Getting back to the simple life

I am having lots of thoughts and feelings at the moment around depression, accepting how severe my depression has actually been over the years and trying to come to terms with how much of my life it has absorbed and the feeling that I have wasted years and years while trying to be kind to myself and accept that it wasn't all my fault, dealing with depression absorbed most of my energy, etc., etc. I have been taking anti-depressants for about a year and a half now and am slowly getting to a point where it feels like I have some energy to spare for just life in general. Very much an ongoing journey and it's going to be a long one. As always, accepting something logically is easier than accepting it emotionally.

In terms of energy, I wouldn't describe myself as full of beans but I am making an effort and managing to get something done every day. Mind you, being on holidays from work helps.

All of this led to me yesterday doing something that I have thought about doing every summer for the last few years but never quite getting around to. I bought two large punnets of strawberries. From a local shop that grows a lot of their own stuff on a small farm on the outskirts of town. And this morning, I washed, hulled and sliced them, and put them into the dehydrator.

Dehydrator trays on scales, 1 punnet worth of strawberries, preserving notebook

I dragged out my preserving notebook to add it in and see, somewhat to my amazement, that the last entry was 2014. Wow. Looking at it logically though, I knew I hadn't done anything since I moved here, and that was 2016. And in the summer and autumn of 2015, I was working my notice at my corporate job, then starting my translating on the side business and trying to recover from years and years of overwork and stress. I'm pretty sure when I moved here I told myself it was ok to not do anything the first summer - I was only working part-time and money was tight, I was trying to settle in and all that. The next summer, I feel like I was determined to do at least some dehydrating but it never happened. I'll have to read back and see if I posted anything in 2018, because I am really not sure why I didn't do anything then, although thinking about it, I was pretty miserable in work and depressed. And then at the start of last summer, I had just switched to my new job, was loving it and starting to really enjoy life when my boss killed himself. It seems hard to believe that that was almost a year ago. I still miss him and think about him, well, not quite every day but on many of them.  Strawberries were his favourite fruit, and remembering the conversation we had when he told me that is probably something that will always come to mind when strawberry season arrives.

When I look back and view it logically, there were almost always reasons why I wasn't getting around to doing some of the things that are important to me in terms of the simple life that I was searching for when I started this blog. It is very hard to accept that it wasn't all just me being lazy or worthless. I'm working on it. Today, at least, it felt good to switch on the dehydrator, and now the smell of strawberries is filling the room. Getting started is always the hardest part and that's done now. So here's to living the simple life I want.

Kitchen goings-on

Today mostly felt like I was trapped in a comedy of errors. It seemed like nothing was going right but I still managed to get a bit done in the kitchen at least.

Tomatoes and onions waiting to go into the oven

5kg of tomatoes and just over half a kilo of onions, with garlic, basil, salt, pepper and sugar added gave me just over 5 litres of passata, which I simmered for an hour to end up with 3 litres (also used some straightaway, it's verging on being too salty but just about stays on the right side of delicious)

Passata cooking down a bit and the small pot on the right is a couple of eggs poaching in some of the freshly made passata

And a small quiche that I made after remembering that I had some leftover pastry in the fridge. Delighted I thought of it in time to get it into the oven straight after the tomatoes, too.

It's late now but I need to get back into the kitchen for just a few more minutes and wash the lettuce I bought yesterday so that it's all ready to go for lunches during the week.

Lovely passata

Picture taken in bad light but this is really a gorgeous colour in real life - managed to get a good mix of yellow, red, pink and darker red tomatoes in to give this wonderful orange.

How to can with a full-time job and lots of other stuff to do

Basically, in starts and fits. After having been sick last week, which meant the tomatoes I bought at the market just sat in their bag in the hallway all week I really needed to get something done with them this weekend, whether I felt like it or not. One unexpected "benefit" of my cycle yesterday was that sitting down for a lazy afternoon wasn't as appealing as it might normall be on a grey Sunday afternoon, since sitting down at all for more than a few minutes was kind of painful.

So I headed into the kitchen and tackled the bag of tomatoes. I'm very glad that the temperatures had dropped a fair bit last week as I ended up only having to throw out two of them and cut parts of three others. Not bad overall - I had bought six kilos and ended up with just over five and a half. Just sliced in half and spread on two roasting trays with some chopped up onions, garlic, basil, salt, pepper, sugar and olive as per the recipe for roasted tomato passata in the River Cottage Preserves book. I got that lot into the oven and set about making an apple tart to bring to the pub quiz.

It all worked out well really, got the pastry made, then left that cooling while I peeled and chopped the apples. Once that was done I rolled out the pastry, assembled the tart and then left that to rest while I took care of doing the washing-up and hunted for my mouli. At that stage the tomatoes had been in the oven nearly an hour so out they came and the tart went in. It did take me nearly half an hour to get all of the tomatoes through the mouli and I ended up with close to 5 litres and just enough time to wash the roasting trays before it was time for the tart to come out of the oven.

I didn't have enough time to can the passata before leaving for the quiz however and decided I could do that this evening. Completely forgetting that I had book club straight after work this evening. Still, I made it there, had a lovely meal, chatted a bit about the book (which I still haven't finished and have to admit, am finding kind of boring and annoying but that's just the way it goes sometimes with book club) and then, a bit later than planned, around half-nine, made my excuses and rushed home. Put the passata on to boil and reduce a bit, washed some jars and then set the water canner full of water to boil.

While waiting for all of that to come to a boil I made myself a cup of tea and phoned my sister. Ended up on that call for a bit longer than planned, which is how I found myself at quarter past eleven heading back into the kitchen to fill jars with passata. It's now ten past midnight and I think the water canner is just nearly about to reach a boil, so another half an hour or so and I'll be able to get the jars out and then I can head to bed and will count off the pops of the lids sealing (used Leifheit jars with the two-part lids this time, rather than the older glass lid jars) as I fade off to sleep. It might seem like madness but if I want to do crazy things like canning some of my own food and still live a typical urban office worker life, that's just the way these things go. And there's even enough passata left to have with some pasta tomorrow for dinner. It's nice when things work out.

Will I never learn?

Came down with an ear infection on Friday a week ago, complete with vertigo and feeling like I was going to throw up on and off though the afternoon as well as a killer headache. I left work early and came home to bed (but did take advantage of being back so early to stop into one of the shops on my road to buy a couple of cheap frames for the posters I ordered from allposters recently and didn't feel a bit guilty about it either).

On Saturday I had quite a few things to do so I dragged myself out of bed and set off to do things. Had to collect my new orthotics and a couple of other things. Given that it was Saturday morning I also decided to stop at the market to buy some salad for the week and while there was tempted into buying loads of tomatoes, thinking to myself that rather than just bottling, with the attendant faffing around skinning and hulling and all that, that I would make roasted tomato passata, which would be absolutely doable even while not feeling too good. Unfortunately, I underestimated how bad I was feeling because although I did get quite a bit done on Saturday, Sunday was a wash-out. I didn't even manage to get the washing up done and then, since the washing up wasn't done nor the kitchen cleaned, I couldn't exactly start working on the tomatoes. Basically, I stayed in bed almost all day. Got up very late afternoon, had a shower and got dressed and headed out to the quiz, which somehow seemed like a good idea although I kind of struggled to make it to the end of it. The thing I find with ear infections is that if you don't have severe vertigo it's really easy to underestimate how sick you actually are. I ended up not going to work on Monday and Tuesday and, although I was feeling much better and thought I'd get to use that time to at least catch up with washing-up and cleaning, I did nothing at all. Slept a lot and read a small amount. 

So with choir after work on Wednesday and very busy days in work on Thursday and yesterday, I've ended up having a week where I nearly stopped going into the kitchen because the dishes were starting to look a bit scary and I just didn't have the time or energy to even think about dealing with them. And a large bag of tomatoes still sitting on the floor in the hallway. Sigh. At least the weather took a turn for the worse this week and it was cool enough that I think some of them should still be salvageable. 

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get everything done this weekend, as I'm still a bit tired and, to be completely honest, really struggling with not falling into a hole of depression but so far I'm doing alright. I'm just waiting for my third washing machine full of clothes to be done and I've done two sinkfuls of dishes and just have a few cups left. So nearly back to something approaching normal But will I ever learn that when I'm sick, I really need to not do things like buy kilos of tomatoes, thinking I'll have the energy to process them! Not to mention the salad that has been sitting in the fridge since last Saturday and that I haven't even looked at since!

To finish on a slightly more positive note, I sent off my application for doing the translator's exam in October this week so that's something.

Edited to add one more positive thing: I did get a pump last week and this evening, having promised a friend to check on her cat while she's away, I took the bike out, cycled part of the way there (had walked halfway before I got the nerve up to get on the bike!) and all the way back. I'm still way too nervous, especially with traffic and trying to be careful of tramlines but it's a start. I can feel the stress in my shoulders and neck still, though - definitely have to work on it some more.

False economy

This weekend, rather than buying tomatoes at the farmers' market from the local, organic farmer, I decided that my local corner greengrocer had an offer that was too good to miss. 99c per kilo for German (no further designation so no idea how local) tomatoes. Okay, at that price you're bound to have to throw out a few mouldy or squashed ones but, you know, have to be practical. Until I have my own garden I have to find a way to accommodate the cost of bottling my own tomatoes and this, I thought it one way to do it.

I did this a couple of years ago and I remember at the time thinking that really the tomatoes weren't great and that I wouldn't bother another time. But the bargain seemed to good to miss so I did it again. Because I did remember that when I opened and used those jars in the winter, they weren't half bad. However, out of the 8kg I bought, I barely managed to get enough tomato to fill five 1 litre jars. The amount of mouldy or otherwise bad ones to throw out actually wasn't too bad, maybe eight or ten tomatoes plus cutting pieces off some more. And I had no sooner sat down to start processing them than I remembered what I hated last time. These tomatoes are just not the ripe ones I'm used to from the market, despite the look and feel of them. And/or they're the type bred to have a super tough skin. So the usual method of blanching in hot and then cold water to loosen the skin so that it just slips off just doesn't work. I ended up taking nearly three fucking hours to get them all done. What a waste of my time. What a waste of a huge amount of tomato which just wouldn't come away from the skin. It was like watching someone peeling a potato the size of their hand and ending up with a one inch square.

So, although I did start very late, far later than planned due to my inability today to get moving at all, I definitely still didn't think that I'd be sitting here at one o'clock waiting for the water bath processing to be finished. So, no more bargain tomatoes for me. Unless perhaps I get them to roast and then put through the mouli to make passata.

In other news, I am either heading into another crappy depressive episode or have the worst PMS I can remember having for years. I've burst into uncontrollable tears several times today, am struggling to move against the tidal wave of worthlessness and what's-the-point-edness that's threatening to drown me and the thoughts of actually having to fill out that form my therapist gave me is crippling. That's the form that's supposed to give them an idea of how I'm finding the treatment and also be used to convince my Krankenkasse that I should get another 15 sessions (or whatever arbitrary number they've decided on). I had a quick read through the day I got it and it has been stressing me out ever since but I have to hand it in on Tuesday (also the day I meet my new therapist since the one I had been working with has now gone on maternity leave). I'll be glad once it's done but genuinely don't know what I'm going to answer for some of the questions. If I'd known there was going to be a fecking exam I would have taken notes during my sessions!

What I preserved in 2013

It wasn't a lot but here's the list anyway:

Basil pesto (frozen - 1 x Tupperware ice-cube tray)
Bread and butter pickles (1 x 1 lt, 2 x 500 ml, 6 x 290 ml)
Strawberries (pureed and frozen)
Tomato, courgette, onion sauce (frozen - 5 x 500 ml, 1 x 250 ml in ziploc)
Dried apples
Dried strawberries

Pretty

First batch of tomatoes - all sealed properly, I've taken the clamps off now. Gives me a thrill every time I remove a clamp and the lid stays put. 

Here's something Bridget never did

Bought a bit more than 4 kilos of tomatoes at the market yesterday, which my notes told me should be about enough for five 1 litre jars. Spent a couple of hours today giving the kitchen a better cleaning than it has had for months and then set to. Water bath canner on the cooker, jars washed and waiting, boiled as well as chilled water ready and waiting. It took me another hour to get the tomatoes skinned, chopped and into jars. At least I was cleaning as I went though, which helped at the end when I didn't have a ginourmous pile of stuff to do.

For whatever reason, though, the 3.85 kilos of tomatoes that I had (after skinning and hulling) only filled 3 one litre jars. I could have quickly cleaned a half-litre jar to fill with what was left but I did the sensible thing and put that into Tupperware to have with my salad for lunch tomorrow. Don't know how it happened because I have several entries in my notebook and for all of them it worked out as about 4 kilos of whole tomatoes for five 1 litre jars. I do have a note made once that it took that many because I had chopped them rather than leaving them whole. Perhaps I was packing them in very tightly this time round. Or perhaps they weren't as juicy as before. On the one hand, it is somewhat disappointing to do all that work and only have three jars for it. Not least because the organic farmer is selling for 5.00/kg this year, which is crazy expensive. (I bought half good tomatoes and half "juicing" tomatoes, which are blemished, split ones - fine if you're going to use them immediately, you can cut out the bad parts and only 3.50/kg).

On the other hand, of course, I have three big jars of tomatoes to put away for the winter. Hooray!

Preserving plans need to be formulated

The first strawberries appeared at the market yesterday. Still very pale but sweet enough, just about, to be eaten without needing sugar. Lovely flavour to them. And today I took my last portion of tomatoes, courgettes and onions out of the freezer to use. Last week, it was my last jar of tomatoes. I did very little in the way of preserving last year and am going to have to put a lot of work into it this year. I've already bought a large tin of tomatoes to use next week, since I know I have none of my own. And I've used the occasional tin over the course of the year, too. But it's just never the same as my own bottled ones. I don't think I'd ever use just a tin of tomatoes as a pasta sauce - I'd have to make sure to add loads of herbs and probably onion and garlic as well, just to make it tasty. Not so with the fresh and/or self-processed ones (I do often add herbs, etc. to those, too but they can stand alone).

I think rather than trying to do a couple of huge canning sessions, I'm going to aim for doing just one batch every week. My water bath canner fits seven jars at a time. If I want to have one jar to use every week, on average, then I'll need to do one batch every week for eight weeks. And I think I'll try to resist the temptation to make lots of other stuff, or try new things this year. That's enough. Well, maybe one batch of raspberry jam. And some dried strawberries. But that's all.

What I preserved in 2012

Moving this off the side-bar and into a post for posterity.

3 batches tomato ketchup (3.5 litres)
Bottled tomatoes 9 x 1 lt., 5 x 750 ml
Bottled peaches 1 x 750 ml, 1 x 500 ml
Bottled plums 3 x 500 ml
Bottled strawberries 4 x 5 lt.
Dried peaches
Dried plums
Dried strawberries
Dried apples
Passata 3 x 750 ml + 500 ml in freezer
Spicy tomato sauce 2 x 500 ml, 5 x 450 ml

Sunday night chit-chat and sealed pot update

Can hardly believe it's already Sunday evening. While I have managed to get some stuff done (see my earlier post for all of the food-related messing up I managed to do this week), very little of it is the stuff I really wanted and needed to be doing today. The sun has nearly gone over the houses opposite though so I'm hoping to be able to open the windows soon and that maybe some slightly cooler air might come in to energise me. Although quite honestly, I suspect I'll just call it an early night and hope that means I wake up extra early in the morning. The tomatoes are bubbling away on the cooker, though, so I need at least another half-an-hour to let them cook a bit more and get them into the freezer.

Basil pesto (minus the cheese since most recipes recommend leaving it out if you're going to freeze it). 14 big 'cubes' topped off with a bit more oil and enough left over for a pasta lunch tomorrow. From my three bunches I managed to get 100g of leaves and I found a recipe that used 100g of basil with 25g of pine nuts (I had 30g in the cupboard) so I just went for it.

What are you:
Reading
On to chapter two of Transition now. Got side-tracked again, a re-read of a Georgette Heyer book this time. I've noticed that mid and late summer is a time when I turn to re-reading easy books again and again. I have a long train journey on Tuesday so I'll try to spend at least an hour reading Transition though.

Listening to
An ambulance just went by and I can hear the tram approaching. The slight bubbling noise of the tomatoes coming from the kitchen. Otherwise, it's all quiet here at the moment.

Watching
Arrow. I realised that I just stopped watching it halfway through the season so I thought I'd try and catch up on the last few episodes. Like the books I'm reading at the moment, it's all about switching off brain at the moment.

Cooking/baking
Yes, let's not focus on the three bags full of food that I need to bring down to the bins this evening, let's focus on the positive. Today I've pureed nearly a litre of strawberries and frozen in ice-cube tray or ice-lolly moulds. I've removed one lot of not quite solid 'cubes' and put them into a ziploc bag - needed the tray to put the pesto into. And I have a huge pot of tomatoes on the cooker, cooked with a couple of courgettes and a couple of onions. Destined for the freezer to make me fast dinners during the autumn when I'll have very little time. And I had a lovely tomato and mozzarella salad for dinner. Best of all though ...

Happy you accomplished this week
... I've done the washing up. The only thing left to do is the jug that had the pesto in it and the pot the tomatoes are in. Yay me. I've also taken down some books that have been living on a shelf in the hallway for months and put them into a bag to bring to the library to donate tomorrow. And sorted all the bottles I need to bring back for a deposit or to recycling. Apart from that, although it involved some very long hours, I did get a lot done in work this week. And I had a lovely chat with my brother on the phone and another one with a good friend. I also managed to get around to contacting an insurance broker to make sure that the insurance I have is suitable and find out about organising a couple of other things. And I got some good work done in the Bio-Garten yesterday.

Looking forward to next week
Visiting my sister for a week. Not only because it'll mean spending time with her and her kids but also because I get to travel there and back by train (for free, since I had enough points to get a voucher for an international journey) and she lives in the mountains. I cannot explain to people from where I live how much I miss having mountains or hills in the background every day. Really looking forward to it.

Thankful for today
The fact that I am privileged enough that even though my massive amount of food waste this week is shameful, it won't actually make a difference to my eating properly. Particularly as this was the week in which I found the blog A Girl Called Jack and read her Hunger Hurts post from just over a year ago. Check out her recently started campaign to buy someone #22mealsforacoffee. And also, selfish though it may be, I am incredibly thankful to live and work in a country that not only has decent holiday entitlements for workers, it also has a law that states at least one of those holidays must be at least two full weeks long.

Bonus question: what was your least favourite subject in school?
Hmm, this is a difficult one to answer because I generally loved school (despite never having any of those inspiring teachers that show up in films all the time. LOL). If I'm allowed to choose gym as a subject then that definitely has to go top of the list. And otherwise science, I think, especially chemistry and physics. We did "science" for the first three years of secondary school and that meant a chemistry module, a physics module and a biology module. Biology is the only one I kept on for the last two year and that was only because the conventional wisdom was that you must do a science subject. Didn't much like maths either but once I managed to get out of the honours class in my second-last year, I enjoyed it. Really, really hated accounting and statistics in college though. Numbers just aren't really my thing.

If you'd like to join in with Sunday night chit-chat, post away and then head over to Half-Dozen Daily to link up.

Edited to add a sealed pot update:
I didn't think I had anything at all to add this week and so wasn't bothering to post an update. But I did try and get some order into the Table of Doom after all and lo and behold, found a ten euro note hidden in some receipts. Cannot think how I didn't miss it. So, rather than sticking it back in my purse, it has gone straight into the sealed pot.

How not to do it

I'm having a week of non-happening on the food preserving side of things. I got up early to hit the market on Wednesday before work and bought tomatoes and strawberries, planning to dry some tomatoes and puree and freeze strawberries, as well as drying one load. I did get the tomatoes I'd bought for drying done by staying up late after choir on Wednesday evening but then worked late on Thursday (till 11), Friday (till 12) and was at the garden yesterday morning and work again in the evening (for six hours rather than the planned one or two). I'm off for the next two weeks and the things I was planning on doing the last couple of days didn't happen because it was unexpectedly busy but doing the overtime to clear most of it means I can relax and enjoy my holiday at least.

What all that work also meant though, was that I forgot about the tomatoes sitting in the dehydrator. So instead of getting them into a jar on Thursday evening, they sat there until today. One batch of slightly mouldy (I was aiming for a bit more than semi-dried to marinade and put into oil) tomatoes and a lot of fruit flies.

I did eat some of the strawberries I bought on Wednesday, just as they were and in smoothies but since I also bought raspberries (yum!) not as many as I might otherwise have. Which means that they were sitting in the fridge until today as well. About half of them were salvageable so that at least was 500g that I put through the liquidiser and have freezing in ice-cube trays at the moment. Just the right amount to fill my two Tupperware ice-cube trays, too. Despite knowing that I did still have strawberries in the fridge, I got all carried away and decided to get a few more strawberries yesterday: enough for one batch of dried and so that I would have plenty for eating today and tomorrow and for my trip on Tuesday. As I went to the garden yesterday though, I just ran out quickly to the market and brought everything back and dumped it in the hall. And then, after coming home from the garden I collapsed into bed for an hour, got up and went to work. Obviously it was a lot warmer than I realised yesterday but I ended up having to throw out at least half of what I bought yesterday. Those strawberries were not just a bit soft and bruised, there were plenty that were fully covered in hairy mouldy something or other and absolutely beyond help. I had a handful of only slightly bruised ones in a smoothie this morning and managed to rescue 450g, which is also liquidised and  freezing at the moment (two small novelty ice-cube trays, 5 ice-lolly moulds and a small amount for a smoothie tomorrow). You'd think after five years I would be used to the fact that if you buy stuff here during the summer, you really need to process it on the same day - it's just too hot not to.

I also bought five kilos of tomatoes yesterday (actually a bit more but she only charged me for five), planning on cooking them and freezing in small ziploc bags. Since I didn't get to that yesterday, I'm nearly scared to go and see how they have fared without having been put in the fridge. Better than the strawberries, I hope at least!

And finally, the three bunches of basil I bought. Why I didn't even think to put them into a glass of water, I'm not sure. Early mornings just aren't my thing, obviously. I wanted to make pesto to freeze in ice-cube trays. Then yesterday evening, I stopped at the supermarket on the way to work and couldn't find any pine nuts. And I forgot you can use other nuts so didn't buy anything. I'll try a small batch with what I have in the cupboard and maybe at least mince up the basil and put it in oil until tomorrow. The ice-cube trays are all in use with the strawberries anyway. So that was bad planning on my part, too.

I don't know. I just need to write myself a letter to open before attempting to start any food preserving next year I think.

And because there weren't very many people in the garden yesterday I have a bag of stuff I got from there, too. That has just been sitting there, too, without being put in the fridge like a sensible person would have done. One lettuce (mad-looking as it was starting to bolt and so it's really elongated), a few chard leaves (I was supposed to add them to my smoothie but forgot), some of the carrots I thinned out yesterday (that seems to be my job this year although it was far more difficult yesterday than it was five weeks ago) and a ridiculous amount of cucumber. For those new to my blog, I hate cucumber and think it's one of the foulest tasting foodstuffs there is. But they have a serious glut and so I offered to take some and make some pickles. Can't even do that today though because all but two of my half-litre jars are already in use and they made a point of asking me not to use large jars. Sigh. Bad planning all round and really, I should be spending today tackling the Table of Doom once and for all, sorting out what I'm taking to France with me and packing. I do have tomorrow as well, but I have several appointments and won't be at home too much.

So, yeah, that's how not to do it. Such a monumental waste of food, all as a result of just not engaging my brain properly first.

The results

I had a quick google and it seems like adding any other veg, even onions to the tomatoes would mean that I should pressure can them.  Since I only have a water bath canner I kept it simple.  I skinned the tomatoes, quartered them and, together with the ones from the jar that didn't seal yesterday set them to cooking.  Cooked for about half-an-hour altogether.  I did add herbs though, from a few recipes I read, this should be okay.  Black pepper, a small amount of salt, oregano, thyme and basil (need to get more basil now since I accidentally upended the packet and ended up having to fish most of it back out again.  Boo.).

What was in the jar obviously also had some water and the lemon juice from yesterday so I weighed that first and it was 900g.  The other tomatoes, once skinned and cored were 1275g.  After cooking down a bit, I ended up with almost exactly 4 x 0.5 litre jars.  I so badly wanted to use up the last little bit but then my jars would have been too full and I know they wouldn't have sealed properly.  I had also added the juice of half a lemon to each jar.  It is 22.40 now and I've just heard the proper boiling starting so I will process them as required for 35 minutes.  So I should be in bed slightly earlier than yesterday at least.

Here is a photo of the tomatoes which I processed yesterday.

The jar at the back is the one that didn't seal - the lid is just resting upside down on top of it here.  Here are two more photos to illustrate how much fluid was lost during the processing.

Yesterday before processing:

The liquid goes up essentially to where you can see the orange rubber seal.  The lids then provide the required headspace.  Here's the jars today after processing and fully cooling down:

The one on the right is the most extreme example but it's a slightly different shape jar than the others (wider and shorter) so that might account for some of it.  And the jar on the left is the most extreme example of the liquid at the bottom, tomatoes on the top issue.  All in all I think I'm not such a big fan of the packing whole tomaotes raw into jars method.  I know the tomatoes weren't great either but there's such a difference between these jars and these ones from last year.  And interesting to note that it was almost exactly a year ago that I bottled my first tomaotes.  Now there's a coincidence.

Here's the bread:

Forgive the slight chopping off the top of the first photo but that one was still the best one I took.  One of these days I'll get a good camera and learn to take photos properly.  I'm not sure it really comes out in the second photo but the very middle was slightly denser than it should be but for my first attempt at soda bread in, I think, about three years, it's pretty damn good.  Slightly too crusty so if I had left it in for the few more minutes that would have sorted out the very middle, it would have been burnt and far too crispy on the outside.  I wrapped it in a teatowel as soon as it came out of the oven and am glad I did or it would have been even crispier.  As it is, this bread won't last long I think.  I had four slices of it for dinner.  Yum.

I also had one small slice of the quiche once that was cooked.  I chopped up five small, skinny leeks, one red onion, one yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic.  Rolled out the pastry and spread mustard on the bottom.  I have no Dusseldorf mustard at the moment so had bought another type in the supermarket and it is very sweet.  But that's Germans for you, not too fond of spicy food and even the mustard is often very sweet.  Spread the leek and onion mixture over the top of the mustard, added some feta cheese and then poured over the egg mixture.  Then I sliced two tomatoes and added them on top, trying to swirl the egg over them at least a little bit.  It didn't turn out too badly in the end and will be nice to have for lunch for the next couple of days.

And the best part of all is that I've done all the washing up.  Yay me!

Shovelling shit and making mincemeat

That pretty much should sum up my day I think. The shovelling shit part is over. The biogarten got its annual delivery of manure during the week so today we transported it from near the gate, where it is delivered over to the deep bed that it goes into. Of course nothing goes quite that smoothly and when I arrived everyone was more or less just standing around looking into the deep bed, which had a pool of water in the bottom of it. The drain seemed to be stuffed up somehow so we couldn't start until that had been sorted out. It took a while to figure out what the problem was and then someone went home to get a power hose attachment yoke to try and flush out the last few inches. In the meantime we got rid of the remains of the very old bottom layer of that bed, which was just too wet to leave there. That was eight or ten wheelbarrowfulls down to the other end of the garden and distributed along the path which is beside the boundary fence. It was raining slightly today after a week of plenty of rain so it was all very muddy. Then we put a layer of leaf mulch into half the bed and then we uncovered the steaming pile of horse manure and straw and started bringing barrowfulls of that over to the bed. Two people had the delightful job of stamping it all down, three shovelled and two transported back and forth. Everybody swapped what they were doing at some stage although it all just happened very easily with no hassle and no major organisation required. Just as it should be.

Once they finally got the drain sorted properly we did the same with the remaining half of the bed. And then the final layer of topsoil (freshly sieved soil from last week) went on. Apparently every other year there is normally another layer of leaf mulch between the manure and the topsoil but this year there was some discussion about whether that insulates it all too much so they decided to try it without.

I am really tired now and I know I will be aching by Monday but it wasn't difficult work really. I like that they just let me work at my own pace (which tends to be a bit slower than most people). I'm more of a tortoise than a hare really.

Before heading to the garden I had been to the market. I decided that I should try and spend as little as possible on food this month, using up what's in the freezer and so on and more or less only buying fresh milk, bread and cheese as needed. Got to the market and realised that I had ordered suet, which I needed to collect today as well as mince to go with it. So this evening I will be trying to make mincemeat using the recipe from River Cottage Year. I'm going to make an ordinary one without meat as well I think and then in a month or so I will buy a shop jar of it and to a taste comparison. Have to go out and get some mixed peel now, don't think this is the time to start trying to make my own candied peel although that's coming soon too I think.

Other purchases from the market:
Cheese
Cream chees with chives and garlic
Milk
Yoghurt
Leeks
Potatoes
Onions
Lamb's lettuce (way too expensive but I have a craving for salad all of a sudden)
Beans
4 slices of ham for toasted ham and cheese sandwiches this evening

I forgot to ask what type of beans they were - they were dried, purple ones. I have to soak them overnight and then cook them for about an hour. Going to have an Eintopf for dinner tomorrow I think. As well as that I'll use some of the mince to make a bolognese sauce and that should leave me sorted for lunches and dinners for next week.

The rain cleared off after an hour or so in the garden this morning and by about half-twelve it was lovely and sunny. Even some of the Germans took off their jackets. I'd been in a long sleeve t-shirt with a short sleeve t-shirt over it since I arrived and was plenty hot on my back where the sun was shining. All the crocus were open by then as well and there are hundreds of snowdrops. Saw bees busy at work on some of the flowers too. Spring has really arrived this past week and it feels like it's going to move in really quickly now. Happy days!

Time flies

Can hardly believe it has been nearly three months since I posted anything. Life got a bit overwhelming for a while. Still is in a way but I'm starting to cope a bit better again. Had lots of choir practice during November and December - one concert end of November, another second week of September plus I volunteered to sing Messiah at Christmas with another choir in a town an hour away so on top of normal choir also had Monday evening rehearsals there as well as a couple of Saturdays. That meant I had no time for getting to ww but I wanted a break anyway as they changed the program and it was just all too much for me. I'm starting to get back to eating properly (again!) so I'll go back to classes by the end of February.

I'm going to try and blog every day except Wednesdays for February, even if it's just a sentence or two.

My annual household costs bill should come in soon and it will be interesting to see what the difference will be. I got loads of money back last year because I hadn't used the heating much. We have had some very cold weather this year though so I had the heating on more - leaving a couple of radiators on the lowest setting for a few weeks even to make sure they didn't freeze up. I've discovered that I'm comfy getting to sleep so long as my bedroom isn't much below 14 degrees by my thermometer and that is good to know. Also discovered that with the windows closed, even with no heating on even when it's -5 outside, the bedroom stays at around 12 or 13. Am going to start writing down the temps every day soon I think.

And I pay gas and electricity on a monthly budget scheme so I pay a fixed amount and once a year they take the readings. That should be soon as well. I got loads of money back from that last year too because I had just taken over the amounts that the previous tenant had been paying (52 euro per month). Don't know how she was managing that but my average was around 28 per month. I fixed my amount to pay 35 per month to give me a bit of leeway but it will be interesting to see how it works out this year. I've had lights since November plus the small oven I got is electric and I only started using that in January 09 so that'll show up as well. And I did a lot more preserving and cooking this year too. We'll see.

Speaking of which though...

Here's my new sitting room light:

I still have the uplighter in the sitting room as well so this one has a lower wattage bulb in it and with the slight red hue it makes for quite a restful light I find. And then if I need stronger light I can use the uplighter instead. I do use the light in the bathroom at nighttime ocassionally but mostly I still don't bother. Great to have a proper light in the kitchen though. That has made a huge difference.

I moved the cupboard (which I call the tall boy, 'cos that's what it was called at home) underneath the tree out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. It still has kitchen stuff in it but it really was in the way there and I'm glad I decided to move it. It ended up being the perfect place to put the tree as well. I decided not to go for a real tree this year and just dragged out this old small one, which still looks pretty good I think. Most of my tree ornaments are too big or heavy for it though so I've had them hanging on nails and door knobs all over the place.

I'm thinking about painting the tall boy. Would love to think it's a priceless heirloom but it's not and I think it could look fantastic with a coat of paint. Might chicken out and just varnish it a slightly lighter shade but we'll see.

And a few final pictures. Here's a pot full of the start of a pumpkin, quince and apple chutney.

Here are a couple of shelves in my hall cupboards, which have proved very convenient for storing my preservation efforts.


Jams and above them the few jars of tomatoes left from the one small batch I did plus one jar of fruit leathers gone not-quite-right.









Chutneys, pickled garlic, tomato ketchup, salsa, picallilli.





Now just need to make more effort to eat all of this stuff!

Weekend

I had a lovely weekend. Up early on Saturday to get to the market before heading to the community garden. Picked the last of the tomatoes there then pulled up and chopped up the remaining plants and removed the stakes and string which had been holding them up. Picked the dried parts of another plant as well. I did ask what it was but since I didn't have anything to write with the name didn't stay with me for long. Some kind of an oriental which had a lovely scent to it, a bit citrusy and really good. The master gardener said that we'll harvest the seeds out of those dried pods on one of the days in winter when it might be too cold to work outside. The parts of the plant which weren't dried were chopped right back then. And finally I dug a big hole so that the buckets of jerusalem artichokes packed in sand could be buried. We put the buckets in, covered them with other slightly bigger buckets placed upside down over them and then packed the earth back in around and over them.

Then I had an hour to myself at home before heading out to a Darkness Ritual. This was at the same place I went to the Harvest Thanks Ritual at the end of September. This time the idea was all about accepting the darkness of winter into your life and letting go. It was a far more introspective ritual than the harvest one was, much more meditative. I didn't enjoy it as much and found it difficult to focus really but when trying to concentrate on what it was in my life that I needed to let go off I found myself thinking that it wasn't letting go I needed to do but rather holding on. I was thinking about my oldest sister, who hasn't spoken to me (or most of my other siblings) for about three years now. As is the way things always go in our family there hasn't been any big argument or anything so there's nothing to work on to try and figure out what the matter is. It sort of started when she was going through a hard time after her hubby had been sick and she really just wanted to retreat from the world for a while so we gave her her space as requested but she just got less and less interested in keeping in touch with any of us at all. I persevered for longer than the others, even calling in unexpectedly once but you do get tired of the two minute phone calls which end with a sudden "I have to be somewhere else" and always being the person making contact and when she didn't even bother to show any interest in our youngest sister's wedding I had had enough. I've been through so many stages on this whole roundabout that it was impossible to keep track. I'd decide it was her tough luck and if she wanted to be like that then fine, whatever. Then it'd be her birthday and I'd think well, I'll just ring and say happy birthday. Or I heard her hubby was sick again (and bear in mind, this is a guy who married into my family when I was nine, so he has been around for a long part of my life) and would ring to find out how he was. I don't think I actually managed to speak to her for the last three years or so though. Either no-one or her hubby would answer the phone. But last week I had a really strong compulsion to just phone her and ask if we could start talking again. Don't know where it came from although part of it was because I realised that I hadn't turned my calendar onto October and I know it was because I didn't want to have to think about her birthday (it didn't work and her birthday really preyed on my mind this year, more so than usual). So, I decided that the thing I needed to let go off was all the hurt and anger and grief that this whole situation has caused me and then I just needed to make contact with her. So when I came home after the ritual I gave her a ring, her middle son was just heading out so answered the phone and almost immediately said "hang on, here she is now" (I'll never know whether, if her hubby had answered the phone, she might have realised it was me and made signs at him that she wasn't there, which I suspect happened more than once in the past) and put me on to her. I didn't go with the self-pitying, somewhat dramatic "please can we start talking again" in the end but was able to use halloween as my excuse for ringing and start a conversation by asking if she had dressed up or done up the house or anything. It was a bit of a stilted conversation in a way, felt like it was taking a lot of effort, if you know what I mean, but we did talk (well, mostly I talked) for about twenty minutes which is a good start. I've just decided that I'm going to ring her at least once every two months and talk to her whether she wants it or not and that I am not going to give her the opportunity to turn around in 20 years time and tell me that it was all because I was so wrapped up in my own life that I was never interested in what was happening with her. I'm just going to keep on keeping in touch and she can like it or lump it but if she wants to lump it, she's going to have to say that directly.

There you have it. Despite the fact that I didn't like the ritual as much as the last one, I am glad I went and have signed up for the solstice one in December. Something good (hopefully) came of the whole thing at least. And I do really like the idea of marking the seasons in some way.

Yesterday then I had my fabulous session of trying on clothes I thought would still be too small but weren't. While doing that I cleared a proper space in my wardrobe to store the dried goods I've been trying to stock up on a bit. I also started a spreadsheet to make sure I keep track of exactly what I have and when it's good until. It was good to see it all in one place. I realised that I have plenty of pasta but really should get some more rice and some other pulses as well. I'm going to ask at the fair trade shop if they can buy in a big sack of rice and depending on how much that is, might just buy one big sack and make it into little ones myself.

After doing that I headed out for a walk. Did the same round as before so about two hours of walking. I'll probably do it again another two or three times (maybe with a slightly heavier bag) before looking at a different route.

When I got home I did the few bits of washing up from the day before, put some pasta leftovers covered with cheese into the oven to heat for dinner and chopped up some apples for the dehydrator. Once I had eaten, I set about chopping stuff up to make tomato ketchup and while that was cooking I chopped veg to make soup, using up the curly kale that I had brought home from the garden. I also chopped up veg and tomatoes to make a sauce for lunches during this week. Once the ketchup was made and bottled (only two 120 ml jars, I swear I get less and less out of that recipe every time I make it) I put the onions, courgettes, garlic and tomatoes on to cook with a load of herbs and when that had softened up well I added in some chopped chicken breast. I left it cooking but it never really seemed to start smelling good so I finally dumped a slug of balsamic vinegar and a few crushed dried little chillies into it. It remained uninspiring but I got four good sized portions out of it. What a difference a night makes though. I had the first one for lunch today, just bought a roll to eat it with and it was delicious. I think I'm finally starting to be able to use chillies in cooking properly.

I left some porridge steeping in milk overnight and had the first porridge of the winter for breakfast this morning. Hmmm, I love porridge. Off to put more steeping now for tomorrow and will add a handful of the dried berries from earlier this year. They were a delicious addition this morning.

A few photos

I made pizza sauce today and have another batch of tomatoes in the oven roasting now for a second lot. The farmer at the market yesterday said he expected to have tomatoes for a few weeks yet. He'll probably pull the plants up in the next week or two and then it'll be a couple of weeks before everything that's left on them is finished. Feels like a long time - I must remember to make a note of the last week they have tomatoes so that I can remember it for next year.


In an attempt to do something nice and autumnal at home (Germans are very into their 'deko' stuff and will kit out their houses according to the season all the time - we're not talking just about a few flowers either), I made up a little platter with some of the things I've found while out walking the last couple of weeks and added a candle too. It's a small start but although I take the piss out of the Germans sometimes the idea of making small decorative adjustments insde to reflect the seasons outside is something I really like.

And here's a picture of the first two tomatoes I harvested from my plant at home.

I ate these with some bread and cheese for lunch. They weren't very big but very, very sweet. There are a few more just turned red now and others nearly there so I'm going to wait until the end of the week to eat them. My brother will be over for a visit then and it's always nice to share the harvest. I planted some spinach and lettuce in my window boxes a couple of weeks ago as well and they have sprouted now so I might even get to have my own supply of salad leaves during the winter. We'll see.

Jeans and wishes

I have not had a great ww week and have gone rather close to maximum points (i.e. including using up extra points earned from exercise) on a couple of days. Didn't think it'd be so hard in just the second week but I'm trying to make the plan fit my life rather than ditching all the food I normally eat for the duration and then ending up putting weight on again as soon as I stop so I have accepted the fact that things will go slowly. And I'll find out tomorrow how things have actually gone and am secretly hoping it won't be too bad. I am going to cheat a little by going to an afternoon class rather than an evening class so I won't have just eaten my dinner but that's just hedging my bets rather than cheating really :-)

It occurred to me at the weekend that the trousers (knee length trousers are becoming essential to staying cool enough to stay sane in the summer here) I bought in a sale only about three weeks ago were feeling a bit loose so I decided to take a chance on trying on a pair of jeans I bought the weekend before last. There is a shop on my road which sells everything from pricey furniture and bedding to cheapie clothes and shoes, household goods and knickknacks and a somewhat strange collection of 'posh' foodstuffs. They are closing down for renovations at the end of this week and have been selling stuff at really reduced prices for a few weeks now. I have bought a few things, including huge pillows to use for my couch and some very handy measuring bowls (I bought one small one and used it so much the first week I had it I went back and bought more), a big bag to use for my knitting stuff and two pairs of jeans. I love wearing jeans but haven't worn any for years at this stage. I decided to grab a pair of the biggest ones and the next to biggest ones because at 5 euro each I felt they were worth taking the chance on, especially since they were 34' leg jeans, which are not always easy to come by. I tried them on when I got home and although I was able to pull the bigger ones all the way up I couldn't even think about trying to close them. I decided this morning that just for fun I would try them on again and that I would be able to use them to track my weightloss progress over the coming weeks, thinking that being able to wear them would be something to look forward to. They pulled up much more easily than before and to my amazement I was able to close them with only a teensy, tiny bit of effort (honest, there was no lying down on the bed nor nothin'!). And I've had them on for a couple of hours now and they are actually comfy. I was half expecting to need to take them off after a few minutes just so I could breath easily again. It feels like a big moment.

I have a few days off work and took advantage this morning and went to the farmers' market. It's the same one I go to at the weekend but much quieter. I went fairly early, hoping to get to chat to some of the people I buy from regularly for a change but I ended up with the most impatient woman behind me (and she seemed to be following me from stall to stall) who kept huffing and looking pointedly at her watch while I was making my choices. If a couple of other people hadn't shown up behind her just then I would have just let her go ahead of me because I can't stand that kind of thing. I bought 1.5 kg strawberries and one small punnet of raspberries. I'm going to make one more batch of jam and then the rest of the strawberries are just for eating. I asked the guy today and he said he reckoned there are only about two weeks of strawberries left so I am going to take full advantage and eat as many as I can fresh while I can still get them. I also bought about 4 kg tomatoes, 2kg courgettes and 2kg onions. Yep, there are a few more batches of chutney in my immediate future. Wish I had more jars!

The onions have arrived

I was delighted to see new harvest onions at the market a couple of weeks ago and bought a pile of them this week, along with some new harvest apples and plums, courgettes and tomatoes. And made chutney no. 1 yesterday. 17 x 240ml jars. The next couple of months are going to be tough, waiting for it to mature but I am really looking forward to it already. I bought a box of 45 jars, thinking I'd have some for next year as well but now I think I'll need to go back and buy more. Want to do at least one more load of tomato and plum with courgette based chutney and one load with pumpkin as well. I've also been looking through the River Cottage Preserves book again and have nearly convinced myself that I want to make piccalilli. Definitely want to try the hearty ale chutney as well, not to mention the figgy mostardo.

I dried some more tomatoes as well and have a load of strawberries drying at the moment. I bought 1.5 kg of strawberries but somehow only 1.2 kg made it into the dehydrator. Wonder how that happened?

Otherwise I've been trying to fit some exercise into my days. Went for a swim on Friday so I have finally gone in to the pool up the road from me and checked it out. It's amazing. A quick check on wiki tells me that it was opened for the first time in 1902 and the fact that it not only had a swimming pool but also baths and showers was good for the people living around as apartments in those days didn't necessarily come with those facilities. It was destroyed in a bombing in 44 but was able to reopen in 45 and was renovated in the late 90's. They don't use chlorine to disinfect it but some kind of membrane electrolysis. The changing rooms are individual 'cabins' and line the pool (plus there's a balcony above with more). So you walk down the back of the cabins, find your number, enter by the door, which you can lock and there is a cupboard to lock your stuff into. Then you simply open the curtain which hangs across the other side of the cabin and you are standing poolside. Showers are then down the other end of the pool. It was a bit weird to have a shower after swimming and then have to walk the length of the pool with a towel wrapped around me but really, anyone with nothing better to do than be watching me would have been able to see less than when I had my swimsuit on (I was glad I had brought a big towel though!).

This morning I took the tram out to Rath and walked up into the woods again. Walked for about an hour although the heat meant I needed to stop after 15 minutes of uphill and wait until I'd cooled down before getting going again. Even at nine in the morning it was heading for 20 degrees. Great if you're doing nothing but hot if you're moving around. Then this afternoon I met a couple of friends and we went to a huge flea market. Not very much interesting there although I was able to pick up a couple of brown bottles, which I know my brother has been looking for and I also snagged a copy of the Emperor wears no Clothes in English for 4 euro. I've been wanting to re-read it.

Oh, and for any youtube (or indeed art) fans out there, this is a video of the woman who won the Ukrainian version of "Got Talent". I'd never heard of sand animation before but thought this was amazing. It's telling the story of the German invasion of the Ukraine during WW2.
Kseniya Simonova