Introducing Gyoza

This dear readers is Gyoza, my pig. Ain't he just the cutest little piggy ever?! I took this picture into work today to replace my desk picture. I showed my colleagues and I got that look. Yeah you know the one. The one where they are thinking (and saying to be fair) that there is something wrong with me. As I raved over how cute he is I was met with comments like "you'll never be able to go through with it". This is of course referring to the slaughter, butchering and subsequent eating of Gyoza. Now unless I am able to sustain a pig in my garden (which I cannot) this little piggy will be going to slaughter. So I told them this and was once again greeted with that look and many mutterings of "oh I just couldn't". Like there is something wrong with me because I can.

Now forgive me for being mightily irritated by this. My piggy has a wonderful field to live in, a wallow to roll around in, grass under his trotters and sunshine on his back. He will only be treated with medicine if he is sick and then it will be homeopathic to start with only moving onto the hard stuff if needs be. He will be looked after by people who genuinely care about his welfare. Now if you asked people most of them would say that this is how they would like their food animals to live. So what is wrong with me knowing mine personally? What is wrong with me going once a week to visit him? What is wrong with me thinking my food is cute while alive and tasty when dead?

I have a healthy amount of respect for those for whom the thought of the animals they see in fields being food is too much and they become vegetarian. Heck, a few years ago I was vegetarian myself. I cannot abide cruelty to animals and it also had it's roots in my burgeoning Buddhism. However I the lure of the tasty meat was too much for me. At least I'm honest about it. Now I eat a lot less meat than I used to simply because I want my meat to have had the life described above. That costs more. So rather than buying 2 chickens for a fiver and not thinking about the life they have had I'd rather spend £10, know where is came from and not eat it so often.

I can apply this to a lot of things in my life now. Meat, chocolate, coffee, seasonal vegetables and fruit. I looked at the plums in the supermarket today and salivated. I adore plums. But in the UK they are a late summer/autumn produce (I have a sneaky feeling this is one of the reasons for my love of autumn). So I wait. And dammit the plums I gorge myself on in autumn will be worth the wait. I bought a yellow pepper on Sunday for a meal I was cooking with friends. Now this pepper had travelled so very very far and I felt really guilty for buying it. My guilt is tempered by the fact that these purchases are really rare but it was still there.

Right I've wandered away from the point somewhat. And I appear to have ranted at you, I'm sorry. What I was trying to say is her is Gyoza. There will hopefully be more pics as he grows up and then we will say goodbye to Gyoza the pig and hello Gyoza the meat.

Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

So we are almost half a month into the new year and big changes are afoot already. Spadger is totally fed up with his job to the point where he won't be in it for much longer. At the very least he will be demoted. In today's financial climate what could possibly make someone want to leave a fairly stable, relatively well paid job? Dissatisfaction is the simple answer. I am not exactly thrilled with my job but I've had worse so can manage for the moment. So with a very real possibility of a drop in income we need to reassess our current budget. Now when we first got together I pretty much supported us and we managed on very little money. Over the years we have gotten better off and, while we have never lived to excess, we have been able to live better and more to our principles. We are now faced with the challenge of staying with those principles without feeling like we are going without.

Enter the might entity that is menu planning. It is a concept I have come across many times in my ready of many frugal and green blogs. The general idea is to have a rotating menu set over several weeks. You can then bulk buy things and also grab stuff while it is on offer knowing that it will get used. Importantly you must remember to include all meals in this, not just the main one of the day. The rotating part is to stop you getting bored by having the same meals every week. By planning in this way we should be able to cut down what we spend on groceries by buying in bulk/seasonally, reduce the amount of packaging things have, reduce waste when we don't eat all of those impulse buys (come on who hasn't found stuff in the bottom of the fridge or the back of the cupboard that they've forgotten about because it doesn't get eaten regularly?) and hopefully eat healthier too.

My plan is to get everyone in the house to write a list of their favourite meals. I can then use this as a basis for my list. I also want to look at ways to alter these meals as well. For example replacing the meat with pulses etc. Spadgersdottier has recently decided to have another go at vegetarianism so I need a repertoire of veggie meals anyhoo. I have been vegetarian in the past but I really had no idea how to cook at the time so from a health perspective it was a disaster. I like the idea of incorporating more veggie meals into my diet again. By making our diet more vegetarian as well it means we can get even better meat because we will be buying less for more money. Both me and Spadger would prefer it if our carnivorous sides were fed with animals that actual saw sunshine!

The first thing I am going to do is sort out our freezer again. I started keeping a record of what was in it at the end of last year but it sort of petered out and once again I have no idea what is in there apart from a ton of pumpkin! I think February is when all this will start as we need to get our lists together and look at where we are gong to buy things from to get the best deals . Not to mention storage of goods too!

Is it wrong that I'm quite excited about this idea?

Turn left at the end of the road

This is the point where my Dad went wrong. He called us for directions on his way to our house and got the first one wrong by turning right. Ah well. He made it here only an hour later that he should have and no one died (that was my little brother's reflection). I agree with CJ, no one died! This is the first time he has come to my house since I've lived in Leeds and I'm on my third house here now! He has a pathological fear of driving to Leeds which is understandable. It is certainly a city easy to get lost in thanks to the one way system and many silly junctions and lane changes.

But they made it and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon with my Dad, step mum and brother. I made garlic bread, mayonnaise and crust less quiche. Spadger made coleslaw and roast potatoes. There was salad and home made sauce and chutney. Good food and good conversation. I didn't get round to pudding but we're all savory people (apart from Spadger who is starting to love the cake!) so that was ok

I have the next 3 days off work which I am certainly looking forward to. I have many Christmas presents to make. I know they should all be done by now but I am one of life's procrastinators :o) So much sewing and knitting and maybe baking over the next 3 days. Sounds pretty good to me.