the green gal

What have you been doing with your time?

Well, in between working, digging myself out of the snow, crocheting on a train, watching Glee and My Dream Farm, and making my nephew's apron, I've made a few things and found some marvellous bargains:

I embroidered a birthday card for a dear friend…

…found this gorgeous clock hanging in a charity shop, and they sold it to me for a couple of quid…

 

…then I found this gorgeous bowl in my favourite colour in yet another charity shop and it was even more of a bargain. Can't quite decide whether to use it to store things or to plant some spring bulbs in it…

 
…made some more bunting from old shirts and lovely fabric my mum gave me…

 …found a funny website about making your life greener – Do The Green Thing, plus the easiest recipe in the world to make banana ice cream at Love Food Hate Waste, and tried this tasty recipe for Sausages and Mustard (veggie sausages of course) by Nigel Slater straight after watching him cook it on TV…

…used an old map to make a few envelopes and cover a peg (why a peg? no reason, just fancied using my new pot of decopatch glue and thought I'd pretty up a peg)…

…after spotting a few tulip bulbs shoots emerging from the soil in the garden I've been poring over seed catalogues trying to decide what to plant. Trouble is, even though last year I managed to squeeze two raised beds, two towers of tyres for potato growing, a window box for tomatoes, a hanging basket for strawberries and various pots for garlic and herbs into our little garden, I still want to grow more, and rescue a couple of chickens (hah!)…

… and that was how my first month of 2010 ended, wonder what's in store for us all in the next 11 months…!

Scrummy choccie chip cookies

Think they look tasty? They taste even better than they look. Try this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe and find out for yourselves!

Blackberry vodka – the result

I made blackberry vodka at the end of last year and completely forgot to tell you how it turned out. For the original post see here, however you might need to wait a few months for the hedgerows to be full of yummy fruit before you can get cracking on your own.

So, I filled a wine bottle and an old Jack Daniels (my fave tipple) bottle with blackberries, sugar and vodka in the autumn of 2009. In December I decanted the two bottles and filled one 70cl wine bottle (and a bit more left over) with the filtered blackberry flavoured vodka. 

And the verdict is – delicious! Quite sweet but definitely blackberry flavoured with a hint of alcohol taste when it's drunk neat. Mix it with lemonade or soda water and the alcohol taste disappears entirely, meaning you could drink it by the pintful, quite dangerous! Apologies for the ropey photo, I'm not a big daytime vodka drinker and I've yet to discover how to take quality photos in artificial light.

I'll be making another, probably bigger, batch this autumn and I heartily suggest you do the same. Cheers!

Blackberry vodka

Nope, I've not opened a speakeasy, I'm making homemade blackberry vodka!

I found the recipe in October's Country Living magazine and it just seemed too simple to not try. Plus I had a surplus of blackberries and am partial to the odd vodka cocktail. We made sloe gin a couple of years ago so fancied having a go at another tipple.

The simple recipe:

• Fill a old clean wine bottle one third full with equal parts blackberries and sugar.
• Top up with cheap vodka (no need to splash out on expensive stuff when you're flavouring it).
• Give it a good shake to mix up the berries, sugar and vodka.
• For the next two months give it a shake every day or two.
• Then, sieve the mixture through a muslin cloth, pour into a clean bottle and enjoy!

I'll let you know how it tastes!

BTW, my post about how I made the cushion cover from old clothes is on daisygreenmagazine.co.uk now, check it out http://good.ly/du2yk and let me know what you think!

The finishing line

So, the store cupboard challenge is over!

We ate well, most of the time, not too weirdly and a bit more thoughtfully. I've discovered that we keep quite a substantial amount of non-perishable food and my trips to the food shops needn't be as frequent as they have been. With a bit of thought we've made use of what we already had in the cupboard and the freezer and have actually had a more varied diet for it. It's easy to get stuck in your ways and rely on a handful of familiar ideas and forget what lovely dishes you could have if you took the time to think about it. 

The hubbie, who is head chef in our household, says he's quite enjoyed the Ready Steady Cook Challenge, as he named it. I think he might have blanked out the memory of the choice words he came out with on Friday night when he discovered that sour cream is no replacement for double cream. Separated cream doesn't look the best but the potato boulangere still tasted delicious!

Yesterday was a bit of a cheat as we were out all day with friends so only had popcorn with a movie when we got home. (Don't bother watching Iron Man but do pop your own corn, kids and adults alike love the exploding sounds coming from the pan.)

And tonight could be considered a bit sneaky as we ate last week's leftover veggie bean chilli from the freezer. However, we freed up space in the freezer and the accompanying brown rice came from the cupboard!

All in all the week was a success and I think we'll make it a regular every few months. We saved money, we made some space in the kitchen and used our brains a bit more. I hope that everyone taking part at myzerowaste.com and frugal-life.spaces.live.com enjoyed it too!

Store cupboard challenge

Inspired by Mrs Green at http://myzerowaste.com and Piper Terrett at http://frugal-life.spaces.live.com the hubbie and I have embarked on a store cupboard challenge!

The challenge is to make meals only from food we already have, for one week. Only fresh fruit and veg can be bought, all accompanying ingredients have to come from our home. Seeing as we only have two ripe tomatoes (but 47 green) so far, that limits us to the store cupboard.

Last night we had veggie fajitas.

Tonight it's pasta salad with stuffed peppers.

What will tomorrow's feast be I wonder?! If you've done anything similar or have any suggestions, let me know!

(PS You can still win a veggie-growing book if you comment on my post Gardening Lessons Learned!)

In a jam

I'm a happy woman. I have achieved something that I've never achieved before. I have made jam!

My mum has made it, my dad made it, I'm pretty sure my next door neighbour has made it but never before have I made a proper pot of jam, that tastes good and everything! And not just one pot, my friend, three, I made three pots of blackberry jam.

What makes it taste even sweeter (sorry) is that I didn't even pay for the blackberries. I collected them from the hedgerows I pass every day on my dog walk. I was determined to get in early with the blackberry picking this year after missing out on the majority of them last year.

Last year was not a good year for jam making in my household. 

Last year we didn't have a dog and so didn't take as many walks or take as much notice of the blossoming of the hedgerows. When I finally cottoned on I needed to get picking the only ones left were sited behind nettle bushes or at the top of the bushes. Ouch. Then, when I came to make the jam, for some odd reason I used two methods, rather than one, to decide if the jam was ready. I used a jam thermometer and the put-it-on-a-chilled-dish-and-see-if-it-crinkles methods, why, I've no idea. The end result was I became thoroughly confused and the jam set so hard you couldn't get a knife in it.

But this year was different. I kept it simple and it worked, hurray! This is the method I used:

• 1lb washed blackberries in a pan with the juice of one lemon and 1/4pint water, simmer for ten minutes to soften and give it a bit of a mash with a wooden spoon.
• Add 1lb jam sugar (includes the pectin), give it a stir and then turn up the heat to get it boiling.
• Use a jam thermometer to see when the jam is ready, it needs to reach 105º but my thermometer helpfully has 'Jam' written next to the correct temp!
• When it hits the mark, take it off the heat and leave it alone for 15 mins.
• Skim off any bubbly scum and pour into sterilised jars. (Easiest way to sterilise jars is to put them and their lids on a baking tray in the oven at 100ºC for ten minutes.)
• Leave to set, try not to keep checking it, anxiously wondering if it's ever going to firm up. It will and it will taste delicious!
• Cheerful fabric covers and pretty ribbon ties are optional but do make the jars look pretty enough for presents.

As well as tasting delish, jam-making is an eco-friendly past-time. I reused the jars, zero food miles for the berries as they came from the fields at the end of my road, and I have no need to journey to a shop to buy jam next time I want a peanut butter and jam sandwich! Plus it is super satisfying. To make as well as eat, I mean.

Watch out hedgerows, I'm coming for more berries! I might try making apple and blackberry crumble next...

PS Don't forget to comment on the Gardening Lessons Learned post below, you could win a fab Grow Organic book!

Make your own lip balm

You wouldn't think it but the simple lip balm contains all kinds of chemicals. For instance, a common ingredient is petrolatum, which, you guessed it, comes from the same source as the fuel you run your car on. Do you really want that on your mouth? Some lip balms, like a lot of beauty products can contain parabens. These are synthetic preservatives which some reports have suggested could alter hormones and even be linked to cancer. 

Whether you believe that or whether you could just do with saving some cash, it's super easy to make your own lip balm. Plus you know what's in it. And it really impresses people.

To make homemade lip balm:

- Have a few empty clean lip balm pots handy.

- Melt equal measures of castor oil (chemist), coconut oil (supermarket or health food store) and grated beeswax (grate a pure beeswax candle). One teaspoon of each makes 10ml of lip balm but it's just as easy to make several pots in one go.

- Easiest way to do this is to put the ingredients in a bowl sat in a pan of hot water. 

- Pour the melted liquid into the lip balm pot and it will set as it cools. If you want to flavour your lip balm add a couple drops of essential oil (peppermint or lemon are good).

Ta da! You'll never buy lip balm again.

Green in the broadest sense

I use the word green to cover all manner of things which I think are included in the general ethos of greenness - the idea of treating the planet, people and creatures the way you'd like to be treated. So, my list of websites and books don't just cover topics to do with climate change but also things like getting back to nature, the fairtrade ethic, even making your own natural beauty products!

Happy Campers

One book that doesn't live on the climate change shelf but is just fab for life in general is Happy Campers. From advice on what to take camping to get the home from home feeling and campfire recipes, to a guide to identifying clouds and knitting instructions, it's a must-have for anyone who wants to look up once in a while and smell the roses. I took it when we went teepee camping in Cornwall and it was invaluable. The book link takes you to Amazon or you can log on to the Happy Campers own website. Be happy camping, or otherwise!