Because people often want it, and a link is easier than pasting into something with bad formatting.

Ingredients:

200g butter/margarine
1/2 cup cocoa
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
2 cups sugar (original recipe used brown sugar, but white works just as well)
1 cup flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped walnuts OR 1 cup quick cooking oats

In a large saucepan, melt together ( Read more... )

Powdered black pepper helps blood clot.

I learned this some years ago when helping in a medieval feast kitchen, but hadn't had occasion to use it since, until this week.

On Wednesday as I washed dishes, I was stupid enough to cut myself on the edge of a can. Not just an incision, but a gouge, at least a millimetre deep and big enough that I could ( Read more... )

This week I found in the food bank's compost waste a sprouting onion. Now, if an onion sprouts in my cupboard but is otherwise still sound, I cook the sprout along with the flesh, because it's basically free spring onion. But this one was too squishy to still be edible, so I decided to plant it.


( Read more... )

Last week I talked about bottling food, since I was bottling vegetable soup. Lest you think this means lots of boring meals of soup, here are some ways I make variety with it and other bottled foods.


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This week I have been making vast amounts of vegetable soup and bottling it. (The op-shop I work at also has a food bank, and I take home some of the produce that needs to be used ASAP, cook it up, and bring most of it back to the food bank.)

Why bottle?

I used to keep most of my bought-in-bulk perishable food in the freezer, but the trouble with ( Read more... )

Disclaimer: I haven't actually managed to reduce my waste to nothing. :)

Despite "sustainability" being used by governments to impose some very impractical rules, practical sustainability by us as individuals and families is critical to reducing our dependence on the system. By providing for our own needs out of what we already have, we save money ( Read more... )

So far my posts haven't included any photos, for the simple reason that I'm not good with photos. I forget to take them, or can't figure out how to include them, or something. Today I am going to try posting lots of photos and see if I can make it work.

To pull together several of my previous posts, today I built a hugelkultur-style garden bed in a ( Read more... )

I've mentioned hugelkultur in previous blog posts, so what is it?

Hugelkultur is a fairly recent permaculture technique, invented by the Austrian permaculturist Sepp Holzer. Its basic form is a hill of logs and sticks, covered with a layer of compostables, then a layer of dirt, as a raised garden bed.

If you've done any gardening at all in areas ( Read more... )

(I was going to write the promised hugelkultur post today, but it's late and that one needs research, so I'll do something I can write off the top of my head instead.)

Dehydrating is an age-old method of food preservation. It needs very little equipment, or even none. Dehydration works for almost any fruit, vegetable, or herb (exceptions are oily ( Read more... )

Do you live in an apartment, flat, or retirement home without any space for a personal garden? Or do you want to be able to take your garden with you when you move? Here are some ideas.

Patio boxes

Do you have a patio, verandah, balcony, wide path, unused section of driveway, or any other hard surface where you could put self-contained garden boxes ( Read more... )