MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We certainly did, we were missing my little sister who is in France but we still had a great day. I got new gumboots...SO EXCITING!! And I'm being serious! I also got Disney PJ's which got a response that could rival winning Lotto. I'm still not sure if I'm 26 years old or 6...apparently I'm quite confused!

Has everyone set New Year's resolutions? I've never been big on them, so this year I'm keeping them pretty generic...make the most out of my garden, maybe give lunar gardening a go, try and keep the house tidy, add some more animals to our menagerie...oh, and plan a wedding! 😀

But probably the biggest...

~The homemade challenge ~

It's funny how even making the smallest changes in your lifestyle can cause such a huge chain reaction. Fresh eggs from the farm led to buying free range chicken and rearing our own pigs. Having our own eggs and bacon led to homemade bread. Homemade bread opened a whole can of worms! What it really comes down to is that I want to know what is in my food. There seems to be so much bad press on the nasty stuff that is being put in our food - e numbers, additives, preservatives, msg...and so much sugar!!...it scares me a little. I have always tried to eat reasonably well but it has definitely been since we moved out to the farm and began growing our own vegetables and meat that it really started to sink in. If I'm buying things in packets and jars, I don't have control over what, or how much of anything is in it. And it can't be a good thing to not be able to pronounce, let alone not know what more than half of the ingredients on the list are. I'm not one to jump on board all the latest food fads, but I think there is a lot to be gained from cutting out, or at least cutting down on, processed and packaged foods.

So this got me thinking - if I can replace just 1 jar or packet of something in our fridge, freezer or pantry at a time, we will be on our way to being even more self sufficient and living the dream!

Let me say though, I'm not going to go completely crazy. If I tried to tell Josh he would be going without Watties Tomato Sauce & Burger Rings I think I would be told where to go, and if I'm starving hungry at 11pm when I'm in town and my only option for food is a cheeseburger from McDonalds, I'm probably going to do it, but I figure, if most of the time we are good, then we're getting somewhere.

Why am I doing this?

• To become less reliant on the supermarket. My trolley will look boring as anything but it will be exciting for us. We will not only be eating better, but may even be able to save a little money in the process.

• To become more creative in the kitchen - I'm hoping by doing this I will learn to be a bit more adventurous than just a opening a jar of stir-fry sauce.

• Homemade tastes better - always! And the satisfaction of eating an entirely homemade meal is unbeatable.

• I will have more control over what we are eating.

• And if I can encourage other people to ditch store bought in favour of homemade, even better!

So here's the scary part - as my New Year's resolution, once a week, I am committing to replacing something store bought with a homemade alternative.

As you all know, life can get in the way sometimes but I will do my very best to stick to this. It will be mostly food items but I may throw a few random things in the mix too. And I am certainly open to suggestions, either things that you have done or that you want to try. Let me be your guinea pig!

There will be good changes, and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will be huge failures too, but I'm excited to start this adventure!