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    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series, #3
    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series, #3
    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series, #3
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series, #3

    By Sarah Jane Butfield

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    About this ebook

    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: An Expat’s Kitchen Garden Journal
    Meet Sarah Jane, a woman with a reputation for culinary catastrophe who tries to keep her family fed in challenging circumstances in rural France. Frugal living was not part of the plan when they arrived from Australia to undertake the renovation of a quaint cottage in the Charente. However, when life throws them a curve-ball the challenge was set. How to survive in France with very little money and two Australian cattle dogs. The answer came in the form of five chickens, four ducks and a vegetable garden! The frugal plan was to save money by any means possible, to enable any money they could earn to be invested into continuing the renovation of the cottage. In true ‘Good Life’ style Sarah Jane attacks this challenge head on by keeping some small livestock and converting a garden, that resembled a meadow, into a French ‘potager’ or kitchen garden.The French tradition of using produce from their ‘potagers’ is renowned for enabling families to create meals that are healthy, cost effective and simple.
    There are 31 recipes for a variety of food and drinks, included in a month by month account, of how they transformed a neglected garden into a frugal yet productive expat kitchen garden.

    Comments from the beta readers:
    “The photographs are a great addition and they enhance the visual conception of the challenges you faced and the results you achieved.” John Brewer
    “A thoroughly enjoyable read, written in your usual honest and down to earth style.” Carol Peden. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSarah Jane Butfield
    Release dateJan 16, 2015
    ISBN9781503080362
    Our Frugal Summer in Charente: Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series, #3
    Author

    Sarah Jane Butfield

    Sarah Jane Butfield, born in Ipswich and raised in rural Suffolk, is a busy mother, grandmother, and international award-winning author. After combining a successful clinical nursing and nurse management career and navigating her way through three divorces and parenthood, she is an experienced modern-day mum to her 'Brady Bunch' and she loves every minute of their convoluted lives.  Known as the 'roving Florence Nightingale,' Sarah Jane has travelled across the world in the pursuit of her dreams and continues to do so now that her children are grown up, working as a travel writer/blogger. She is the author of an award-winning travel memoir series set in Australia and France.  Glass Half Full: Our Australian Adventure,  Two dogs and a suitcase: Clueless in Charente  Our Frugal Summer in Charente  These books, and the boxset, are regularly found high in the Amazon rankings, categories include ex-pat life, parenting, grief, PTSD, step-parenting, cooking, gardening, Australia and France travel.  In addition, Sarah Jane has also written the first three books in a series of self-help literature for aspiring and new self-published authors: The Accidental Author,  The Amateur Authorpreneur The Intermediate Authorpreneur,  Book one is permanently FREE to help any aspiring author get started on their writing and book promotion journey. Sarah Jane's most successful series is the aptly titled, The Nomadic Nurse Series, consisting of: Ooh Matron!   Bedpans to Boardrooms These nursing memoirs have won three book industry awards and have attracted 5-star reviews from the publishing industry and readers around the world. The eagerly awaited third book in this series is scheduled for release in September 2022! She loves to interact with her readers so feel free to connect on social media: Twitter: @SarahJanewrites  Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SarahJaneswriting www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahJaneButfield www.facebook.com/Twodogsandasuitcase  www.facebook.com/OurFrugalSummerinCharente www.facebook.com/Ooh-Matron-1646665865549530/timeline/ Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sarah_jane_rukia.publishing

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      Book preview

      Our Frugal Summer in Charente - Sarah Jane Butfield

      Dedication

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Index of recipes

      Preface - What is this book about?

      Chapter 1 February

      Chapter 2 March

      Chapter 3 April

      Chapter 4 May

      Chapter 5 June

      Chapter 6 July

      Chapter 7 August

      Chapter 8 September

      Chapter 9 October

      Chapter 10 Preparing for Christmas

      About the Author:

      Books by Sarah Jane Butfield

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to my late Mother

      Muriel Maud McDonald.

      (1936 – 1992)

      Always in my thoughts.

      Acknowledgements

      Firstly, I would like to thank my extremely tolerant husband Nigel, not only for his contributions to this book, but also for his hard work in our secret garden in Charente.

      Thank you to my family for their continued support of both my writing projects and my new publishing venture. Social media participation is a key component to building an author platform. Therefore, every tweet and status share means a great deal to authors. Family and friends who have shared and interacted with myself and the members of the Rukia Publishing Team during book promotion events are very much appreciated, so thank you.

      Finally, I would also like to thank beta reader and proofreader Martin Papworth for his valued feedback and input to this book which has enhanced its production.

      Introduction

      Welcome to Our Frugal Summer in Charente: An Expat’s Kitchen Garden Journal.

      I have a passion for living simply, and I believe that it can lead to a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle. In this book, I wanted to capture the process that Nigel and I went through, as well as describing the results we achieved. It was not a lifestyle decision to live a more frugal existence, it was a necessity. However, we enjoyed the challenge. On a tight budget, we did not always have the correct ingredients, so a degree of improvisation, which is my specialty in the kitchen, came into force. I am not well known for my cooking abilities, although I am renowned for my culinary catastrophes. Many of my friends and family find it amusing that I not only managed to cook in a house with no kitchen but that I made and adapted recipes without poisoning either myself or Nigel in the process. Although I admit we came close with the wild mushrooms, but more on that story later!

      Welcome to the Charente.

      Sarah Jane

      Index of Recipes

      MINT SAUCE

      MEDITERRANEAN OLIVE COBBLE BREAD

      NETTLE TEA

      NETTLE SOUP

      RHUBARB JAM

      CHEESE AND LEEK JACKET POTATOES

      JAIME’S VERSION OF TEENAGE WEDGES

      MCJAIME HASH BROWNS

      PICKLING BEETROOT

      GARLIC AND HERB SAUTÉED COURGETTE FLOWERS

      ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

      CHICKEN ONE POT MEAL

      BUDGET LEFTOVERS MEAL

      PLUM JAM

      BLACKBERRY JAM

      CHIRAC CIDER

      COURGETTE WINE

      FIG BISCUITS

      COURGETTE CAKE

      CURRIED COURGETTE CHUTNEY

      SHEILA’S MARROW RUM

      SPINACH AND LEEK OMELETTE

      BACON AND SPINACH FRITTATA

      LUXURY FISH PIE WITH ROSTI TOPPING

      BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

      COURGETTE AND POTATO SOUP

      VEGETABLE CURRY

      SWEETCORN PATTIES

      PUMPKIN CURRY

      PUMPKIN DUMPLINGS

      CHESTNUT LOAF

      CHESTNUT AND RED WINE PATE

      SARAH JANE’S BREAD SAUCE

      Our Frugal Summer in Charente

      An Expat’s Kitchen Garden Journal.

      Preface - What is this book about?

      This book details our journey through the summer of 2013 in the Charente, South West France. After relocating from Australia to France in September 2012, we soon found ourselves enduring desperate times. We realised that the only way we could continue our new life in France was if we lived in a frugal, more conservative manner. Our plan was to save money by any means possible, to enable us to invest any money we could earn into renovating the house. There were prolonged periods when Nigel was unable to find regular work and we were living in a house that needed upgrading into some degree of habitability. Our savings or renovation fund was evaporating fast into the proverbial money pit, which is an expat term for a renovation project. On a practical level my contribution to our situation was by utilising every inch of our garden, in true ‘Good Life’ style. I would achieve this by keeping some chickens, ducks and growing enough vegetables to feed ourselves and the animals. The learning curve to ensure that we made the most of everything we produced in our garden was huge. We also utilised foraged foods from the hedgerows for making teas, jams and nutty delights. I can say with all honesty, without meaning to sound as if I am bragging that we have had some delicious food and drink as a result of our efforts and resourcefulness.

      The idea for this book came from reviewing some of the recipes in my journal that I adapted over this thrifty period living in our new French home. We were surviving on a minimal budget, trying to feed ourselves from our vegetable garden, five chickens and two ducks. A cookbook written in wartime inspired some of my frugal adaptations of family friendly recipes. The ‘Come into the garden cookbook’ by Constance Spry gives the feeling of extravagant recipes while adhering to and speaking of, wartime rations and availability. Some of the content for this book comes from my journals, just like my two travel memoirs Glass Half Full: Our Australian Adventure and Two dogs and suitcase: Clueless in Charente.

      Therefore, it is probably no surprise that this has turned into the story of my kitchen garden and other animals rather than a recipe book. The feedback received while preparing this book made me realise that some of the recipes I added had funny anecdotes and stories behind them and so I have shared some of those with you too.

      Our ‘potager’ week one –

      Grass cut ready to start our Good Life project

      The French tradition of using produce from their ‘potager’, or kitchen garden, is renowned for enabling French families to create meals that are healthy, cost effective and simple. They select the plants they grow with skill and precision based on years of knowledge passed down through the generations. The result is a variety of fruits and vegetables that can provide year round nutritious meals for their families. In my last book, I shared with you recipes for; wild boar marinade, green tomato chutney, Chirac cheesy scones, pizza dough, radish relish and courgette cake. The interest in the recipes and our garden activities led me to change the layout of this book. Therefore, I decided to arrange this book in a month by month format to incorporate some of the practicalities of our kitchen garden setup. As promised in my last book I have included the recipes for chestnut loaf, pumpkin curry, pumpkin pie and pumpkin dumplings together with luxury fish pie and fig biscuits. I have also added others that I hope you will enjoy. I have no formal catering expertise, other than that learned in my school and adult life, and this is purely my guide.

      This book details how we grew, foraged and cooked with home-grown fresh fruits and vegetables over the spring and summer of 2013. It describes how in our small ‘potager’ we produced enough food to survive in France, while still eating a healthy nutritious diet.

      I learned new skills in bread making, cooking and preserving, which in turn reduced our expenditure in the supermarket. It also had an environmental impact as we produced less packaging waste for the fortnightly recycle truck. I think at one point they thought we had moved away! The art of enjoying the simple things in life like family, friends, and a home-grown and home-cooked meal is very rewarding.

      Therefore, I hope that if you bought this book for the recipes, that you enjoy making them. If you are curious about how an English woman in France made a very small food budget go a long way, then I hope you find it informative and at times amusing. If you just like reading about anything and, everything to do with France then enjoy the ride. As a

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