Two Cheap Dinners

I do pretty much all the cooking in our house and we never buy processed food. In late summer and early autumn we eat a lot of food from our garden and orchard and some wild food, like blackberries. But for most of the year a lot of our food comes from our local branch of the German supermarket chain Lidl.

When we have no home produced food and depend totally on bought food, feeding our household of four costs just over ten euros per day.

Here are two chicken recipes, based on a five euro pack of chicken breasts. These two recipes are a particular favourites in our house. Chicken chow mein and chicken curry, both of these recipes will provide a main meal for four people at a cost of just over five euros. Take out the chicken and you have nice vegeterian meals at a cost of about two euro fifty cents or about sixty two cents per head.

Ingredients

Chicken	€5.00
Rice	€0.40
Noodles	€0.60
Mushrooms	€0.99
Onions	€0.60
Carrots	€0.20
Garlic	€0.30
Curry	€1.00
Soy Sause	€0.20
Milk	€0.50
Flour	€0.20
Olive Oil	€0.30
	€10.29

Chicken Curry

Fry two carrots, two onions and three or four cloves of garlic on a hot stove for several minutes. Add curry powder, we like it hot and add three heaped dessert spoons of medium hot curry powder. Fry for another few minutes. Add a half litre of milk and flour to thicken. Leave to simmer.

Fry two chicken breasts and chop into small pieces. Add to curry. Chop half a punnet of mushrooms and add to curry. Bring four cups of water to the boil and add one cup of rice. Boil rice until cooked. Serve

Chicken Chow Mein

Fry two carrots, two onions, three or four cloves of garlic and a half a punnet of mushrooms on a hot stove for several minutes. Add soy sauce to taste.

In another pan fry off two chicken breasts and chop into small pieces. Add to vegetables.

Boil water, cover packet of noodles in boiling water. Wait five minutes. Serve

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Last January we bought a Morphy Richards bread makers in Argos for 107 euros, it currently sells for 116 euros. With the bread maker it costs 1.85 euros to make a two pound loaf, we bake about one of these a day. This works out perfect for our four person household and keeps us in daily bread.

We use Odlums strong white flour which currently costs 2.69 euros for a two kilo bag, which will make 3.3 loaves. McDougalls yeast cost 2.95 euros a pack, which will make 16 loaves. The other main ingredient is Marvel powered milk at 1.98 euros for 198 grams, enough to make about 6.6 loaves. A pinch of salt, 4 spoons of oil and a spoon of sugar complete the ingredients. Total cost of ingredients 1.55 euros.

It takes about 1.5 units of electricity to mix, prove and bake the loaf, cost about 30 cents including vat. Total cost 1.85 euros per day for bread. Or 12.95 euros a week, or 56 euros a month, or 673.95 euros a year.

I love the bread maker, it takes all the skill and work out of making bread. Just throw in the ingredients, set the program and three hours later it’s ready. In some post peak oil future when I have to make bread in my solid fuel range I will think back wistfully to the age of plenty when I had a bread maker. This is one kind of modern convenience I will miss.

The Morphy Richards comes with a 2 year guarantee. Ours has now made around 300 perfect loaves and has worked flawlessly so far.


Available at Argos

Morphy Richards

Windfall

A neighbor now in her 80s told me that when she was a child in Co Kerry, every child in the parish would be up bright and early the morning after a storm. The storm would bring down tree branches and children would race to find them and get them home before someone else did.

I decided to follow this tradition this week and took my handcart out of storage to go forage for windfall timber in the aftermath of hurricane Katia which brought high winds to Ireland on Monday September 12th. Unlike when my neighbor was a child I had lots of time to find and collect windfall timber as no one else bothers.

Picture is a load of ash collected about 400 meters from home. Not a huge amount of firewood but it only took about 10 minutes and a little effort to collect it. On top of the load is my bow saw which I used for the job. For a small job like this the bow saw is far quicker than the chainsaw, it does not have to be fueled and started like a chainsaw.

The Raleigh Oakland Reviewed

Last June I bought a Raleigh Oakland, a low cost steel frame hybrid bike. The Oakland is not light, weighing in at 15.5 kg, but it’s a rugged, stable and comfortable machine to ride. It has 700c x 28 wheels, 18 speed shimano gears, mudguards, chain guard, and rear carrier. It has a upright riding position, and a comfortable saddle. The wide gear range makes it a good bike for hilly country.

In three months I’ve done over 3000 km on it, including a 500 km tour in the West of Ireland. I have ridden it at speeds of up to 53 kph over rough Irish back roads. I have carried up to 15kg of cargo on it. In all cases it handeled well.

On the first day of my tour with 15 kg of gear (and me at 70 kg) aboard, three back spokes broke. A new wheel cost 35 euro and after shedding 5 kg of gear I completed the tour with no further problem. Next year I will try touring again with 15kg of cargo.

The bike has not been serviced other than the wheel change, the front deralier cable was tightened, the back brake blocks replaced, and a drop of lub on the chain and after 3000 km it is still running well. It is now due a full service.

This bike is amazing value for money being available online for as little as 230 euro. 

So how do you sell a bike this cheap, by compromising on the chainwheels, which are poor. I have been very careful while changing gear and after 3000 km the chainwheels still have lots of service left in them. When they wear out I will replace them with quality components.

After 3000 km I love this bike. You could spend a lot more on a hybrid bike but I doubt you will beat the Oakland on value for money. There is a great Russian saying, the perfect is the enemy of the good enough, this to me sums up the Oakland.

Oakland Reviewed Part 2
Oakland Reviewed Part 3
Oakland Reviewed Part 4
Oakland Reviewed Part 5
Oakland Reviewed Part 6

Got mine from Clarkes of Cavan, ask for Stephen or Martin

To buy online

Raleigh Ireland

Specs

Frame Size: 19 inch and 22 inch

Wheel size: 700c x 28

Gender: Unisex Adult

Material: Chromoly Steel

Gearset: Shimano 18speed with Revoshifters

Brakeset: Powerful alloy V Brakes

Wheelset: Alloy rims running on 700c x 28c trekking tyres

Controls: Alloy adjustable stem with riser style handlebar

Finishing kit: Comfort spring type saddle

Frame: Raleigh steel trekking frame

Forks: Rigid steel unicrown

My Oakland on the Great Western Greenway, Co Mayo August 2011

Always Read The Label

In the year 2000 our household decided we had to do something about the ever rising cost of living. Our first step was an electricity audit. We listed  every appliance in the house that used electricity and the power required to run it.

The most amazing discovery we made concerned the two TVs in the house, we had an 18” and a 14” TV. The 18” drew 40 watts, but the 14” drew 60 watts. The bigger TV gave us a bigger picture for less power. It was a valuable lesson, always read the label and ever since when buying electrical appliances we have always checked how much power the machine uses.

This quite simple to do, on the back of all electrical appliances is a label or a plate, the key figure is watts. If watts aren’t there look for volts and amps, multiply volts by amps and you get watts. A 1000 watt appliance will use one kWh or one unit of electricity if ran for one hour.

We replaced the 60 watt 14” TV ten years ago with a 30 watt 14” TV. We got exactly the same service from the new TV but at half the power consumption. Memory fails me and I can’t recall how much we paid for the 30 watt TV, but I am confident the investment made to save that 30 watts has long repaid itself.

We took other measures, like making sure no appliances were left on standby, loading the washing machine fully, turning off lights and constantly thinking about how we were using power. Combined these measures in one month, cut our electricity consumption by one third, from about 300 kWh per month to 200 kWh per month.

In the following months we replaced our light bulbs and other inefficient appliances and continued to think actively about how we used power. Six months later we had reduced our power consumption to about 100 kWh per month. We had exactly the same services but were achieving this with one third the electricity.

New Woodlands in Ireland

Birch Wood

The source of our households firewood is a nearby bog. It was abandoned in the 1960s and since the 1970s a pioneer wood of birch, willow and rowan has grown up. We have been harvesting it for over twenty years. The only practical way to get wood out of these old bogs due to huge bogholes is to carry it by hand onto solid ground. From there it’s moved home on a handcart

Most of our harvest is birch, a good hardwood timber. Not as good as oak but vastly superior to spruce. Birch will not spit in an open fire and is best split when fresh, as it hardens when seasoned. It has a waterproof bark so if left in long poles it will not season it will rot. It is surpassed only by hazel for charcoal making. Howard Hughes monster plane the Spruce Goose was built from birch.

Willow is the second most common wood we harvest. Harder to get at, as it grows in the wettest ground. Like birch it is good hard wood but with a higher moisture content it requires more seasoning. It will not spit in an open fire. In the recent freezing winter weather willow was more accessible as the ground was frozen. The raw material for cricket bats.

Willow cut last winter

Rowan or Mountain Ash is the third kind of wood we harvest, usually found on the higher and dryer ground, it is a poorer quality hardwood. It has a very distinctive aroma.

Harvested sustainably this kind of Irish woodland is capable of producing vast amounts of firewood over many generations. The secret to achieving this is coppicing. Cutting the trees back and letting them sprout again, and repeating the process a decade or two later. When a tree with a developed root system is cut, it shoots very quickly and produces a lot of new timber in a relatively short time. Willow managed this way will give a useful harvest in ten years, birch in twenty.

We cut this section last winter

In Ireland there are literally thousands of acres of scrub willow and birch wood on old bogs. There are many more acres of scrub oak, ash, sycamore and hazel on steep hillsides all over the island. There is also a vast amount of unmanaged forestry planted in recent decades, much of which will be only be suitable for pulping or firewood. In addition there are immense amounts of timber in Ireland’s ditches (hedgerows).

Ireland has one of the best climate on earth for producing timber. We have vast timber reserves suitable for firewood, we have vast amounts of unused labour and we have an energy and economic crisis. How long can we continue to ignore this huge store of potential energy, this store of tangible and real assets.

Willow ready to cut

The Kelly Kettle

I’m onto my third Kelly Kettle (KK). The first was a present from my mother six years ago. When we discovered how efficient it was we threw out the electric kettle and used the KK whenever we needed a small amount of hot water and it was not available from our Stanley range.

Brand new kettle with all accessories

In the winter the range is going every day and evening, so the KK gets a break. But in Spring or Autumn if the day is sunny we don’t need to light a fire till evening, so the KK provides hot water, for tea and coffee.

In the summer we use it many times everyday, not just for boiling water but for cooking. My porridge gets cooked on it every morning; it’s ideal for cooking a few spuds, or a little pasta or rice for a salad. The frying pan will fry an egg and a few sausages. If we want to cook a full dinner we still have to light the range, but some days we get by with just the KK. As we have no immersion heater we also boil water for washing dishes and bodies.

After five years of very heavy use we finally wore out our first KK last year. We bought a new one and it continues to work as hard as it predecessor. If you are a “normal” user who only uses it for leisure pursuits like fishing, you will get decades of use from a KK.

Ready to start cooking
breakfast

I’m off cycle touring with my daughter next week and for cooking and making tea and coffee I’ve just bought a new KK with all the accessories. Ideal for the job as it weights only 1.5 kg.

When ever we travel a long journey by car the KK provides tea and coffee on the road. We’ve taken it to the bog, the wood and the beach. We’ve brewed up in national parks and in urban car parks. If you use bone dry wood and manage it carefully there is no smoke.  I'm off to London in a few weeks with my son, the KK will also be coming. My cousins have even used it in a boat while fishing, they say you get a lot of looks from other anglers when a plume of smoke suddenly rises from a boat out on the lake.

For fuel we use birch wood but just about anything that will burn will do. On the KK website they talk about dried camel dung being used in the desert. No matter where you go you will find suitable fuel.

Breakfast will soon be ready

In the last six years the KK has saved us a lot of money. I have no idea how much and I don’t really care, I just love its elegant simplicity and the fact that I can cook meals and brew my coffee with a few scraps of timber. I also love the fact that I am supporting a great west of Ireland company who have been making a great product for four generations and who are now with the Internet selling it all over the world.

For more information and to order

http://www.kellykettle.com/

For even more information try Youtube and search for “Kelly Kettle”.