From here on in...

Since starting a group called 'Self sufficientish' over on Flickr, there's not a whole lot of self sufficientish going on. In fact, I've pretty much become dependent on poor David, who's been doing the vast majority of cooking, cleaning and general nurturing in our flat - even down to taking the kittens to the vet. Still, ahead of NYE and resolutions etc, I have decided to turn a new leaf and try to prevent teaching from taking over as much of my life as it has (guess that means I'll have more to blog about anyway...)

With this in mind I happily purchased a carton of buttermilk today, with which I plan to make my first loaf of soda bread tomorrow... it's the small things in life, hey?

A little thrift goes a long way

So Gordon Brown has urged us all to stop wasting food, has he? Shame he hasn't offered any thoughts on how. Still there are plenty of books around to offer sagely advice and tips, and with recent trends towards growing your own veggies there are more available then ever. One book that I thought was very good on the subject was by Rose Prince, The New English Kitchen. She does also now have a book out called The New English Table although I haven't had a chance to check it out (sounds too familiar to its predecessor!)

Anyway, I digress. One great way to start is by making your own bread, as I'm sure I've harped on enough about before. I've found that actually it really isn't that time intensive to make a fairly decent loaf, and for some reason it seems to out-last a shop bought loaf by far (although to be honest with the smell of freshly baked bread in your house you won't need to worry about it hanging around long enough anyway).

Does anyone else have any good suggestions out there for being thrifty with your food? Perhaps this could be the beginning of thrifty pick of the week....? Sure there's bound to be some thrifty tips on here to get you going in the meantime.

And while we're on the subject of thrift, thanks to a weekend fishing trip we've now re-stocked our freezer on mackerel (for suitably smug picture see above)

Tomato Update - 28.06.08

Self Sufficientish

I've started a new group over on flickr for people to post up any efforts towards self sufficiency, however big or small. Please feel free to join and contribute.

Tomato Update 20.06.08