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

gretchenjoanna said…
I have never developed a good relationship with the dishwasher. Loading and unloading it are not pleasant tasks for me. I mean, who could prefer the challenge of a puzzle whose pieces are dirty dishes, to the soothing hot bath in the sink, standing as many of us do before a window, or as you say, chatting with the family? Unloading always seems to reveal failure, as I find the forks that didn't get clean or the glasses with spots, but I think it's even more annoying to me than loading because it usually feels hurried, with the dirty dishes waiting nearby to go in asap.

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.
Jo said…
Gretchen Joanna, I expect I will often be thinking of you too:) And I will never be able to do the dishes again without thinking about that soothing hot bath I am treating the tea cups and forks to. What a wonderful image xx
Anonymous said…
Another good recipe with mint is Namie Oliver's French style peas. The one that comes with the chicken pie in the 30 minute meals. Google it. Who would have thought lettuce cooked with less would taste so good.

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.
Jo said…
Lucinda, a bath full of water in four days to keep the loo running? Now that does give one pause for thought..
Anonymous said…
But only for my flushes. Mr S doesn't fill the cistern from the bath and the boys use a different toilet.

Jo said…
That is a scary amount of water. Is that with a half flush doodad as well? I had no idea the loo used so much water..
Tammy said…
I also am bad at labeling things in my freezer. I freeze up single portions of our dinners for me to eat as lunches. Many times I thought I'd brought one thing only to have it be something else entirely. At least I only freeze things I like. Sometimes I simply stare at the frozen contents and have no idea what it is. Those are mystery lunch days!
Jo said…
I am so glad I am not the only one! I put away bags of frozen veg, convinced that it is totally obvious what is in them, then 3 months later they just look... frozen!

Do enjoy your mystery lunches, and I'll get back to making mystery soups:)
Unknown said…
I never know whether my frozen containers contain left over sauce from a casserole which i just couldnt throw out (im sure it will taste good as a pasta sauce) or various home made soups. Its safer to take them out at night so they can be identified in the morning rather than having sauce for lunch at work. Doh! How simple would it be just to label.
Jo said…
Lynda, that is the story of my life. There is generally some simple action I could have taken at some point in the past which would make today SO MUCH simpler. But no...

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