Vanilla sugar

One thing us frugal people are really good at, is making things stretch and dilluting. And I don't mean just adding some water to a nearly empty washing up liquid bottle, but even the less obvious things that necessitate a bit more of thinking outside the box. Yesterday I was "making vanilla sugar" as my youngest daughter called it - essentially, it was just "dilluting" vanilla sugar with regular sugar, with a 1:1 ratio. And then it has to sit for some time in a closed jar, preferably at least two weeks, in order to get as strong as undiluted vanilla sugar. 

Why do I bother to do that? Well, vanilla sugar is quite expensive here- it's literally ten times the price of regular sugar. You don't really notice it when you buy a small package, but eventually small costs add up. That's why I usually look at the price per KG (they don't always display the price per KG here, so I just calculate it myself). It truly makes a big difference. There's also the issue of packaging. Vanilla sugar comes in tiny sachets of 8 gram each, and is being sold per 5 sachets which is packed again in plastic. Eek! I really don't like all that plastic. In fact, I hate it. So when I can avoid wasting a bit less disposable plastic, I'm happy to do so. And of course, vanilla sugar isn't that healthy, I'm totally aware of that. Now I'm not even talking about the sugar (which is obvious), but the chemicals as well. I'd love to switch to real vanilla beans, which I used in the Netherlands but can't find here. Even if it were available it would probably be way too expensive. And vanilla extract is a no no for us because it's alcoholic. So, until I find a better solution, vanilla sugar it is. And I use quite a lot in my baking. So I guess for all the aforementioned reasons, diluting my vanilla sugar with plain white sugar is the next best thing to do- less chemicals, less money and less plastic waste. 

Some of my recent failures

I know, I know, this is not the most uplifting title out there. But that's exactly the point- I don't think we should always only share our nice accomplishments. I know there are people who try to hide their failures so that their image isn't being tarnished. Especially if they have many followers or make money by "influencing" others. I want to stay authentic and if that's by being honest with my readers about things that didn't work out as well, I'm happy to do so. 

• Homemade laundry detergent: I loved making this relatively easy detergent as it's very frugal and environmentally friendly. However, unfortunately it didn't get my oldest daughter's shirts clean. She's a teenager, what else do I need to say? So I switched back to powdered detergent. 

• Fabric softener: I had never used fabric softener since owning our current washer, and always used vinegar. I found that even the powdered detergent didn't get my daughters clothes as clean as I liked, so despite it quite being against my values, I bought my very first bottle of fabric softener. 

• Disposables: unfortunately I have been using disposable items a bit too much lately. It's quite convenient when it saves on doing dishes and you're insanely tired. No, not disposable plates or pans, but still a bit too much paper towels and sandwich bags. This is really something I should be improving. 

• Did an unsuccessful attempt to make my own shampoo. 

• Wasted a bit too much of leftover foods- a few containers of food totally got overlooked in the fridge. Oops! This is me reminding myself to always store leftovers in transparent jars/containers. 

• Had to replace my kitchen scales' battery, although it was not replaced a long time ago. I guess that's one of the cons of living in a place where generally bad quality is being sold. 

These are the things that came across my mind immediately. There are probably a lot more, but it's just some insight in how my "perfectly" waste free live isn't that waste free at all. 

Living low waste: reality check

If you're looking around on the blogosphere and even more so on social media, living low waste can look like a dream life. Nice beautiful garden, beautiful shelves with streamlined glass jars in which shelf stable, package free bought foods are stored, not to mention the perfect white empty uncluttered kitchens. I can go on but you probably get what image I'm talking about. That might be true for some people, and I'm not saying there's something wrong with very nice looking kitchens and gardens. However, my problem with this image being created is that's not the reality for most environmentally conscious people. Showing these kind of picture perfect lives will trick people into thinking that they're not ready yet to live more green and frugal because they're not yet living in the perfect house or without the perfect monthly salary. I think quite a few of our low waste practices are very un-aesthetic. Reused glass jars (and not all looking the same...), reused tins with some reused "disposable" straws and ice cream stick, reused plastic bread bags to store homemade bread in the freezer, so many repaired objects. And much more. 

My 2nd problem is that people rarely talk about the work that goes into such a lifestyle. This morning I was emptying a 10 KG sack of laundry detergent into smaller containers - one regular container with a lid and the others were cleaned, empty washing up liquid jugs (of 5 litres each, I filled two to the rims and the 3rd for about half). I kind of underestimated how long that took and had to clean up the kitchen afterwards. Yes, of course I used a funnel but still this can get quite messy. We still bother to buy those sacks because the cost per load of laundry is about half the price compared to when we buy smaller bags. I also find it important to use as minimal package materials as possible- there's a difference between 20 smaller bags or one big bag. The bigger bag we can just use as a trash bag, whereas with the smaller bags, I haven't found any other way to reuse. And I was just thinking about how (most) other people go to the store and just buy a bottle of detergent and they're good to go. 

Anyway, this got me thinking about how much physical work goes actually in such a lifestyle. One might think 'well it's just a sack of 10 KG powdered detergent which will probably last a year or so'. Which is true, but then again it's not just this detergent- it's a lot more. Conserving as much water as possible, something we're very big at, already is a chore in and of itself- I usually reuse the rinsing water of our dishes to flush the toilet, and I reuse the water of washing vegetables to water our tree and plants. Doing household chores my way is probably quite different from how a lot of  people do it. I don't necessarily say that others do it wrong, I just like to do these things as energy efficient as possible. For example, we don't have a dryer (absolutely unnecessary in the dry climate that we live in where you can even line dry outside during the winter), so I hang up all our laundry. That includes a lot of reusables for which other people would use disposables. I can honestly admit that I don't like hanging up so many cleaning wipes/unpaper towels. But then again I just can NOT use disposables. So despite the work it still gives me a lot of joy and contentment. Cleaning the floors is also something that most people will take for granted with appliances. I don't vacuum, but not for frugality or environmental reasons. I just can't stand the sound. So our floor gets cleaned the old fashioned way, which is a lot more time consuming. (FYI, we do have a vacuum which my husband uses every so often to clean the sofas and the car - as long as I can't hear it, that is 😆). I must say that with housework being more laborious, the benefit is obviously that you're getting a workout for free. And as silly as it might  seem, your brains get a workout too! There have been various studies about physical labour being good for your brains (don't ask me about the specific details though), so all in all that's a win win situation I'd say!

The most work, however, probably goes into making our food. I don't make ALL of our food, and I honestly think that's rather an unattainable goal in this era. But we try to do our best. I have to make sure we don't run out of homemade bread, buttermilk, peanut butter - some of the staples in our house. And then I cook homemade meals, ferment, make desserts from scratch, store bulk bought and packaging free foods, rotate our stockpile, make condiments, make a year supply of garlic paste, jam etc. So this probably takes up a large amount of my time. Which is ok- this is, and always has been, a conscious decision. But, I think it must be said that this type of lifestyle just can be time consuming, which is something not everyone is anticipating. 

Sometimes people just need to be aware of the real life aspects of certain lifestyles, not just dreaming about picture perfect situations. It's not my intent to complain at all. As long as it's a conscious decision, I think we should accept the nicer and less nice parts of our lives. 

Heating turned off

I think there hasn't gone by a year in which I used the heater more than this past winter, despite the relatively warm temperatures we've had. It's probably got to do with certain health issues I'm facing. Still a bit disappointing, even when I know the cause. This year certainly was not cheap when it came to utilities! Fortunately we are able to pay it, unlike so many less privileged people, which I'm very grateful for. But, both the cheapskate and environmentalist in me certainly do not like it. 

But for the past two weeks, with spring being a bit early this year, we've had the heater completely off. Not even just little warming up the house for half an hour or so. We don't have a thermostat, but there's a thermometer on my kitchen scale (which I know is reliable) that indicated around 20° (C). I must add that the kitchen is usually 2 degrees cooler than the rest of the house - and hotter during the summer. So it's around 22° now in our living room (and despite that I'm still wearing a thick jumper) which is quite nice. 

I really hope the heater stays off until next winter. And I'll challenge myself to not put on the heater even if there come a few more chilly days. 

Homemade "soy" sauce

Being a from scratch cook, I'm always up to challenges to make food more frugally and using substitute ingredients that otherwise aren't available where we live. Here in Tunisia they aren't big on Asian foods - there's no such thing as an "world food aisle", or however you want to call it, in the supermarkets here, like we were used to in the Netherland. Maybe this is different in the capital city, but certainly not around these parts. And to be honest, having adapted to the local cuisine I don't really miss Asian foods either, as the local cuisine is just as delicious. Epecially after minimising the variety in dishes I cook, there's not a big need for most "foreign" ingredients. However, there are some dishes I use soy sauce for, and soy sauce isn't a thing that's available here. Recently, I saw a web shop that sold soy sauce for an absolutely ridiculous price, and I wasn't tempted to order it. Especially since I make my own, much cheaper, alternative! After moving here I initially just made do without, but then I found some recipes online and adjusted some things here and there until I perfected my own "soy" sauce recipe! 

For one batch* you'll need: 

4 heaped spoons of plain white rice, the cheapest you can find                                    

Half a spoon of fenugreek seeds                 

One spoon of cocoa powder                              

3 cardamom pods        

Some black peppercorns and cloves (not really counted them, not too much, probably about 4 cloves and 10 black peppercorns)

A teaspoon of ground ginger

A teaspoon of black tea 

3 tablespoons of sugar 

4 vegetable or mushroom bullion cubes (I use vegetable as mushroom cubes aren't available here, but I guess mushroom would enhance the flavour quite a bit. But vegetable bullion cubes are OK too) 

Half a teaspoon of salt, or a bit less, since the cubes are already quite salty 

2 spoons of vinegar 

3 cups of water

Boil the rice in the water. Now I usually cook rice using the absorption method, but not for this specific recipe, as you'll need the starchy rice water. So boil the rice in 3 cups water. When it's done, drain the rice. Now to the rice water, add in all the remaining ingredients. Start off by mixing in the cocoa powder using a whisk, since it can become quite lumpy, and then add in all the other ingredients with no specific order. Let it simmer until around half of the water has evaporated and let cool. Once cooled down, strain the sauce (preferably using a mesh sieve) and discard the whole spices. 

Just some notes: 

*By one batch I mean I can fill several small (250 ML) bottles. Since this sauce doesn't keep very long in the fridge, I usually freeze my sauce and just keep in the fridge the amount that I'm using right away. 

By 'teaspoon' and 'tablespoon' I don't mean the ones that are used for measuring, but the ones we eat with. One "eating tablespoon" is somewhat bigger than a "measuring tablespoon". 

You can leave the tea out- it's just there to enhance the brownish black colour - I used only cocoa powder at first, but I've found that using some tea along the cocoa, it made a better colour. But you can leave out the tea if you prefer or use a brown/black colouring instead. 

Homemade broth can be used instead of the cubes, although the results might vary. I've used different types of broth for this, but the cubes really give the best results in my opinion. I'm not very fond of using a lot of bullion cubes because of the MSG they contain, I must admit, so I don't use them a lot. In fact, this is one of the very few ways I'm using them for. 

Make sure you use your rice! Whether it's added to a soup, or making rice pudding out of it... Whatever you feel like making with the rice, just don't discard it, ok? 😬

Of course, for most people soy sauce is easily available, so this probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. Still, I'd probably be making this even if soy sauce were available here (and decently priced). Because it's easy, tastes just as good (in my opinion, anyhow!), and I just like making my own foods I guess. It's also good for people who avoid soy for health reasons, which is also why I still wanted to share this recipe. 

Double items

Ever since we've downsized from a terraced house to a bungalow/apartment kind of house, a lot of things have changed. Obviously it's always a big change to make a move to another country, but the fact that we downsized defenitely changed many aspects of our lives - and I don't mean in a negative way. Apparently, for some reason, it's not really acceptable to live in a small house, and I'm yet to understand why. Probably people view big houses as a status symbol and it's something to be ashamed of when you can't meet that standard, but I personally couldn't care more about other people's opinions about where and how I live. It's hard to imagine that there are actually people who care about that that much. Perhaps there are people who really thrive in a big house, and don't live in a house for the wrong reasons such as status, but personally I'm glad we downsized. I love living in smaller places, and always have. I have vivid memories of me as a very young girl asking my mum as to why we didn't move to a flat- we were living in a very big house/mansion at the time. 

Since we moved abroad we couldn't take most of our belongings with us. Well technically we could, but that would have cost so much money that it wasn't quite worth it, especially given the fact that most of our stuff we bought was very cheap, like thrifted or bought at a dollar  store kind of shop, some belongings were even free. We did take some things with us though, but it was very minimal compared with what we had. To pare belongings that had sentimental values was a bit tough, I must admit, but overall it was a good fresh start to have much less. What stands out mostly is probably the fact that right now, we don't have multiple floors here. As with everything, multiple floor buildings have pros and cons, but when it comes to having stuff and especially trying to minimalize your stuff, I'd say there's a lot of cons to having a multiple floor house. Why? Well, because let's face it... People tend to be forgetful and lazy at times. So the items cluttered on the stairs, intended for the next person to bring upstairs, usually never reached their end destination- unless the stairs became too cluttered OR someone started to complain about it (just forget about minimalism for a second- this can be quite unsafe, especially in case of an unexpected fall or fire!). And usually people don't like to move items from upstairs downstairs (and vice versa) all day long. For this reason, we had a lot of double items. Still not quite as much as some others do (I remember my grandmother having two vacuum cleaners, for example), but still a lot of more "double stuff" than we do have now. To mention a few: toys, cleaning supplies/wipes, books, and so much more. 

Having multiple floors aside, I did have too much double items anyway. I was a bit obsessed with having "spare items", and still am at times, although not as obsessed as I used to be. For example, I had two ladles in the kitchen, and actually remember to consider even buying a third one! Even though washing up that used ladle to use for something different is just a matter of a few seconds probably. It's just a matter of habit. People have double items because they're just so used to it. The same with chopping boards- I used to have three, then when we moved, it was "just" two. But then I switched to a wooden chopping board and bought one, and tried to make do with that one for as long as I could. And guess what- i'm yet to miss my spare chopping board! Some friends suggested that I'd get another one- one said "just in case", the other claimed that it was "essential to have more than one". Although I do a lot of from scratch cooking and with no such thing as pre cut vegetables here, I cut all my vegetables, I still wonder how "essential" that really is. And this goes for so many things I once had double; or even triple... The thing is, double items can be quite convenient, but I learned to actually consciously decide whether I should have doubles of certain items. Double items can trap one into being a lot more messy- you have a few of them anyway, so it doesn't matter if it ends up in a pile of stuff, or you can wash up all those double/triple items "later". And yes, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I'm talking from experience now! 

So have I become more organized after minimizing certain objects? Not necessarily, not in every aspect anyhow. But there's certainly some improvements, which I'm actually quite proud of. Unfortunately I'm not the neatest person by nature, and it takes some effort to actually get myself to decluttering, so avoiding clutter altogether is of course the best option. But having less double items has made my life a bit easier for sure- not to mention it's way more cost effective. 

Was my grandmother rebellious?

We just opened our last jar of homemade, home-canned apricot jam. Jam is one of our favourite bread toppings and I love making my own. There's an abundance of fruits here during the spring/summertime, and apricots are just one of the many fruits that we make jam with. This is what my grandmother always did; even though the fruits available for her were a bit more limited, as apricots aren't native in the Netherlands, so she probably just used strawberries, raspberries, rosehips, or prunes. Either way, making jam was one of the things she always did during the summer. Even my own mother did this a lot (even though in the 1990s, store bought jam became the norm). There was a huge field near our house where we'd pick gooseberries and blackberries, with permission of the orchards owners, and then she made a big supply of jam which lasted quite a while. We also grew strawberries in the garden some years, but I can't really remember whether my mum turned those into jam. 

Not only is this a fun thing to do -for me anyhow-, I also think it's important to learn the old fashioned ways of preserving foods and re-learning old fashioned skills that are nearly forgotten. With all the insecurities people face these days, it's good to have a food supply that will last when you're having a financial tough situation. And it's just nice to know how to process your produce yourself, if your neighbour gifts you a massive amount of fruit that you at least know what to do with it (that happens so often here!). It's also a good way to save money. All these skills combined is probably what makes people admire grandmothers in general, and which is the very reason why people talk about "granny hobbies"... I found out a bit too late that this really is a thing, and if it weren't because of social media, I probably still wouldn't have a clue about it. And I actually have quite a few "granny hobbies".

The thing is, however, that while some people are romantizing their grandmothers lifestyles, there's something I just don't really get. And that is the way how most of our grandmothers did their canning, is suddenly labelled as "rebel canning". I don't know if this is another social media fad, but all I do know is that some people are going overboard with certain aspects of food safety. This means that not only my grandmother's method of the canning itself is not "approved", it's even the kind of jars she used- apparently Weck jars aren't considered safe enough, despite everyone used them for decades. Heck, in Dutch we even say "wecken" which simply means "to can", referring to the old trusty Weck jars... What I don't really get is that the reason for some people to home-can is because a lack of trust in the way the industry is preserving and processing foods -something I honestly get, but then going overboard when it comes to food safety when processing yourself. 

Let me be clear- I'm not claiming this is the absolute truth, or that you should start to "rebel can" if that makes you uncomfortable. But I honestly trust my grandmother more than any official government guideline, and if that makes me rebellious, so be it. Who would have thought that rebellion, in 2024, means canning food the way your grandmother did? 😃

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. 

Strawberry tops are edible!

Yesterday we bought this year's first strawberries! It's almost like a milestone each year; a sign that spring has really begun. I must say that I'm not the biggest  fan of winters, even though we do have relatively mild winters. For me, the warmer the better! Yes, I know that in northern Europe strawberries are a summer fruit, but where we live it's a late winter/early spring (until mid-spring) fruit. You'll find no strawberries during the summer here. So delicious, defenitely one of our favourite fruits. And something that reminds me of spring! 

As someone really against waste of all kinds, I knew I had to share a bit about making the most of strawberries. Fortunately, strawberries don't consist of a lot of peels/seemingly un-edible parts etc. So most of the fruit is eaten as is. Most people, however, don't know that the strawberry tops are edible, too. I didn't know this a few years ago either! Why is it so that these things are unknown to so many people? Such a missed opportunity. Not only are they edible, they're quite healthy too- I'm not sure anymore but I've read things about antioxidants, possible regulating blood sugar, possible lowering the risks of heart disease, and vitamin c, among other things. If you don't like the idea of eating the tops as is when you're eating a strawberry, there's still some other options. 

Last year, I dehydrated most of the tops, allowing them to stay shelf stable for a long time. I mainly use this for herbal tea. Strawberry top tea really tastes good! If you don't like dehydrating, you can freeze them too. Also, I've read that some people add the tops to smoothies. I'm not a smoothie fan so I haven't tried this. When fresh, they're good to add to salads, just like you'd do with other leafy greens. Apparently, they even have anti itch properties, which I'm yet to try, so not sure if that's true. 

Strawberry hulls are another part that is usually discarded. We usually feed them to our tortoises (we have a few pet turtoises), because they really love fruits. If there's a lot of hulls, like when you're making jam, you can try making strawberry juice/syrup by boiling the hulls in water and then adding some sugar (and letting the water evaporate in case you're making syrup). I do this with a lot of fruit peels/scraps and it always turns out so good. Other things that I've read about, but yet to try with the strawberry hulls: a water infusion and vinegar.

Homemade golden syrup

Living in a country where you can't buy everything you were used to can be a challenge. Sometimes you just make do without, whereas other times you might be able to make your own homemade alternatives. Sometimes the alternatives you make at home aren't exact duplicates of the ones you were used to, but that's a matter of adjustment. 

The syrup we used for pancakes in the Netherlands can't be easily duplicated, but golden syrup seems to be a decent replacement. It's easy to make and shelf stable for a long period, not to mention it's cheap to make! 

For one jar, you'll need: 

1 1/4 cups of water, plus 3 tablespoons

3 cups of sugar

One slice of lemon 

In a saucepan, bring 1 1/4 cups of water to a boil.* Then in the meantime, in another saucepan (preferably with a thick bottom) mix 1/2 cup of sugar with 3 tablespoons of water. Let it simmer until it starts to brown. Then slowly and carefully, add the boiling water, and the remaining sugar. Also add the lemon. Let it simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes. Then let it cool down completely. 

It may be too thick when cooled down, in that case just reheat it and add some more water. I like to add a few tablespoons very strong brewed black tea to give it a nice brown colour. To pour it in a jar, it's advisable to reheat it a bit anyway, in order to be able to pour it more easily. 

If the syrup isn't too thick (some people prefer it thicker whereas some like it runnier), but you still want that brownish colour, you can also add a teabag for a few seconds after reheating. Or add one spoon of brown sugar. Since we don't have brown sugar here, I just use the tea method. (We don't use tea bags though- which is probably worth a seperate post...)

Oh, and this is essential: don't skip the lemon, as it keeps the syrup from crystalizing! 

*You can use your electric water kettle too. I don't really use it, which is why I just heat up water on the stove.