Category Archives: Self-reliance

Pumpkin Soup

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I cannot believe that despite writing this blog for over 12 years, growing pumpkins and there being several references to making pumpkin soup that I have never actually written an entire post about making it. Nor have I added a recipe to the index.

Well, I am about to remedy that oversight.

We are still living in temporary accommodation but that has not stopped me preparing meals. The weather is cold and a bowl of piping hot soup is a welcome addition to the menu. I made cauliflower soup a few days ago and now it is time for some pumpkin soup. I bought a whole pumpkin from a nearby roadside stall for $7.

Whilst this may sound expensive it works out to less than 50c for a generous serve and is one of the best flavoured pumpkins I have had in a long time.

There is only one saucepan in our current accommodation so I only used half of the pumpkin.

The following recipe and method are my preference, however, you can adjust and modify according to your own tastes and circumstances.

The quantities are what I used but they are quite variable according to taste.

PUMPKIN SOUP

Ingredients

Half a large pumpkin
2 teaspoons oil
2 teaspoons balsamic syrup
2 medium onions, finely diced
Salt
Pepper
3 teaspoons vegetable stock powder
1/2 teaspoon smoky paprika
750ml water

Peel pumpkin, remove seeds and cut into large wedges. Place pumpkin in a large bowl. Combine a couple of teaspoons of oil and balsamic syrup and pour over the pumpkin. Toss until it is all coated with the mixture. There shouldn’t really be any excess – just enough to coat the pumpkin.

Place the pumpkin wedges in a single layer in the air-fryer and cook for 30 minutes at 190C. You may need to do several batches depending on the size of the air-fryer.

Finely dice 2 medium onions. Add a small amount of oil to a large saucepan or stockpot and saute the onions until soft. Add the pre-cooked pumpkin, water and seasoning. Simmer for 10 minutes then puree and adjust seasoning/liquid as required.

I use a stick blender to puree the soup, however, you could use a blender or food processor.

**WARNING** Whatever method you use to blend the soup you need to be very careful to avoids burns or scalding.

NOTE: The recipe for balsamic syrup is here.

Sewing Success

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Today I set about assembling a piece of patchwork for a small quilt. This one came about after I had saved the embroidered panels from the landfill pile at a thrift shop. They were clearly part of an unfinished project and I simply could not see someone’s handiwork discarded without a second glance.

Initially, I was unsure of how I could use them but I gradually developed a plan. Some of the plain fabric came from offcuts in my own stash and the remainder from a couple of friends.

In due course I will add batting and the backing and outsource the actual quilting as I do not have a long-arm machine.

The other project was much more modest. This is the second of a pair of potholders that I have made for a friend. They were both made from a discarded cushion cover and with 2 layers of flannel fabric for heat resistance.

I am really pleased to have achieved these and the patchwork will be packed away until we are settled in our new home.

Seen Better Days

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There are days when even I must admit defeat and today is one of them.

I have written before about a pair of shorts which I have modified and mended over a period of close to 30 years. You can read a bit more detail here.

Yesterday was the death knell for this much-loved garment. GMan and I went to the dump with a load of garden waste for a friend and I managed one final rip to my gardening shorts and I have to confess that they are now simply beyond any type of further repair.

If you are in any doubt here are some final photos before they go in the bin.

Front view.

Back view, including the final rip.

The inside showing multiple patches.

There is one more thing to do though. There is a perfectly good zip and button which can be salvaged.

Building a Box

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Just when you thought that all of our attention would be focused on decluttering and packing for our impending move, you discover that we actually spent some of our time making, or at least repairing something.

Even though my father died over 20 years ago, his legacy lives on. We have 3 boxes which came from his workshop which we have used to store various items. 2 of them had been in our woodshed for several years and we discovered that the base of one of them had completely rotted.

We are planning to use these boxes to pack things from the workshop in and transport them to their new home on the tray of the ute.

The boxes had originally been made by my father from various scraps of masonite and the reinforced with metal angle.

GMan removed the rotted base of the box and metal angle surrounding the base by drilling out all of the existing rivets. He then cut some offcuts of pine to make a frame to fit inside the base and screwed the metal angle back in place.

The final step was to cut a new base. This was cut from a piece of scrap plywood which we sourced from a neighbour. It had been one of the signs for our combined garage sale a week earlier.

The view of the completed base.

A final view of the inside with a reminder of the source of the plywood.

With the plywood in place and secured with nails, the box is as good as ever and I expect it will last for many more years.

Kicking Goals

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For several weeks I have felt as though we have been juggling various aspects of our house sale and relocation without making much progress on anything.

That is not entirely true but now everything is beginning to fall into place. I mentioned last week that we have an unconditional contract for the sale of our current home.

We have also made an offer, which has been accepted, to purchase a property in Maldon, Victoria. The contract should be signed within the next couple of days. This will give us a firm date for when we can move into our new home.

Meanwhile, we have done lots of jobs – large and small.

  • Packed more boxes
  • Held a garage sale
  • Bought a tarpaulin to cover the items we will be transporting in the ute
  • Booked a pre-travel service for the ute
  • Bought a lock mechanism for the toolbox
  • Researched a hands-free phone holder for the ute (no bluetooth)
  • Finalised our accommodation arrangements for the remainder of our time in Queensland
  • Planned our road trip from here to Victoria.

Even though the majority of our focus is on the house sale, purchase and relocation, we have still found time to enjoy some recreation. Tomorrow evening we are going to enjoy some live theatre as we attend a production of David Williamson’s play, Family Values. I am really looking forward to that.

Feeding Us

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We are home again after our short trip away. It was not so much a holiday as a reconnaissance mission to our preferred relocation destination. After about 6 months of searching we may have found the ideal property. More about that in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I have packed a few more boxes – I think the count is up to about 22. I have a description and number on each box and a small notebook where I have recorded the number of each box with a more detailed description of exactly what is in it. I am hoping that this will make it easy when we come to unpack at our destination.

There is also the everyday jobs to ensure that we remain fed and clothed. Yesterday I caught up on the washing and ironing after having been away and this morning I am cooking.

We are by no means self-sufficient but we do grow some food and also prepare most of our meals from scratch.

In the interest of energy efficiency we try to cook multiple dishes in the oven when it is turned on. GMan was ready to bake sourdough bread this morning so I made a Zucchini Quiche and some baked meatballs. The bread at the rear of the photo is fruit loaf made in the breadmaker.

I picked the last of the eggplant before I pull the bushes out and clear out that garden bed. So, I am making a big batch of Eggplant and Green Bean Curry which will make at least 4 – 5 meals for us so most will go in the freezer. These will be handy for days when I don’t have the time or inclination to cook.

I had some nectarines which were not great for eating fresh so I stewed them and will use this fruit on my breakfast cereal in coming days.

I have also made a batch of coleslaw and hard-boiled 6 eggs ready for lunches, prepared the mashed potato and cut up green beans to go with the meatballs for dinner tonight. My final project for this morning is to make some more hummus.

Packing Up

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It is a little over 2 months since I first mentioned that we had listed our home for sale. After almost 3 months on the market (including the Christmas and New Year period), we are close to finalising the sale.

Although we will have professional removalists who will pack all of the breakable items, there is no good reason why I cannot pack up things like linen, clothes, sewing fabrics and books. However, packing up an entire house in a few days is not my idea of fun, even if our possessions are relatively minimal.

So, I have begun to pack some non-essential and rarely used items. I have sourced various boxes as well as some plastic crates.

At the moment the packed boxes are stacked in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.

I also used suitcases to pack some of our out-of-season clothes. This made sense since the suitcases need to be relocated so they might as well be filled with clothes.

I intend to do something towards packing each day or two so that I can spread it over a few weeks and it is not too onerous.

In the next couple of days I will be emptying all of the good crockery, glasses and serving platters out of the sideboard. This has been sold and will be picked up at the end of the week.

More Tomatoes

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Our garden is completely overrun with self-sown cherry tomatoes. Even after making a large batch of tomato sauce (read about it here) there are still literally hundreds of fruit ripening every day.

I now have several bags of whole tomatoes in the freezer. I simply wash and destalk the tomatoes then bag them up for the freezer. These provide a great alternative to tinned tomatoes for adding to casseroles and other dishes.

Another method that can be used is to puree the tomatoes in a blender (after washing and destalking them). This creates quite a watery mixture so I simmer it until reduced by at least half. You can also finish the process in the oven which seems to add some richness to the flavour, however, this is not an essential step. This is my version of tomato paste.

I spread the mixture into ice-cube trays to freeze.

Once they are frozen the cubes can be bagged up. This is 1.75kg of cubes which came from about 5kg of cherry tomatoes.

It is an easy matter to toss a cube or two when cooking for some intense tomato flavour without adding a lot of liquid.

I also use the tomato puree to make the tomato base for my homemade pizzas. I cook it to reduce even further and add some dark jam (Davidson Plum is my preferred jam but any plum or berry jam will do) and Tabasco sauce. This creates a rich, spicy sauce which we love on pizzas.

NOTE: I will write a separate post in the future with an exact recipe for the pizza sauce as I do not have the final quantities yet.

No Spend January?

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Over a number of years I have heard of many people choosing to do ‘no-spend’ days, weeks, months or even a year. It seems that there are as many different ‘rules’ as there are people undertaking this idea but the general premise is to not buy excess food and try to use what you have on hand but most importantly to eschew discretionary spending.

I have never consciously tried to not spend for a specified period of time but since we are halfway through January I thought it might be timely to review what I have spent this month. It is a relatively easy process as we track everything we spend.

We track our regular, fixed expenses on one spreadsheet. This allows us to see what subscriptions, insurances etc are due each month and we make sure there is money set aside for those.

The other spreadsheet is a month by month record of our variable spending. Some of this is discretionary such as eating out, books or clothing purchases but others are what I regard as essential. This category includes things like groceries and fuel.

This January certainly does not look like ‘no spend’ as our expenditure for the first 16 days of the month has been a little over $2000. So, let’s examine where the money has gone.

  1. Our fixed expenses for all of January are $627.
  2. We had planned and budgeted for an interstate holiday for 2.5 weeks which concluded when we arrived home on 6th January. Costs for the January portion of the holiday were $503.
  3. In the 10 days since we arrived home we have spent $912.
  • $195 – Groceries
  • $148 – Fuel
  • $285 – Pet expenses
  • $100 – Health expenses
  • $134 – Home maintenance expenses
  • $50 – Entertainment expenses

Yes, the entertainment expenses are definitely discretionary and if I was strictly following a ‘no-spend’ regime that would have been foregone. Other than that and the holiday spending at the beginning of the month, everything else was necessary.

On balance, I think that our method of accurately tracking and recording our spending works well for us. I don’t feel any real need to try to artificially reduce our spending by pushing spending from one month into the following month.

Do you do ‘no-spend’ months? What are your ‘rules’? Do you feel that it makes a difference to your overall spending?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

Four Failures

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Things come in threes according to the old adage but I think I can top that.

Since we began to seriously consider listing our property for sale, it seemed like everything decided to fall apart. During the second half of 2022 we replaced the solar hot water system, the pump for our water tanks, the inverter for our solar panels and the back stairs.

Ongoing maintenance is something that needs to be accounted for in terms of time, energy and most significantly, money. These four items cost us in excess of $13,000. Being a homeowner is not a cheap adventure and thankfully we had the funds to cover these unexpected expenses.

Whilst it will not necessarily be a large amount, there will always be unexpected expenses that crop up from time to time. How you manage this will depend largely on your own circumstances but it is definitely not something that can be ignored.

You may also choose what is an absolute necessity and what can be delayed. For us, the pump for the water tanks was essential as no pump = no water. The back stairs could have been a lower priority as we do have stairs at the other end of the house. The hot water and the inverter could have been delayed because we have a hybrid solar system and could have resorted to the grid connection. However, this would have come at a substantial cost, particularly when utility prices are rising exponentially.

Most of the work does not warrant a photo but here are the new back stairs – freshly painted by GMan.