'm planning on using them soon rather than storing them for a length of time, so they don't have to dry out very much.  If I wanted to be all fancy I could braid them all together and hang them up to dry, but this is the first time I have successfully grown them to this point :D

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Week 48 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 4 cans soup and 1 can spaghetti

$20 Challenge
Store 8 cans soup and 2 cans spaghetti


Soup

I know a lot of you are clever enough to make your own soup, and I personally love the taste of my home-made chicken soup, but when you don't have the resources (financially or food-wise) to be able to make your own soup, the canned variety is great! 

Spend your extra energy making bread (or better yet, put the kids to work on that;D )

Not to deter anyone from this challenge, but there also needs to be moderation in all things.  I came across this article today on elevated BPA levels in a study of some people who ate canned soup for 5 days straight: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/11/23/High-BPA-levels-linked-to-canned-soup/UPI-26961322067158/

I just have to add though that I have my food storage there as an emergency.  I don't eat from cans every day but when I have had to rely on my food storage, boy have I needed it!  Not even all of that was canned either.  Rotate with pasta and sauce (bottled sauce, not canned) and frozen foods if you can.

Spaghetti

Canned spaghetti on toast is cheap and easy.  It can be eaten cold straight out of the tin if it's a desperate situation.

You can add extra things to it to make it more of a meal, like frozen peas and corn, bacon and tomato, even fresh herbs.