Making More In My Kitchen

 With the kids home because of school holidays, its very important to have the cupboards full with baking. It stops the temptation to buy things we don't need, and makes great bribes (I mean encouragement hee hee) to behave and be helpful. Yes even the teen boys :)

I started with making Afghan biscuits, don't need a lot of ingredients for these. A great use for our walnuts :)

Next Gingerbread Men, DS8 helped with the icing. Next time will make car ones. As DS8 does like his Gingerbread cookies :)

Then I made Feijoa Jelly. This is my first time, and I was please to see it's as easy as making Crab Apple Jelly. A great use of fruit that kids weren't eating (the small sized feijoas, that a teaspoon don't fit). Now I know they will eat on pikelets and scones (with some fresh whipped cream YUM!)

Look at those beautiful Autumn colours. Feijoa and Crab Apple Jellies make a pretty stain glass window for my kitchen :)

Now I can focus on catching up on washing (got behind after boys came back from camp), and cleaning. Need my lounge back :)

Autumn In My Kitchen

Do you love the colours of Autumn? I sure do :)
Even better when you find them in your kitchen with the autumn flavours to go with them.

Washing crab apples to make crab apple jelly. I love the red, oranges and yellows.

The finished Crab Apple Jelly is also very pretty with the sun shining on them. Had them by the kitchen window to cool.

Orange of carrots and the browns of walnuts. Getting ready to make carrot cake.

Homemade Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. YUM! Perfect for an autumn afternoon tea (or dessert)

Also made chicken stock for tonight's dinner, more for comfort food then colours. The carrot cake I made double batch so half could go into the freezer for a day when I don't have time to bake.
Came away from the kitchen today very happy. now DH has cooked us dinner :)

Preserving

My small preserving cupboard is full this year

I might have been quiet in blog land, but I sure have been busy at home. After making over 40 jars of food (some given to others). I realised we need a better place to keep our preserves. So I have been in the hunt of a secondhand pantry, to go into our garage. That would free up more space in my little kitchen again. We had a good year for peaches, our tree blessed us with heaps.

One of the reasons I have been so busy is I'm now homeschooling my DS8. He can be a bit of a handful (more so when he is sick). But he is progressing with his learning, even doing maths out of school time hours. Still have a lot of work to do on his writing.
One day at a time :)

Other exciting news is we have been making progress with our garden. (not that you would think so at the moment, with the mess out there) We are working on a new fence behind our garage and clothes line area. No more jasmine trying to take over my clothes line. More light, more space. Our dear grapefruit tree is having a new lease on life with room to grow and breathe. The fence that was there before was built on our side and took a chunk of space from our land. It also gave a great frame for the jasmine to grow, and a wonderful living space for rats. No wonder our cat would go crazy with that fence, walking up and down beside it. But now it is gone and new frame work is going up on the fence line. Waiting on some secondhand metal fence materials (and one day a fresh paint).

Now if we could just get the other fence done on the other side near my apple tree, and the new chicken palace done I would be very happy :)

Week Three $100 Food Shop

Last week (week two) we spent the whole $100 on food. The main reason being the heat wave we had. The children started drinking more milk because it was chilled in the fridge. So we had a talk with them and filled a large 2 litre bottle with water, that they could have instead. But I also crumbled with the heat and brought a box of ice blocks and a tub of ice cream. So this week I need to get on to making our own ice blocks. We were given some fruit juice which would be perfect for that. I'm still very happy we made it through the week not spending more then our $100 budget.

Now ready for Week Three $100 Food Shop

Menu Plan

Breakfast is cereal or toast
Lunch sandwiches or fritters
Snacks we have chocolate cake (DS13 made for us), 100s & 1000s biscuits, and fruit (apples at the moment)
Dinner
Tuesday: Ratatouille (using our courgettes, and my mum's green pepper) with toast.
Wednesday: Pasta Dinner from our freezer (when we had leftovers from a large pasta dinner)
Thursday: Tray Baked Lamb with Cous cous (another dinner using our courgettes)
Friday: Pumpkin Curry with rice
Saturday: BBQ sausages with salad
Sunday: Chicken Stir fry with rice
Monday: Corned Beef with veggies

Shopping

We are out of white sugar so need to get for making Courgette Jam (yes another thing to use up more courgettes) and our ginger beer. Will also get some flour for baking. Happy to see butter on sale this week 2 for $6, so will stock up our freezer with more. Great for baking :)
Don't need to get milk yet, after talking with kids we are stretching it out again. I will make up some powder milk for baking, have been lapse in that. Need to get more kids cereal, sometime the kids will have 2 bowls for breakfast. I also have to get DS7 pasta, he is hard to feed and this is one thing I don't mind getting. We are working with him to try more but it's slow work. Also on list is cinnamon (baking), eggplant (ours not grown yet), can tomatoes, and chicken breast for stir fry.

I'm excited because of doing this challenge we will have a $671.10 debt paid off next week YAY!
That motivates me to keep going.
We are also using up what we need to from our pantry, fridge and freezer :)

Very Hot Summer Day

In the morning had to take a walk in the garden to cool down from a hot night. My sweet peas are flowering lots. Love the different colours, very cheerful.

 

Look what I found, our 1st passion fruit. I saw the beautiful flower, but didn't think it would fruit. Pleasantly surprised.

 

And look our 1st blackberries. I have to help support the vines onto the fence, as they were going exploring.

  

3 days worth of eggs (but we did use 3 for baking on Thursday). Will be using more today with baking and dinner. Our Brown shavers are laying now (those beautiful brown eggs), and with the others we are getting about 6 eggs a day. I should start recording our eggs, see how many we get per month (and year).

 

Our Waste Not Want Not Cup Cakes. They are really Banana Cupcakes, the bananas were at the bottom of our fruit bowl and starting to go brown. So we needed to use them, then some of our eggs. Also these patty cases were from a Christmas present. They were for shortbread biscuits that come in a box, (biscuits all eaten). Perfect for our cupcakes, since I had run out of patty cases. Made 12 cupcakes. I also added some wholemeal flour to them, with plain flour. Partly to make them abit healthy. But mostly to stretch our flour supply to last till I can shop next week.

 

With 8 of our eggs, and 2 of our courgettes made this Courgette and Carrot Quiche for dinner. Served with some our Butter Beans, picked this morning. Large slices were very filling. Yes we are still slowly going through our courgettes. I have a few more dinner ideas for them yet. Then I will start freezing them.

Getting Busy Harvesting and Preserving

Made some Courgette Chutney, another way to use up what we have growing in different ways. Made 3 jars of chutney (gave one to my dad) Next I have to try them in a cake.

 

Harvested our beetroot. Of all the seeds I sowed 10 plants grew. And of those 10 plants, 8 were big enough to preserve. Made 2 jars of beetroot.

 

Cucumbers have taken off in our garden. Lovely fresh in a sandwich or salad. But I might have to preserve some, and see if anyone wants some if they keep coming like they are.

  

Our 1st Apple Cucumber. They wouldn't grow for me last year. So I'm very happy see not just one but 3 more also growing.
Yes cucumber crazy this year :)

 

Our Butternut plants are doing well, already fruiting. The vines look a little sad at the bottom, but has lots more green leaves at the top. Our other NZ pumpkin has gone crazy growing (over 3 metre long vines) but no fruit yet.

 Very happy with the garden, but I still haven't planted up stage 6 garden. hopefully in the coming weeks that will get done. I want some more lettuce and peas.

 

Week One $100 Food Shop

Making a good start to our $100 Food Shop Challenge (long may it continue)



Our Budget Envelope for our $100 Food Shop. Having only a $100 placed in the envelope helps us not to over spend.

Part of what is helping us this week is using what we already have in our garden and pantry.



The plums we were given are now turned into......

Plum preserves ready for winter.

All the plums are cooked up, but some are for summer desserts. Plums and ice cream yum :)

We are having a courgette glut. So coming up with ways to use them.

 

 



With the help of our eggs, flour, baking powder and some milk. We were able to make fritters.

Courgette Fritters ready for lunch.

For dinner we had roasted scallopini with roasted potatoes and cold sliced ham.
I'm going to be making courgette chutney, which will help to use more of our courgettes. Then use that for our homemade hamburgers.
There are also recipes for making cakes with courgettes, we should try as well.

Grow Our Own, Make Our Own

One of the wonderful things about having a veggie garden is being able to grow ingredients needed for making our own products.
We are not able to grow everything we like but sometimes we get blessed from our friends who have had extra (hope to do the same for them).

Our first cucumber for the season. Have more growing :)

2 boxes of Broccoli thanks to dear friends.

Got right on to preparing them for the freezer.

Our basil growing in the garden. Have over 20 plants now around the garden. So using to make our own basil pesto. Will freeze some for the winter months.

We used the pesto here with risoni. And had a side dish of our courgettes with onion. Was a yummy quick dinner.

Started up a ginger beer plant to fill our cupboard's with the refreshing drink. And a good use for our lemons.

The ginger beer in bottles. making our own means we can control what goes into our drinks (less sugar, and real ingredients not chemicals)

And look what dear friends have blessed us with more. Plums and tomatoes. Our tomatoes aren't ready yet, so these were very welcomed for our salads. Plums will be cooked up and preserved for the coming winter months.

Waste Not Want Not - Be Thankful For What You Have

Christmas Is Coming

And it's going to be a very simple, old fashion Christmas for us.
With one thing after another happening in the past few weeks, have left us with very little to spend this Christmas.
But no worries, we will make it into a trip back in time to a simpler meaningful Christmas.
Reading this article helped make this choice for this year.
How has Christmas in New Zealand changed in 150 years?
So for us it means family time, picnic lunch (might be inside picnic, depends on the weather)
And presents will be either homemade or low cost. Talking with DH we decide that this year for us and the kids we are going to put our names in a hat and choose one. That is the person we are getting a gift for. Hopefully teaching the kids about the gift of giving.
The kids have been helping me with the Christmas cards, and soon will help with the Christmas baking.
And you know what it's making me excited about Christmas.

Looking forward to making popcorn and watching "It's a Wonderful Life!"with my family :)

Looking Out My Lounge Window

I have something pretty to look at now, as I sit on my couch in the lounge. Some we made as a couple, DH and me. Something that will last longer then a bunch of flowers. It also gives me HOPE and JOY that we can change this garden bit by bit together.

All planted and ready to grow.

Next I have more of the fence to paint, before adding some hanging planters for strawberry plants. And a plant to re-pot beside this planter. Busy, busy but very happy to be outside.

Painted the Planter

Planter before

Planter now, can wait to fill and plant with pretty flowers.

I had to add a photo of our veggie garden. Awesome progress. Have started to have mini salads for lunch.

Our Free Planter

I think my DH did a pretty good job on making this planter.

 We had left over wood and nails from making our raised vegetable garden. And leftover trellis from rebuilding the deck. Also a space that needed a better view then our garden shed. So DH built me this planter in one morning. So I'm slowly filling it with soil. Will also paint it, and plant some pretty flower plants. Will give us a far better view.

A little trial project, homemade SEED SHAKER.

 One of the ideas I wanted to try this year was planting helpful flowers in our veggie garden. Ones that we can eat and help other plants. As well as more radishes and lettuce planted at different times. And the idea of the seed shaker came to mind. This one is made out of an old herb container for cooking. It has a lid with holes for shaking. Painted it black to keep the seeds in the dark. And have added lettuce, marigold, radish seeds and others. Then I sprinkle on bare patches in the garden. Hope this idea works.

Organising Craft Items

Another project has been to organise my craft items, so they can be stored out of the way. But also easy for me to see if I already have what I need before buying. Looking at the glue box, I have done that abit. Also hopefully will help to have these in one place, not all over the house.
But I better get back to work making Poorman's Meal for our youth group dinner.

Menu Planner - DONE!

Went with the wipe board menu planner. I had the paper for it, and it didn't take long to make.

Here is my menu planner. Not very clear but those butterflies are cut out paper with their wings lifted up.

Up on my kitchen wall, already being used.

This is one way to save on printing out menu plans.
Made 2 with my nieces today for their mums. The girls helped choose the paper and frames. Then they also helped with gluing and stickers. Shows how easy it is to make a 2 and 3 year olds can make them (with help of course).

Did it :) Finished My Tote Bag

Sewing up the journal wasn't as hard as my tote bag.
Ok hand sewing it was time consuming, but this bag was also an idea I had stuck in my head. So was following a pattern in my head. But I'm pleased with the end result, a personalised bag.

My t-shirt has been well used.

The insides before the final sewing together. See the straps.

The inside lining, before I realised hey I want to add a couple of pockets. So have a pocket for my cell ph, a pocket for my keys and a pocket for my pens.

Journal fits wonderfully into my bag. My life is slowly getting more organised.

I'm very happy with the straps, as they are very comfortable. Now my next project is to make a cash envelope wallet. The type where you can split your money into different areas (like groceries, petrol etc)

Cheap Coffee

My DH and I love a good Flat White coffee :)
It's our little treat together. But with a cup of coffee at a cafe costing $3.50 to $5, we began a search for the perfect cheap coffee fix.
First we found out we could make it cheaper at home then from a cafe.
We started with a stove top espresso, but have now got a coffee machine. Which has helped us to be able to get that yummy creamy top to our flat white coffee.
Then the search for cheap beans started. We did find a good brand of coffee from the supermarket, and would buy it on sale. But still at $6.99 for 200g, we thought we could do better.
Then we found http://www.greenbeanhouse.co.nz/
And after watching a video on how to roast our own beans, we brought our 1st bag of green beans :)
$13.50 for 1kg of green beans (prices can vary on beans), and postage came to just over $20.
So for $4 per 200g we are very happy.

Our home roasted coffee beans, before we ground them.

And the final yummy flat white coffee mmmmmm