So, my cooking skillz...are adequate. It's the rationing skills! I lost an onion! It rotted. Must have had a damp spot.
Now I am being more diligent on checking the fresh and just eating it. I might dice up any onions that I haven't eaten and put them in the work freezer next week. there are only 4 or 5 left. 3 squash. One is tiny.
And one fresh carrot. I have just over 2quarts fermenting carrots which will stay crunchy and fresh-ish, though they are a tad salty an the rest of this experiment has lead to complete success in keeping my sodium intake at and below the target. The target number is entirely personal and experimental so I am not going to share it. Once you do that people have opinions in which I am not interested.
ANYWAY...found the ginger which ferments with the carrots and I'd bought extra so have that to spice up soups and tea and whatnot. Maybe even try a honey based ginger bready/cake thingy with fresh ginger.
I had sorted out a week's worth of raisin ration as well. Then I ate it all by Tuesday. Maybe I will make it to Wednesday next week! Overdid the walnuts too. They are delicious.
I used the peruana beans from a previous trip to Santa Fe last evening, with one onion and a buttload of spices to make a bean stew. REALLY nice, lacks salt (see above keeping sodium numbers low...) so I added a dash of vinegar and it perked up. Will try more cayenne and cumin next time. Still really good. For a bit of heartiness beyond the beans I added in some keto bread that was not great. It was much better as a fake soup cracker substance. I have a bit of both left for dinner tonight.
The coffee and tea are holding up well. I appear to be too lazy to do much with the honey so plenty of that! I was planning on that as the main sweetener this month and saving the maple syrup for January. Instead I appear to be eating the white sugar which is supposed to be for the kombucha. Anyway, it isn't causing a lack of anything and the kombucha will survive either way.
Cooking in the evening when I have the woodstove on is alright. Something to do. Mostly soups and some of these experimental breads. Tonight I'm thinking of trying some coconut oil and baking cocoa chocolates. I have 10 or 11oz of dark chocolate to make treats (like adding nuts and stuff....heh heh...nuts) but once I open it I am A) committed to using it up and 2) likely to eat it all in 2 days (or one).
The hens have put out 2 eggs a day for 3 days!!! It was 1 egg a day. I think Porky, the Barred Rock, is back on line. It's a big light pinky beige egg and I am pretty sure that is her. I think one of the 2 young hens is trying to start as well. I've seen 3 TINY eggs. The one I got before it broke or was pecked, had no yolk but a weird brown scab looking thing. I picked that out. Anyway, I had done my meat/eggs ration intention based on 1 egg a day so this gives me a buffer if they suddenly stop. Also have the dried egg.
Speaking of rationing what you've got and using basic ingredients to cook (that 2nd part was subtext, stick with me here), this youtube channel is very helpful:
Utility Jude's Wartime Cookery
It's is a little show the woman put out during covid explaining and re-enacting the rationing and some recipes in the UK during WWII. I've done a couple of the recipes because they are just basic plans with the assumption that you will need to skimp and substitute on things. Much better than the detailed "start with a cake mix" or "use top sirloin" type crap recipes. Lots of the prepper and "survivalist" cooking youtubes work with unrealistic expectations and high priced freeze dried and other nonsense foods.
I've also nearly switched to 2 meals a day with maybe something small in the evening as I'm cooking, mostly tasting the recipe or eating what doesn't fit in the container I'm going to put on the porch-fridge (that's just the porch in winter...sometimes it is the porch freezer).
It's just easier when you are cooking from scratch for 1 and you don't have a regular kitchen and fridge. Prep and dishes are more awkward and cooking takes time out of what little daylight I have here in the winter. I'd been toying with intermittent fasting and this just seems to lead to it. I like to have breakfast, but today it was lunch first as I wasn't hungry and was running late to work (early for work, too late to bother cooking a breakfast in the micro or toaster oven, but I did have my coffee).
Cooking once or twice a day means fewer decisions, less crap to snack on, and less calculating what is in stock and what is low or out.
I have successfully planned lunches and invited a work colleague who is cash strapped, to a pantry lunch next week. We'll each cook our own and just eat together at a conference room at work, or each make part of the meal to share. I could do a pretty mean chicken soup.
Eating from the pantry also influenced my order for lunch at the dept xmas get-together. I had a lettuce wrapped burger and a salad...I thought there would be pie. Skipping the bun and fries kept the sodium levels in check, and getting lettuce wrap and salad maximized the fresh veg so I could skip eating my own fresh stuff that day. I haven't dipped into the sprouting seeds yet. Probably later this month. I do like something fresh each day.
I should do a post on what I am doing on the cheap/free to see if more chickens will lay in the winter. If I get 3 eggs a day I will have plenty to share which is always nice. Maybe with a picture of the sad new coop.
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