Category Archives: zero waste

Countdown – Cooking

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Removalist day (17th March) is fast approaching and it is time I gave some serious consideration to the kitchen and food.

It will be almost 8 weeks between the date that everything is moved and when we actually move into our new home in Victoria. In that time we will be housesitting near our existing home, spending a few days with family and then house-sitting for a week in Brisbane before spending 5 days driving to Victoria and another 10 days in an Air BnB before our final relocation. All of this means that although I will have the capacity to cook meals, my access to a full range of ingredients and implements will be somewhat limited.

So, this morning a made a list of some of the major ingredients I have. The next step is to create as many meals as possible that can be frozen and fairly easily reheated or finished off with the minimum of ingredients.

The first cab off the rank was a batch of chilli con carne using up diced onion, mince, kidney beans and refried beans from the freezer. It made 5 serves.

Ingredients

1 large onion, diced
250g mince
500g kidney beans
1 cup refried beans
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup water
2 teaspoons beef stock powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons smoky paprika
1 teaspoon powdered chilli
Tabasco sauce – to taste

Method

Gently saute the onion in a little olive oil, add the mince and stir until fully browned. Add the remining ingredients, combine and simmer gently for about 30 minutes. This will allow the flavours to combine and thicken slightly to a spicy, rich sauce.

NOTE: Adjust seasonings to suit your taste.

Building a Box

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Just when you thought that all of our attention would be focused on decluttering and packing for our impending move, you discover that we actually spent some of our time making, or at least repairing something.

Even though my father died over 20 years ago, his legacy lives on. We have 3 boxes which came from his workshop which we have used to store various items. 2 of them had been in our woodshed for several years and we discovered that the base of one of them had completely rotted.

We are planning to use these boxes to pack things from the workshop in and transport them to their new home on the tray of the ute.

The boxes had originally been made by my father from various scraps of masonite and the reinforced with metal angle.

GMan removed the rotted base of the box and metal angle surrounding the base by drilling out all of the existing rivets. He then cut some offcuts of pine to make a frame to fit inside the base and screwed the metal angle back in place.

The final step was to cut a new base. This was cut from a piece of scrap plywood which we sourced from a neighbour. It had been one of the signs for our combined garage sale a week earlier.

The view of the completed base.

A final view of the inside with a reminder of the source of the plywood.

With the plywood in place and secured with nails, the box is as good as ever and I expect it will last for many more years.

Let’s Talk Packing

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I guess you thought from the title that I meant packing up an entire house.

No, just planning for a 4 night trip away. However, it will be to an area of distinctly inconsistent weather but it seems to be bordering on the cooler side (for summer) at the moment.

Two pairs of shoes.

A dress which can be worn with or without a cardigan.

Two pairs of trousers – emerald green linen pants and a pair of white slim-fit pants.

Two 3/4 sleeve tops.

Lightweight black pullover and cardigan.

White cotton shirt.

Short sleeve top.

Two scarves that will add both warmth and interest.

This is to cover predicted temperatures from 9C to 29C but mostly between about 15C and 22C.

It is interesting to note that the majority of the items were opshopped. The leather shoes were new last summer and one scarf and one top were bought new several years ago. The other scarf and cardigan were inherited from my mother. I made the white shirt from fabric that was given to me.

Use It Up

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Food is one of the less obvious things you need to consider when planning to move house. This is not a major issue if you are moving down the road or even across town but it is definitely a consideration when moving further afield.

We are moving to a different state and while jars of dry goods can be packed in boxes as with other household items the contents of the refrigerator and freezer are a different story.

It is still about 7 weeks until we depart but it is never too soon to consider how best to use the contents of the refrigerator and freezer. I am fairly aware of what I have available and will be working towards using this up. Of course, I will still be buying fresh fruit and vegetables.

Yesterday I made a big batch of Eggplant & Bean Curry. This vegan and gluten-free dish is definitely one of our favourites.

EGGPLANT & BEAN CURRY

Ingredients

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 large onion, cut into wedges
1 tablespoon Massaman curry paste
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
500ml water
1 can light coconut cream
2 large potatoes, diced into 1cm pieces and cooked until tender
600g eggplant, diced into 1cm pieces
300g green beans, prepared and cut into 2cm lengths

METHOD

Prepare the vegetables as per the ingredient list. Heat the oil, add onion wedges, curry paste and spices, toss until well combined and the onion is softened. Add the diced eggplant, combine and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the water and stock powder. Simmer until volume is reduced slightly. Add the potatoes, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add more water if required. Stir in the coconut cream and simmer to reduce slightly if required. Finally, add the beans and cook for about 5 minutes.

I serve this with a small quantity of brown rice. You do not need to add too many carbs as there is already potato in the curry.

NOTE: The quantities are based on what I had available and the desired level of spiciness. You can adjust according to your own tastes. I use this basic curry sauce for of curry dishes. It is particularly good with a dish based on cauliflower, too.

This made a total of 8 serves (4 meals) for GMan and I. We had one for dinner and the remainder was portioned up and went into the freezer. That is 3 more meals I will not have to prepare in the next 7 weeks.

Selling and Sewing

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One of the challenges of having our home for sale and regularly open for inspection is that I cannot leave my sewing room as it is when I am in the middle of a project.

Before we went on holidays I cut out a blouse. I had pinned the darts in place and then had to pack everything away as there were going to be an inspection while we were away.

When I retrieved the project it took me a while to work out where I was up to. Then it was full steam ahead and I finished the blouse. The fabric and buttons were all sourced from my stash.

Here is the work in progress.

The finished blouse.

A close-up showing the wooden buttons and a glimpse of the self-patterned fabric.

While making the blouse, I realised that I needed an appropriate outfit that I would be comfortable wearing to a funeral. I did not want or need the outfit to be black. So, once again I dived into the stash of fabric I had on hand a found a piece of linen/cotton that had been given to me. It is not a colour I would generally wear but I rather liked it so decided that I could make a skirt to go with the blouse.

Unlike some of the more complex details on the shirt such as the one piece collar and the split turnback on the sleeves, the skirt is a very simple pull-on skirt with an elasticised waist.

I was happy with how the entire finished outfit looked.

The sewing room is now looking pristine once again as we have another open inspection tomorrow.

Discovered in the Dumpster

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A few days ago I went to the large communal rubbish bin when I was visiting a unit complex. I intended to deposit a couple of items into the bin, however, when I opened the lid I found that the last item which had been added was a large plastic storage tub. I expected that it had probably been discarded due to it being broken.

After a quick inspection it was obvious that the container was perfectly intact and there was even a lid to go with it. A quick wash and it was as good as new.

This will be perfect for packing/storing some of my stash of fabric.

A Cover-Up

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In my last post I mentioned sorting photos on my computer. The added bonus is locating photos which I had taken with plans to use them in blog posts which were not written. These are still relevant and will appear intermittently.

Today I want to share a sewing project from April last year.

Although we both use laptops for our computing requirements, we do still have a large monitor on our desk. As its use is occasional at best I decided to make a dust cover for it.

In order to make a discreet cover for black screen on a black desk I naturally chose black fabric. A remnant of strong black cotton in my stash was perfect. I found a piece of soft white wadding from the backing of an old bed valance which had seen been better days and been unpicked for use in future projects. I used the wadding to line one side of the cover. This provides additional protection for the screen.

I mitred the corners using the same method as the bottom of the Boomerang bags that I make.

It is a simple and useful item made entirely from from salvaged materials.

The covered monitor is barely noticeable when sitting on the desk and not in use.

A Simple Solution

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Yesterday I was tidying up the top of the shelves in my sewing room. I found a box covered with contact that contained knitting needles. I am not a great knitter but I have reasonable selection of needles. The collection is considerably less than in the past as I rationalised what I had a year or so ago.

I decided that the box was excessive and not the best way to store the needles I had kept. So, I dived into my stash of fabric and found a scrap of corduroy and a suitable salvaged zip. Here is the result of about 30 minutes work.

All packed up and easy to store on the shelves.

Preserves in the Pantry

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Apologies for my absence but more about that in another blog post.

I generally make all of our own jam and today GMan and I were discussing what we had on hand.

The inevitable consequence of our discussion was that he pulled out all of my unlabelled jars from their storage spot in the back corner of the pantry.

There was tomato sauce, sweet chilli sauce, lime marmalade, jaboticaba jam and Davidson plum jam as well as a gifted jar of marmalade. It was a timely review as I noted that there was no spare bottles of Worcestershire sauce. Time to make some more. The recipe is here if you are interested.

I decided that there could be an easier way to store and access these homemade goodies. I remembered an wooden serving tray that was not being used so I placed all of the jars on the tray. This will make it much easier to get them in and out of the pantry.

Soup for Supper

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Today I have made leek and potato soup. It is winter here in Australia and although we live in a relatively mild climate there is something appealing about a pot of homemade soup on a damp, grey day.

There are plenty of recipes on the internet for leek and potato soup but this is my version.

LEEK & POTATO SOUP

Ingredients

1 medium/large leek
3 medium/large potatoes
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder
1 teaspoon dried celery leaves
1 teaspoon rosemary salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1.5 litres water

Method

Wash and thinly slice the leek. Heat oil in a large pot and saute the leek. Stir constantly to avoid it browning. When the leek is soft, add 1 litre of water and the stock powder and other seasonings. Simmer gently.

Meanwhile, peel and dice the potato. Microwave until tender. Reserve about 1/3 of the potato cubes and add the rest to the soup and continue simmering for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and blend until smooth. I use a handheld blender for this. Roughly mash the remaining potato and stir into the soup. Add more water to create desired consistency. Check and adjust seasoning as required.

NOTES:

Be extremely careful when blending hot soup.

You may choose more, less or different seasoning to what I have used.

I make the rosemary salt by stripping the leaves from the stems, dehydrating them and then grinding to a powder which I mix 50/50 with a good quality salt.

Soup simmering.

The end result.