Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

Woo hoo! Am ridiculously excited to see that my 'out of date' lettuce seeds ('use by Dec 2013', of which there are thousands left) have started to sprout! They've been on wet tissue ini a plastic pot in a cutlery drawer so I remember to look at them often. So I can put that little pot in some compost and start sowing batches maybe once a week.AND in a few weeks I can do the same with all the other seeds which have March sowing dates on them.

I know this is not new news but yesterday I met an old and dear friend for lunch after a long gap. We ate at a super posh restaurant and used her Taste card to get their super posh set lunch half price. It brought the super posh meal into an affordable price range and made the occasion extra special, so I'm going to investigate this card. Anyone got any experience of using one, or anything like it?

And as for week 2 of 'Eat well for less' - Gobsmacked by their spends and how unaware of it they were!! Good for them for going for it though. It's really making me think about how much of my groceries are bought through habit, and encouraging me to try cheaper substitutes, and frozen products instead of fresh. I wasn't sure about the idea that ready meals contain all the nice things you use at home and are just as good - may have been true of that brand, whatever it was, but don't think it is necessarily true generally, judging by long ingredient lists and long shelf lives...

Good Morning, Folks,

I opened my curtains this morning and found 14 fat partridges poking around in my field/soon to be garden; what a great sight - well, maybe it's commonplace for some people but I've only recently become a country woman.

Someone - sorry I can't remember who, asked for recipes with ginger in it as their husband loved it and as I was sorting through my great stack of recipes (an intermidable task, but I will get there) I found this. It's not only cheap and tasty, otherwise I wouldn't post it, there are only 262 calories per person in it, although it tastes sinful.

Sticky Ginger and Molasses Pork Ribs - serves 4

You can marinate this the night before you need it, and also freeze it once marinated, before cooking.

1.2 kg about12 pork spare ribs, although the greedy will want more!

For the marinade: 3 crushed garlic cloves, tbsp. finely grated ginger, tsp ground ginger, 4 tbsp. molasses sugar, half tsp salt, tsp fresh ground black pepper, tbsp. clear honey, red or green chilli deseeded and finely chopped, plus extra, tsp coriander seeds, crushed.
Put marinade ingredients into a bowl, mix and add the ribs. Toss and put in fridge for at least 2 hours or preferably overnight. Pre-heat oven to 160degrees/gas mark 3. Put the ribs and marinade into a roasting tin, season with salt and loosely cover with foil. Transfer to the oven for one and a half hours, turning halfway. That is, the ribs, not you! Increase oven temperature to 220 degrees/ gas mark 7. Remove the foil and return the ribs to the oven for a further 15 minutes. Scatter with extra chilli to serve.

I'm going to make treacle toffee for a party this afternoon; I haven't made this recipe before so will try it first before posting.

A great tip about the acetone, by the way; certainly one to file.

Have a good day, Everyone.

Viv x

Thank you Cheerful- done it at last. I remembered I posted a pic ages ago from Facebook so i transferred it to there & used their URL. This is my first cushion for the boat - sorry the pic is so large, will have to learn to play with the size
The faint stripes are where the fabric has faded but that's the worst one - had to put it in the hall to snap it as its about 5ft long!

GreyQueen wrote: »

Well done with the lettuce seeds. A convo with the old boys around the allotments revealed that the oldest lettuce seeds to germinate successfully were 11 years OOD.

I'll always give date-expired seeds a go.

11 years!!!! Wow! Just shows how wrong headed such labelling can be. No doubt 000s of perfectly good seeds wasted (and new ones bought...)

Not posted here before, what a super thread with so many helpful ideas
My contribution - I bought a burgundy king-sized duvet cover and 2 pillow cases for £3 in a cs. I cut the duvet in two at the seams, re-hemmed the panels, and used them to line my burgundy curtains to help keep out the light from a street lamp just outside my window. I opened one pillow case at a long and short seam and cut off the tuck-in flap. I opened the other along the long edges, cut it into 4 wide strips and hemmed all the long edges. Gathered the strips, sewed them onto the flat pillow case to make three rows of frills. Stitched up the pillow case again to make a sack and made a channel at the top. Folded and stitch the last strip along the long edge, turned it through using a large safety pin and threaded it through the channel for a drawer string. I now have a pretty laundry sack which hangs on the door. It would have been easy just to use one intact pillow case but I don't like to make things easy for myself, and it does look nice.