The first section on this page takes you to my workshop, Tightening the Belt. Below that are all my recent posts. To browse a collection, click the titles in the menu at the top. To find a topic in particular, use the search bar.
Recent Posts from All Categories
A Soothing Skin Serum
Have you noticed the ads these days telling you that you absolutely must buy skin serum, especially if you are of a certain age, and it must be an ultra-expensive brand? Is spending all that money inescapable? This post might help answer the question.
An Everyday Purse Saga
If you are having to tighten the belt, like it or not, you’ve probably discovered that shelling out a lot of cash isn’t necessarily the best way to solve a problem. Quickly throwing money at it might turn out to be the most expensive choice of all.
Bushes’ Best Gluten Free Granola
We sometimes enjoy granola sprinkled on fruit or pumpkin pudding to finish off an evening meal that doesn’t quite want to end yet. This home-made recipe is not too sweet, has plenty of crunch, and includes some tasty nutritional add-ins.
Heritage Apple Crisp
The delicious aroma of apple crisp baking in the oven is a sure sign of autumn. No doubt you have your own favourite crisp recipe; this is the one I remember from my childhood, with a few tweaks. And then, what if you could make apple crisp that never got soggy?
Fermented Hot Pepper Sauce
What you can do with hot peppers? Slice them for the freezer. Dehydrate them for the spice rack. And then, every few years, make hot sauce. Fermented hot peppers will keep for a long time. If you want to try fermented pepper hot sauce, this post’s for you.
October Food Garden
One of my deep desires is to provide as much of our food and medicine as possible from our allotment garden. For so many reasons. Quality. Freshness. Nutrition. Eating organic food. Spending less. It’s a sweet life. But occasionally I have to talk myself down …
Fermented Tomato Salsa
All our freezer space is at capacity. No more freezing tomatoes to deal with later in the winter. Instead, I’ll ferment them as salsa to enjoy over the next month or two. What a wonderful way to extend the tomato season! And an irresistible way eat more probiotics!
Fermented Daikon Radishes
This is one of the simplest ferments, and in our house, not intended to be stored for long because they are such great snacks. For this reason, I was comfortable with testing out a couple of crude but effective modifications to my own preferred practices.
Fermentation Best Practices
As I continue this collection of templates for ferments, I’m doing a lot of research into the basic principles of fermentation. It occurs to me that a page about best practices would keep me from repeating myself, post after post. I do not want to be boring!
Ginger Garlic Purple Sauerkraut
Fermentation is another traditional method of preserving food for winter. It’s also an important source of probiotics. If I could only ferment one thing, this is it. And since I grow all the ingredients in my garden except salt and ginger root, it is essentially free.
Dehydrating Summer Vegetables
Our conserver lifestyle is underpinned by preparing food from the garden harvest to enjoy during the winter. Normally right now I would be creating soup bases and tomato sauce to store in the freezer. But time is tight so I turn to the simplest way to put food by.
The Turkish Bazaar
I want to tell you a conserver lifestyle story. Seven people living purpose-filled lives in a compact home on a carefully managed budget, are about to embark upon a quest. Read my post called Living in Contentment: The Quest for the big picture.
Why Not Try Tetragonia?
I’d like to introduce you to a plant that is a hard-working staple in my food garden, but was a complete stranger to me a dozen years ago. Commonly known as New Zealand spinach, this plant has so much to offer that it’s the only “spinach” I grow these days.
A Radish Revelation
Vivid red and white balls of crunchy spiciness. Plant them early in the spring and eat them twenty-eight days later. Plant them again in late summer as a quick succession crop. But there’s even more to know about why to grow radishes.
Simple Pesto Base to Freeze
The delicious flavour we associate with pesto comes from basil, a tender herb that does not thrive in cool weather. Short summer? No worries. In mid to late summer, you can harvest lots of basil and make a pesto base that freezes beautifully.
Abundance or Stuff
With so much out of my control, I find myself critically eyeing dubious stuff in my space. Decisions to keep or discard have suddenly become easy. Clearing out small spaces feels good — a tiny sense of being in control of at least something.
Bucket List – The Bible
Reading the entire Bible from cover to cover is on a lot of bucket lists. I’m guessing that this goal gets pushed to the back burner more often than not. I’d like to tell you about my discovery because it may help you if you’re trying to meet the challenge.
Tips for Buying a Side of Beef
The purchase of a side of beef involves a hefty investment of cash, so you might wonder if it is an economical way to provide meat for your family. Let’s look at why you might buy a side of beef and how to get the most out of that purchase.
Inspired by Asian Soup
Reflections on the origins of ethnic foods and the delicious traditional recipes that developed out of eating what grows well locally. We could say our natural cuisines are a product of our terroir. Enjoy my template for a delicious spring soup.
Free Homemade Amish Flour
Zucchini season is just around the corner. If you don’t grow them yourself, chances are you’ll be gifted some. After you’ve read this post you may not want to refuse. Check out the recipes – a new mug muffin and a seasonal coffee cake.
A Garden Shoe Saga
Regular visits to your local thrift stores pay off in so many ways. When you find what you need, you save a lot money. You support an organization that helps people around the world and you keep perfectly good products from becoming rubbish.
Growing with Nature
I’ve decided that I am a nature gardener. I’m getting older yet still want to grow as much of our food as possible. Don’t want to overthink or overwork. Hence my new code words for using strategies from nature to simplify my gardening for ease, efficiency and economy.
Harvesting and Drying Herbs
Herbs are a valuable resource for the urban homestead. Most are easy to grow, and need very little attention once they are established. They offer a myriad of benefits, both in flavour and in health-giving properties. Learn how to conserve them for use all year round.
Chive Flower Apple Cider Vinegar
Chives are one of the easiest herbs to grow and one of the earliest you can harvest. It’s satisfying to pick a few leaves from your chive plant and snip them up for a garnish. When the chives are in bloom, my favourite thing is to make Chive Flower Apple Cider Vinegar.