Brilliant Broccoli

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Posted on August 17, 2020

It is wonderful to be able to successfully grow at least some of your own food but it is equally important to ensure that it is used and does not go to waste.

This is a 900g head of broccoli I picked recently. It was as big as a dinner plate.

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I decided to turn it into a main meal with tuna and tomatoes.

Other ingredients.

Break the broccoli into florets and lightly cook.

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Saute the diced onion and capsicum.

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Add Tabasco to taste, flaked tuna and crushed tomatoes. I blended one can of tomatoes to make the sauce smoother and thicker. Simmer until reduced and thickened.

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Pour sauce over the broccoli. Top with a mixture of flaxseed meal, grated cheese and seasoning.

Place under the grill until browned.

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This quantity made 6 generous serves. I served it with a small portion of rice.

One Small Cupboard

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Posted on August 16, 2020

I started thinking about how to begin this post and went trawling through the archives of the blog. What an eye-opener!

This photo is from a blog post in January 2015. It is one half of the the cupboard in the office/study – the other half is my linen cupboard. You can read the whole post here if you are interested.

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These are before and after photos from a follow-up blog post in June 2015. We had down-sized from the 4 drawer filing cabinet to a 2 drawer one. This also meant that we were able to create an extra shelf using an offcut of melamine shelving.

Fast forward 5 years and after gradually reducing the contents of the filing cabinet, we were able to get rid of it completely and relocate the last few remaining files to the filing drawer of the desk which had remained unused up to that point.

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We decided to add another shelf but also removed the previous extra shelf as the cut edges had never been painted. There is plenty of space.

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Two shelves in place.

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The contents rearranged and easy to locate.

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The plastic crate on the floor of the cupboard is going to be our evacuation/emergency box. There will be a few things stored in it but the primary thing is a checklist of what to add (eg: medications) and what to do in specific situations. The contents and list may have slight seasonal variations and will be reviewed at regular intervals. My camera is sitting on top of the box.

It is interesting to see the evolution of the organisation of various spaces in our home. We have lived in this house for almost 15 years which is considerably longer than we have ever resided anywhere else. There has not been the impetus of an impending house move but we have actually decluttered quite a bit by doing it slowly and consistently. The blog is quite an amazing record of what we have achieved in the last 9.5 years.

Clearing the Inbox

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Posted on August 15, 2020

Over the past few days I have been clearing out the Inboxes of our 2 email accounts. This is what it looks like now.

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The total emails I have in ‘All Mail’ is 207.

This is not the first time I have done this and I am sure it won’t be the last, however, I do intend to try to keep on top of the email correspondence on a regular basis.

You can read this post from 2015. There were only about 1500 emails before I started this time.

My goal is maintain the ‘All Mail’ at less than 250 but this will fluctuate somewhat depending on what I need to hold for future reference.

Clutter can weigh you down and prevent you from living your best life. Digital clutter is no different.

Patience Pays Off

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Posted on August 14, 2020

We often think of being patient and/or persistent when it comes to locating a specific item. It can be trawling secondhand shops or even looking for a vary particular item brand-new.

However, I have discovered that patience and allowing things to take their course can apply in equal measure when trying to sell or give something away. Somewhere, sometime there will be somebody for whom your treasure will be just perfect. It is simply a matter of finding them.

A case in point is this dressing table. We bought it several years ago with a view to restoring it but plans and needs changed and we needed to find a new home for it.

The mirror attaches to the back of the dressing table and the mirror is absolutely stunning – almost a metre in diameter with a beautiful pie crust edge.

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The interior of the cupboards features a central shelf on one side and 4 drawers on the other.

I listed it over 2 months ago on several local Buy, Swap, Sell groups on Facebook. Despite a few enquiries it failed to be sold. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try Gumtree and was feeling a bit despondent as there did not seem to be any interest.

Yesterday I received an enquiry about the Gumtree advertisement from people who live in an adjacent locality in our semi-rural area. They arranged to collect it at 10am this morning.

I held my breath as I cannot remember the countless times that promising sales or giveaways have failed to eventuate.

As arranged the purchasers arrived with a trailer at the appointed time and were absolutely delighted with the dressing table which they plan to put to good use as they fit out their newly-acquired home.

I was really pleased to see this go to a good home and know that it will be appreciated.

Painting Posts

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Posted on August 6, 2020

Yes, this is a post about painting but more importantly, we were actually painting posts.

We have a large area under our highset house which was simply an untamed soil embankment when we first came here almost 15 years ago. This was unusable and generated a lot of dust in the house. A few years later we had most of the area concreted. We had no specific plan and for the last 10 years it has mostly been a storage and work area.

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Nevertheless, in the back of our minds was a half-hatched plan to turn at least part of it into an outdoor entertainment area. Part of the reason is that this is by far the coolest area of our home during the summer.

Our half-hatched plan has developed over a few years but it was not until this year that we have had time to really get started. We intend to screen part of the area using Ekodeck battens. The first step of this process was to paint the steel posts.

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Most of the posts are painted dark gray to match the other exterior paintwork on the lower level of the house. However, we painted the posts which will be in the middle of the designated area in a much lighter hue. This will ensure that they are easily visible. We will combine this with strategic placement of furniture and plants to minimise any risk of accidents.

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We plan to create a green screen using multiple hanging baskets hung at different levels in the section which contains the light-coloured cross-bracing.

Several weeks ago we bought the timber for the support rails. The 21 pieces have been cut to length, painted and are stacked in preparation for the next stage of the construction.

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After much planning and preparation we are finally seeing results. The difference between the first and third photos in this post is the result of about 5 hours work by GMan and I today.

I think we deserve a couple of rest days after that effort. We have a lunch date planned for tomorrow and are going to the movies on Saturday.

Bug-Free Brassicas – Part 2

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Posted on August 4, 2020

Remember this post?

Well, here is the first result of my endeavours.

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One of the things I am passionate about is eating local, seasonal produce wherever possible so this freshly picked broccoli from our own garden was destined to become part of our evening meal.

A simple stir-fry of chicken and broccoli.

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CHICKEN & BROCCOLI STIR-FRY (Serves 2)

1 chicken breast fillet, cut into strips
1 small onion, cut into wedges
1/2 head broccoli, broken into small florets
1 tablespoon toasted sunflower seeds
Oil

SAUCE

2 tablespoons tamari
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/4 teaspoon powdered chilli
2 teaspoons arrowroot

Heat the oil, saute the chicken until cooked then add the onion and broccoli. Combine all of the ingredients for the sauce. When the broccoli is lightly cooked add the sauce and stir until it has thickened and coated the chicken and vegetables. Stir in the sunflower seeds.

Serve with rice.

Delicious and the money spent on netting the raised beds containing the brassicas has definitely been a worthwhile exercise.

I am looking forward to plenty more meals featuring our homegrown broccoli.

Ready for Refill

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Posted on August 2, 2020

It is August already and I barely mentioned Plastic Free July in the past month. While this is a great initiative to encourage people to rethink their reliance on single-use plastics, I try to make every month as free from plastic as possible.

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Today I loaded up my basket with these plastic bottles to return to Felix from Kin Kin Naturals. These bottles will be reused. He has a stall at the Kin Kin markets which is about 80km from our place. We usually go about once a year to stock up on products we use – laundry liquid, laundry pre-soak, dishwashing liquid and dishwasher powder.

It is great to support a local, family-owned business and by buying direct we can save money and plastic.

Pantry Organisation

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Posted on July 26, 2020

As I promised in my post from yesterday, here is my pantry. It is reasonably well-organised but has not been tidied especially for these photos.

My grocery shopping can be divided into 2 basic categories. The first is bulk bin purchases of dry goods such as nuts, flours, seeds, legumes which are shown in the first photo. I buy most of these from Simply Good. I am able to take my own containers to fill and thus avoid any packaging. This is important to me and particularly relevant as we approach the end of Plastic Free July.

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I regard supermarket shopping as the last resort – I buy those items which I cannot grow, swap, buy from the producer directly, greengrocer, butcher or otherwise plastic free. These include dairy products and a small number of canned or packaged foods. These are mostly shown in the next photo.

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By having an organised refrigerator and pantry, I am able to easily scan the shelves and create a shopping list when required.

Refrigerator Organisation

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Posted on July 25, 2020

We did the grocery shopping early this morning and when I came home I wiped out and tidied the refrigerator before putting everything away.

I don’t whether it is simply habit but I routinely place items in the same area of the refrigerator. It certainly makes it easier to locate things when I need them.

This is the main part of the refrigerator.

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The door shelves are similarly organised.

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2 things came to my notice when doing this.

The refrigerator is not overstuffed. We have plenty of food without it being jam-packed.

Almost everything is purchased or stored in glass. I still have and use some plastic containers but these are becoming less and less.

I am happy to answer any questions about the contents of the refrigerator.

Tomorrow I will show you the pantry contents and storage.

Eggplant Pizza

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Posted on July 22, 2020

I make my own gluten free pizza bases and often have slices of roasted eggplant as one of the toppings.

Last night I took a different path and used the eggplant as the bases. 2 separate events led me to try this option. In fact, this blog post could easily have been titled, ‘A Tale of 2 Julias’. In 2014 we were privileged to meet a fellow blogger, Julia Davis-Coombs from Creative Economy in the Kitchen. Julia lives on the other side of the world so it was a delight to meet her when we were on our travels. Our shared lunch included mini pizzas made with slices of a very large zucchini as the base. Although I have not re-created this dish, it is a meal I have not forgotten. The second Julia was a recent online encounter with Julia B. in a group when I was canvassing ideas for a vegetarian meal and I mentioned that one of the vegetables I had on hand was eggplant. While I did not use her suggestion that night, it seemed ideal when I came to make dinner last night.

EGGPLANT PIZZA

1 large eggplant
Sea salt
Olive oil
Pizza toppings as desired

Cut the eggplant into slices about 1 – 1.5cm in thickness. Place on a baking tray, lightly brush with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast for 10 minutes at 160C.

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Remove eggplant from the oven and add toppings. I used homemade tomato pizza sauce and mixed herbs then chopped mushroom and capsicum (bell pepper) and finally, sliced olives and cheddar cheese.

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