Living richly; simply and debt-freely

rtandon27

:jHappy New Year 2015 Greying & Chums!:j

Greying - once again you've struck a chord - we too are planning at least one move (but possibly two over) the next year & have been aiming to declutter even further so we the move is easier!

Yesterday I tackled the clothing cupboard & have three large bags of items to leave the house - one for a textile charity & one for friends/family & one of totebags/handbags (:o) for the sally ann box! Mind you I only use a capsule wardrobe these days so emotional attachment to many of the items was the hurdle to jump!

We'll join you in the storecupboard clearing challenge - if you don't mind - I think if OH & I I clear at least one (but possibly two items a week), and don't replace it if it's not a staple (like tomatoes or chickpeas) we will once again see our shelves & get down to a 'capsule' storecupboard!

greenbee

Yoghurt monitor checking in

I have made yogurt with a starter from the freezer. It isn't great, but is useable.

I'm also working on using up storecupboard contents (well, freezers mostly). In theory if I focus on using stuff up I should be able to save enough in the next few months to pay for some improvements to my temporary kitchen that would mean I could put a working oven and hob in...

Upsidedown_Bear

Smilie of the day.

Greying_Pilgrim

Well, 2015 is getting off to a good start - and we've the smilie to prove it

We went off for a walk - unfortunately only around the local park - DP is feeling a bit off par (not alcohol related, just a bit of ongoing lurgification ) so he directed the route. However, it was good to get the cobwebs blown away. It was good to see plenty of people out and about, showing that perhaps NYE isn't all about getting blotto (although, having said that, we did see one individual clearly worse for wear and a couple of chaps who looked like they were dressed in the same clothes they may have gone out partying in last night....... )

I found 5p *roadkill* :j It wasn't anywhere near any lurid green/red/blue substances deposited on the pavement, and the streetcleaner had clearly missed it :j

I have had Tilly on my mind since I posted this morning (*note to self* - ask Tilly to wear slippers/trainers when she gets in my head, rather than clogs...... :rotfl:) I am actually so relieved to have thrown out that out of date item - thrift can sometimes blind you to the obvious. But also, I'm thinking very much more about *stores* in general. One problem that I have - and I don't know how many times I have mentioned this, so I have to get a grip of it, is portion size. And I was playing mental *connect the dots* (Tilly's *fault* ) and realised that if I didn't have such big portions, I wouldn't need so much *stock* (and I mean everything by that; fresh, frozen and dried goods) so it wouldn't take up so much room and wouldn't get forgotten. Dear Reader, I have listened to myself (for once) and started out on portion control with the purpose of decluttering.

So, for lunch, instead of making a HUGE vat of vegetable soup, I made sufficient soup for two medium portions (used smaller bowls) and there is enough left to be whizzed and put in the freezer for a snap portion. Just because I put a lot of vegetables in it, it didn't mean I had to use 3 carrots, 3 onions, 6 sticks of celery etc etc. I used the sort of portion size that you would want on the size of your plate if you were having a roast dinner I didn't add any stock powder, just a little salt, and the natural sweetness/taste of the parsnips, celery, carrots and swede did the rest I did grind up a few celery seeds to give added depth of flavour. Then, whilst the soup was cooking away, I made us a little dessert. Now, I have a set of 4 small glass jelly dishes (I guess you'd call them) - they are the same sort of glass as the water glasses you used to have with school dinners (that dates ya Greying!). I rarely use them. So, I though to myself, why not make our pud a little special and use the glass dishes - they're taking up space in the cupboard otherwise.

So, the dessert was some YS'd medjool dates that I got in mrW an age ago for 49p a packet (real price over £3 :eek:) destoned and chopped up (2 each) and mixed with a couple of YS'd conference pears (again from mrW) chopped up. I was about to reach for the 3rd pear, when I stopped myself, and thought, 'No, make enough to put in the dish, no more'. The filling was good for the 2 dishes (think v.small ramekin) and then I topped this with a generous swirl of greek yoghurt (mrL) and left them in the fridge whilst the soup cooked (there were lentils in the soup as well btw) and whilst we ate it. To serve, I lightly dusted the top of the yoghurt with cinnamon, and I have to say, the pear and date had mixed together and mingled flavours. So simple. Relatively cheap. The dates have been decluttered (last 4) and most importantly - our lunch was 'just enough'. We're not starving and we're not bloated :j

Isn't it amazing where *connections* take you too?????

rtandon - I take it by the use of the term *capsule kitchen* you are knowledgeable of Courtney Carver? I'd heard of P333 wardrobe, but the kitchen was a new one on me - I learnt about that from Sue over at Our New Life in the Country I'm certainly moving to along those lines, even if I don't follow the methodology to the letter. I'm certainly going to work on what is a 'staple' as well - combining it with weekly budgeting and therefore more regular shopping. The difficultly comes when you see something on *sale* though doesn't it?

Right, I'm off to do a bit more pondering of my stores.

See y'all later.

Greying

liltdiddylilt

I just love the pings that happen in my own head following yours GP

On the theme of decluttering and way before I wandered into Greying Towers today, I have cleared out the bedside cabinets, rearranged my toiletries, and my giant box of meds, plus put all my nifty cables and useful objects into a lockable box of their own so that I can find them when I need them. I then set about removing thousands of songs I never liked anyway from my ichoons and my external hard drive and am further decluttering said hard drive by wandering down memory lane and cutting out some of the 16,000 photographs I have taken in 3 years... So many duplicates.... Trying to get the exact shot I wanted!

Now, the freezer has several portions of veggie soup, leftover roast lamb slices in minted gravy, and big tubs of frozen roast lamb stew. If I stick to portion control properly, each of these feeds two! I've just seen Mrs Hinge make up a massive batch of lentil/veggie bolognese/chilli/red sauce with such a tiny amount of items... and I have safely whizzed up the 'ends' of my loaf into breadcrumbs and frozen it ready to chuck in to my cooking where necessary. I have quinoa to use up and will make a simple tabbouleh when I find some YS parsley

I do love all the thoughts I am having on this very first day of the year. It makes me feel all new even as I sit in my pyjamas still

Happy New Year to you all... Thanks for making me think harder! xx

Greying_Pilgrim

I've just been taking the menu plans for 2014 down off the noticeboard in the kitchen and I did a quick tally of how well/not we stuck to the plan. It seems that February and September were the best months, where we only deviated from the plan for 3 nights in the month. July was by far the worst, when we only had 15 of the dishes planned for the 31 day month.

I must admit, I thought I had done a similar tally up last year, but I've just been looking at the start of the year and couldn't find the relevant post I wonder if I was fed up of planning/sticking to the plan by July, or whether the glorious weather that we benefited from made each evening's choice the wrong one?

For the rest of the year, we seemed to average about 3 weeks out of every 4 following the plan. MMMM, of course, I have no way of knowing what would happen if I didn't menu-plan - although my instinct would go with it'd be boring and expensive.........

Lilty - you've done all that having just recently undergone surgery???? Lawks! You're a gal and a half! Oh, but I do so know what you mean about trying to get 'the perfect shot' - I take about [STRIKE]97[/STRIKE], [STRIKE]98[/STRIKE] 99 shots of me tea each evening! :rotfl:

Greying - still have me head immersed in me stores! :rotfl:

maddiemay

Another one with a rather FULL store cupboard, well cupboards, actually, one of my grumps is having to buy generous amounts of things in order to try a new dish, there are just two of us, it must be so much worse for one:( Any suggestions for nearly 500g of Gram flour on a postcard please, as I clearly bought it with a recipe in mind and now cannot remember what it was for (poor memory is a side effect of a chronic medical condition:( Can one successfully freeze onion bhajis? that is all that springs to mind at present and we would eat very few at a sitting.

I have decluttered at least half of the remaining choccie brownies that I made yesterday for the family visit today, they clearly appreciated them and went off merrily with a box full:D

Greying, the lovely weather certainly made a mess of my (haphazard) meal plans, it was just too lovely a lot of the time to want to eat the things I had in mind, nice problem to have had though after some previous summers:D

Greying_Pilgrim

maddiemay wrote: »

Any suggestions for nearly 500g of Gram flour on a postcard please, as I clearly bought it with a recipe in mind and now cannot remember what it was for (poor memory is a side effect of a chronic medical condition:( Can one successfully freeze onion bhajis? that is all that springs to mind at present and we would eat very few at a sitting.

maddiemay - I would use the gram flour to make a crustless quiche, using Bethany Kehdy's Chickpea Flour Quiche recipe. What you put into it, is up to you - meat and/or veggies. Really easy recipe, and a really good eat But I think bhajis is a good idea too - can't see why you can't freeze them. Would you re-heat from frozen in the oven?

Btw I'm assuming you know that gram flour doesn't keep for very long - it's apt to go rancid Which is a double nuisance, as it ain't that cheap

Greying

7_week_wonder

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Anyone who does goal setting (and if you need a hand Memorygirl is focussing on it on her blog at the mo.)

I've been reading Memorygirl's blog and have seen the posts about goal setting - but for some reason I've been putting off watching the videos. I'm not entirely sure why - maybe I need to be in a better frame of mind and will do it next week once we've taken my mum home and things are back to normal.

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

And I've already taken the monumental (for me) step of throwing out one food stuff. It is actually out of date I'm not 'fessing by how much It is probably perfectly edible, but the very fact that we've not used it (and have more in the kitchen anyway) means that we're obviously not keen on it. So, I'm taking the hit and getting rid. Mindful shopping in 2015 should mean I don't make that mistake again.

Thank you, thank you! A couple of days ago I had a big sort out of my cupboards and chucked (ok - I composted) some very old food stuffs. I figured that if I hadn't used them by now I probably never would. But it felt very odd to be throwing it out, immoral almost! However, you are right - I know feel lighter for having more space in my cupboards and I won't buy that sort of thing again.

It's been a quiet day here, some watching trashy tv, some photo-archiving with my mum and general chilling.

Have a lovely evening of 2015 everyone.

maddiemay

Greying, thank you quiche recipe looks yummy, I am sure that I can conjure something up from fridge and stores, no Harissa paste, but just looked on Recipe Source and I have everything I need:)

I was not aware of the short shelf life, so will get on and use it soon, perhaps may find things on the Gluten Free sites too. Thank you:A