Our garden is going crazing with the weather we’re having, everything is so green and blossoming. It’s so full of life! Soon we hope to be moving on to a new adventure, a new home and passing this loveliness on to someone else along with the responsibility. Can’t wait to show you the new place if it all goes through. It’s definitely more compact! 🙂
Another little batch of mending done this week. I find it very satisfying repairing things and making them wearable again. I definitely have to be in the mood to do it, so there is always a few things to do when I do get inspired.
My husband wears jeans 99% of the time, always has done, so he does end up wearing through in places. When he gets home from work today he will have four pairs of jeans all repaired and ready to wear 🙂
I’ve also repaired some of my knickers, as all that has happened is that the elastic was coming undone. So the use of a stretchy stitch on my sewing machine and they are ready to wear again. Totally chuffed with myself that I just didn’t buy new ones!
We attached a piece of paper to our fridge in Jan 2021 to write down things we can do to reduce our footprint on the planet. We listed a few things and did a few things like re using bags and recycling what we could, but in busy lives, illness and other steps we have to climb, things tended to stay on hold even though intentions were good.
I’m very happy about the steps we have taken at the beginning of 2022 and are sharing these things to encourage, not to make anyone to feel guilty or brag about what we are doing.
I’ve been especially conscious of plastic and how difficult it is to avoid and how much goes into recycling and how much energy that takes. So maybe reducing how much plastic I put in the recycle bin is better. Can we even trust that our plastic is even being recycled sometimes?
No.1 Try to bake my own bread
No.2 We now have milk delivered.
No.3 Bamboo toothbrushes (we had started to do this before but I thought I would share)
No. 4 Make reusable face wipes out of old cloths ( instead of non organic cotton wool)
N0.5 I have actually found seed for garden birds that not only has plastic free packaging but is grown in this country.
I am so pleased with these changes and plan to keep a look out to what else I can incorporate in my everyday life.
In my last post I was talking about our rubbish bin and reducing what we send to land fill. My one new years resolution is to now reduce what goes in my recycle bin, because basically it’s all still waste isn’t it!
What are you doing to combat the consumerist and wasteful society we live in? I have for a while now been trying very hard to avoid using/accepting plastic carrier bags when out shopping by taking my own bags or using a box. This is difficult but can be done. Here’s some shopping I did on Thursday.
Being self employed I am able to visit our local market where most things are laid out loose, unfortunately not the celery and the lady put my potatoes in a carrier bag at such a speed that it was too late! Maybe I should have still had the courage to tell her I didn’t want it.
If you are tied to using a supermarket it is still mostly possible to do, but you have to resist putting your loose veg and fruit into the little plastic bags that are on offer. I must confess a huge satisfaction in getting home with little or no plastic acquired on a shopping trip.
I am going to keep you up dated on my progress, even when I fail! 🙂
I love Cointreau, unfortunately it has got very expensive so I really can’t afford that little treat! I have now found a recipe and have made my own orange liqueur. A very simple recipe that uses a supermarket vodka, orange zest, sugar and water. I worked out it costs half the price of the original.
I saved the oranges for marmalade (or you could juice them)
It only takes a few days to make but you are advised to leave it to mature for a few weeks. (if you can) 🙂
A good idea for using up bits and pieces and leftovers is soup. If something has gone a bit ugly or shriveled in your fridge, use them in Soup. Â I sometimes have a little forage in the garden out of season too because you do occasionally find something to add to your soup out there too!
I had the end of a bag of potatoes, a bit of rubbery broccoli and a sad leek in the fridge. I when outside and gathered some thyme, some baby leaves of spinach that was tucked away and some bitter cress that had taken over one of my herb pots.
This is what bitter cress looks like close up, it comes up like a weed and it tastes like cress!
My very sad leek needed some layers peeled off but it was fine.
Don’t just throw away this end that you cut off….
…peel and trim a little and you get this, chop it up with the rest!
I just use half an organic stock cube to help the flavor, these ones are good, they are not too salty.
All in the pan with some seasoning to cook for twenty or so minutes.
Whiz up in a blender and serve! Very cheap, yummy and nutritious 🙂
Here’s a long awaited update from the green house.
These are red sweet peppers from bought seed. Â I don’t want to speak too soon but I think they are doing alright.
These are chilli peppers I got free from a magazine. ‘Demon Red’ There were only five seeds and I have three healthy plants from them. By the sound of their name, they are gonna be hot!
These are ‘Scotch Bonnet’ chillies, from my own saved seed. They are looking good. If you look carefully you can see little buds forming on the top of the plants 🙂
These are common red chillies, medium heat, from my own saved seed. I dried some of these before and they keep well.
Can’t wait until they start turning red. I must look after them carefully now so as not to loose the fruit!:-)
Well there’s been a lot happening at Simple Life HQ, so much so it has kept me away from you.
We’ve had some hot weather the last week or so here and though I love bananas I can’t eat them fast enough. When it’s hot you need some recipes using the ones which have become very ripe! I generally google around for ideas and then make something completely different or inspired be what I’ve seen.
So banana pancakes! I just used the basic batter recipe that I use for just about everything 2 oz flour (I like to use gram flour) 2 eggs and as much milk I need to get it to the consistency I want. Â (recipe for two people) and then just added half a ripe banana mashed up.
Then I sliced the rest of the banana up and layered them with the pancakes, yogurt and runny honey.
Yum!
It was delicious.
Using gram flour makes it very light and I use sheep’s yogurt which is very light too and all very good for you 🙂
We had a brief few days of sunshine recently so I decided I start painting the garden furniture, as you can see, this is long over due!
I think the pink works 🙂
This chair was here when we moved in 11 years ago.
It looks great now!
I also started painting the shed, I mended the windows and everything (I had to show the close up for that) 🙂
Now I’ve just got to wait for another spell of good weather!
My bargain finds from the market last week are these beautiful oriental style dishes.
Not authentic, but very pretty and only 40p each! 🙂
An Artist's House 