A Slow Month: Day 8

Update time. We're pretty much exhausted all our fresh food.  The organic basket we received last week, lasted us a week. No basket this week so we'll see... the freezers have lots of food to eat.  Last night I made thai style rice and steamed up some leek and tofu mondu (korean potstickers) that I had made and frozen a few months ago.  I whipped up a sweet, garlicy  fish sauce to dip them in.   They were gone before I could take any pictures, that's how good they were. Our freezer is still over flowing with potential meals...

I've had a bag of blood oranges sitting in the basket for a week now. Unsure of what to do with them I let them sit and get nice and juicy until yesterday. I spent the better half of the day juicing, and separating the pulp to make fruit leather, then slicing the peels and boiling them (4 times!) to get the bitter taste out and then letting them simmer in a syrup bath (equal parts of water and sugar) until they became little candies.  I dipped half in chocolate and saved the other half for future baking endeavors. This morning, I made 6 mini loaves of orange-cranberry bread and I mixed in the candied peels with the cranberries.

I made all that with 8 blood oranges.  Pretty amazing, huh?

We have been buying our bread at the boulangerie.  And I am fine with that. What we usually do it buy a bunch of bread and cut it up and put it in the freezer and toast it as we want to eat. A little trick that I learned from my husband the first winter I lived in Paris with him. He said, "keep a loaf of bread in the freezer and you'll never be without."

We are using our last roll of toilet paper as I type this entry. I don't know what we will do. I will discuss with Julien tonight to see if he'll accept an alternative to toilet paper.  A few weeks ago, we installed a water nose with a spraying unit to the toilet. It has made cloth diapering even easier for us. For the stubborn poop that won't shake off we just squirt a little water on it and hop!, it's gone.  My husband has taken to using the spray for himself. We have a toilet/bidet now. The alternative to toilet paper would be to use reusable wipes. We already use those for Max so why not for us. Just throw them in the wash with max's diapers. But we'll see how he reacts when I propose this. 

Like I said earlier we are out of fresh vegetables. I froze a few to use next week but this week we are freezer diving for dinners.  I have to say that I am a bit sad about not having any fresh food on hand.

So, my slow month to me hasn't been as slow as I intended it to be. I was all gun-ho about not grocery shopping at all but I am realizing that is really hard to do because we eat a lot of fresh foods.  Max's cheese is  running out and I will have to go to the store this week to get some more. I think deciding to be slower this month has shown me what we really need each week.  Instead of shopping for a two weeks period. I am going to shop on a weekly basis.  And like my friend, Libby, I think I need to set myself a limit each week of how much I can spend instead of spending easily 200 euros ever other week for two adults and a baby! Can you believe that? 20 euros a week for fresh foods which include veggies, fruits, milk, cheese and yogurt. And supplement all the meals from our freezer and pantry.

What do you do when you're in the midst of a slow month and friends come into town and want to go out to eat? I would have hosted them for lunch at our house but there were too many of them and we don't have the space for big dinner parties like that. Hello? small Parisian apartment. So, we ended up going out to lunch and spending 44 euros.  44 euros I could have spent on fresh veggies for the rest of the month! For the first time in my life, I was really regretting that we spent that much at the restaurant. 

Euros spent so far this month: 53 euros.

I am off to make some breakfast bread with some ripe bananas and our tiny kiwis from the organic basket will become some more fruit leather. Use it all! That is what I keep telling myself. Use it all.

Comments

[misschrisc]

Wow you guys are impressing me with all this! The things you come up with when you have nothing!

I´d like to do a slow month too because it seems really interesting and I´d like to focus a little more on what we´re spending. But my question is what do you do if you don´t have a well stocked freezer like you and Riana seem to? I have an ice cube tray in my freezer and that´s about it! I would have to be really, really creative to get through one month. I don´t think my dinners would be quite as appetizing as yours.

[Aimee]

Well, while the good fruits are in season, I'd make compote and freeze them or steam them and freeze them for later use. Slowly stock up your freezer. Maybe trying changing your shopping habits and only shop once a week. I think that is going to make a big differnce for us and only spend a set amount.

Ask Riana... she has so many good ideas!

[lacey]

I gotta say, your slow month has really inspired me. My husband and I spend more on food than we do on almost anything else, and I always wonder where all our money goes, and I know it's food. So you inspired me to suggest to my husband that we use what we have instead of buying tons of food every other week or every 3 weeks. We have many bags of frozen vegetables (and frozen fake meats)and looooooooots of nonperishable goods. I seriously think we might last 3 months with all the stuff we have.

I did run into the same dilemma as you, though: there really isn't much of a replacement for fresh fruits and vegetables. We aren't big bread/cheese/yogurt eaters, so our indulgence is still eating out occasionally but also buying some fresh fruit/veggies once a week. It's still not as expensive as a huge grocery run, but we have our fresh fruits, so we don't feel deprived.

Anyways, thanks for the inspiration!

[stephanie]

fruit leather? what do you do with that?

oh, and what kind of camera do you have? pics are so clear!

[Aimee]

You eat it! It's another word for fruit roll up. It's dried fruit! Healthy. I only added 1 tablespoon of honey to the pulp.

I shoot with a Nikon D200. And I use two lenses: Tamron 17-55mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8.

:)

[yaiAnn]

I love reading your slow month entries. I sent you an email the other rday about the fresh food bit. Are you not allowed to do that during the slow months?

[Aimee]

I am not following any real rules here. I had initially said no more grocery shopping but I spoke too soon because we ran out of fresh food and we eat a lot of fresh food. So, I think next week I'll get my organic basket that I normally get or perhaps try going to the market this Sunday to get the a week's worth of veggies and fruits.

I think you can make it as slow as you want. My problem areas are too much stuff in our apt and poor grocery shopping habits. I'm trying to correct those two things by slowing it down this month and see what we really need!

[Mary Anne]

Ahhh, the cash system works wonders for "overspending" at the groc...Tom has envelopes...one for groc, one for gas, and one for misc/entertainment...no cash means it can't be bought...really makes a difference...

Hugs
Mary Anne

[kyliemac]

how are you making the fruit leather? with all my fruit allergies, this seems like a good way for me to have some healthy and fruity snacking... details please! it sounds and looks yummy!

[Aimee]

Ah, KylieMac, this could be the answer to your fruit allergies! It's really easy, I juiced those oranges and then separated the pulp using a strainer. Then I added a tablespoon of honey to take away the sour bite and then I put some cranberries through my food processor until they were beaten to a pulp and mixed those in with the orange pulp and then spread it out thinly on parchement paper and put it in a pan and baked it for two hours at 100 degrees celsius.

Here's a photo of the pulp before it was baked:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66915345@N00/2258214561/

it will reduce down and look like fruit roll up. but trust me it's better than a fruit roll up!

Also, I read this website:

http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/pood/fruitleather.html

And it gives you lots of ideas to make fruit leather. It's super easy!

Let me know if you try it!

[Riana]

The winter months are a great time to eat those frozen and canned vegetables in soups and hearty stews, risottos, pastas and the like. Long cooking intensifies and melds the flavors and your body is craving starches during this time of year.

You dont really need (for a slow month) fresh vegetables if you have a lot in your freezer or canned (we did over a month without). And those frozen apricots from summer are a welcome sight for taste buds in Feb. Doing a slow month during jan or feb is the best time because you appreciate the frozen and canned foods so much more. It would be torturous and NO FUN in June.

So you do have to plan ahead a bit and sock those extras away in the deep freeze for a rainy or snowy day. You are doing fabulous! Ask around, I bet some people have some extra veggies in their gardens that they would love to give you.

Aimee posted the fruit leather recipe in the link here on her photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/putyourflareon/2258214561/

[Aimee]

Riana is right... there is no way in the summer I could do this. Now it's got me thinking ahead to what fruits I want to can and freeze for the coming winter!

I wish I had neighbors who had gardens...I just have a neighbor who kicks my plants over in the stairwell of my building.

[Libby]

Hey there! Don't dispair! I went out and "blew" our budget too-- 9Euros for cheese and powdered milk to make more yogurt. I had a friend in town tonight from NY and how could I say "sorry, no cheese"?
I think you're totally right, the realization of how much we spend and what we really need is the most important in all of this. Keep it up! And come over and eat lentil soup with me this week!!

[Tsoniki]

You are inspiring me! I really want to do a slow month - it's been easy to not spend money as I'm staying with family and my DH has been working on our house so he's the one spending. But I think I'll try starting either next week or next month - I'll be with my Dad then and let's see how long I can last there. I'll be around shopping again! And more then one grocery store! Fresh food! Costco! *sigh* I can do it.

Your pictures are awesome.