Although we had a pretty busy run up to Xmas here, the event itself was very low key for us, as Ricky is a Pagan and doesnt do Christmas, we have a bit of a mix that we have developed over the years that suits us both. We generally have a party for Winter Solstice that starts of our festive season, we didnt this year as we were invited ut to friends plus the weather had been so wet and we generally hold it outdoors round a bonfire in the garden. I decorate the house with greenery and pine cones from the forest for him to make it festive but 'natural' too. No trees are hurt (by us) as I go and collect branches from where the latest logging has been happening, that way at least some of the beautiful trees are not wasted...
After Solstice I add a few home made decorations and some ribbons etc and it becomes my xmas decorations... this year I made xmas tree garlands by cutting tree shapes from old christmas cards and stringing them together... very pretty. Also my xmas tree (plastic) is decorated by loads of coloured celophane flowers made by me from sweet wrappers and strung on cotton... Rik thinks Im bonkers... but again, the wrapers do not bio degrade, so to save just throwing them away , ive recycled them in my own way, they really do look pretty and as they are silver in places really sparkle ... hehehehe well it works for me....
Christmas day is a very quiet day for us, we generally have a lie in untill the dogs cant wait any longer, about 8am at the best... then we light the range, make coffee and walk the dogs, this year Ricky went strimming down in the 'orchard to be' untill mid afternoon when lunch was ready, I prepared lunch and spent my time stacking and re organising the log shed.
For our lunch we had a nice shoulder of Lamb, roast potatoes, our roast turnips, our roast butternut squash, our peas, and our cauli. Gravy and a glass of wine. A fruit parcel with ice cream each and that was us done.... then we curled up in front of the roarin log burner and watched DVD'S till bed...
A nice peaceful day, no stress, no cost, wonderfull...
Frugal living in the Portuguese countryside,Eco-tourism, Agri tourism, recipes,family life, self sufficency, eco living, vegetable growing, tips and self help ideas for country living.
Monday, 28 December 2009
Belated Greetings..
Yep Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Boas Festas!!!
Well thats all that over with then. We've been so busy this year we just didnt have time to get into town to update this blog. We've had a great couple of weeks, considering we are pretty antisocial people really, we've been inundated with invites to eat and celebrate with friends that we've been overwhelmed a little. All in one week we had Solstice dinner celebrations with some lovely dutch friends, a dinner out with English friends a few miles away, and Christmas Portuguese style on Christmas Eve with some friends Ricky plays Softball with from Abrantes. Ive never eaten so much in my life... it was all really wondeful though.
We now have some friends from england arriving for a two week visit today, so lots of cooking and organising for me.
No news on Ricky's job yet, we hope to hear more on that first week of Jan or so, its going to take time to set up a scheme this big so we'll not be splashing the dosh around too soon.... heheheheh
The weather is still wet... very wet, its turned very mild again but we have the stream back running through the kitchen, ahhhh well, maybe we will get to dig out the back wall of the house this summer.... hehehehe Ive lived with it three winters now, another wont kill me...
We've been logging and trying to get wood stacked to dry out, we've still plenty of dry stuff but at this rate it wont last long so its a continual thing for us, as the cooker eats it up.
The garden is still ticking over, just the cabbage and turnips for eating now, the broad beans are going ok , I never get too confident of broad beans, they are sneaky, and tend to let me down when i'm not looking....
The main project on the land for us now is that we are planting an orchard, we try to reclaim more of our land each year, this time we are working on a big patch at the bottom of the hill, fruit trees are very cheap at the moment so we splashed out and spent 18euros.... on some more trees, and combined with the ones we planted last year (in a really stupid place that now have to be moved) we'll be able to plant our new orchard and have, 3 plum trees (different varieties) 3 Pears (different) a granny smiths apple, a Gala Red apple, 2 cherry trees, and 3 Almond trees. We also have 2 tangerine trees down there that are full grown and in a bad way, Rik will prune them hard , and an old apple tree we'll do the same too and hope it picks up eventually.
All this will hopefully give us plenty of fruit in a few years.
We so love planting trees, it feeels like we are giving something back to the world...
We have to contunie all the strimming down there yet , days of work....
But good 'making a differnce ' kind of work.... such a buzz of satisfaction we know we'll get when its all done...
More later
Well thats all that over with then. We've been so busy this year we just didnt have time to get into town to update this blog. We've had a great couple of weeks, considering we are pretty antisocial people really, we've been inundated with invites to eat and celebrate with friends that we've been overwhelmed a little. All in one week we had Solstice dinner celebrations with some lovely dutch friends, a dinner out with English friends a few miles away, and Christmas Portuguese style on Christmas Eve with some friends Ricky plays Softball with from Abrantes. Ive never eaten so much in my life... it was all really wondeful though.
We now have some friends from england arriving for a two week visit today, so lots of cooking and organising for me.
No news on Ricky's job yet, we hope to hear more on that first week of Jan or so, its going to take time to set up a scheme this big so we'll not be splashing the dosh around too soon.... heheheheh
The weather is still wet... very wet, its turned very mild again but we have the stream back running through the kitchen, ahhhh well, maybe we will get to dig out the back wall of the house this summer.... hehehehe Ive lived with it three winters now, another wont kill me...
We've been logging and trying to get wood stacked to dry out, we've still plenty of dry stuff but at this rate it wont last long so its a continual thing for us, as the cooker eats it up.
The garden is still ticking over, just the cabbage and turnips for eating now, the broad beans are going ok , I never get too confident of broad beans, they are sneaky, and tend to let me down when i'm not looking....
The main project on the land for us now is that we are planting an orchard, we try to reclaim more of our land each year, this time we are working on a big patch at the bottom of the hill, fruit trees are very cheap at the moment so we splashed out and spent 18euros.... on some more trees, and combined with the ones we planted last year (in a really stupid place that now have to be moved) we'll be able to plant our new orchard and have, 3 plum trees (different varieties) 3 Pears (different) a granny smiths apple, a Gala Red apple, 2 cherry trees, and 3 Almond trees. We also have 2 tangerine trees down there that are full grown and in a bad way, Rik will prune them hard , and an old apple tree we'll do the same too and hope it picks up eventually.
All this will hopefully give us plenty of fruit in a few years.
We so love planting trees, it feeels like we are giving something back to the world...
We have to contunie all the strimming down there yet , days of work....
But good 'making a differnce ' kind of work.... such a buzz of satisfaction we know we'll get when its all done...
More later
Monday, 14 December 2009
Ooooh excitement....
Well what a weekend we had... well I had a very quiet one, Rik's was extremely busy and productive. This weekend was the one he was supposed to do the course and exam for Softball . He was very stressed as it was to be all in Portuguese. On tuesday we had a call from the organiser of the course to say that as Rik was so experienced in the sport, not only did he not have to take the course, but that they wanted him to TEACH it, and they would pay him to do it....wow!! It was a wonderful suprise, but also just as stressful as we had to create and produce a full proffesional training module for 15 people.... in 2 days...
Luckily Rik really knows his stuff when it comes to his sport, so he spent a whole evening and most of the night writing the course and organising it, and I did the donkey work of typing it up the next day.
All went to plan, the module went down a treat, everyone was very pleased and enjoyed it a lot.
It was also his birthday and the whole course got together to celebrate at lunch with a cake and lots of jokes and fun.
The upshot of this all is that the Sporting School of Excellence for Portugal wants to employ Rik to implement the introduction of Softball into the National Curriculem in all the schools throughout Portugal..... oooooohhhhhh are we excited or what!!!
Im holding my breath a little, Im hoping all goes to plan....
Today we awoke to a very hard frost, the first of the year for us, not bad for this time of year, sadly it got my potatoes, I should have covered them last night but with all the excitement of Rik being home and his news , I forgot... oh well such is life...
Luckily Rik really knows his stuff when it comes to his sport, so he spent a whole evening and most of the night writing the course and organising it, and I did the donkey work of typing it up the next day.
All went to plan, the module went down a treat, everyone was very pleased and enjoyed it a lot.
It was also his birthday and the whole course got together to celebrate at lunch with a cake and lots of jokes and fun.
The upshot of this all is that the Sporting School of Excellence for Portugal wants to employ Rik to implement the introduction of Softball into the National Curriculem in all the schools throughout Portugal..... oooooohhhhhh are we excited or what!!!
Im holding my breath a little, Im hoping all goes to plan....
Today we awoke to a very hard frost, the first of the year for us, not bad for this time of year, sadly it got my potatoes, I should have covered them last night but with all the excitement of Rik being home and his news , I forgot... oh well such is life...
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Frugal living Recipe. Chickpea /parsley lunch stuff...
Hehehhe not quite sure what to call this , but we eat it for lunch a couple of times a week. Its nutritious, healthy and very cheap... ooh and tastes great..
As usual all measures are approx and very slapdash... says a lot about the kind of cook I am ...
Feeds 2 people, 2 days..
Soak enough dry chickpeas to half fill a litre jug, when they are soaked, they will more or less fill it...
Cook the chickpeas in fresh water, with a couple of big cloves of garlic and 2 or three bay leaves, I put a sprig of thyme in as well if I have it...
when they are nice and soft, drain but keep the liquid!.
In a big thick bottomed pan put in a BIG glug of olive oil, and fry a nice big onion untill soft, not brown. add to this a couple of medium sized peeled and diced potatoes, a big diced carrot and gently turn over in the onion and oil for about 10 mins. dont let it brown... add the chickpeas and enough of the liquid to cover them comfortably, then chop two big handfulls of fresh parsley (we have tons in the garden) stir in and them simmer for 20 mins or so, the potatoes will cook down and practicly disolve , thickening and enriching the whole thing, towards the end, add more parlsey, another dollop of good olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. It should end up lovely and thick, and richly creamy.... and sort of green...
We eat it with lovely fresh soda bread... yummy...
As usual all measures are approx and very slapdash... says a lot about the kind of cook I am ...
Feeds 2 people, 2 days..
Soak enough dry chickpeas to half fill a litre jug, when they are soaked, they will more or less fill it...
Cook the chickpeas in fresh water, with a couple of big cloves of garlic and 2 or three bay leaves, I put a sprig of thyme in as well if I have it...
when they are nice and soft, drain but keep the liquid!.
In a big thick bottomed pan put in a BIG glug of olive oil, and fry a nice big onion untill soft, not brown. add to this a couple of medium sized peeled and diced potatoes, a big diced carrot and gently turn over in the onion and oil for about 10 mins. dont let it brown... add the chickpeas and enough of the liquid to cover them comfortably, then chop two big handfulls of fresh parsley (we have tons in the garden) stir in and them simmer for 20 mins or so, the potatoes will cook down and practicly disolve , thickening and enriching the whole thing, towards the end, add more parlsey, another dollop of good olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. It should end up lovely and thick, and richly creamy.... and sort of green...
We eat it with lovely fresh soda bread... yummy...
Continued update.
Sorry about the abrupt way the last update finished, we have to use an internet space for this type of thing and I'd not saved the ending and we timed out.. sorry.
Fruit bushes.
We now have 2 blackcurrant bushes, 2, raspberry canes, and 2 redcurrant bushes, a dozen strawberry plants, 2 kiwi vines and all the local blackberries. So when it all gets going we should have tons of soft fruit, we are trying to add to the soft fruit bushes but the time to buy them always comes at the time when our budget is at its smallest... hopefully, as time goes on I'll be able to take some cuttings and establish our own new bushes.
If all went to plan and all our fruit trees and bushes fruited the same season (its very hit and miss up to now) we'd be snowed under with fruit.. as we have... deep breath!!!
Lemons, 3 tangerines, 2 peach trees, 1 pomegranate, 1 fig, 1 pear, 1 almond, 2 plum, 2 cherry, and 1 old apple tree. plus all the new soft fruit we've started off. The whole place is surrounded by blackberries, that we contantly fight to stop them overcoming the place ... handy for winter stores though.
I manage to freeze kilos of fruit most years to see us through the winter, for crumbles and fruit parcels ect... our fave dessert at the moment is fruit crepes, a really cheap dessert, as you need such a small amount of mix, and just stew up a mix of fruit (we have tons of plums) with a dash of honey and cinnamen and mmmmmnnn lovely on a cold day.
Fruit bushes.
We now have 2 blackcurrant bushes, 2, raspberry canes, and 2 redcurrant bushes, a dozen strawberry plants, 2 kiwi vines and all the local blackberries. So when it all gets going we should have tons of soft fruit, we are trying to add to the soft fruit bushes but the time to buy them always comes at the time when our budget is at its smallest... hopefully, as time goes on I'll be able to take some cuttings and establish our own new bushes.
If all went to plan and all our fruit trees and bushes fruited the same season (its very hit and miss up to now) we'd be snowed under with fruit.. as we have... deep breath!!!
Lemons, 3 tangerines, 2 peach trees, 1 pomegranate, 1 fig, 1 pear, 1 almond, 2 plum, 2 cherry, and 1 old apple tree. plus all the new soft fruit we've started off. The whole place is surrounded by blackberries, that we contantly fight to stop them overcoming the place ... handy for winter stores though.
I manage to freeze kilos of fruit most years to see us through the winter, for crumbles and fruit parcels ect... our fave dessert at the moment is fruit crepes, a really cheap dessert, as you need such a small amount of mix, and just stew up a mix of fruit (we have tons of plums) with a dash of honey and cinnamen and mmmmmnnn lovely on a cold day.
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