Green and Thrifty

Dried greengages, pears, feijoas, basil and zucchini slices.

More of the same, really. Drying pears, apples, feijoas and basil. Making pesto. And finally, making more passata. I have had terrible trouble tracking down sources of local tomatoes. They have been ripening very slowly now that the weather is getting colder, and the month of March, which is usually very warm.. wasn't. My very helpful friend Cindy turned up today triumphantly bearing several kilograms of perfect ripe tomatoes - grown by some lovely ladies at Evandale, fifteen minutes drive out of town. So today I have made eight more jars of passata, and will have enough to do at least four more in the morning.. another friend passed on the news yesterday that there is an old man a few streets away who is selling sauce tomatoes from his garden, so Benson-the-Wonder-Tomato-Sensing-Hound and I will have to go on a tomato-hunting mission together in order to fill up the last of the forty empty passata bottles I prepared earlier.. the next post will feature the final winning passata recipe from my weeks of experimentation.

I have been industriously crocheting more squares for my afghan blanket. When my mum was here a couple of weeks ago she reminded me how to make them, and wrote out the instructions, and I have been very, very good, crocheting at least one a day. According to Posy's calculations we need about forty more squares. The truly green and thrifty part of this project is that most of the wool I have used is from the op shop, much of it from giant, ugly hand-spun wool jumpers (sweaters, jerseys, pull-overs for the international audience), the ones which make you look like a wombat when you wear them, which I unknitted and wound into balls. The rest is lovely Australian alpaca given to me for Christmas by my nice mum.. Mum also donated a vest which my grandma knitted for my dad many years ago. She unravelled that and wound it into balls as well. The weather is rapidly getting cooler, so we will need a cosy couch blanket sooner rather than later.. Meanwhile The Girl is branching out on her own and has started using up some of the coloured wool from our stash, so we should be toasty warm this winter.

When we found our lovely puppy Benson at the RSPCA in November, I discovered that just outside the front gates at the RSPCA is an area where trucks from local mills and businesses that create timber off-cuts can dump them for people to pick up for free firewood. Brilliant! So last week when I did my weekly shopping in the neighbourhood I popped two big tubs in the back of the car and filled them up with free kindling. Goody. Reducing municipal waste and lighting my fire for free. Two excellent outcomes.

Last thrifty experiment for the week - I have finally, after years of experimentation, worked out how to make perfect naan bread. I already do a quite nice butter chicken, so now our favourite take-away is all home-made. Even better, two out of the three girls can also make brilliant butter chicken, and cook the naan bread, so all they have to master is the dough.. recipes to follow.. when I remember to take some photos (here is a peculiar fact. Even though my girls are excellent bakers, and love playing with dough, they are not keen on making it. I love making and kneading dough. Clearly we were made for each other).




Not Thrifty - Note to Self - do not buy bags of Easter eggs weeks early when they are on sale, as you know you will only eat them then have to go and buy more..