Monday, March 2, 2009

"Forced" Homemaking in the City

One of my readers was so kind to share her current situation on the last post titled "Jobs, jobs, jobs", and I am sure that her experience is shared by many women recently: She lost her job and is home all day now, the children are grown up already, and living in the city her means of growing a garden are very limited too. It is a terrible situation to be in, very frustrating, and I guess the temptation to just sit in front of the TV all day just to kill time and don't think about how bad things are is big. But of course this will make things worse. So what can you do if you are thrown into a situation like this, with less money than you are used to to boot ?

For a start, you can always start buying less convenience food and more raw ingredients, and start cooking and baking from scratch. If you bake your own bread, for example, you will save a lot of money and also eat healthier as the bread you bake lacks artificial ingredients, flavor enhancers and other unnecessary stuff.

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD RECIPE

To bake two nice loaves of whole wheat bread you only need

6 cups flour,
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup of lukewarm water, and another 2 1/4 cups of lukewarm water
2.5 tsp of salt,
and time to knead and bake. Whole wheat needs to be kneaded for 20-30 minutes if you do not wish to bake a door stop ;)

Dissolve the yeast in half a cup of water, then add flour, stir, add salt, stir, add the remaining water, stir. When the ingredients are mixed, start kneading, not to forceful at first, just gently, and once the dough begins to be elastic, you can knead more vigorously.
Adjust the consistency of the dough: If after about 10 minutes of kneading the dough is not springy but still somewhat juicy, add a little more flour. If it gets too dry and somewhat hard, add a little more water - it will probably be enough to make your hands wet and continue kneading.

After about 10 minutes, give your dough time to rise. Place it in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and give it about 2 hours to rise for the first time. When the dough is doubled, punch it down and let it rise another hour.

Then form your two loaves, put them on a greased baking sheet, cover them and let them sit again while the oven preheats. Bake your bread at 350F for about an hour. It is done when
- it is golden brown
- makes a hollow sound if you pick it up from the baking sheet and tap the bottom sharply with your knuckles or fingertips

Other than baking your own bread, you can make your own stock for soups:

SOUP STOCK RECIPE

Simply save vegetable trimmings from onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, squash, spinach, parsley, potatoes, etc. Cover trimmings with water, bring to a boil them in plenty of water and then simmer gently for about half an hour, until the vegetables are very soft. Drain, discard the vegetables, and freeze the stock you just produced. You can use it for and kind of soup you wish to make. Do NOT use pepper innards, artichoke trimmings, tomato trimmings, or any trimmings from any member of the brassica family (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc), they will make stock bitter.

And one last idea:

PASTA FROM SCRATCH

3 eggs
1 tsp salt
herbs to taste
2 cups of flour
flour for the kneading board (no need to skimp on flour when making pasta)

Crack eggs in a bowl, add salt and any herbs you like (basil, for example, does well, or even pepper), and beat the eggs. Then add flour and knead dough quickly. Let sit for a few moments, the roll dough out on a floured surface, turn dough often while rolling it out. When the dough is thin enough to your taste, cut in pieces and let the pasta dry. Store in fridge or freezer.

Baking and cooking from scratch will save you money, give you meaningful, important work to do at home, and you will find that it is a satisfying experience to eat better with less costs. Your family's health will benefit, too, let's not forget that.

These are just a few examples... You could also start sewing your own clothing, knitting sweaters, growing a kitchen garden and planting potatoes in a bucket on the balcony, make your own soap, or any number of other activities in the home that improve your life and give you meaningful work to do at the same time.

If you have more ideas, dear reader, please add them.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for that post. I've actually been needing to find a wheat bread recipe for my dad (he's a diabetic and white bread is so bad for him).

    I also need to find my seeds. I'm going to try a pot garden again this year (last years didn't work at all)

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  2. Hi Trina,

    Glad to be of assistance :)

    When we were still in the city, we only had limited success with our pot garden too... Onions actually did well, and we had a few tomatoes and peppers then, all in one basin so the tomatoes stunted the peppers. But it was better than nothing ! We did not grow the tomatoes and peppers from seed then, however.

    Anyway, good luck this year then, and if there is anything else you have been needing to find, let me know.

    Grace and Peace,
    Talitha

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  3. Talitha,

    I had to laugh about the kneading of the dough so as not to make a doorstop, I know exactly of what you speak, for me, I bake challah bread every week for our home Sabbath service, I find that when I am pressed for time, the bread really does resemble a wonderful door stop. I really enjoy making bread and many people have said it is a specialty.

    Kara

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  4. Hi Kara,

    Sounds yummy, I never heard of challah... Maybe you can post the recipe on here as a comment ?

    I got the "door stop" terminology from "Laurel's Kitchen", a cookbook I would encourage anyone to buy who is interested in wholesome nutrition and who has only little experience in cooking and baking in general. Not that I think you need it, I just wanted to give proper credit to those who came up with the label "door stop" - It is indeed a rather fitting label ;)

    Grace and Peace,
    Talitha

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  5. Sure I'd be happy to post the recepie here:

    Challah Bread:

    2 Tbsp white sugar
    1 Tbsp Yeast
    3/4 C. Warm water
    Mix those together set in warm place for 10 minutes.
    Meanwhile mix in large bowl:
    3 C. Flour
    1 tsp Salt
    1/2 C Sugar
    Pour yeast mixture into flour mixture and stir well. Then mix:
    1/4 C Milk
    1 egg beaten
    1 Tbsp Olive Oil
    You may want to add a mashed banana to this liquid mix. We love the flavor of the banana in the bread. Then mix with Flour mixture and yeast.
    Turn dough onto floured surface and knead well. Place in bowl that is oiled and turn over so top is also oiled. Place in warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
    Grease two round loaf pans. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead well and divide into two loaves, place in pans and set in warm place for about 40 minutes more to raise. Brush risen loaves with vanilla glaze: see recepie below and bake in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, cover tops of loaves with tin foil to keep from browning to much and bake an additional 10-15 minutes, bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped.
    Vanilla glaze:
    1 egg beaten
    1 tsp vanilla
    1 1/2 tsp sugar
    mix well and brush over tops of loaves before baking.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Kara,

    Thanks a lot ! I will certainly bake it, it does sound yummy :)

    Grace and Peace,
    Talitha

    ReplyDelete