Back British Farming and locally sourced food

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Eating locally and using British products in my cooking is incredibly important to me.

This weekend, a long-standing dream of mine has come true and I am now the proud owner of chickens! So farm-fresh eggs will be used daily here in my kitchen.

Our homegrown produce is also ready to start harvesting – so apples, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, beetroots and peppers.

We still have lots of home-reared pork in the freezer, along with lots of other British meat from the butchers. I also love the fact that we have milk from our local milkman!

It’s a long process that I keep tweaking but we are slowly, as a family, becoming more sustainable with our meals.

Money-Saving Tips for your Garden

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I have got big plans for the garden this year. BIG plans.

As part of my money saving journey I want to efficiently use the outdoor space I have to grow food. Dan and I have planned that our next big purchase will be a chest freezer and then whatever fruit and veg’ I grow this year, I can freeze the surplus or make it into dishes and then freeze. It will also be useful to store larger amounts of meat meaning that I can plan meals without the need to go shopping every week.

This post is me documenting how I am saving money in the garden. Bear in mind I am an amateur so any tips or advice you have then please let me know in the comments below!

Greenhouse – Storm Eunice destroyed my second-hand plastic greenhouse so to start seedlings this year I am using upside down clear plastic storage boxes and also 2 x basic seed propagators I picked up from B & Q. I keep these in our unheated wooden porch overnight but then in the day I put them out on the patio to try and encourage the seedlings to harden up. The temperature can still drop over night to below freezing so I am reluctant to leave them out constantly until I know it will stay warmer. Also, you do not need any fancy pots to start seedlings – I just reuse the plastic trays you buy flowers in and then transplant the seeds into the pot/ground but if you are looking for a compostable option then use toilet roll centres or large egg trays. No need to buy any fancy pots!

Compost – I used to buy bags and bags of compost but this year I will be using my own compost bin and the ever-growing muck heap of horse manure! The previous owners of the house left a compost bin behind so I have placed in on to 4 patio slabs to make an even base and have started using it. I put in grass cuttings, leaves that I’ve swept from the garden or courtyard and paper. I also have a little bin in my kitchen that I put eggshells, vegetable cuttings and fruit peels which I then tip into the compost bin. Every so often you mix it all round to help it break down but other than that, you let the worms do their thing!

Seeds – I have still got lots of seeds that are in date to grow this year so I don’t think I will need to buy any at all. Also, I have potatoes chitting in the pantry so will plant those instead of buying sets. I also always have a plant swap/seed swap with my Grandparents so they will be growing me tomatoes, cucumbers, chilli and pepper seedlings and I usually then grow them some runner beans and then prepare some pickled beetroot for them.

Garden layout – As much I would love to head to my nearest garden centre, purchase multiple raised bed kits and make my garden look tidy and uniformed, my bank account is saying NO! So rather than buy them I am trying to use what I have laying around the farm to make things look tidy. So bricks, odd bits of wood, second hand patio slabs and an edge cutter are helping to make borders and different ‘areas’.

Water collection – the farm harvest rainwater into 1000L IBC water tanks so this year I will be doing the same. Rainwater is so much more natural for young plants as there is a lack of any chemicals so using only this to feed the plants should help keep them strong.

Jars and storage – For the past year I have been saving every plastic takeaway container and every glass jar. My family have been doing the same so I now have an ample collection ready to use when I need to store my food! This year I am going to grow the following:

Strawberries, carrots, onions (red and white), beetroots, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, chillis, peppers, leeks, pickling cucumbers, dwarf French beans, peas and sugar snap peas, raspberries, rhubarb, lettuces, rocket, kale and blackcurrants. With this lot I will hopefully have enough fresh produce to eat through the summer and then whiz up into jams, pickled beetroot and onions, portions of vegetable to freeze, chunky tomato sauces, curry sauces and also puddings!

So with my plans in place and the days getting warmer, I have started garden maintenance to ensure that my harvest is worthwhile. Little and often I will get the garden into shape. Spring is not far away and I cannot wait!

5 warming winter recipes

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I’d definitely recommend investing in a soup maker or slow cooker to get you through winter. They’re both so easy to use and you can cook virtually anything in them!  I love taking healthy food to work and anything warming always fills me up more than a boring sandwich. Plus, when you’re out in the cold all day the best feeling is to come home to a warm house smelling of good food. Take a look at the recipes below and let me know if there is anything delicious I should try.

1. Tomato, red pepper and chorizo soup

500g vine tomatoes, 150g chorizo, 1 red pepper, 1 tsp smoked paprika, sprinkle of mixed herbs, 300ml vegetable stock and a drizzle of lemon juice.

Chop it all up, click the smooth option on your soup maker and 30 minutes later you’ll have the BEST soup ready to eat!

2. Chilli con carne

1 tin of red kidney beans, 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 3 small chillis, 250g mince, half an onion, a handful of chopped cherry tomatoes, one third of green pepper, table spoon of gravy granules, 1 x beef stock cube, smoked paprika, some crushed chilli seeds, salt and pepper.

Throw all this in the slow cooker and heat on the low setting for 6 hours. I always end up throwing more gravy granules in but pair this with either a quick cook rice packet or tortillas and it’s a CRACKING winter meal.

3. Beef stew

500g chopped beef (you can often pick this up cheap reduced in Supermarkets- just pop it in the freezer if you don’t plan on using it straight away) 1 x beef stock cube, 300ml boiling water, gravy granules and whatever veg you have leftover in the fridge! Carrots, potatoes and suede are good choices but I personally also like adding mushrooms and peas.

Again, a similar technique to above – throw it all in the slow cooker and put it on a low heat for approximately 8 hours. If you wanted to add dumplings to the mix then you need to prepare these first. It’s just 150g self-raising flour and 70g of suet mixed together and rolled into golf ball sized dumplings. When you’re coming to the end of the 8 hours, turn the heat up high and put the dumplings in the stew mix after stirring. After 30 minutes you’re winter feast will be ready and your house will smell AMAZING.

4. Honey roasted gammon

1 x joint of gammon, honey, salt and 100ml of water.

Pour the water in the slow cooker, place the joint in the centre of the cooker and drizzle with honey. Then place on a low heat for 8 hours. This is a great one for a Sunday! I will usually sort the horses, throw this together and then by the time Dan and I are home in the evening, we will have a delicious gammon joint to have with either vegetables, fresh bread or chips.

5. Root vegetable soup

2 x potatoes, handful of leeks, 1 carrot, 100ml double cream, 100ml milk, 500ml vegetable stock, salt and pepper.

Peel and chop the potatoes, chop the carrot and also the leeks. Throw them all in the soup maker along with all the stock, milk and cream and put it on the smooth setting. This makes 3 portions of soup and is a great one for the weekends ahead of a week at work.

Frumpy to fabulous

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Over the last month I’ve been experimenting with ways to improve my lifestyle choices and in turn, lose weight.

For a long time I’ve been unhappy with how I look and haven’t felt confident. I would wear yard clothes, work uniform or baggy jumpers yet have lots of Summer dresses sat in my wardrobe gathering dust.

On the 21st June, I sought advice from my closest friend who had personal training experience and my new lifestyle began. Now I’m not going to exaggerate anything in this post. I want it to be an honest article to help NORMAL people lose weight in a NORMAL way around work and a social life. No fancy diets or magic here I’m afraid and you won’t be shifting 10lb in a week. These are steps I have taken to kickstart my frumpy to fabulous journey and I’m living proof they’re working.

So here we go. I’d love to hear your thoughts at the end!  

An open attitude

Honestly, the best thing to adopt before any kind of weight loss journey is an open attitude. If you’re stuck in your ways with food or exercise you need to accept that to lose weight you will have to make changes. I did and it was difficult but so far I don’t think I could go back to my lifestyle before. Having an open attitude and looking at the journey positively will help you progress; remember, the start of the journey is you at your heaviest so try to not get bogged down about your starting figure. Mine was my heaviest weight by far but 4 weeks in, I feel less frumpy and more energetic, even if I don’t look much different on the outside!

Spices

The more spice you throw on food, the tastier it is. The tastier it is the more you enjoy it. The more you enjoy it the less you feel like you’re dieting. This is how I’m looking at food now! I was stuck in a rut making the same dinners so to experiment with herbs and spices was one step towards making new meals. I headed straight to Aldi to stock up as they’re super cheap and have a wide variety of spices and flavourings, as well as fresh herbs and herb plants for your kitchen windowsill.

Portion sizes

Looking back, I think my worst enemy was always portion sizes. I was never one for weighing food and once the food was on my plate I wouldn’t like to leave it or “waste it”. I started off by weighing my cereal and it was so upsetting that my usual portion size was literally double the recommended serving. Another example was when I would make a recipe from a cookbook and weighed out pasta to use, again it was half the amount I would have pre-lifestyle change. Getting this under control was difficult the first couple of days but after that my body seemed to adjust.

Water intake

Following on nicely from the point above, I’d always have water with my meal. I’d been told that quite often when you’re stomach feels empty it is often due to dehydration and to take a big drink of water. Well, I’m now drinking approximately 3 litres of water a day and can just about curb the snack cravings!

Alcohol-free zone

One of the most difficult decisions was to give up alcohol whilst I was trying to lose weight. Now, I come from a family of alcohol appreciators and not having wine, prosecco, gin or cider in the house was considered a dire emergency. I also recently purchased a crate of wine of Laithwaites that I hadn’t quite finished, so I had to hide the last bottles at the back of the cupboard. Alcohol is empty calories and as my body only needed about 1600 calories a day to maintain weight, let alone lose any, I didn’t have ANY calories to spare. So, since the 21st June I have only drank water or tea but a positive is that my skin has cleared up nicely. However, I did break this rule for my birthday but didn’t go too crazy!

Balsamic vinegar

I never knew how delicious this stuff was until I started using it to cook with. Throwing it over a steak whilst it is cooking adds so much flavour or it’s great to jazz up a salad. Farm shops have some fantastic selections and I’ve currently got a balsamic and orange vinegar to try from the brand new Elliott’s Farm Shop near Weedon.

Low fat spreadable cheese

I’m a cheese lover and between Dan and I we used to go through 2 blocks a week. Not great for the waistline! However, low fat spreadable cheese is great on crackers or Ryvitas and I still feel like I’m getting my cheese ‘hit’. I also fell in love with Parmesan, an equally cheesy substitute that you don’t need much of for flavour.

The Body Coach’s cookbooks

I’ve had these books for a few years now but never really paid much attention to them until I decided to start my new healthier way of living. However, once I opened them and saw how easy the recipes were, I never looked back! I’ve had cookbooks before where you have to buy lots of hard-to-find ingredients that could be expensive. They also only included recipes that take a while to prepare – something I found tedious fitting in around work and sorting the horse. Yet, the Shift, Shape and Sustain cookbooks from Joe Wicks are SO easy. As explained above, I stocked up on spices and coconut oil and now adapt the recipes so both Dan and I will eat them (he is much fussier than I am). We’ve had steak, meatballs, paella, sausages, pasta dishes and all of them are made with a healthier lifestyle in mind. I often share my own attempts of these dishes on my Instagram stories and highlights so have a look for some dinner inspiration.

Low calorie ice cream!

I LOVE ice cream. I knew this was one thing I couldn’t give up so had to research (as in taste test) quite a lot of the low-calorie ice creams on offer. The protein ice creams I didn’t particularly like as the texture of them wasn’t quite the same as normal ice cream. However, the Moophoria range from Ben & Jerry’s and also the Graham’s Goodness range found in Aldi are both delicious! The tubs are between 300-500 calories each and each will last me 3-4 days. The salted caramel Grahams Goodness flavour is particularly delicious.

At the point of writing this blog I had lost 4.2kg in weight just from these changes. I endeavour to lose more and will be sharing the progress over on my Instagram feed. I’d love to hear your thoughts so either comment below, on my Instagram post of feel free to DM me.