Green and Thrifty
Well, Friday is upon us again and the refrigerator is looking very bare, which I must say makes cleaning it much easier. We are powering through our grocery challenge, which surprises me no end. I thought this was going to be really hard. Even the girls are on board. When I pulled crackers out of the back of my wardrobe (hidden in a stash from the end of the last school year - unopened, I hasten to add!) to add to today's school lunches, Posy glared sternly at me.
'I thought you weren't going shopping this week!'
I had to confess my hoarding tendencies.
We are all out of tomatoes, cucumber, or indeed any salad vegetable except lettuce and half a capsicum. I was going to put the slow cooker on for beef stew, but it is just too hot, so I tried this carrot soup instead, adding a handful of red lentils for bulk and protein. Now there are only carrots, yellowing celery, broccoli stems and some shrivelled up mushrooms in the crisper. Perfect for beef stew, but this weekend will be a scorcher. I may put the slow cooker in the shed in the morning, cook the stew and eat it next week when it is cooler. I don't want to waste that lovely yellow celery! For fruit we have apples and oranges and a couple of pears from our tree. Oh, and rhubarb, so apple and rhubarb crumble on the horizon.
I kept a bit of a 'green and thrifty' diary this week, to see if I could accomplish something every day:
Saturday: Children were begging and whining for take away, as I had prepared exactly nothing for dinner, and it was 5.30pm, but I STAYED STRONG. I pulled English muffins out of the freezer, which we split and made into mini Hawaiian pizzas with the last two slices of ham cut up very small, tinned pineapple, cheese, and pizza sauce. Not gourmet, but acceptable fast food substitute.
Home made pizza sauce: Dollop of tomato paste, pinch brown sugar, tsp dried oregano or basil. Thin mixture with boiling water until you get required consistency, stir well. Thanks to my dear friend Ange for this brilliant tomato paste extender!
Sunday: Too hot to do anything except water the garden pots multiple times. A no-driving day! Also, I have my brilliant idea about not buying groceries this week.
Monday: Rosy does some painting. For Christmas I had planned to do a bedroom makeover for the two big girls. Well, I managed to achieve a couple of bits and bobs, and bought several things for Christmas, but it is turning into the longest room makeover ever. However that has meant that the girls have enthusiastically taken the project on board and are doing it much better than I would, which proves something positive about lazy parenting I expect.
So today Rosy is painting baskets to store her precious treasures like 56 bottles of nail polish.
Take one pot of any kind of water-based white paint from the shed (we used undercoat). Add water about 50/50. Apply with rag for rustic shabby-chic look. Add another coat if you want it whiter.
'I thought you weren't going shopping this week!'
I had to confess my hoarding tendencies.
We are all out of tomatoes, cucumber, or indeed any salad vegetable except lettuce and half a capsicum. I was going to put the slow cooker on for beef stew, but it is just too hot, so I tried this carrot soup instead, adding a handful of red lentils for bulk and protein. Now there are only carrots, yellowing celery, broccoli stems and some shrivelled up mushrooms in the crisper. Perfect for beef stew, but this weekend will be a scorcher. I may put the slow cooker in the shed in the morning, cook the stew and eat it next week when it is cooler. I don't want to waste that lovely yellow celery! For fruit we have apples and oranges and a couple of pears from our tree. Oh, and rhubarb, so apple and rhubarb crumble on the horizon.
I kept a bit of a 'green and thrifty' diary this week, to see if I could accomplish something every day:
Saturday: Children were begging and whining for take away, as I had prepared exactly nothing for dinner, and it was 5.30pm, but I STAYED STRONG. I pulled English muffins out of the freezer, which we split and made into mini Hawaiian pizzas with the last two slices of ham cut up very small, tinned pineapple, cheese, and pizza sauce. Not gourmet, but acceptable fast food substitute.
Home made pizza sauce: Dollop of tomato paste, pinch brown sugar, tsp dried oregano or basil. Thin mixture with boiling water until you get required consistency, stir well. Thanks to my dear friend Ange for this brilliant tomato paste extender!
Sunday: Too hot to do anything except water the garden pots multiple times. A no-driving day! Also, I have my brilliant idea about not buying groceries this week.
Monday: Rosy does some painting. For Christmas I had planned to do a bedroom makeover for the two big girls. Well, I managed to achieve a couple of bits and bobs, and bought several things for Christmas, but it is turning into the longest room makeover ever. However that has meant that the girls have enthusiastically taken the project on board and are doing it much better than I would, which proves something positive about lazy parenting I expect.
So today Rosy is painting baskets to store her precious treasures like 56 bottles of nail polish.
Take one pot of any kind of water-based white paint from the shed (we used undercoat). Add water about 50/50. Apply with rag for rustic shabby-chic look. Add another coat if you want it whiter.
Tuesday: Hemming Posy's secondhand uniform, and sewing up bits of seam that had come undone.
Wednesday: Planting capsicum seed which I was given at Tanya's brilliant Living Better group. I took my saved seed to share from a brilliant, locally developed non-bolting lettuce imaginatively called Slo-Bolt.
Thursday: Planting out tomato seedlings which popped up in a pot a few weeks ago. I am almost certain they will produce tomatoes before the first frost!
Friday: I was going to go out to the art gallery with a friend, then out for tea and cake, but had to stay home to receive a delivery of fence posts and palings, so my friend came to me, and we drank rooibos tea and ate Rosy's fabulous vegan chocolate cake (no eggs!). Tomorrow I will post the recipe for that.
This week's greatest achievement has been managing to eat out of the pantry and refrigerator. So far I have spent $9.50 on 4l of milk. Let's see if we can survive until Monday. My next challenge will be to stick to my $160 budget next week, and not go crazy restocking.
What green and thrifty projects have you been up to this week?
Comments
Hurray for lazy parenting! Can't wait to see the room makeovers. That was the sort of project I loved as a kid.
xofrances
Well done Jo, you have been very inventive :)
Fran, I do adore your 'short novel' comments! Not doing anything on hot weekends is definitely green and thrifty, especially as we don't have air conditioners. Imagine if everyone did that - no cars on the roads, all the shops would have to close for the weekend, all the planes grounded for lack of passengers. What a green and thrifty weekend that would be! Closely allied to the 'lazy parenting' method of child rearing. It does make children more self reliant (sometimes my children wouldn't eat if they didn't make themselves dinner, but mostly it is just a good way to get more reading done:)
Judy, don't feel bad - I have attempted this challenge a number of times and always had a 'dashing to the supermarket' moment midweek. This is the first time it has ever stuck. I attribute success (so far) to announcing it in a no-correspondence-will-be-entered-into sort of tone to the girls, not having to negotiate with a partner, who is absent this week, and publishing my intentions on this very public forum! There is nothing like public failure to make me want to succeed!
Good luck with reining in the food budget. Not an easy feat with two hungry men to feed.
Although it's too embarrassing to confess what Posy ate for lunch yesterday... OK, here's my confession - I served her icecream sprinkled with chocolate powder, and topped with canned pineapple pieces. Because it was hot...