Use it up April update

Not a lot to report as we had family to stay over the weekend, which was wonderful. I did however discover that the potatoes in my sack from our local farmshop, were starting to sprout, so I set to and peeled my way through half of them, making sure there were absolutely no green bits left to upset anyones tummy, and cooked them up to make a mountain of mash potatoes! Enough for 4 meals in fact! 2 of which we have eaten, 1 for tonights meal and 1 for the freezer. I reckon that is at least £2 saved!

I have a couple of old pillows to do something with and am going to have a go at making 4 seat pads for our garden chairs. I have some old curtaining fabric to cover them with. It could take me a while to finish this project (alongside more fingerless mitts to knit) but I will post about this later.

Still saving up the loo roll inners for my runner beans!

Determined not to give easter eggs this year, as there is far too much unwarranted packaging, I have ordered some additive free freshly made fudge from a friend. The boxes are made from recyclable cardboard and are beautifully wrapped up ready to give, or can be posted direct for you. The fudge is delicious, very like my Mum used to make and comes in several different flavours. I found some chocolate in the cupboard, so may make up some little chocolate shapes as well.

Just adding a recipe for Lauradeanne for home made yogurt in a thermos
Home made yogurt (Shirley Goode recipe)
Ingredients:-
1 pint (570ml) milk
1 tablespoon dried milk powder
2 heaped teaspoons bought natural yogurt (I used Yeo Valley organic) remember to take it out of the fridge well in advance to take the chill off it.
Method:-
Heat the milk to boiling point and boil for 1 minute, remove from heat. Cool slightly and stir in the dried milk powder.
Cool to 100F very slightly above blood heat (blood heat is where it feels neither hot nor cold so just above that) Put the yogurt in a warm basin and add a little of the warm milk and blend together. Add the rest of the milk and stir well.
Pour into the thermos, cover and keep in a warm place (I left mine on the kitchen worktop) and leave for about 8 hours (overnight). Once the yogurt has set place into a bowl and keep in the fridge.
We like to serve ours with some home made fruit jam stirred in, turns into that fab pudding "Eton Mess" by adding a little crushed meringue (I make micro meringues if I have a spare egg white - great fun).
Cost to make 30p (max) for 1 pint natural yogurt using mostly organic ingredients.


Use it up savings - £2

Power cut silence

Yesterday we had a power cut. We were warned it would happen (for essential maintenance in the area) so we had the chance to get up very early, get through the shower, warm up the house a bit by turning on the heating early for a short while, settling down with a hot drink, charging up the mobiles and toothbrush etc, etc.,

However when the power went off, what we surprisingly were not expecting was the silence, no radio, tv, the central heating pump was silent, even the builders working at the building site at the end of our garden, who have their own generator, were quiet, no electric needed for brick laying!

At first I felt terribly restless, even slightly panicked but we had wind up and battery radios, water, food (cold but edible) warm clothes, plenty of books to read. I soon started to realise just how lucky we are! Actually I felt more rested in the end, no constant bombardment of noise, wonderful!

Be warned though that the wireless phones didn't work, I had hoped they would hold their charge for a while but now realise they are totally useless without electric! Luckily we still have a couple of the old style cabled phones so I could phone the dentist.

We were out when the power came back on, J at the ms centre was celebrating her 70th landmark birthday and spoilt us all with a lovely spread, sandwiches, cakes, crisps and wine or juice. J told us that in her 70 years she had never had a birthday party and was going to make up for that now. Wish I had known earlier, she is a lovely lady and I could have baked her some cookies. I was kept busy helping out as much I could and the time soon rushed by as it always does when you are having fun.

It was then time to head home for a much needed rest, dinner was all sorted, leftover fish pie from the night before. I have had more requests for fingerless mittens! So I am still looking for bright and cheerful varigated dk wool but don't think I will manage to get down the town for a while, my legs are a tad lead like! I have enough wool to be getting on with anyway. I have saved a couple of loo roll inners from the landfill for the runner beans but that is all for now.

Tonight we have my son and future daughter-in-law staying and I am going to make them chicken everglades - chicken breasts wrapped in ham and cooked in a white wine, mushroom and garlic sauce. Fingers crossed it works!

Rescued apples

Today I saved about 10 wrinkly apples from the bin! Carefully peeled and chopped and popped into my Mums old tower slowcooker, with water, brown sugar, sultanas and cinnamon added and left all day to cook. I now have 2 containers of spicy apple pie filling, not sure what that would cost to buy but the apples, being organic were around £2.40 and pie filling is not cheap, so I will count that as my saving - in the bad old days they would have been thrown!



As you can see the developers house building is sadly going ahead. Look how close to the neighbours fence the building is! Also how tiny the garden is! The leaves on the left hand side of the photo are from the tree at the bottom of their garden/my fence! I would want a lot more garden if I had half a million to spend.
Use it up challenge savings - £2.40

Sheets to dusters

Well one sheet anyway! An old single size fitted sheet. We no longer have a single bed in the house and anyway this sheet was well and truly past it, so no good for the charity shop. In fact I had put it into a bin, then thought "Noooo!" and hauled it out, cut off all the elastic (which unfortunately was in a state otherwise I would have used it in the garden) and then I cut squares and rectangles out of all the respectable jersey fabric to make 6 dusters (perfect for when I use the beeswax polish on our old second hand teak coffee table, then I had one large piece left which will make a small dust cover for when we next decorate.

I can't remember what the sheet cost originally (probably £4) but 6 dusters would probably cost about £2 so I shall count that as my savings.
Use it up challenge savings - £2

Use it up Challenge for April

Now I know you can buy frozen peppers fairly cheaply, but this one was an organic pepper, left over and forgotten about, languishing at the back of the fridge. I almost threw it away as it was starting to get soft but thought better of it, chopped it up and popped it into the freezer. It will a great little extra for adding to a quiche or a stew later on. A whole organic pepper would cost about 70p so half an organic pepper must have saved 35p being thrown into the bin!

It got me thinking about all the "stuff" we just take for granted and throw into the bin and add to our over full landfills. I don't know about you but I am feeling very ashamed of all I have thrown out in the past. We have been so very lucky in this country but we cannot afford to take that for granted.

So to get me into a new and more thankful state of mind, I am starting a "Use it Up challenge" for April and am going to list (and hopefully post photos)of all the "stuff" I will save from landfill. Anyone want to join me? Just post a comment about what you are doing or blog about it if you have a blog. I know a lot of you are already doing this but together we can start to make changes and maybe raise awareness.
Use it up savings - 35p

Hello! I'm still here, just getting used to the new prescription. All is ok, in fact better than I have been for a long while! I do hope I never have to take beta blockers again though! I managed just over a week and had to come off them as I felt so ill!

In the meantime, in order to keep focused, I have been knitting more of Elizabeths pattern for fingerless gloves. I took a pair into the MS centre for a friend, she suffers pain in her hands and warmth helps to relieve the pain, as a result I am now on my 10th set! lol! All I ask is a donation to the MS charity. It is doing me good too as I feel I'm helping, all be it in a small way, and it keeps me occupied and less likely to get worried and stressed. Above are a few of the sets that now have new homes. I am trying to find some bright and funky wool for the next set.

Penny has been great company, hardly leaving my side during the day and very cuddly. I am managing small walks with her again and Mr C gives her longer walks when he is home.

Today I managed to clean the bathroom thoroughly and also the kitchen, so I have achieved something. The rest of the house will have to wait, small cleaning sessions work best. Dinner is slow cooked beef stew, mash potatoes and runner beans (from last years crop) followed by apple crumble (using a healthier whole meal flour and oats topping) and soya ice cream - yum! Then I will be back off to bed to knit and rest some more!

Thank you for your messages, it was very kind of you and I promise to catch up on your blogs very soon. Hope you are all keeping well

Catz x

A haircut, a rest and wateraid

Finally we got Penny to the groomers, now she looks a bit like a lamb!lol! but is a lot easier to look after and no more tangles!

I've been resting up again and adjusting to a different medication so life has been a tad quiet around here. One constant source of amusement is daytime tv and while flicking through the many channels available these days, I caught a couple of programmes on wateraid projects. Now here in the UK we have for most of the year anyway, a ready and available supply of water, we often take it for granted and that is to our shame! I am becoming more aware and have a bucket in the shower and for placing under the dripping bath tap (a bucketful will do as one flush) the tap is due to be fixed soon. I decided I needed to know more and clicked on the Wateraid site to find out all I could. I soon found this page and with Mothering sunday on the 22nd March this year, and although My Mum passed on 14 years ago (round about Mothers day) I decided to order 2 taps in memory of her, After a childhood of depending on a well in the garden and many years of living abroad with sometimes limited supplies of water, I think My Mum would have appreciated this. Please check it out, there are lots of gift ideas there and World Water Day 2009 is on Mothering Sunday.

World Water Day 2009 22 March 2009
World Water Day is a global day to highlight the importance of clean, safe drinking water, and highlight the fact that almost a billion people worldwide do not have access to it. WaterAid supporters mark the day with a series of events up and down the country. Why not contact your nearest WaterAid group to find out what they've got planned? Find out more at www.wateraid.org/wwd