Preparing for Winter V

sammy_kaye18

Primrose said:

Plastic milk bottles are really sturdy and make excellent freezer containers for liquid. We use them for storing blitzed home made soups.  If you ever use those little individual Benecol probiotic drinks they,re useful for storing individual potions on lemon & ginger lotions to sip if you have a cold.

What a great idea. I use those little bottles for cholesterol drinks but I will make sure to put some aside and use them. I wonder if you froze them without the lid on and then stored them in a tub or ziplock bag and just take one out to defrost then when you need it. Or do they need to be kept in a fridge do you think?

Floss said:

sammy_kaye18 said:

Even my son this morning is feeling congested so I expect he will start having a few warming drinks before long. Which reminds me to add lemsips to my medicines I need list because they contain paracetamol and he has really problems taking pills... 

Nurofen do ibuprofen Meltlets, which are just like Refresher sweets and dissolve in the mouth - might be worth finding some for your son (although they aren't as cheap as regular ibuprofen).

I didn't know they did meltlets. At the minute he has panadol tablets which he will take if he needs to, and if I crush up a paracetamol and put it in a small amount of water then he will take that too but obviously its not ideal. I will look into them though. He doesn't use or take them often so I don't mind the price if it means I have something on hand. 

I actually did my first bit of Christmas shopping earlier and had a look at the online home shop and they have oodies on there (or similar) for between £9 - £35 so I have brought one for each of the kids and one for husband. Theory being that I dont feel the cold like the 3 of them do - thanks to perimenopause! - but they go mountain biking a lot too so it will keep them all warm and they can wear them after riding as well or change into them if the weather turns bad on a ride so for the total of £33 I have 3 of them being delivered in a few days. 

fionaandphil

@sammy_kaye18 we've got some of those oodies from OHS. They seem nice and cosy so will hopefully help this winter. 

Thanks all for the reminders everyone. The weather at the beginning of the week was very cold and frosty here, so it has prompted a bit more winter prepping, but thankfully we did most of it over the summer. It still catches you out though when you wake up and it's frosty.

sammy_kaye18

@fionaandphil I have brought two of the regular ones for the kids but husbands is big and furry so shouldnt be any complains of feeling cold! and they are all different colours so no stealing each others either! 

skogar

Sammy - Thanks for the reminder re lagging of outside pipes - we had one that caused a slight problem last year as the lagging had disintegrated and dropped of and I had forgotten we needed to replace it.

Cornish chick - I have never heard before about spider plants being good at dehumidifing. The good news is I have a spider plant and at the moment it has a lot of babies attached to it - so perhaps I should pot some of them up and have a few more around the house.

London_1

Good morning chums

sammy-kay18 I do a 2 pint rice pudding in my slow cooker when its winter time, and put it on low just before I go to bed and the slight heat given off in the kitchen is the added bonus when I get up in the morning to a lovely smelling rice pud which will do for several days, once cold keeps well in the fridge when decanted into a pyrex bowl. a bowl of home made soup and a microwaved bowl of rice pud is a nice filling lunch time  meal for me 

JackieO xx

SuzeQStan

Proper oven baked rice pudding - there is nothing better especially with a bit of the caramelised skin 😋

edit - just realised what you said about doing yours in a slow cooker JackieO - that is inspired and I will do one tonite I think as I haven’t used my slow cooker in ages. 

annieb64

Must check whether I have pudding rice. I usually do mine in the slow cooker too unless the oven is on  for a casserole or fruit cake-then I put a rice pudding at the bottom of the oven.

Primrose

Sammy-Kaye   There,s always the risk of accidental thawing if you store the little pro biotic bottles without kids, aI suppose.  We also use them for storing individual portions of different herb pestos.  Of course good labelling is important though .  I,ve never forgotten the time I threw a bag of "chicken stock" into a pan of soup I was making.  It sadly turned out to be gooseberry ourree but in its frosted state the two looked pretty identical!

These  little Benecol type  pots are so useful.  Weve also used them, sprayed green on sticks in our  veg growing area to prevent them from poking our eyes out when bending over weeding 

We also have a rotary clothes dryer which gets moved around our lawn to make the most of the moving sunny areas for clothes drying outdoors so have spikes sunk in the lawn in which to house the central dryer pole.  The Benecol pots are stuck upside down in the empty spikes when not in use to plug them so they can be easily  found when the grass has grown too tall  to allow the holes to be easily located .

sammy_kaye18

London_1 said:

Good morning chums

sammy-kay18 I do a 2 pint rice pudding in my slow cooker when its winter time, and put it on low just before I go to bed and the slight heat given off in the kitchen is the added bonus when I get up in the morning to a lovely smelling rice pud which will do for several days, once cold keeps well in the fridge when decanted into a pyrex bowl. a bowl of home made soup and a microwaved bowl of rice pud is a nice filling lunch time  meal for me 

JackieO xx

Hello JackieO my darling - how are you feeling? I have been away for a few days and playing catch up on the boards. Are you home now? 

Do you know what that is one thing I have never made is rice pudding and husband and I love it so I think I might have to give it a try one day, I shall add pudding rice to my shopping list and look up a recipe.
And I agree - you cant beat a nice hot bowl of soup on a cold and chilly day.

Cheapskate

I bought pudding rice last week for the first time in ages - £1.50 a packet!!! Will definitely be using my slow cooker a lot from this week, fallen off the OS wagon for a while due to circumstances, but getting back to it now, better late than never!

Also thinking of investing in new electric blankets, not had any for years, and wondering if they'll work out more economical than heating being on...

A xo