Sunsets and red wine..

Well actually its Rosé wine, but its all our own making and although Im not generally a Rosé drinker, its very very drinkable... we've been drinking it now a few weeks but it wasnt quite ready, still a tad cloudy, but the other evening the weather had been lovely, and we decided to sit out on our terrace and watch the sky, we dont actually get the full blown sunset, but we do get some wonderful skies, the sun slowly sinks behind the treeline and if its a bit cloudy we get a stunning display...

We chose to watch this display with a bottle of our wine... it was now clear, crisp, fruity and a lovey pink colour...

Planting Begins... In a big way..

Just as we planned to begin our main planting marathon this weekend... its raining..
Our lovely neighbour from the next vally has again promimsed us seed potatoes, up untill last year we didnt plant many, as the cost to us is a huge outlay, and we felt we didnt eat that many to warrant it... hehehe then he gave us lots... and we were eating our own new potatoes in June and justt kept digging for ages... we had our own spuds for half the year and it was fantastic! They tasted so different and better... I, who am not a great spud lover... ate them every day... they fed our helpers and us for months...
So when he offered them again this year... we jumped at the chance. As he's a widower, we kept him supplied with fruit and veg last year in return for the spuds and it worked well. They are not bought seed, so where they come from I dont know...
As soon as the rain stops, we'll be down there, digging... Im planning two spud areas, one for new spuds in the squash area, and as we dig them the squashes nearby will have room to grow and spread...
The main crop will go in the back yard with the corn, tomatoes and strawberries.
This year we will have three large patches orf corn, as last years was so beautiful and sweet, Ive managed to aquire another two packets plus some seed I saved from the last years that I dried myself.
The main planting will begin as soon as possible, peas, carrots, beets, herbs, then the corn and beans, we have lots of different ttypes again this year, some lovely Heritage climbers sent to me by the lovely Minx who read my post on how the bugs ate my beans and sent me a pressie... bless her!
Plus a few of my own runner beans not munched on, some portuguse dwarf green beans like runners but they stay small, french beans, yellow waxy pods, and some Im going to grow for drying and freezing.
My 60 blackcurrant cuttings I took a couple of weeks ago, all show signs of life still , so hopes for a huge amount there are high... I just have to keep them alive through the summer...
The tomatoes, aubergines, and peppers and chillis will be planted out about mid april, after we feel frost has passed... Ive been caught many times before..
I'll continue with planting lettuce from the seedbed, plus the odd packet of rocket and salad leaves all summer, and as soon as this lot is all in the ground, I'll put in a few more cabbage caulis and brocc, as the ones I put in almost a month ago are going great guns now...
So... the best season is almost upon us... I cant wait...

Frugal Living ..Update

Well its been so long since Ive had the chance to update this blog properly, I thought I'd have a real spluge today. Im in town in the internet space where its free, so am using my time wisely. Now we have the use of a laptop at home that costs us 1euro an hour... I only click in check mail and quickly get out again.. all the nice stuff like this... has to wait till we come into town.
But the good part is, we dont have to come in now hardly at all. So we are saving tons on fuel... we make each trip we do make, have to do many things while we are here, collect water, buy shopping, pay bills, get fuel and do all our internet stuff in one go...
Well  life with us seems to be picking up somewhat, we are getting some bookings for the cottage, which is helping our finances.  We still have a long way to go to dig ourselves out of the hole that a bad summer and even worse winter left us in, but we are happy and reasobaly content that its starting to happen. Our frugal lifestyle really helps and we enjoy the way we live too...
The hardest part for Rick at the moment is that he has no work... he hates to feel that he doesnt contribute to our finances... silly sod.. He works so hard around the place , his contribution means this place keeps ticking over regardless of lack of money. He is so resourceful when it comes to making things out of nothing but scrap... but he has found it hard to adjust to the idea that for the foreseeable future, we'll not be doing any more work to finish the house, it just isnt an option finacially.
Im not that bothered, yes as far as most folk are concerned, we live like hillbillies.... hehehe but I love it..
We are warm and comfortable during winter. This year more so than ever before. In summer we have a lovely cool breezy place too... the food is all homegrown and tasty, we can just about pay our bills and get by. Yes its tough, but we have more than some and less to worry about than the poor people in Japan.
The house improvements will wait... I cant spend my whole life worrying about what we dont have, we must enjoy what we do!
The frugal living has become a huge part of our life now, I look at everything as a challenge, to try to find a way to do it cheaper, better or even for nothing... and I love that challenge.

Frugal Living Tray bakes.

As we try not to buy shop bought/made cakes or biscuits, I generally make Rick a couple of sweetie type things a week. Im more a savoury person myself but he does love his sweet stuff during winter. Its a comfort food type thing I suppose.
This tray bake it a cheap but tasty alternative to a time consuming cake making.

Mix together in a bowl, 8 oz s/r flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, two tablespoons of cooking sugar, and a handfull of dessicated coconut(optional I use cos he loves it) Rub in 2 oz of cooking margarine.
Then add a dash of milk and mix to a firm dough.. you may need to add extra flour to stop it being sticky.
I then roll it out to fit my roasting tin.
Put in a hot oven for just about 6-8 mins... till light brown.
Meanwhile, I melt a large dollop of either jam, golden syrup, honey etc ... whatever I have most of...
As soon as the bake comes out of the oven, mark into squares with a pallette knife, brush with the melted sweet stuff and sprinkle with more coconut...
Lift each square onto a cooling tray while still warm...
The possibilities with this recipe are huge...
Ive even topped it with lemon juice and icing sugar when I had no jam...
Ive added old milkshake flavering when I had some left over...

It takes minutes to prepare and bake ... sadly generally only lasts the day...

Frugal Living. Corned Beef/tinned Ham Baked Roll

This is a recipe I used to do all the time during winter when we lived in the uk. Its not so cheap to do here as we dont have suet and corned beef is expensive , and I miss it on wet damp days like today. Its a real warming belly filler...

One tin of corned beef or any cheap tinned meat.  cubed.
Make a good suet pastry ( 8 oz plain flour, 2 oz suet, milk to mix)
Roll out to a square,  cover the pastry with a finely chopped onion, some mixed herbs and then dot the cubed meat over the top. If Im feeling the pinch moneywise badly, I even make one tin do for two rolls... just add extra onion .You can use cooked bacon too its just as good. but not so cheap.
Roll it up seal the edges and bake gently in the oven  till nicely brown and crisp on the top.
Served with plenty of mashed potatoes, cabbage and carrots with a nice onion gravy... yummy

This obviously makes a good jammy roll to have with custard too ..
Ive done all kinds of fillings, bacon & onion, spam, corned beef, leftover cooked meat.. fruit, jam,.... its very versatile. and if you use the meat sparingly very economical.

Staying with Us... More..

Well we are having a little better Spring than last year, the cottage is pretty busy for April, that will help the finances as we have a few large bills coming up.
Regular readers will notice Ive added another page today. We now can offer two levels of accomodation , the beautiful Mara's Cottage, which has the pool sundeck and all the trimmings...
And now... da dahhhh
Forest View Caravan.
Especially for those on a very tight budget... which is something we understand all about..
We recently decided that we would probably cut our helpers and volunteers to a minimum this summer. And as we had spent the last few months renovating and generally sprucing up the caravan, it now looks lovely and seemed a waste to have it sitting unused, when we could have it rented out, people can get to come to Portugal who may not be able to afford other places, and we of course get to supplement our miniscule income a little.
Ive got some lovely people from here booked for April already and am looking forward to meeting them so much...

Lots about everything...

Strange name for a posting I know, but It feels so long since Ive updated this blog properly there is tons to say about all kinds of things.

Firstly, a couple ofweeks ago we had Carnaval here and although the austerity measures are hitting everywhere, and we didnt have Carnaval lights at all, the actual day itself was great, lots of floats and parades and marching bands, silly stuff and generally everone having a great fun time. There should be a few pictures hereabouts somewhere, . It was sunny and bright but quite chilly and breezy. But there was a really good turn out.

We've had a helper the last couple of weeks, although he's not been a problem, and has worked reasonably well, it has hardened our resolution to not have so many this year, and to just get help for specific projects, we find it quite hard having people spending so much time in the house, not the social side of it so much but having to be so regimented about day to day life, these young people come and expect reasonable order, regular  meals and even days out etc... we find that hard, we start a project or a job and work till its done, if that means we miss lunch or just have bread and jam then it doesnt matter... but when you have someone expecting a decent meal... it does matter... and we found that hard. There is so much for me to be doing outside at the moment, but I found myself inside cooking a lot more than I wanted to... and if we weighed it up, the amount of work that actually got done was maybe less than normal... as I was doing so little and the helper working a few hours a day didnt make up for that... so all in all its defined our thinking on helpers ...

Im so much fitter this year, my knee problem is more or less healed now, so I feel I can cope with the work better myself now...

But Rick and Simon did get stuff done, my seed house they made from scrap forest wood and plastic bags is up and running and planted up with two trays of Petunias, hopefully to make sure I dont have to pay to ´pretty up´ the cottage area this year, plus tons of different types of squash, butternuts, big and small, big pumpkins, acorn squash courgettes, melons ... loads of stuff! Oh and Okra, Ive never managed to germinate Okra so I have high hopes now...

Again should be a couple of piccys here of the wonderful creation.

We received some great news the other day, my son Jordan has finally qualified as a fully fledged mechanic, after a huge set back and having to leave his first garage  nine months into his first year of training, then javing to wait another year after that to find another placement, he's finally passed his third yearexams and qualified. Im so damn proud of him for sticking it out and working so hard to make it happen... and all by him self too as we left just as he started...

Well, we are off to start the next phase of planting, carrots, peas, beets and tons of herbs...

Quick update

This will have to be a real quick post, life has been very busy this last week or so, we have a nice helper call ed Simon, who although quiet is working hard and getting stuff done, Rick and him have cut tons of logs for next year, a van full to top up my barn for now, felled trees to give the orchard more sun, and yesterday made me a seed house, out of scrap wood from the forest and old plastic sacking... its lovely and I forgot to bring the camera with the pictures...
We also had Carnaval last weekend which was great fun.... pics to follow another day too...
Bookings are picking up too, Ive had to turn down two enquiries for April this last week as April is looking good for us, last night I took a August booking and have other enquiries pending too... its all go!
Im looking to start a lot of lanting in about a week, as stuff is really starting to come up now... all our plants from two weeks ago are thriving, even the lettuce, my seedbed stuff is just through the ground too...
On the minus side...
There are bloody caterpillars everywhere... we've burnt four lots this week...
,

Signs of Spring ...

The beautiful little plum tree across from our house is in blossom and looks so fantastic I just wanted to share it... and my daffadils too...

Stevia More info.

Ive had a few people email and ask for info on Stevia. It was reccomended to me by some local Swiss women who use it and have used it for years, one is a nurse, the other a alternative therapist, both swear by it. They havent used sugar for years, you can buy Stevia as a liquid on the internet but I plan to grow my own which is what they do.
It is notoriously hard to germinate, which is probably why some people say you cant do it and buy plants instead. That isnt much of an option for me due to postage costs ect. Ive bought a packet of seeds via uk and all together it only cost me 4 pounds with postage. So worth a try.
I feel the growing conditions here should be good, they like a very humid atmosphere for germination and early growth. We have a really humid area that should suit them fine.
I can but try...
There are all kinds of health claims for this plant, Ive attached a link to a website that may answer a few questions for you all.
http://www.stevia.com/Stevia_article/Growing_Your_Own_Stevia/8077

Stevia Herb... Sunshine and frost...

Ive just ordered via the internet some Stevia seeds. For anyone who hasnt heard of this herb before it originates in South America I think , and its often called 'sweetleaf ' sweetherb etc. Its supposed to be 300 times sweeter than sugar... with no calorific value at all...
I plan to attempt to grow it, dry it and use it instead of sugar in baking , and hopefully maybe even in my coffee. I use sweetners at present and hate the thought of the horrible chemical s Im putting in my body, but I just cant manage without the sweetness... sugar is high in callories as is honey... all costs money which we dont have... so do sweetners but at least they help my weight struggle...
Stevia is banned in somecountries apparently, the sugar industry have really clamped down and pushed governments to not licence it... it would ruin their businesses over night...
So... I'll let you know how I get on ..

The weather has changed a little, its still mild and sunny during the day, though not the lovely warm temps we had last week. But we've had frost again the last two nights...
Luckily the new veg I planted out is in a very sheltered place in the garden so isnt catching it.... yet...

We have a new helper arriving on Saturday, a hopefully big strong man to help Rick with more logging, I also want him to help me cleaning walls in the orchard, so I can get the last of the old vines trimmed and up on supports before the sap starts rising... they weep horribly if you trim them then ,...
I also would like a hand in staking out the herb garden dividers too... Im so desperate to actually do something out there .... Ive waited so long to get it up and running... I cant quite believe it will really happen this year