Who hates cooking?

I recently read something quite interesting. It was about people always "bragging" (as that person put it) they love to cook, and how in reality it really sucks having to cook every single day, again and again. I found it interesting as I'm quite the opposite- I love cooking. I actually can relate to people not wanting to cook everyday, as my health issues sometimes make it difficult to have the same energy level everyday. I might have a few "good days" in a row, in which I do a lot of cooking, which is usually followed by lower energy days in which I'm happy when I have enough energy to reheat the previously batch cooked food, plus the few dishes needed for that. So yes, I get that people don't want to be cooking every single day. 

What I can't relate to, however, is not liking to cook. When my lower energy days are over and I feel better I can't wait to do some cooking, meal prep, or start a new "project" in my kitchen. Or bake some fresh bread- as long as it's kitchen related, I'm thriving! Even on some of the lower energy days- because I like cooking and making things from scratch, it does give me energy (well, not always, obviously). I think it would feel terrible to have to do something everyday that I really dislike. Especially in a country where there aren't a lot of convenience foods, as is the case where we live. And by convenience foods, I don't necessarily mean TV dinners and other unhealthy stuff but even frozen foods, most tinned foods, pre-made sauces etc. It made me think what I would do in such an instance. Would I just accept that cooking is part of life even if I'd hate it? Or live off of instant ramen and sandwiches? Or get daily takeaways, hiring a private chef even? Those last option is probably out of budget to most people and it would certainly make a big dent in our monthly expenses. And solely relying on sandwiches and ramen is just too unhealthy. What's left is accepting that not every part of life is always fun. 

Probably not a popular opinion, but even the dishes I don't mind, on most days anyway. And I say that as someone who doesn't even own a dishwasher. Some people might see it as bragging but that's really not my intention. I think it would be a good thing if we'd all be a bit less hedonistic. There's nothing wrong with having fun, but not every single thing has to be fun. Sometimes you just do what you have to do, today's society makes it so complicated. 

What I also don't get is people don't want to think in solutions but rather see difficulties. As I mentioned, I find it hard to cook every single day due to health issues (despite actually enjoying it). But that doesn't mean we can't make things easier for ourselves... Why not do meal prep, so you have one day of work and the other days it's simply re-heating or at least be ready faster? Why not just have simple meals? As long as we get our nutrients, meals don't always have to be complicated. Apparently, some people do meal prep for weeks or even a whole month. While that wouldn't work for us (I'd need an extra freezer, lol) it's definitely food for thought and a good idea for those that despise cooking. One day of work, 29 days being free of cooking, sort of of.  It's easy to just nag and see things negatively.  And although disliking certain tasks might be natural, a bit of an attitude change, as well as some practical preparation, go a long way. 

Tunisian kesra bread

I believe that everyone should be able to make homemade bread. Not necessarily difficult artisan bakery style bread; just a simple recipe will do. Baking bread, in my opinion, is an essential life skill or at least something that can come in very handy.

Today I'm sharing my kesra recipe. Kesra is a Tunisian bread that's made on the hob and very delicious. It's also known by other names in some countries, such as tachnift or batbout in Morocco. 

I learned how to make it many years ago from my mother in law and my sister in law, and tweaked it a little bit to suit our taste, but other than that it's the same as theirs. And my mother in law, on her turn, also learned it from her mother- so I'm proudly sharing a real family recipe here! 

For 6 medium sized round breads, you'll need: 

9 cups of fine semolina flour 

2 heaped spoons of instant yeast 

2 teaspoons of salt, or more depending on your quality of salt 

5 cups of warm water (could be more depending on the quality of the flour) 

Oil to grease your bowl 

Some seeds, such as sesame or nigella seeds (optional) 

Start by mixing the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the water until you're able to make a dough that isn't sticky. 

Knead for 10 minutes. Ideally more, but I've found 10 minutes of kneading to be sufficient. 

It should look like this: 

Then devide it into 6 equal pieces. I don't have a dough scraper or other special equipment, so I just use a good old knife. 

Then I formed nice round balls from the dough, rubbed it with a bit of oil and devided it in two bowls: 

I covered both bowls with big round trays, as I try to avoid disposable plastic as much as possible, but you could also use plastic wrap. Or don't grease it and cover with a clean dish towel. Now let it sit and rise until it's at least doubled in size. The bigger the better, so don't do this when you're in a rush! Since my kitchen is very warm during the summer, it didn't take long. 

It's good when it looks like this: 

(Now compare it to the picture with the two small balls of dough in it...) 

Get the dough out, punch the air out and make two balls again. Now heat your pan on the hob. I have two cast iron pans that are purposely used for baking breads, but you can use a "regular" cast iron pan or just a regular frying pan. Just whatever you have will probably work, although I would recommend cast iron (some people here even bake their kesra in clay pans, especially in the villages)

Make sure there's enough room on your counter and that it's clean. 

I always thoroughly clean my counter after making dough 🙂

If your pan is ready (it shouldn't be really really hot!), you can start to form your bread. Just gently push it down in a rotating way so you end up with a nice round bread. Prick a few times in the dough with a fork.

Now you can transfer it into the pan. I usually fold my bread and then when it's the pan immediately turn back the piece of dough that was folded over, to make picking up the dough a bit easier. 

When it's starting to bubble, it's probably time to turn around the bread. I used a spatula for this.

Then bake the other side as well. 

Then, and this is optional, when the other side has browned enough, it's time to bake the sides. Some people prefer the sides to be more on the dough side but we like them a bit more cooked. 

It's a bit of a blurry picture lol. This was the best picture I could take with using just one hand. Just turn the bread little by little until the whole side has a nice golden brown colour too. 

Now bake all your breads like this. I use two pans at the same time so it's a bit faster, but one pan definitely works fine too. Pile them up on a tray/plate with some towels (I use old t-shirts) and try to let them cool off completely...which is probably the most difficult part! 

Tightwad tip: the broom

It might surprise a lot of people, but I rarely ever vacuum the floors. And it's not that my house is dirty- quite the contrary. You see, I suffer from tinnitus and hyperacusis, which means I'm very sensitive to a lot of sounds. The vacuum cleaner happens to be one of those sounds that I really can't stand. I used to use it for my floors but then just decided to do what everyone else is doing around these parts, which is to use a broom. 

Honestly, using a broom is just so much easier! Our vacuum is quite big. It's a Numatic, the "old fashioned" type of vacuum, so no robotic quality involved, nor is it a stick vacuum cleaner type of model that's rechargeable (which, in my opinion, must be quite annoying). In fact, it's that big that it was hard to find a place where it could sit without bothering us and out of sight. We eventually found a place behind our sofa, and the handle is laying under one of our wardrobes. Every so often it's being used to clean the sofa and that's all. Usually my husband does that when I'm not there as to not get overstimulated by the sound. Like all houses here, we have tile floors, which are easy to maintain and easy to sweep. Owning a vacuum cleaner isn't something very common here- most people just do it the old fashioned way by using a broom and mop. And perhaps in addition to that, a manual carpet cleaner. Some people even borrow their neighbours/relatives' vacuum for those few times year you need one. Most car washes offer services to clean/vacuum cars, so that's not really a reason to own one. 

Using a broom regularly instead of a vacuum cleaner saves me money, by paying less for utilities, plus not having to replace the vacuum itself in just a few years. It also keeps me fit, as vacuuming isn't as labour intensive as using the broom is; I'm using more muscles when sweeping. I know, I know, I'll probably get the "what about allergies"- kind of question. The interesting thing is- I used to have dust mite allergy, but it seems like dust doesn't affect me like it used to when I always vacuumed. Also interesting: my mopping water isn't more dirty compared to when I still used the vacuum. 

Our very handy carpet cleaner

A broom definitely takes up less space! 

Finally, I can boil eggs

It's funny how sometimes the seemingly easiest things can be a challenge. This is true in the kitchen as well! I don't consider myself a masterchef, but I definitely know how to cook. Not every dish that exists in the world, obviously, and not a lot of dishes from cuisines I'm not familiar with, but I can cook. And I do cook some more elaborate foods, too. 

But it's the easiest things that I sometimes struggle with to make right. For the longest time I struggled to make a perfect boiled egg. I prefer medium soft boiled eggs, and so does my family. Not too liquid, but certainly not too hard either. Somehow that just seemed impossible to make. It was always either towards the hard boiled side, or too soft! Quite frustrating. We do like to eat boiled eggs a lot: as a snack, with sandwiches, or as a side with our meals. And i knew it had to be possible to make a perfectly boiled egg thar suits our preferences, so I wad determined to keep trying until I had perfected it. I know there are many techniques nowadays and people use egg boilers, air fryers, or instant pots. With most things, I prefer the mild fashioned way- I don't like single purpose items/appliances. And I don't have an instant pot anyway. I'd sti like to try the air fryer one day, just for fun. But with most cooking, I prefer to stick to regular cooking pots.

I looked up a lot of tips and tricks on boiling eggs, all claiming to be THE best tip, but neither of them really worked so I figured it had to be my own way! And I finally did find the way to boil a perfect half soft boiled egg. 

I put 5 to 6 eggs in a pot with a lid, cold water, eggs directly from the fridge. Then wait till it starts to boil and time it: I boil it exactly for two minutes. If it's very small eggs, the boiling time should be decreased. Then take out all the eggs and put them together in a soup bowl- this step us important because the eggs all have a lot of residue heat, and will continue to "cook" a bit when in the boil. I leave the eggs like this for at least an hour, but usually just until we eat it- if we want eggs for lunch, I boil them early in the morning. It takes some time to cool down, even after one hour they're quite hot so I find that the easiest way. With this technique, it's important to use at least four eggs in one go, or it won't really work (yup, tried but failed!). Anyway, I'm happy to be able to boil eggs to perfection finally! 

Our canceled vacation

When summing up my recent frugal activities, I mentioned the biggest money saving thing of all, which wasn't a very conscious frugal thing technically, but still saved us quite a lot. We were supposed to go on a short vacation, just like we did last year, but was canceled due to different unforeseen circumstances- floods in the area where we wanted to go, among other reasons. Fortunately, we never book anything beforehand, so that wasn't an issue. To be honest, I don't mind it at all- I'm a homebody, I love being at home, relaxing, peace and quietness, and just doing everyday things. And I have a hard time with change. By the time I've adjusted to the new temporary environment, it's usually time to head back home... Which is another adjustment to deal with again! That doesn't mean I don't enjoy vacations at all, it's just that I don't really miss it. It's that the children like to go on holiday, but I wouldn't necessarily do it for myself. 

But here's the interesting part. While vacationing can be done for many reasons, people usually go on vacation to recharge themselves kind of, escaping their busy and complicated lifestyles so they can manage somewhat and wontburn out. They literally need a break and feel the need to escape for a while. It's interesting how vacations were almost nonexistent around 100 years ago, despite the lower standards of living generally. As people gained more wealth, so did vacationing become more common. This is a bit ironic to me- you'd think that with a hard, poverty stricken life, you'd need to escape every so often more than anything. But apparently, the wealthier kind of lifestyles, despite all the comfort, are quite tiring as well. More stuff usually means more worries. Not just more stuff- more appointments, more everything... I would be stressed out too. 

We, on the other hand, made a conscious decision to have a slower, more simple life, which is also probably why it's not really a big deal that we didn't do a holiday trip this summer. It's almost like our life is a holiday in and of itself- well, not completely, but by just doing what makes us happy, not worrying too much over small things or people's opinions and being in a beautiful environment. I once read a quote saying "I want a life that you don't need to escape from with a vacation" (or something similar). And that was really relatable! Not only do I want that, I also feel like we're living such a lifestyle already- or are very close to anyhow. The children said that they too didn't really mind their vacation being canceled, which probably has to do with peer pressure (or the lack thereof). Not many of their classmates would actually go on a vacation anyway. Those that do, most probably wouldn't even go abroad, but instead go to this country's coastal region (which is a few hours driving from where we live). I'm glad that there isn't very much pressure here to have the newest stuff, farest vacation and biggest car. That really does put so much pressure on kids, as well as on their parents. I personally find it odd that there can be pressure on parents to take children on a vacation because otherwise they must be poor, neglected and have a miserable childhood, even though vacationing isn't something people have always done, but is rather a modern phenomenon. I'm glad that pressure (and even worse: bullying) is nonexistent here, and I feel sorry for parents that take their kids on vacations just so their kids don't get bullied, especially for people whose finances are tight and that money could have been spent in better ways. 

I think it all comes down to mindset. If vacations are essential to you it must be quite miserable not to be able to pay for one. If you don't value it that much, it's a whole different story. I think people should reeducate themselves about keeping themselves and the kids entertained at home and to enjoy the small pleasures of a simple way of life. I'm not saying people can't go on a trip if that's what they like, but just a suggestion as to what's possible if going on a trip is too expensive, or impossible for whatever reasons. 

So anyways, our vacation plans being canceled wasn't a big deal to us. And it saved us a lot of money! Either way, we all did enjoy our three month long summer break. 

Recent frugal activities

I've been quite busy lately, which is obvious when you look at the blog. There's just so much to do that blogging is put on the back burner! I think August is one of the busiest times of the year in terms of cooking/ food preparation. And we don't even have a garden (we do grow a few things here and there, but just don't consider it as a "real" garden- as in, a garden which is sufficient to sustain us with most of our homegrown vegetables for the rest of the year). But, even if you buy your produce at the store or at the market, there's a lot of things to be busy with, I guess. 

Here's some things I did lately: 

Since we were almost drowning in tomatoes (no exaggerating- since they're so cheap right now, we bought a lot and also got a lot from neighbours), I made tomato sauce which I canned. And also made slata mechouia (a Tunisian dip/sauce similar to salsa), which I also canned. 

Made broth with chicken scraps, and since there was still some more broth in the freezer, I thawed that broth and let that evaporated until about half of the original quantity was left over, I then poured this into smaller containers (3/4 cup in each container), and froze it for later use. 

Froze aquafaba (chickpea cooking brine) for later use 

Had a lot of leftovers from the freezer, both because I needed that freezer space but also because I didn't want those foods to get too old and getting wasted 

Tried to use up as much nearly-spoiled produce as possible- especially sad looking hot peppers. They were a bit wrinkly, but perfectly edible. 

Did a lot from scratch cooking including baking bread. Not sure if that counts because that's just a usual practice for me. 

Thrifted some clothes for me and my oldest daughter. 

My husband mended some of our clothes. 

Repaired a few things in and around the house. 

Didn't run the AC for many days as the weather is changing a bit. It's still warm, but bearable. On some days we didn't even need a fan. 

And tthe most cost saving thing: we postponed our holiday plans, due to a few unforeseen circumstances. Possibly we'll skip going on vacation altogether this year. Despite it not being because of wanting to be frugal, it sure is a frugal thing not to go on vacation (fortunately, we never book anything beforehand so that wasn't an issue). 

Probably did a few more things that I can't recall because frugality is just daily life for me. But these are the things I could immediately think of. All in all, considering I'm so busy lately I'm pleased with these accomplishments.

Nose to tail

On monday, DH and I decided to do some shopping at the souk, the north African equivalent of a wet market. I love going there every so often. Everything is divided by category- vegetables, fish, etc. There's also a large meat section. We wanted to see what the butchers sold that day- as they don't always sell the same meats everyday. We were all craving an organ meat dish, which I'll go to in a minute. I also wanted to see if they had some fat to render. 

Coming from Europe, it's quite interesting how it all works here when it comes to meat. First off, meat is very expensive here, hence, it's not something that's eaten a lot. Most people here won't eat meat on a daily basis, especially red meat. And we are no exception to that. Since meat is so expensive, people are in general not very picky, so they won't just eat only certain cuts of meat. They don't shy away from eating the "weird" parts - or which is considered weird in western societies, anyhow. Everything of the animal is appreciated equally, it seems. Since I was raised as a vegetarian, I think this is why it's not that big of a deal to me. I wasn't used to eating only chicken breasts and mince, like many Europeans, rather all meat was foreign to me anyway. So when I did start to eat meat, because of that, I didn't differentiate between a chicken breast and sheep lungs. It's not to say that people here eat the "weird" parts just because it's more economical. In fact, some parts are truly considered a delicacy. 

I wanted to make douara (a stew with offal meat), something which we realized we didn't have in a long time and is one of our favourite dishes. There is absolutely no reason to look down upon organ meat; organ meats are super nutritious, and delicious. If the picky eaters would only get over their initial hesitation! The fun thing is, that even if it's not insanely cheap, the "regular" meat is 5 times as expensive, or 3 times as expensive when it comes to very old meat that requires a long cooking time. It's interesting that organ meat is becoming more and more popular in certain circles, especially those that focus on eating a nourishing tradition kind of diet, also known as ancestral diets. 

Honouring the whole animal and being appreciative for the nutrients that all of the animal has to offer, is also known as 'nose to tail eating'. Where we live, one can take that quite literally! When we walked by some of the butchers (there are a lot to choose from) there were several butchers selling heads: goat, sheep and cow's heads. I was amazed by how massive that cows head was though! I must probably be integrated quite well, because I don't have a problem seeing this. I do eat meat, so I have no problem to see that it actually came from an real animal. I would have a problem eating meat from a factory, but I know these animals were raised at the countryside, which is probably also why they're expensive. 

Hopefully I'll be posting my douara recipe soon. 

My way of grocery shopping

Isn't it a bit ironic that supermarkets have been around only for the past hundred years -in most countries even less than that-, yet, if you tell people that you rarely go to a supermarket, they wonder how on earth you are able to get your groceries? I can understand that, but it's also a bit concerning to me, honestly, that the old ways are slowly fading away. My other problem is that the food system we're relying on is so broken and not trustworthy at all. All it takes for empty supermarket shelves is a a transportation strike, storm or disaster of some sort. Or even personal financial crises, as a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck, or have little savings that leave no room for big emergency expenses. This is why I'll always be advocating to have at least a reasonable stockpile at home. Perhaps it's due to my anxious personality, but I'm amazed at some people's attitudes who consider the supermarket shelves as their pantry, people who go to stores everyday to buy their foods for just that particular day, etc. With all this in mind, we aim to be more self sufficient. We've certainly not arrived, but we're trying to do our best to be at least a bit less relying on the bigger food chain system. The less links in the chain, the better. This is also why I don't like supermarkets: if you can buy your potatoes from the farmer, why would you pay for someone transporting those potatoes to the supermarket? I can't say we buy all our goods directly from farmers, but at least we buy it from our local market where many vendors sell their fresh produce. It's fresher than you'd ever find at our supermarket here, not to mention way more affordable! Just for comparison: at the supermarket, courgettes were 3 times the price of what you'd pay at the market. 

So where do we get our groceries? Like I mentioned, our produce is bought at the market. We have a big weekly produce market and are fortunate that this happens to be near our house. But there's also a less big market at walking distance which is opened daily. If I don't bake bread myself, we get our bread from the bakery. There are two bakeries in our neighbourhood that sell only baguettes and round breads, so if we crave something different I have to bake it myself. As for meat and fish, we go to the butcher/fish sellers. Our grains, legumes, spices and things like that we buy at refill shops. These shops aren't comparable with the trendy "zero waste style shops" in Europe; it's more simple. There's just baskets with all their goods with a price tag attached on the baskets and you then tell the vendor what and how much you want. I really like the simplicity of these kind of shops. It's probably due to this simplicity that it's cheaper than buying at the supermarket. While we try to limit our use of processed/packaged foods, we still do buy some, which we usually do at the smaller corner shops. This includes certain cleaning supplies/detergents. There's so many of these kind of shops in every neighbourhood! In fact, we have one right in front of our house. 

Some people will argue that this way of doing your shopping might take a lot of time. Which can be true, but I think that's one of the nice things where we live; people tend to be not hasty or lacking in time. They just don't panic about time so much. We, too, try to apply simple and un-hurried living, which is such a relief when you were used to always have too hurry up, so I don't really care if something might take a bit longer. That being said, in our neighbourhood we have quite a few shops. In our street, for example, there are: 3 corner shops, one bakery, one butcher, one greengrocer, two small hardware stores, and one refill shop. So many of our groceries can be done just on the go, and when we need to go to another shop that's farther away from our house we usually go there when we're in the area anyway. I think another reason why I don't think this way of shopping isn't hard is because everyone is doing this here. It's just their normal. 

Do we never go to supermarkets? We do, but not very often. In fact, a few weeks ago was the first time this year I went to a supermarket- the visit previous before that was in August when we were on a short vacation. There's a few things we buy at supermarkets as we can't find them at the corner stores, so like many people here, we leave the supermarket with just a few items (I have NEVER seen someone with a full shopping cart!). And does my system of shopping "protect" our family from the flaws of the food system? Probably not really, but I think there's a lot of benefits for us in the way we shop: we're supporting small businesses, saving a lot of money, have interaction with the shopkeepers instead of being an "anonymous" shopper, we are environmentally friendlier when buying package free. And I think, perhaps best of all, are really getting the north African experience of doing our groceries, which I personally find so valuable. People here have so much feeling for their food and value it so much, whereas in my own background eating is something just done quickly out of necessity really. They put so much time, effort and love in eating and cooking which is something I absolutely admire. 

Learning frugality from other cultures

For most of my life I've been living quite frugally; my father is very very frugal, and so was his father. And I've defenitely inherited his frugal genes. There was a time when our finances were so tight that basic necessities had to be reconsidered and budgeted for. We did a lot of very frugal stuff such as not driving a car, eating mostly legumes as our main protein source, reusing food packaging, and buying second hand clothing. Growing up in a western country, all these things were considered very frugal or even cheap, or I dare say even poverty... Because for some reason, poverty in most western countries is considered something bad, something which you should be ashamed of- almost like it's omething sinful. Even though in most cases, and certainly ours, it was something we couldn't do anything about. We didn't buy a dozen of TVs on credit nor did we have a shelter full of cats, nor were we addicted to any substance- those are the most common prejudices about poor people, I guess. 

So sometimes we were proudly being frugal whereas other times we really tried to hide it a bit, because that's just how the society was. I honestly don't like hiding who I am. But having been bullied throughout all my school years, even in college by teachers, this really shaped me as a person, and I always tried being careful not to be the "weird" one. It took many years to heal and somewhat unlearn that and to be proud of who I was- with all my "weird", yet so valuable habits. I still carry bits of my past and I think being careful will never completely go away, but I can honestly say that I've made big improvements. The thing is, with people becoming more environmentally conscious these days, it's a bit less of a shame if you're not wasteful and you're not always considered "the stingy one" anymore, which is nice. Because of this you can just disguise your frugal practices as being environmentally friendly- even though both are usually important to most frugal people. But somehow being frugal is a bad thing, whereas being eco conscious isn't. People can be weird sometimes. 😃

It was such a relief for us when we moved to a country where not only being frugal wasn't something that was frowned upon; rather, it's the norm for most people! The "very frugal things" we did I mentioned earlier in this post, are actually quite normal things where we live. Yes, most people here don't eat meat daily, and certainly not red meat. Nor do they have more than one car - even middle class, two adults working kind of families. Even having no car isn't a big deal here. Yes, nearly everyone buys second hand clothing because new clothes means Chinese crap and there aren't fashion chains such as H&M or Zara in our area, so second hand clothing isn't necessarily something people do to save money, it's just the best choice you can make quality wise. Also it's totally accepted to haggle, especially with large expenses. Now you can't try this in the supermarket (well you can try, but with no result), but in a lot of other shops, at the market, and for services you're hiring someone, it's totally normal to haggle. This is honestly something you really need to learn. There's a lot of other things that are more acceptable societally here when it comes to frugality, and I could go on and on I guess, but my point is that you can really learn from other cultures. It just fascinates me how one thing is something shameful in one culture, yet in a different culture, it's the norm. And of course people here don't live perfectly zero waste, but at least I can really appreciate the more simple approach to materialistic aspects. 

What's also interesting is that they can learn a thing or two from the frugal ways I brought with me from my own country and upbringing. It's honestly not as much as I learned from them, but a typical simple Dutch practice they were not familiar with, for example, was to have just a sandwich as lunch instead of a cooked meal. This isn't something we do a lot because I like hot meals way more than I do cold sandwiches, but it was for sure a thing especially children enjoy. And probably the parents too, as it saves them time and money.