SERIOUSLY ......... ENOUGH SNOW ALREADY!




The Netherland region of Twente would have been an ideal location for the 2010 Winter Olympics. We have had more snow than Vancouver. The slight flaw in my statement is the fact that the downhill ski competition would be reduced to the fastest time that a competitor could ski down the dyke of the Twente canal. (A whole Gouda cheese can achieve this feat - without ski's - in approx 15 seconds before it sploshes into the water). For the other winter sports such as ski-jumping, tobogganing and luge etc. the Dutch have some of the finest Civil Engineers in the world and could easily have built the required arena's.

All of that malarky aside ...... I need to vent. We have had snow on the ground since December and enough is enough! 

As I write this entry it is snowing ... AGAIN! The dogs are fed up and refuse to go out for walks as their feet get too cold, Cloggys chickens are fed up and have taken up residence in the garage roof - no amount of tasty morsels can persuade them to leave their roost, Cloggy is sick, Middle Baby Clog is sick, Smallest Baby Clog is sick, The Clog residence boiler was more than sick and needed replacing (costing Cloggy a pretty penny which is probably the cause of his current ailments), Oldest Baby Clog has had his first driving 'faux pas' - aka accident - in the snow (he managed to doughnut my car into the newly planted hedge at the hockey club because he applied the brakes too heavily - no damaged caused to my car but a section of the hedge will need replacing) and me? .... Well I'm just thoroughly miffed at the whole situation!

This coming Saturday I have a very renowned Ladies Hockey Team visiting us from The Hague for a test game and a team building weekend. The bitch of it all is that the hockey field at Haackey is unusable at this current time and I am reduced to praying for rain, or failing that, bribing the local fire department into illicitly spraying the field with water on Saturday morning to remove all of the snow. At least one of those plans is going to get me in to trouble with someone or another.

Yes .. OK .. I acknowledge that other parts of the world have seen worse circumstances over the last few weeks and I sincerely hope that their situations improve quickly .. I can't do anything to change this .. However, this has brought my endeavour to feed Family Clog on 50 euros for a week into a new perspective. I donated the savings in my weekly food bill to the Red Cross.

My self inflicted task of providing food for 5 Days, 5 Family Members and 50 Euros was a success. Infact, I surprised myself with the outcome but I am also kicking myself for being, previously, so frivolous and utterly crap with my household feeding budget. Not an error I will ever make again!

The end result was in fact 7 Days, 5 Family Members and 38 Euros. A saving of 142 Euros! Yes ... I did have a pantry full of basics but my success can also be contributed to careful planning and extra time spent on preparing meals from scratch using seasonal produce rather than relying on ready made food, such as lasagne, bought from the grocery store.

I dare you to try the same exercise and donate your savings to the Red Cross!
http://www.icrc.org/eng

The boys have had a tough day chasing bunnies and killing rubber chickens.

This is the beginning diary entry of how I will attempt to feed the Family Clog over the next 5 days spending only 50 Euros on provisions.
(It's never gonna work but it will be interesting to try it!)


I will admit that I have the free use of 'Augustine' and an over full pantry. But please bear in mind that our typical grocery bill for a week normally adds up to 180 Euros!

Augustine was the lovingly raised steer of Cloggy's side kick, 'Old Neighbour Dude', who was recently dispatched to greener pastures courtesy of the local abattoir. Unbeknown to me Cloggy had negotiated an 8th of his mortal remains against services rendered and these are now stuffing up my freezer. I returned home from the grocery store to find that I had no room for the pizza's, ice-cream and Jagermeister that I had purchased!

The bequest had also been given as a kind of good neighbours award which begs the question "What kind of neighbours did they have before we moved in?"  WHATEVER - Never look a gift horse in the mouth, as my Grammy might say.

 Smallest Baby Clog has now turned vegetarian on us all of a sudden!

If she craves meat after 2 days there are always Cloggy'schickens that are cluckin' around the homestead with too much of a confident strut. Just because they are rare breed doesn't mean they can't also be table fodder!

Here's a video clip, taken last summer, of the freezer content. He's a bit pissed orf because 'Old neighbour Dude' had put his water trough behind an electric fence, which still enabled him to get to drink, but stopped him from knocking his water over just for the hell of it.

I think I'll be only eating veggies as well this week!

                                                       Thursday - Coq Au Van

Failed attempt - I sacrificed a good dinner for warmth and hot water!


The Heating Engineer was very pleasant sort of chap who commended the Cloggy Residential Boiler in its efforts to provide us with heat and hot water over the last year but quickly followed up his praise with "It's completely Knackered and there's Bugger all I can do to fix it - you'd best get a new one and quickly"!

The Dinosaur is 20 years old and its fought the valiant fight but there comes a time when its better to chuck out the old and bring in the new. Cloggy is shakin in his boots not only in anticipation of the bill but also because I have known him a bloody long time too!

In 1987 the U.S. National Pork Board, began an advertising campaign to position pork as "the other white meat" due to a public perception of chicken and turkey (white meat) as more healthy than red meat.


Since then various splinter factions of the campaign have been formed proclaiming that the likes of Possums, Squirrels, Cats and Babies are the other white meat. 3 of these options are very dubious and 1 is illegal. There more suggestions available via the Google search engine but they are just silly!

                                                Tuesday - No Brainer Pork Chops and Mash

There's not much you can do to murder a pork chop so The Family Clog need not have looked so nervous as I prepared this evenings dinner.

I raided the January edition of 'Delicious' magazine for the basis of the recipe but chose to make a few changes due to the Baby Clogs palettes and cost of ingredients. I must of made the right changes as the dinner table this evening was silent apart from 'Happy Homer Simpson' type noises emanating from Middle Baby Clog - that boy sure does enjoy his food - and plates were scraped clean.

Basic Method;
Pork chops were rubbed with olive oil and seasoned and placed under a hot grill until nicely brown on both sides and served with slices of pre-prepared Garlic, Herb and Cracked Pepper Butter.

The mash was made in the normal way but I added a mixture of warm milk and cream that had been infused with fresh Thyme. To the mash I also added finely chopped raw andijvie (a kind of chicory) and red onion, better known in Swampland as Stamppot.