Something from Nothing (Almost)

Leave a comment

About a week ago I made Thai Beef Salad for dinner.  The first step was to marinate some thinly sliced beef which was done the day before.  I did not not have a recipe for the marinade but it did include lime juice, olive oil and fresh chillies.

On the night I quickly pan-fried the beef before adding it to the salad.  The meal was truly delicious.

However, the essence of this post is the residue that remained in the pan.  After dinner I added a cup of water to the pan and heated it gently to lift the remnants of beef marinade.  This resulted in a rich and tasty ‘stock’ which I allowed to cool and then froze.

2018-04-14 01

Today I thawed this to make gravy.  All that was required was a sprinkle of herb salt and 1 tablespoon of arrowroot blended with a little water and I had a delicious gravy.

2018-04-14 02

A simple yet tasty meal – sausages with mash, peas and carrots topped with gravy made from last week’s pan residue.

2018-04-14 03

 

End of Easter

Leave a comment

Well, it is nearly 2 weeks since my last post and I honestly cannot remember what I have been doing, apart from to say that I was totally occupied by my paid work in the run-up to the Easter break and I spent a most enjoyable Easter with various members of my extended family.  There was not a chocolate in sight…………….however, 4 generations of my family were able to enjoy a shared lunch on Saturday.

GMan, my brother and I worked hard to earn our lunch as we positioned and concreted these 3 posts in place.

2018-04-02 01

This followed on from the 6 holes they had dug the day before.  It is all part of a project which has spent several years in the ‘dreaming’ pile and has now started to come to fruition.  You can read about it here.  We hope to have the other 3 posts positioned and concreted next weekend.  I am busily working on the design of the rest of the construction and hopefully it will not take too long to complete.

There were some other fun and games as my brother-in-law extricated a visitor from the hen house.  He had been there for a couple of days and we think he was looking for a warm, dry spot to digest what looked like a substantial meal.

Anyway, it was time to move along…………

2018-04-02 02

And off to a more appropriate spot………………….

2018-04-02 03

Today was quieter and an opportunity to catch up on some jobs at home so that I can start the working week with a clean slate.  I am pleased to report that all of the washing and ironing are done as well as some voluntary admin work completed.  I even made time to do a little bit of sewing.

I hope you had a safe and relaxing Easter break, too.

Rescued Fruit

Leave a comment

Even though I do my best to minimise my waste on a personal level, it can be very difficult to control the waste that occurs in other facets of my life, most notably my workplace.  I work in a corporate office and there are instances where there is catering ordered for business lunches and so on.  I generally try to make sure that any leftovers are not wasted.  Last week there was a small amount left on a fruit platter which I retrieved with no particular plan in mind.  I decided to put it in a container in the freezer with a view to using it for smoothies at a later date.

Yesterday morning I removed this frozen block of mixed fruit which included a couple of types of melon, strawberries, grapes and a few blueberries.

2018-03-21 01

Into the blender…………

2018-03-21 02

I added juice of a lime and a banana and blended it until smooth.

About 1/3 of the mixture was added to a small amount of water and became part of my breakfast.

2018-03-21 03

The remainder went back in the freezer.  I whizzed it briefly in the evening and we had a delicious fruit sorbet for dessert.

2018-03-21 04

It is a small but important step to save whatever perfectly good food that I can.  Otherwise, I know it will simply be thrown out.

A Smart Purchase

Leave a comment

I do not often write about my shopping but I feel that the iron I bought about a month ago is worthy of a blog post.  We are all familiar with the concept of ‘smart phones’ and some of their capabilities – turning airconditioning on and off, scanning the contents of a refrigerator to create a shopping, scanning tourist information when travelling and so on.  Of, course all of this is dependent on the other appliances/sites being embedded with the relevant technology.  However, all of that pales into insignificance beside my ‘intelligent’ iron.

Ironing not something that most people get excited about and many do not iron at all but that is simply not in my DNA.  I iron and I want a good iron that functions well and produces the result I want with minimum effort.  My previous iron was not performing so it was time to look for a replacement.  As always, I head to the electrical store and scan the rows of similar looking irons which range in price from $19 ever-upwards to about $160. Then there are all sorts of space-age looking steam stations which run into hundreds of dollars.

This Philips iron does not look extraordinary but the feature which sold it to me is the fact that it does not have a heat setting.  It senses the fabric and heats accordingly.  I hesitated because it sounded too good to be true and we all know where that usually ends up but I decided to bite the bullet and try it.  $149 later and I was the owner of a brand-new, intelligent iron.

2018-03-19 01

I delayed writing any sort of review until I had given it a reasonable test.  Thanks to the type of clothes we wear (mostly cotton and linen) as well as the sewing I do, my iron is used almost every day.  I have been using it for a month and am delighted to report that despite my reservations it really does work on all types of fabric.  This is what the soleplate looks like after a month of use – absolutely pristine.  The results are also excellent.

2018-03-19 02

Just in case I have convinced you and you are about to rush out and buy one, this is the packaging.

2018-03-19 03

A Weekend in the Garden

Leave a comment

For the first time in what seems like months, we actually had a weekend where the weather was conducive to being outdoors.  Lately it has either been 35C or raining or both so gardening has not really been on the agenda.  We were delighted to see a forecast of mostly sunny days with a maximum temperature of 27C.

Yesterday, we decided to firm up our vague plans for a freestanding walkway/pergola to define the entrance to our garden.  The idea is to have it covered with a flowering creeper.  We have had a general idea of what we wanted but now have calculated the materials and so then it was off to Bunnings to buy the 6 large posts for the uprights.  These are now positioned on sawhorses under the house where GMan has begun painting them.

We have marked out the exact location of the posts as you can see in the photo below.

2018-03-18 01

We are hoping to get the construction started over the Easter break when we have a couple of extra days off.

There will be more updates once there is more progress.

The perfect weather deserted us overnight and we awoke this morning to drizzling rain and cloud drifting past the windows.  However, we did not let that stop us and we braved the overgrown and out-of-control vegetable gardens.  Everything was covered with the wild cherry tomatoes.  I had resolved to pick all the fruit which was ripe and not damaged before removing the plants.  It was a massive job but we successfully cleared the garden beds and planted a variety of seeds.  There are now beans, radishes, spinach, beetroot, lettuce, kale and cucumbers planted.

Hopefully, these freshly dug and planted beds will soon yield a range of produce.

2018-03-18 02

I don’t have a before photo but suffice to say that this is a vast improvement on how it looked this morning.

It may be a little difficult to see but there is an addition to the area.  We constructed a new compost area in front of the hen house using some panels of pool fencing and some star pickets.  This allowed us to put all of the cherry tomato plants in a single heap.  I also cut the asparagus back and added that to the pile.

The forecast warm weather with showers every day fort he next week should give the newly sown seeds the best possible start so I am feeling quite optimistic.

 

Completed Quilt

Leave a comment

A month ago I wrote a post about making another quilt.  You can read about it here.  Once again, I had a deadline because it needed to be completed by early this week as it was a retirement gift for a work colleague.

I met the deadline and here is the finished quilt.

2018-03-16 01

This one included some new fabric bought specifically for the project as I simply did not have enough of the chosen colour palette.

I have been busy for the past week or so with finishing the quilt as well as working and being away from home for a couple of nights.  However, it is now the end of the working week and no specific engagements for the weekend.  The weather forecast does not include rain nor super-hot weather so GMan and I are looking forward to spending some time outdoors, particularly getting vegetable gardens back in order and prepared for planting now that the extreme heat is behind us.

I hope to bring you some updates from the home front before too long.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you have planned.

A Bulk Buy

1 Comment

As you know, I am not a great fan of shopping.  However, there are still things that need to be purchased.

I needed more eucalyptus oil which is an ingredient of the homemade cleaner and wool wash that I make.  It is also a useful disinfectant and aid for removing labels from jars and the resultant glue residue.  Needless to say, I use a bit of it and was keen to buy a larger quantity than the 200ml bottle that I had recently emptied.

After some online searching we managed to source a 4 litre bottle in Australia.  It is the same brand as the previous bottle and was significantly cheaper.  In fact, I calculated that it cost about 60% of the cost of buying an equivalent volume in 200ml bottles from one of the major supermarkets.

2018-03-10 01

Although it is in a plastic container, this quantity will last me a lifetime and I will not be buying any more 200ml plastic bottles of eucalyptus oil.

I understand that many people would not be interested in buying this sort of quantity as there is a significant financial investment as well as storage issues.  Neither of these are a particular problem for me so I am happy to have been able to buy a large quantity of eucalyptus oil.

If you live in my vicinity and would like a smaller portion of this eucalyptus oil, please let me know and I will let you know all of the details including pricing which will be the same as I paid.  I am not doing this to make a profit but simply to give others the opportunity to access eucalyptus oil with minimal packaging in quantities that are appropriate to your needs.

**Please note that this is labelled ‘Commercial Grade’ and the directions are for use in cleaning applications.

There are a couple of hyperlinks in the second paragraph to the ‘recipes’ for cleaning products that I make using eucalyptus oil.

Almost Brand New

Leave a comment

I recently mended a cotton blanket which was wearing out.  It must be close to 20 years old and it would have been very easy to simply buy another one but I decided that was unnecessary.

This is what the top edge looked like.

2018-03-06 01

However, the bottom edge was pristine.

2018-03-06 02

So, I removed the satin binding from the top edge and unpicked the hem at the other end.  Then I bound the bottom edge using the salvaged satin binding.

Here is the result.  It looks as good as new.

2018-03-06 03

Sadly, the previous top edge was in a rather sad state.

2018-03-06 04

I contemplated cutting the damaged part off and then re-doing the hem.  This would mean the loss of some length so I was not keen on that solution.  Instead, I used some fabric from an old sheet to make a wide binding that covered the damaged part while still maintaining the original length of the blanket.

2018-03-06 05

The colour blends in nicely and it will mostly be tucked in at the foot of the bed.

I was very happy with the repair and hope that the blanket will last for many years to come.

Organising Assistance

1 Comment

I regularly speak out about the fact that you can be organised without spending ridiculous amounts of money.  I often read or hear about people buying dozens of matching containers to organise a linen cupboard or re-arranging their pantry with an entirely new selection of containers that happen to be the trend of the moment.

Apart from the cost, this behaviour bothers me from an environmental perspective because many of the containers are plastic and/or are manufactured in jurisdictions where workers are not paid a living wage, work in sub-standard conditions and the factories do not meet any type of environmental guidelines.  Next time you are tempted to buy new items that seem very cheap – stop and think about why they are so cheap.

Back to the main topic.  I did buy something which will be useful in organising numerous areas in my home and I expect that it will last me for a long time to come.  It is a labeller.

2018-03-02 01

I had previously borrowed one from work to label some jars in the pantry but finally decided that it would be useful to have one of my own.  It is battery-operated and the labels come in a cartridge which is inserted into the back of the machine.  I purchased 2 cartridges of the clear self-adhesive labels.  I also noticed that you can buy cartridges of iron-on tape so you can make your own labels for clothing.  This is not something that I would use but could be beneficial for my daughter with children going on school camps and similar.

My first attempt was to label this set of mini-drawers which fit perfectly on the shelf in my sewing room.  The drawers came from my mother and I have found them really useful for keeping track of some of the smaller sewing items.  I have memorised what are in the top row but other than that, I have to open the drawer to check.  That will be a thing of the past with these new labels.

2018-03-02 02

Now, what else needs a label?  I think I am going to have fun with this gadget.