Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

foxgloves

@Cheery_Daff - I'm glad I had a thorough session in mine. Harvested lots of green chillies which I was keen to get to before they all turn red so I have both for different recipes. I also hadn't realised how good our peppers are this year after a slow sulky start, so it was like finding treasure!
F

Makingabobor2

Just coming back to the scam conversation. My DD keeps getting texts telling her to "follow the link" to claim her winter fuel payment.....she is 44 years old!!!   Do they really think people are that stupid that they will fall for these things? 

badmemory

Yes they do and they are.  Really.  A friend, only 58 at the time, fell for one to get access to something online when she has no internet & only a basic (non-smart) mobile.  I have warned her & warned her about scams.  I am 20 years older than her & she really is not stupid but they wouldn't bother if no-one fell for them.  Talk about bite your tongue.  She paid up & did nothing about it, almost £100 & she still answers the phone to all & sundry.

Elisheba

Good morning, @foxgloves 🌞. I have just caught up with your August diary. Well done on the continued weight loss. And I'm absolutely certain all your home grown, organic produce will be doing wonders for your gut biome. They say we should be eating at least 30 distinct plants a week, and sounds like you and Mr F are doing that (even if it's somewhat courgette heavy at the moment 🤣)

Couple of thoughts I had when I was reading...

To encourage walking and make it more interesting - have you tried geocaching? It's basically an app based scavenger hunt. The app is free, and although you can upgrade you can do the basics for free. There will be caches locally encourage you to explore and you can do it on holiday as well.

Or another thing that might make it more interesting is walking all your local public rights of way on the OS map, and then going on line and reporting every issue you find to your Council - and you will find so many issues! Budgets have been slashed, and farmers are always pushing the limits of what they can get away with. 

Just on listening to audio books when waking - I can't wear in ear headphones as I have an allergic reaction. I find I don't want to listen to anything on walks though as it's my clear my brain time, for thinking and pondering.

foxgloves

@Elisheba - Thanks. I'm still in the right mindset re weightloss. As I've said before, I don't want to find that when (if) we do manage to relocate when Mr F retires, that I'm too much of an old fat nacker to enjoy all those seaside walks. I'm finding this to be good motivation. Thanks for your thoughts about making my walks more interesting. I've never felt geocaching was for me, but I know lots of people enjoy it. I did enjoy my last foraging walk so I should probably do more of those....plus I could walk up to the village farm shop cafe for the occasional skinny cappuccino, I suppose 🙂. Re your comments on thinking & pondering time, I have an online creative writing course lined up for starting in New Year or maybe earlier, so walks will be a good time to do plenty of thinking about story development. 

Hello BH readers,
Enjoyed entertaining our friends yesterday. - good food & proper catch-up with our news & doings. Bestie was delighted with her bag of magazines & I, equally so, to have decluttered a big bagful. Anyway, on to today's budget-friendly efforts:
*Made a batch of courgette fritters for our lunch, which we ate with chilli sauce (him), blackberry ketchup (me) & assorted leftovers from last night.
*Jacket potato night tonight. Mine will be a sweet potato with cottage cheese, fruity coleslaw & leftover salad from last night. Mr F is making Epic Man Stew for which he has removed an encouraging amount of containers from the freezer.
*Useful garden session for both of us. Mr F removed & composted the Guatemalan blue squash vines, hoed a couple of beds, weeded the front courtyard & cut back a pyracantha which was making its way into next door. I selected the best strawberry runners & potted them up for free plants, sowed a trough of lettuce seeds & harvested sweet pea & calendula seeds.
*Potted up some forgotten about bulbs which came out of a couple of Spring containers. Have stood them by the veg garden bench. If they re-flower, it will be cheery & fragrant to sit next to them, if not, I've lost nothing for trying as will re-use the compost.
*Today's garden pickings: Carrots, cavolo nero, Guatemalan blue squashes & pears.......then a whole load more pears because..........
*Dealt with pear tree incident. While we were indoors eating our lunch, an enormous heavily laden bough broke off our old pear tree. I'm surprised we didn't hear it tbh. Anyway, we had to deal with the pears, so I picked & sorted them into nice edible ones, gnarly or nibbled ones for the birds & any showing signs of brownrot straight into garden waste wheelie. Mr F removed the bough & branches for sawing into disposable sized pieces & some for adding to his 2 log pile habitats.
*Veg watering tonight. Got to keep that food coming.
I am now on my reading bench with the weekend papers & a drink. Earlier, we had a flock of 9 little longtailed tits in our buddleja, eating the seeds. So pretty to see & glad I didn't take Monty Don's advice last week to deadhead them. Sparrows have been eating them too, & bluetits.
Hope everyone is managing to enjoy some downtime. 
F x

foxgloves

Just in case anyone else is similarly armpit-deep in courgettes & would like to make fritters. I make them like this:
Grate 450g courgettes onto a clean teatowel. Gather it up & squeeze the bundle really well to remove as much liquid as possible. Tip them into a bowl & stir in 4 tbsp plain flour, 2 beaten eggs, 50g grated cheddar & seasoning to taste. Shallow fry in oil, using a heaped tbsp of mixture per fritter. They don't need long. Turn them at half time & remove when nicely brown on both sides. Serve with chilli sauce or other interesting condiment of your choice. Don't be tempted to leave this to stand as you would a batter. The salt can bring more moisture out of the courgettes so I find it's better to mix it up fresh & use straight away. They do freeze & reheat according to Mr F who has taken them for packed lunches. 
F x

themadvix

Thank you FG - you’ve just sorted dinner tonight. Am definitely up to armpits in courgettes and tired from a day of kitchen witchery (as you’d say) - 9 jars of plum chutney and 2 jars of stewed rhubarb, redcurrants straining for jellying tomorrow and I still need to bottle some plums. Hopefully I’ll have room in the freezer for some of the cheesy courgette soup you mentioned now I’ve cleared the rhubarb and currants.

rtandon27

I too was about to deadhead the buddleja and saw a little flock of birds happily having a meal so have left it!  I have weeded and pruned about 1/3 of the garden instead!

Makingabobor2

Fritters sound great. Thanks.x

Suffolk_lass

Oh yes, me too on the courgette front. I also "found" two much smaller GBBS while picking courgettes (one hanging of the inside wall of the fruit cage and one that is actually blue grey, in with the runner beans! - I am going to try those courgette fritters so have copied the recipe!

Today will be courgette soup for lunch (again) while we press on with filling the small trailer ready for the dump-run booked for 16.45 this evening (we know how to live!). Happy bank holiday Monday to those not in Scotland