Weekend away in Brighton

Yes, I know I haven't updated in two weeks plus. I am rubbish. In fact, I am SO rubbish that I've failed at my buy nothing new (I have bought a couple food things in addition to my horrible Snickers) AND I'm almost out of a month's worth of £74.65 and it's six days into the month (I started on the 2nd).

I suck. But, I'm leaving HSBC as a customer for the Cooperative Bank (hooray for banks that let you vote on their ethical policies!) rather than have my money and accounts split between the two. VERY good news. Also, I was away for the weekend and didn't actually spend that much money.

I went to Brighton for the weekend, mostly to see volcano! play an ejectorseat night (they only played three UK dates on this tour and one of them was for Ejectorseat!), but also to hang out with Andy, give him his Christmas present and see some Transition-related stuff.

Andy's Christmas present was that I was going to go to his flat for a weekend and make it a home. This meant cooking from-scratch meals, making him blueberry pancakes, and tidying up. I think I succeeded on all three counts! I arrived on Friday but hadn't told Andy what time I would arrive, so I had an hour and a bit to kill while he bought beer for the Freebutt, the venue where he works (this was an ongoing mission over the weekend).

I spent my time wandering around the laines, and ended up spending £2.30 on old snapshots from a box full of photos in Snoopers' Paradise. When leaving there, I bumped into our former couchsurfers, James and Becky who have been wondering around the world for the past few months. That day they were wandering around Brighton and had just purchased some fudge. We talked briefly about their involvement in Climate Camp in London as legal observers, what they'd been doing in Brighton, and my plans for the evening (I didn't have any). I left them to look for a pie plate as mine has gone missing, but couldn't find one. I was a bit upset that I couldn’t find a pie plate, but a trip to the (stony) beach and my fortune told by a lady who looked a little bit like this:

cured me. She told me to be wary of men with beards. I think that's extremely good advice.

Met up with Andy, but we didn't have time to get ice cream (everywhere was closed!) and I made soup instead. I also did the first of MANY dish washing sessions. I managed to go to bed at 11pm despite the club on the same floor as Andy's flat being open until 1. This meant that I woke up at about 8:15, so I started cleaning. I attacked his kitchen, part of the bathroom (it wasn't that messy), and was washing the kitchen floor when Andy woke up. We had french toast with a syrup I made out of heating raspberry jam and adding a bit of water. I did more dishes.

I had considered going to one or two community farms in Brighton on Sunday to work, but I was still so tired that I thought it wouldn’t be very enjoyable. Hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll head back to see Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and will bring gardening clothes to work then. I think I should also plan to bring cupcakes or something to woo them and convince them to play the Freebutt EVERY time they come to the UK.

Insetead, I also helped Andy start to get rid of all the piles of paper that were needlessly filling his office—mostly on the floor. Nic arrived and (after thanking me for helping Andy clear away so much crap), we took a BUNCH of stuff out to recycle. We picked up postcards and food for the band, (including Tofutti cream cheese—boy was Aaron happy!) tried to buy alcohol except Nic didn’t have any idea and could have been under 18. So Andy bought weird beer from LIDL instead while we stood in line buying other things and pretending we didn’t know each other just in case. We also managed to buy toilet paper, trash bags, tin foil, AND a trash can all for Andy’s flat.

We also got Mexican…. Glorious wonderful Mexican cooked by a really nice Lebanese guy with prices, portions, and quality to rival El Volcan back home. (That’s a SERIOUS compliment)

Getting back, Nic decided cleaning wasn’t sufficient, so she started rearranging things. All of a sudden boxes were unpacked, CDs were stacked and/or put away, shelving was put up, and Andy has a home!!! I wish we had before and after pictures. I made soup and did more dishes. We all ate it, and I did more dishes.

Mac ended up not being able to make a decent train to get to Brighton, so I acted as the better half of Ejectorseat for the evening. I sat on the door, swapping with Andy so I could see Esben and the Witch and Hind Ear (formerly Revenge of Shinobi) and volcano!. I also had to stay on the door while Andy went out again and bought more beer for the venue as they were running out. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although standing in front of one of the speakers was probably not the best idea.

As an aside, here is the story of Esben and the Witch. I loved reading the color fairy tale books (pink, yellow, etc)

The next day I made volcano! the vegan pancakes they specifically had mentioned in their e-mail (thus securing ejectorseat’s position as one of their favourite UK promoters. We had also managed to get just about everything mentioned in their rider, including postcards)

I called Cookability!, a programme that is running in Brighton where people learn to cook—often disadvantaged people. I want to come along to one of their sessions and would LOVE to have something like this running in Southampton—come on council or Primary Care Trust—get your preventative heads on! I thought I might be able to stop by their office or meet up for a coffee to chat about how it works, but she just talked to me on the phone for the next 20 min about it instead. I then had lots more time to help Andy tidy and do little tasks while we waited for gas to arrive so they could have beer on tap in the venue (FINALLY!) and for a guy to look at his hot water heater and proclaim that it was way more expensive than he thought and would take a while. . . . . But then we forgot the troubles of the freebut in a big bowl of frozen yogurt. It was delicious!!! We also went to Ransoms, a wonderful shop that should be an essential in every town—the kind that will cut your keys, or sell you paint, dish towels, hammers, or cake tins. They did not, however, have the right kind of pie plate, despite their selection of about 20 different kind of cake and tart and quiche tins. Oh well.

Monday evening I went to the Sustainability Partnership meeting because I’m weird. Why else would I go to a meeting of councillors, representatives of businesses and other “partners” of the council to listen to them talk about what they are doing in Brighton and Hove? Actually, it was pretty interesting. I learned all about the Sustainable Communities Act (I don’t really understand how this is going to benefit people in practice—it’s a bizarre piece of legislation that will make proposals go on and on for about 2 years) and the new assessment procedures for local authorities. Okay, I found it interesting—I guess it doesn’t translate well into a short summary.

Andy paid for both the Mexican lunch and the frozen yogurt, so apart from buying a pasty so that I didn't die of hunger on my way home, I didn't buy a whole lot of food over the weekend that I didn't make from scratch. This does make me wonder where all my money went, though. I resisted fudge and buying CDs, spent £2.50 that first afternoon, and didn't buy any drinks or even a ticket at the gig. . . . Hmmm...

Anyway, that’s my boring and incredibly long recap of my lovely weekend away. I kinda wish I had taken photos, but I’m rubbish with that.

First non £2 a day post.

I know I haven’t done an update in absolutely ages. In my eyes, it was a well deserved break from having to tediously write about every gram of food that I consumed. Mac and I are still finishing up the cheese from the farmers’ market. I must admit I’m not eager to make up the 11 days that are missing, but I have said that I’ll do it, so do it I will. We’ve also talked about doing it quarterly so that we can have each season represented in recipes. Then we’ll have a £2 a day year recipe book. I would want to do another in probably May so that we can have two months’ worth of recipes in time for the Food Open Day we’ll be doing (we being the Southampton Fair Trade Group and the Southampton & Waterside Women’s Environmental Network).
But enough about food. What else have I been doing?

I’ve worked on the allotment twice and we have 4 beds with one of them raked and onions and carrots planted. We have a rhubarb plant, apple tree and two fruit bushes planted, and we have two compost bins. I’m hoping to win the auction for a greenhouse on eBay, but I’ve lost one already and Chris and Natalie forgot to bid on one the week before. We’ll see how I do.

I'm really excited about the allotment and getting it going, but I am SOOOO sunburned. It was really warm in the sun so I was just wearing a tank top and the whole top of my neck/back/shoulders are all burnt. Luckily it's just the back of them because I made sure I wasn't facing the sun (I did NOT want a horrible sunburn on my face). I'll have to bring sunscreen next time.

Mac and I went to a chilli night at some friends’, we have been out to see bands a couple times, I had toast and jam at Barney’s Log Jam (they’ve started a blog…. ooooOOOOOooooh) and went up to St Albans to have lunch with Helen and Henry (I have GOT to start buying advance tickets). I’ve been to LOTS of meetings and have agreed to have the Transition Southampton social at our house. Luckily I suggested it be a pot luck, so I’ll only clean like crazy, not clean and cook.

I FINALLY cleaned off my desk (although halfway through the process it looked like a cyclone that only affected paper had hit in the room) and everything is now either organised in an accordion file (for my personal financial stuff) or in a box with folders and tabs (for all the voluntary group stuff). I stupidly did not take a before and after picture. I could still take an after picture, but it wouldn’t be nearly as impressive without the before. I’m buying some space from Emiliano online for a project management program called dotproject.net and he’s installing it for me (thank god). I also managed to go through my gmail inbox and got the 238 messages in my inbox down to 25. I know it should be less than that (it should be zero), but tough.

I’m planning to have a craft/soup night soon to use up some of my many many craft supplies and to encourage other people to help me use them up as well. I think that it will be a requirement that anyone who comes for soup has to make something. Maybe I’ll just think about who I invite beforehand.

As for the Buy Nothing New year, I bought a used cookbook off Amazon called The More With Less cookbook—it was written by Mennonites! It’s really nice basic food. I haven’t made anything yet, but I will soon. I’ve managed to only buy vegetables and seeds for the allotment so far, and if I pay for the greenhouse, that will be secondhand. I don’t know how I’m going to get secondhand seed trays, though.

Robin was very kind and sent me a care package with about a thousand pairs of underwear. She said it was in response to Karen who had said, “What if you run out of pants!?!?” when I told her about the year long challenge. It was really about 8 pairs of underwear. I think I might keep four pairs, because the rest are the super skanky kind that are just a couple of strings.

I prefer a tad more fabric. String thongs are just paying lip service to the idea of underwear.

I think I’ll finish here. I’ll try to come up with some interesting facts or information or ideas for my next post.

Day 28 - We enter March with pizza and an allotment!

So Sunday I worked on our allotment for the first time ever. Hooray! We spent 4 hours there, digging 1 3/4 beds, setting up a compost bin (out of old pallets) and planted an apple tree and two fruit bushes courtesy of the Art House. We also had HobNobs, courtesy of Jonathan (I had four!!) and we realised that next time we need a full lunch in the middle of the day to break up the work. And more water. And possibly snack foods. Once we have a shed, I might consider getting a kettle and a little camp stove for tea. Mmmm…. Tea.

It was great to have four other people out there with me—Heather, Jonathan, Natalie and Chris. Kelly couldn’t make it, and Mac has said that he’s giving us 6 months to make sure that are actually going to work on it consistently and not get really enthusiastic at the start and lose interest before he works on it. I can kinda see his point, and it’s also helping to motivate me to prove him wrong. Hopefully he’ll make up for 6 months of inactivity by getting REALLY into it afterwards.

I am a little worried about the Little Red Hen syndrome, and that he’ll end up playing the part of all the other barnyard animals offering to eat the bread she baked, milled, harvested, grew and planted. (For those of you unfamiliar with the story, the heroine is surrounded by slackers who expect handouts from others. It’s here http://www.bres.boothbay.k12.me.us/wq/nnash/WebQuest/little_red_hen.htm in giant font with a pink background if you don’t believe me)

Anyway, I came back from working on the allotment at about 3:45 and we were heading off to Bournemouth for a show to see these guys: Dutch Husband Plinth Little Boat Sunshine Republic and another band or two whose names I can’t find without using MySpace which is blocked at work. (If you are interested, my review of the night is below—and will probably differ HUGELY from Mac’s review of the same evening)

Mac hadn’t had time to make dinner, so I decided to make pizza rather than have us succumb to the temptation of fast food/pub food in Bournemouth (there were two Italian restaurants across from the venue. I want more Italian food!) My pizza dough recipe is nice and quick, sauce wouldn’t take any longer, and we had both onions and cooking cheese which would be cheap toppings. Not the fanciest of pizzas, but it tasted great!


Dinner on the go!
Super Cheap, Super Fast Pizza!
Served 4, albeit small portions at 39p per serving, assuming we can make it last for tomorrow (we did). (£1.56 total)

Ingredients:

1 package yeast 9p
2 T olive oil (rapeseed oil - 20p)
2 1/4c bread flour (27p)
1 tsp salt (nil)
2 tsp sugar (1p?)
leftover tomato sauce (28p)
half a tin of tomatoes (39p)
2T tomato paste (8p)
2 onions (8p)
1 T veg oil (2p)
pinch of sugar (less than 1p)
25g cooking cheese from Lyburn Farm (14p) (at the Winchester Farmers' Market) It's their parmesan substitute and it's AMAZING. Plus, it was dirt cheap. It's 5.55 a kilo, compared to proper Italian parmesan. Plus the flavour is amazing. Very strong, and very nice.

Directions:
CAUTION: You’ll need to do all these three steps at once! None of them are that difficult, but make sure you read the WHOLE recipe before you start so you know when to start things.
I wrote them by part of the pizza, rather than jumbling them all together chronologically. Sorry if that confuses. I’m sorry that they are the world’s longest directions for an easy recipe, but I like to give a bit of information….

Preheat your oven to about 375-400 or 200-210 (I think that’s about right). It doesn’t need to be precise.

To make the dough:
Mix 1 package yeast with 1 cup warm water (at 110F) and stir. If you don’t have a thermometer, the water from your tap will probably be about 120. It will be very warm, but not hot to the touch if you put your finger in the measuring cup. Or you could buy a thermometer—as it’s important that yeast is warm enough to activate the cultures, but not too hot to kill them all.
Let the yeast and water sit for about 10 min. It will look like alien goo at the top of the water.
Mix in the olive oil, bread flour, salt and sugar. I would mix in 1c flour, and then add another cup.
If it’s too sticky (you should be able to mix with your hands without having your hands stick to the dough) add more flour, 1/4 cup at a time until you get the right consistency.
You don’t really need to knead it, but you want it well mixed and to make it into a ball. I usually half knead it while I’m doing it.
Scrape out the flour and stuff that remains in the bowl as best you can and add 1-2tsp of oil to the bowl.
Lightly cover the bowl with the oil and put the ball of dough into it.
Cover with a dishtowel and put on top of your oven so that the heat from the oven helps it rise. Allow to rise for 30 min (although you can take it out earlier if you need to)

Meanwhile, make the sauce. I had a bit of sauce already made. If you are starting from scratch:
Heat 1 tin tomatoes on a medium heat.
Mash a few cloves of garlic and add to the pan. (You could also cook these in oil before adding the tomatoes).
Add 1-2T of tomato paste, 1 tsp of sugar and a pinch of salt.
You can also add oregano, basil and parsley if you want, but it’s not necessary.
Bring to a boil and turn down the head. Allow to simmer until your dough is all rolled out.
If it’s too liquidy, add some more tomato paste. If it’s too dry, add some water. Compare it to other tomato sauces you’ve bought in the past.

(TIP: If you are being ultra cheap, you can just use tomato paste and water. Add mashed garlic and/or cooked onions and/or any spices that you want. You’ll still want to add the sugar and salt. Keep adding water as it starts to evaporate out, again looking for the consistency of store bought sauce.)

At the same time, you’ll need to start the carmelised onions.
Preheat a pan with 1T of oil on medium heat.
Chop two onions into halves and then into 5-6 wedges.
Add onions to the pan. Stir to coat with oil.
Once they start to turn translucent, turn the heat down a little bit and add about 1tsp sugar.
Continue cooking on a medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s ready to put on the oven.

Once the dough is ready to take out of the bowl, put it on a floured surface.
Roll out with a rolling pin or (if you are very patient and careful) you can slowly rotate the pizza dough (like a steering wheel) so that gravity pulls it into a circle shape. Stay longer on two sides if you need it to be rectangular. (I would roll it, because it’s WAY easier.)
Place onto a lightly floured baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.
Take out of the oven, spread sauce on top, cover with onions and grate cheese above it.
Return to oven for 15min (or thereabouts)

Done!

I had just enough time to cut them up into slices (I used scissors!), put them in some tin foil and get out the door for Mac to pick me up with the Whizzgo car www.whizzgo.co.uk/

As for the bands?
I enjoyed the night. Apart from Sunshine Republic. The other bands were good. Dutch Husband were tight and performed well—I really like the fact that the bass has a more melodic part in the band than in most other groups. Little Boat had some good songs although he’s WAY more poppy than I remember (an influence from his time in Japan?) and I LOVED Plinth who had a gramophone!!!!!

As for Sunshine Republic… Mac loves them, mostly because they are being twats to make fun of bands who are actually twats and don’t know it. I don’t see that as a good enough reason to like them. I declared them a “because we can” band. It’s a common thing in bands. Often it is the reason why bands that do not have a strong “noise” or experimental aspect of their music start twiddling knobs at the end of a set and using feedback. Why? Because they can. Sunshine Republic took off all their shirts (NOT advised). Why? Because they can. They made a deafening noise that didn’t show any cohesion, progress, or thought. Why? Because they can. I will avoid gigs they are playing at and if I like the other bands will walk out of the venue from here on out. They were TERRIBLE and full of themselves. Plus, the lead singer (who was shirtless but wearing a blanket as a cape and got progressively more drunk) threw equipment at our friend Ben as we were leaving. Not impressed.

Anyway, our food breakdown:
Breakfast: porridge and a cup of tea. Mine had milk, Mac’s had jam (our porridge, not the tea). Me: 10p + 4p, Mac: 17p + 4p
Lunch: leftover stirfry (with extra mushrooms) 52p
Dinner: 39p
Riverford: 75p

TOTALS: Mac £1.87, Megan £1.80
I finally beat Mac!!

Weekly update (NOT the SNL kind, though)

Robin keeps bugging me that I haven’t updated my blog in a while, which I suppose is true (only when compared to her, though. . . . I just found the blog of my friend Jonathan who hasn’t updated it in 11 months


So what have I been doing since last Thursday?




I have started a bath mat that I might take apart and restart (I’ve already taken it apart once). It’s made out of donated T-shirts, so it hasn’t cost me anything. The cutting of the T-shirts was done mostly in a very gradual spiral like this:


Here's a tutorial, but not exactly how I've done it here:

Anyway, I like it, but I'm not sure of the colours so far... I have purple and black. I'm wondering if I should take it apart and look for some more colours to make it look more like this:







I then ran out of purple and black T-shirts and hadn’t decided whether to keep going or take it apart, so I then started on making myself a portable knitting needle case. I wanted something somewhat classy, so I went with this pattern, which is more of a clutch than a roll.

Eventually I also want to make something similar to this, but a LOT nicer looking. I’m thinking retro fabric? Maybe a “Make do and mend” writing going down it? Any thoughts? Again, all this would be made by either a) fabric I already have b) used material I can find in charity shops or c) something donated.

I would LOVE to make a kitchen organiser made out of old dishtowels. It hangs on a hanger, and has pockets sewn in. (Robin, please tell me you saved that article… where did I find it???)

I’ll have to sort through these lists (one per month!!) to see if there are other things I’d like to do! http://tipnut.com/20-neat-o-projects/

What have I done that is NOT craft related?

We had a soup night, and I made minestrone—I’d put up the recipe, but I kinda made it up (it was pretty good) and Oli made DELICIOUS tomato/herb/pepper bread. The bread was wonderful, but there was FAR too little of it. I want more.

I made crappy baklava—I didn’t have enough filo sheets, AND I decided to use honey instead of sugar, so the syrup didn’t re-solidify. D’oh! I’ve learned my lesson and will use sugar next time. And less lemon juice—it was VERY lemony.

I went to a gig at the Hamptons (£3 entry, but it’s a fundraiser) put on by my friend who is an illustration student and saw some bands (I was also told I looked like a hot 12 year old. NOT impressed).

I sat at the Women’s Environmental Network stall at the Totton Go Green Fair on Saturday, learned from a woman how to make a wormery without it costing a fortune (awesome! . . . Although I’d need a bin, a tap, and some worms…. I don’t think I can get ANY of those used….), and got some people to sign up for our group. It wasn’t the busiest fair, but it was a great start for us at WEN—it was our first ever stall, so I’m glad we were able to get used to it.

I went and worked on an allotment (not ours) on Sunday for 3 hours and got really excited about allotments. I’m not sure how it would work with my buy nothing new challenge… if I want wooden frames? Mesh? Manure? Straw? What if I can’t get it used? Grrrr….. I know it’s surrounding the issue of food, but it’s also a hobby. This is a difficult one. Maybe I’ll just break the rules. . . . . AUGH. Of course, this would require us to actually go ahead and get an allotment. Heather and Jonathan (Heather was with me at the WEN stall, Jonathan was digging away with us on Sunday) were excited about the idea of having an allotment with us. If we could get two more people on board, I think it would be fairly easy. We’d go for a half plot (5 rods—125 sq meters) so that we weren’t too crazy.

I went to a Fair Trade Southampton meeting, sent a BUNCH of non-profit-related e-mails, and have more left to do.

I also became slightly addicted last week to apple muffins and coffee & walnut cake at The Art House. I think I was using it as a chance to spend money because it was an “experience”. That doesn’t mean I should buy cake everytime I go in there.

Mac and I have watched 2/3 of The Corporation, a documentary about corporations…. It makes the argument that they should be labelled as “psychopathic”. I think that’s a little ridiculous, and would settle for executives being held responsible for corporate actions. “Limited liability” my foot.

Yesterday I spent nearly £6 on brazil nuts and apricots in an attempt to buy “groceries” instead of snack foods. The result is that I bought a large quantity of expensive snacks that may get used in a recipe, but will more likely be used as snacks…. Or sit around for ages until they go bad and I have to throw them out.

So as for spending money, I spent:
- A couple pounds (£2? £4?) at the Go Green Fair so that I could eat lunch. (I still owe the Art House)
- Quite a bit of money over the past week at The Art House because of my cake addiction
- £3 at Hamptons (I didn’t have a drink all night)
- £6 on non-snack food snack foods.
And I think that’s it….

I hope that’s a sufficiently long summary of what I’ve been doing.

Please feel to comment about the rug (which I’d like to sell at the Art House, part of which would be donated to SCRATCH or a domestic violence refuge group), knitting cases (which I’d also like to sell at the Art House as long as they look pretty enough), the allotment, whether snack foods count as buying “something”, and how I’d make a wormery without buying something new.

Soup Night!

I know it's not against my buy nothing new rules to go out to dinner, but why bother when you can have people over for soup? Mac and I had to pare down our guestlist for the upcoming one because he doesn't think a proper host would make his guests sit on the floor. I am from the more-the-merrier camp.

Regardless, a date will be chosen for some day next week, and since we can't invite everyone this time, we'll have to have nother one real soon!

I think I'm going to have to calculate the per serving cost as an homage to the One Dollar Diet Project