The Green, Green Vegetables of Home

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Marianne under Axarquía, Slice of Life

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I’ve mentioned before that we don’t live in a town, city or even a small village. We live in the open countryside (known locally as el campo), so our garden isn’t the kind of cultivated area we used to have back in England. Our house was built onto a hill-side of almond trees and indeed, when we moved here almost eight years ago, the only things that were already planted (apart from the naturally-placed wildflowers) were 47 established almond trees, on almost an acre of land. Of course, the area immediately around the house, car park, swimming pool and terraces is flat but the rest of our land is sloped, and we have chosen to leave a more “natural” look further away from the house, to blend in with the surrounding countryside.

As time as gone by we have added many more trees, shrubs and bushes and I have previously posted photographs of lemons, apple blossom, bird of paradise flowers, figs, oranges and some of the many beautiful wildflowers at present gracing the garden.

Despite the apparent poor quality of the soil, the valley where we live is extremely green with trees and vines growing down the hillside. Newly planted trees need care for the first year or two, but once established seem to thrive, provided they are given sufficient irrigation.

The nature of the ground is generally sloping, rough and rocky with poor, shallow soil over bedrock. Untended ground is usually very hard (with need for a pick-axe to dig holes for planting) allowing deluges of rain little chance to penetrate the soil, thereby creating deep channels where the water has run off .

However, it’s not all bad news as there are patches of slightly deeper soil here and there, and it’s one of these that last week we decided to transform into a small vegetable patch.

We were able to buy some little plug plants in Vélez-Málaga, at a total cost of just over 11 euros and, after quite a bit of digging, raking and throwing out stones, we finally got to plant red, green and hot peppers, chard, squash, green beans, red and green lettuce, red onions, fennel and melons.

After three days, I can report that the little plants appear to be doing well. I’ll keep you posted on their progress!

Previous posts you might find interesting:

A Slice of Life: Garden and Plant Irrigation

Flowering snapshot of a January day around the garden

Wildflowers of Andalucía: Dutchman’s Pipe

Home-made Hummamole Dip

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Marianne under Recipes

Now that the good weather’s here, I’m always on the lookout for delicious and nutritious recipes for the summer months.

I’ve never been a big fan of Hummus or Guacamole, finding both chickpeas and avocado rather bland in their own ways. But combined, with a few extras thrown in – I’m loving my Hummamole, and I’m sure you will, too!

Here’s how to make it:

Home-made Hummamole Dip

Ingredients

1 large avocado (approx150g after being peeled and pitted)

1 jar of chickpeas – drained and washed (approx. 150g)

2 fat cloves of garlic – peeled and crushed

1 small red onion – peeled and chopped

½ cup fresh cilantro – chopped (you could use fresh mint leaves instead, if you prefer)

2 teaspoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 lemons – juiced

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Pinch of hot chilli powder

A few twists of black pepper

Method

Simply throw all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add a little water to thin out the consistency if you prefer.

I usually cut some batons of carrots, red and green peppers, celery and red onions for dipping in, and the Hummamole will keep in the fridge for a few days.

It’s as simple as that!

Other posts you might enjoy:

Easy No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

Cost of living in southern Spain

CBBH Photo Challenge – Multi-coloured

IKEA: It´s Swedish for self-assembly furniture

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Marianne under Places

OK, OK … I lied!

IKEA is really an acronym comprising the initials and location of the founder of IKEA – Ingvar Kamprad; Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up) and Agunnaryd (his hometown in southern Sweden).

The company is the world’s largest furniture retailer, with stores in many countries, including Spain.

I wanted to pop along to IKEA to pick up some photo frames for a forthcoming Art and Photography Exhibition in Torre del Mar, where I will be displaying some of my photos in June. I haven’t visited my nearest store in Málaga for almost a year, but since my last visit some rather excellent solar panels have been erected as sunshades for cars parked on the 1400-space free car park.

What a innovative idea!

IKEA has invested €4.6 million installing solar panels not only on the car-park sunshades, but also on the roof of the Málaga store, which will produce 2,821 MWh per year – 64 per cent of the amount of energy the store used in 2012.

Did you know that the IKEA logo is blue and yellow to reflect the colours of the Swedish flag? Well you do now!

So, if you’ve recently moved to the Málaga area, and are looking for somewhere familiar to buy your stuff – this might be the place for you!

The Málaga store has the usual frustrating one-way, anti-clockwise layout, typical of every IKEA I´ve ever been in, whereby you have to walk around the whole store (and it´s a long way) to get to the exit – unless you spot the craftily concealed short-cuts.

IKEA is situated in the Bahia Azul commercial area near Plaza Mayor. If you know where Málaga airport is – well, it´s close by, just off the same road – MA-21 at Exit 2.

Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10am – 10pm (The store is also open some Sundays and Public Holidays, but it’s best to check the website before you set off)

Address: Av Velázquez, 389, 29004 Málaga, Spain

Phone:+34 902 40 09 22

Website: IKEA website for the Málaga store (in English)

Do you have a degree in IKEA self-assembly furniture? I know I don’t!

Whilst you’re here, why not have a look at:

Spanish football: Estadio La Roselada, home of Málaga CF

AVE: Taking the Fast Track from Málaga to Madrid

CBBH Photo Challenge: MULTI-COLOURED

East of Málaga: Old men on benches

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Marianne under Photo challenges

Sometimes they will be wearing cardigans. Often they have on their hats.

Sometimes they sit in the shade and other times in the sun (depending on the time of year).

One thing´s for sure – if there´s a bench in one of the white villages of Andalucía – there will be some old men sitting on it!

Bless ´em!

Related posts:

Travel Theme: Benches

Cost of Living: East of Málaga, Spain – April 2013

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Marianne under Axarquía, Cost of Living, Slice of Life

Edited to add: When you’ve read this article, make sure you also look at my up-to-date Cost of Living in Spain: (Málaga edition) for July 2015, now available HERE.

Whenever I travel, I´m always interested to know how much things cost and, every day, people from around the world find my blog by searching for the cost of living in Spain.

Back in August and November 2012, I posted some receipts for groceries I had bought here in southern Spain, which proved to be very popular articles.

But I wanted to do something a bit different, so I decided that rather than post the prices of random items of shopping that you may, or may not be interested in, I would come up with a list of standard grocery items, which I will update the prices of, two or three times a year. This list can easily be changed, so if there are any other basic items you would like me to include, please let me know in the comments section, below. This way, if anyone else wants to do something similar, we can have a direct comparison between countries.

To make such direct comparison simple, I have once again used the Spanish Supermarket – Mercadona in Torrox Costa.

This month’s prices are a bit of a mixed bag, with some prices remaining stable, yet others increasing or decreasing.

So, here´s the Standard Grocery List I used previously. The first prices are as they were in August 2012 – the second prices (in bold) are as they were last November, with this month’s prices in RED alongside.

Standard Grocery List

Milk (semi –skimmed UHT, own brand), 1 litre 0.54 € 0.54 € 0.53 €

Loaf (white, baguette 250g) 0.45 € 0.45 € 0.45 €

Eggs (12, own brand caged, medium) 1.35 € 1.35 € 1.35 €

Chicken breasts (1kg, boneless, skinless) 5.50 € 5.50 € 5.80 €

Apples (1kg, green, Golden Delicious) 1.35 € 1.00 € 1.65 €

Oranges (1kg) 1.39 € 0.89 € 0.79 €

Bananas (1kg) 1.25 € 1.15 € 1.35 €

Potatoes (1kg) 0.92 € 0.89 € 0.96 €

Lettuce (1 head, Iceberg) 0.85 € 0.85 € 0.85 €

Water (1.5 litre bottle) 0.45 € 0.36 € 0.42 € (for a 2 litre bottle)

Domestic Beer (1 litre bottle, Cruzcampo) 1.29 € 1.20 € 1.20 €

Fish (1kg Salmon steaks) 8.75 € 8.75 € 9.50 €

Toilet rolls (pack of 6, own brand) 1.95 € 1.95 € 1.95 €

Washing powder (Box, 35 washes, Elena brand) 5.94 € 4.87 € 4.87 €

Olive oil (1 litre, extra virgin, own brand) 3€ 2.75 € (5 litres 12.99€) 2.99 € (5 litres 13.99 €)

Coca-Cola (1.5 litre) 1.09 € 1.00 € 1.00 €

Butter (250g, own brand) 0.98 € 0.98 € 0.98 €

Sugar (1kg, white) 0.95 € 0.93 € 0.93 €

The following two items were only introduced in November’s grocery list:

Coffee (ground, 250g, Santa Cristina) 1.79 € 1.89 €

Beef mince (Store brand, pre-packed, 1kg) 5.43 € 3.80 € (for 700g)

New items added to the list:

Red Peppers (1kg, loose) 2.29 €

Green pointed “Italian” Peppers (1kg, loose) 1.99 €

Tomatoes (1kg, loose) 1.19 €

Currency Conversion from XE €1 = 1.31 USD
0.85 GBP
1.24 AUD
1.33 CAD
1.53 NZD
11.66 ZAR

Other household expenses

Gas: We don´t have mains gas here – we use bottles of butane gas. In August, a 12.5kg bottle of Butane gas cost 16.45 € – falling to 16.10 € in November. They are now 17.15 € . One bottle used to last (on average) 21 days (for two people… though around 4 weeks in summer) for all hot water, showers and cooking on a gas hob. Last September we had a new gas water heater fitted and, even though it has a larger capacity for water heating than the previous one, it appears to use significantly less gas. It´s early days yet, but the first bottle lasted five weeks (rather than three weeks). I´ll keep my eye on how that goes.

Electricity: For a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom detached house in the countryside with a swimming pool, we pay an average of 100 € per month. The cost of consumption for us is slightly lower in winter with heating/lighting, as opposed to air conditioning/lighting/swimming pool pump running for 8 hours a day, in the summer months.

Water: We are not connected to mains water, so when we bought our house part of the purchase cost was for a share in a local water company. We have a 14,000 litre water deposit in which to store our house water. Our water share gives us an allowance of up to 17,500 litres of water each week at reduced cost, though if we use more than this, the price rises steeply. Needless to say, we don´t use this amount of water, even allowing for swimming pool top-ups and garden irrigation. The water company, Patamalara, doesn´t always sent out their bills regularly and much of the cost appears to depend on the amount of repairs that have been undertaken on the system, but over the past twelve months our annual water bill has amounted to 92 €.

IBI – Council Tax: Paid yearly to the local council. Last year´s bill was 338€

Internet: 29 € per month with unlimited downloads (within reason). Speeds up to 3 Mbps

Petrol/Gasoline: In August 1 litre of 95 octane petrol was 1.49 €. In November 2012 the price had fallen to 1.40 €. The price is now 1.48 €

Vehicle excise duty: We have a Peugot 307 and pay 51 € per year.

Eating out: Glass of wine or beer, including one tapa is 1 € – 1.50 €. Menu of the day (three course meal, served at lunchtime, including bread and one glass of beer, wine or a bottle of water) 8 – 10 €

How do prices compare where you live?

You might also enjoy these articles:

Menú del Día: Great food at a budget price

Cost of Living: East of Málaga, Spain – August 2012

Cost of Living: East of Málaga, Spain – November 2012

Goats on the road: I kid you not