Green and Thrifty
I went to visit my friend Karlin and came home with granny bonnet plants for the flower garden, parsley plants (also to be planted in the flower garden), mint plants, and a bunch of mint and some limes. She is a great friend:) A wonderful thing to do with mint is to chop it finely and add chopped, sauteed garlic, salt and lemon juice (or lime juice, of course!) and stir it all into yoghurt. This is divine on salad or lamb, or meat balls, yum!
Local carrots are super cheap at $1/kg during July and August, so I stocked up last week, chopped, steamed and froze an enormous big pot of carrots which are now stashed in the freezer for curries and stews. This is an example of what I like to call fast slow food - local, fresh, seasonal, prepared on a rainy afternoon while chatting to my mum, and now ready to whip out of the freezer and into dinner at a moment's notice - "and here is one I prepared earlier." Having said that, I am not very good at labelling, and am not sure whether the bags at the bottom of the freezer contain chopped and sauteed onion or celery. Oh well, into the soup they go..
I have been experimenting with not using the dishwasher. We ran out of dishwasher powder and have been washing by hand ever since. Despite the 'modern dishwashers use less water than hand washing' lobby I believe I can wash dishes in less water than dishwashers use, certainly using less electricity, and less damaging chemicals. Plus, it takes us all day to fill the dishwasher, by which time we have started to run out of dishes.. can't say the children are very happy about hand washing, but I enjoy the conversations we have while washing and drying.
I have done all my own cooking, cleaning, wheat-free baking, school lunches and gardening. I do this every week, and I am sure you do too. And you know what? We deserve a little pat on the back for that. Hooray for us:)
We are watching our tiny TV less and less these days. A trip to the library replenished Posy's audio book obsession, and she is reading about five books at once at the moment.. mum and dad used my library card, so now we all have books to last us through this rainy weekend. Posy is going to make French toast (not gluten-free.. we are having a morning off tomorrow) and I brought down a carton of jigsaw puzzles from the shed. So far Grandma and Rosy polished off a 500 piece one in two days, so we will have to find a harder one!
I would love to know what thrifty muscles you have been flexing this week.
Comments
When the children were no longer around to do these dishwasher tasks I was more than happy to go back to washing dishes by hand and use the machine mostly as a hired hand to help with large gatherings. After reading your post I expect I'll think of you and your girls sometimes as I stand at my sink.
As to dishes, I love the dishwasher but when it just Mr S and me, as it is frequently now, it is faster to do them by hand. And we don't fill the dishwasher so it is not cost effective. I was just saying to Mr S last week, as both boys have not been home for days - one is overseas for two weeks, that when they both move out we will need a dish drawer dishwasher as we won't fill a full one for days. But might stick to hand washing for the two of us and the dishwasher for when he house is full of guests.
As to my frugal act. I had a restorative bubble bath this week. I use the water to refill the toilet cistern. We have the lid off and I scoop water from the bath into the cistern. I have a plastic container and it takes three scoops. I use up the bath in about four days. And that is just me.
Do enjoy your mystery lunches, and I'll get back to making mystery soups:)