Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

Lynplatinum

Evening all

Well, I had hoped it would get cooler here (Milton Keynes) at night but its not much cooler! Earlier today it was like stepping out of my reasonably warm house - into a bowl of soup! Had a two hour drive today in my car which has no air con - well opening the windows didnt help much! You would think I would be a size 10 overnight - i ll lot you know tomorrow!!

Mrs Smith - I do this with toothpaste (cutting the tube in half) always - and get at least another week's worth out of it!! handcream you can do the same with!

Have done 3/4 of one curtain today in between working and writing reports! Also a cheap tea! I forgot to say yesterday that I went food shopping for the first time in two weeks because I had run out of everything fresh!! I spent £20 but bought stuff like a ham to cook - 10 chicken drumsticks - parmisan cheese - flour - yogurt and as a treat £1.50s worth of fresh cherries!

Cooked all the chicken yesterday and today had 2 of the drumsticks with new boiled potatoes and a salad of mint (5 leaves as big as my thumb per person); cold peas; finely diced cucumber; lettuce (from my living lettuce) dressed in a classic HM French dressing with the twist that I use honey rather than sugar!

How brilliant that we are all feeding ourselves a bit from allotments, gardens, pots etc - it gotta have more vitamins in - surely???

Viv - I love the idea of raised beds and if I was staying here I would definitely do that - great to have a friend to help! :beer:

Am going back to £5 per week for foods - because I have restocked for the next 2/3 weeks til Im off on hols . today made my own 'Fruit C!rner' using plain yogurt and the pureed canned cherries - not too tasty but acceptable with honey in as well! Definitely a Make do! And Minimising as I shall not buy a tin to replace them!!

Trying desperately trying to minimise!! :rotfl: Still astonished at how much I have acquired clutter over the years!
More MM&M for me yet to go! Back on it tomorrow friends
Nite!

wondercollie

Happy Canada Day!!!


It's warm and sunny and he who thinks he's in charge has decided he wants fish and chips for supper.


The rest of the country is doing BBQ and he wants to heat up the oven and chip pan!!!

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Too hot to sleep much, so am waking up slowly with a cuppa before biking up to the allotment to pick strawbs. It will be the last picking until next Monday evening (I'm visiting family) and I want to catch up.

Vhalla, if your red lettuce is the frilly kind, it's likely to be Lollo Rosso. Interestingly, the variety was named after the film star Gina Lollobrigida, the red-headed beauty. Some people get roses named after them, Gina got a lettuce.:rotfl:

Purely unscientific experiementations, where I grew regular and red lettuce, and regular and red cabbages together, showed that slugs ate the green varieties for preference. One they were all gone, they started on the red varieties. Dunno what practical use you can make of this information, but there you go.

Have been eating straws, autumn-sown broad beans and chard and radish of the allotment. Some of the spuds are starting to go over, and I will take individual roots out when the tops have died out. Accidentally partially uncovered a potato whilst weeding yesterday. It was a beautiful pearl of loveliness and I tucked it back up for later. The first new spuds of the season should be treated with appropriate ceremony.

Will also be aiming to eat down the freezer and storecupboards this month, with buying only fresh items as needed. Am waiting on a date for having leccy work done to my flat, which will involve moving freezer and the less there's in it, the easier that will be.

Have a good day, lovely peeps. GQ xx

surfsister

good thread but being thrifty need not be dull - after lovely chicken breasts and roasties with that chicken freeze the rest if the family have had enough chicken or make chicken sarnies/soup curry etc. Ingenuity is a very useful thing. Also growing veg. The knack I've found is to ignore the strong tugs of consumerist Britain which seems to run financially on shopping and building Britain is after all a nation of shopkeepers or so said some famous person! I make it a rule to list what we need/want and whenever we're/I'm out look around as we pass charity/thrift/bargain/auction places/car boots etc. It's amazing how often that item comes up at hardly any cost that way and it feels much better having a similar thing at a much reduced price. I've also learnt to spend money on experiences with loved ones eg cream tea tea at a nice place, tea at a stately home (don't go into the home if you can't afford it!), days at the seaside, picnics, bbq's all reasonably priced but fun whereas shopping for us just isn't! Enjoying the thread!! I used to be thought of as a nut but now I'm in fashion!!

camelot1001

I took a small cabbage (they are not really ready yet) from the garden yesterday and stir fried it with other veggies for tea and it as lovely, the fresheness definitely helps.

Used up most things from the fridge, there was brocolli, cauli and french beans left so I blanched them and put them in the freezer, not throwing anything away! The only thing that has stumped me is the cucumber, I think I will give it to my neighbour before I go.

janb5

misstara wrote: »

Hi janb, I just substituted gf flour in my usual banana loaf recipe and it seemed to work fine.

3oz marg
4oz sugar
2 eggs
8oz self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 mashed bananas

Cream marg and sugar. Add eggs, flour and baking powder. Mix in mashed bananas. Bake at 180 for 50 mins.

Do you have a good gf chocolate chip cookie recipe by any chance? I tried my usual recipe with gf flour but it wasn't particularly successful.

Havent got choc chip but the following links might be useful:

ww.theintolerantgourmet.com


http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/16/readers-recipe-swap-gluten-free-eve-osullivan

xx

VJsmum

Here is a recipe from Deliciously ella, if you can tolerate oats.

You can replace the sultanas with choc chips - i have made them, they're lish

http://deliciouslyella.com/chewy-sultana-cookies/

misstara

Thanks for the links janb and VJsmum. I have gf oats for making porridge with so I'm sure they would work fine for the cookies.

elona

Youngest dd hates fish while the rest of us like it so decided to use up the YS fish mix for 89pence tonight as she is away.

Used some frozen peas, garlic, coriander, onion and elderly carrots and it should make enough for me and middle dd tonight. Still have some YS diced beef from freezer with peppers, onions and mushroom for a mild curry tomorrow night.

janb5

Oh dear landed on the new interface which really hurts my eyes...hate it! Winge winge!