Eco Cleaning

After my last post I felt motivated to take some action. I looked on line for eco products I could start introducing to my home. Not to go mad, but to order as needed. An online shop called Peace With The Wild looked good, so I placed a small order and with only £3.40 postage, it encouraged me more. I ordered loofer scouring pads, a coconut husk scraper for pans, a stick deodorant and some toilet cleaning powder. It was delivered in two days!

Our toilets are a real test for this toilet cleaner (which I’ve decanted for upstairs and downstairs) as we have very hard water which causes scale and staining, so it’s got to be good! I will report on the progress.

I plan to order more eco products as I run out of my other products. 🙂

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New Side Table

I’m delighted with what I’ve just made. I’ve made a side table for the lounge out of  vintage chemists box.

I found this box in the loft of our last house when we were moving and so decided to bring it with us. We’ve been using it to store sketch books and journals until now when we had a need for a new side table.

I’m really happy with it 🙂

A New Rockery

For a very long tome there had been a pile of large logs on our front drive which Mr O. was intending to deal with but never got round to it. I came up with a solution for the problem……

…….we now have a rockery! I added some rockery stones to the log pile without disturbing little families which will have made there home in the warm and damp. I now am gradually adding some plants, so now as I drive up to my house it puts a smile on my face! 🙂

New-ish Table

Since our veranda table got turned into a planter, we needed a new one. I had a spare one in my studio but it was much too high for relaxing with.

I bought some steel legs on line (only £7.99 each)

and voila, an new table! 🙂

And this is a reminder of the old table 🙂

Rubbish

I am extra pleased with how we are managing to keep our non-recycle-able waste to a minimum. This is our rubbish bin waiting for our fortnightly collection 🙂 We are also trying to have what is called a dry bin in the kitchen which means not using a bin bag. It takes thinking about and a little extra effort, but if you put your mind to it, it cuts down on un-neccesary waste.

Using leftover Roast Pork

I always like to be creative with my leftovers, I usually checkout what I have in the pantry, fridge and garden/greenhouse and start from there. So here’s what I did with the last lot of leftover roast pork I had.

I started off stiring the cumin and coriander in some oil (after I’d crushed them with my pestle and mortar) after a couple of minuted I added chopped onion and chilli cooked until soft.
These are some peppers from my garden, cut into quarters and I added them and cooked for a couples of minutes with some diced sweet potato while cutting up the pork.
I added the pork and some chickpeas
and a few chopped up apricots.
I gave a good stir added half a tin of chopped tomatoes and simmered while I cooked some rice.
I had enough for four servings. First we had a portion with rice.
Then we had out portion like a chunky south with bread and butter.

It was actually delicious!

Tomatoes

Despite the neglect, my tomatoes a doing surprisingly well 🙂 They are showing signs of irregular watering but still taste delicious!  
The same goes for my peppers and chillies.

I’m planning to roast and preserve the peppers in olive oil

and dry and freeze the chillies 🙂

New Flower Bed

Here’s an idea, why not make a flower bed out of an old table? Well I have! I had a very sad looking garden table, turned it upside down, cut it’s legs off and now I have a quite spacious but manageable flower bed 🙂

That old table now contains, lavender, seedum, geraniums and some tulip bulbs for the spring., I’ve never started a bed from scratch like that before so I’m very pleased 🙂

One of My Favourite Times of Year!

Yes, it’s one of my favourite times of year. I can see everything is brightening up. The particular bird song, new shoots peeping through the soil, blossom coming out, so it’s time to get active in the green house. My fingers get itchy this time of year and I get the impulse to grow things! I’m not one for gardening in the cold so tidying up is being done now as well. 🙂

I’ve had a sort out in my green house and moved a few things round and it’s now set for action.

Today I sowed some tomatoes, cucumbers and small red peppers

I have made a gardening journal from an old book, that I try and keep a record of how things go in my garden as well as hints and tips for me to refer to.

Here’s a sample page. 🙂

New Years Marmalade

It’s the time of the year for marmalade, the Seville oranges have been in the shops and thoughts are directed to making a years supply of marmalade. The reason for this sudden desire to slice 6 pounds of oranges is two fold. It tastes better and it’s cheaper!

For several years now I’ve put the oranges in a food processor to chop them, but this year I decided to slice by hand. Oh my word, I was so surprised how pleasant it was to sit and slice the oranges by hand (with a nice serrated steak knife) in the quiet. A very simple life thing to do, and it was easier to extract the pips too!

Once the sliced oranges have soaked over night they are meant to be simmered to reduce the liquid by a third. When I had heated the the water in the pan and added the sugar I realised I hadn’t done that!!!

I managed to rescue it by taking some liquid out, adding more sugar and a bottle of liquid pectin. Here on my pantry shelf are twenty jars of marmalade. I now feel like Moomin Mama and I have a very happy husband!

It tastes exceptionally good too 🙂