Some More Simple Savings

Saving at our place is often about the little things, done often and over again. These more frugal things keep a little extra money in our family's cookie jar each week and add up over time. Many of the simple savings we make relate to the food we eat:

A nourishing homemade lunch.

We've had some cold days this past week, and I can think of nothing better than a bowlful of hot homemade soup on such shivery days. I made a huge pot of split pea and bacon soup earlier in the week and we've been enjoying it for lunch each day. I used yellow split peas, vegetable stock, onion and bacon, carrots and celery and a lone sweet potato, and added bay leaves and parsley that I grow in the garden. Here is a recipe, from the Erren's Kitchen website, for just such a soup. One big pot of a soup like this goes a long way!

A healthy & delicious afternoon snack.

Each week, I make a batch of homemade yoghurt. I make unsweetened yoghurt and top this with some fruit, like these locally-grown strawberries, in-season now and so far less expensive. I had one ripe passionfruit, left from those that came in my weekly produce box, so it's juicy pulp went on top too along with a sprinkling of chia seeds. Delicious!

While I use an EasiYo to set our yoghurt, I do not buy the matching sachets. Instead, I follow this recipe from Wendy over on her blog, My Abundant Life. (There are lots of money-saving tips in her blog's archives.) Not buying a tub of yoghurt from the supermarket each week saves us money but also reduces the amount of plastic coming into our home. (*I am not sponsored by anyone to promote EasiYo, it's just what I use to make yoghurt.)

Frozen portions of celery and capsicum.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought two huge bunches of crisp organic celery, 2 for $10, at a local health food grocery on a member's saver special. Celery has been incredibly expensive at times over the past year and organically grown celery even more so. (Here is an article from The Guardian about soaring celery prices.) Currently, at two major supermarkets, the price for a bunch of celery is $4. That's down from $7 a bunch. Given celery can be found among the list of fruit and veg with the dubious mantle of 'The Dirty Dozen', relating to those most likely contaminated by pesticide residue, and that the celery in my garden has not taken off (yet), I thought paying the $1 extra per bunch for organic celery was worth it. 

We use a lot of celery, in soups and stews, during Winter time. Storing two bunches of celery in my fridge crisper would lead to wastage (It's a lot of celery!) so I rinsed and chopped it all up and then bagged handfuls of it in the clip lock bags we wash and reuse over and over again, and froze it. I know we'll use it before our Winter time is over. While it's not for stir fries or salads, when you want crunchy celery, it's fine for the soft, cooked celery of soups and stews. There are delicious things, such as pesto, that you can make with celery leaves, you can add them in to the mix when making stock or you can put them into your compost bin or worm farm where they'll break down to become food for your soil. No waste!

Some smoothie bananas.

Overripe bananas inevitably end up in banana breads or smoothies at our place. For smoothie bananas, I simply slice them up into chunks, spread them out on a baking tray and snap freeze them. Once frozen, I transfer them all into a container and use them up by the handful in smoothies. No waste and frozen banana makes for creamy smoothies!

Homemade muffins & silverbeet pie.

With silverbeet, spring onion and parsley, picked from our garden, I made another scrumptious Silverbeet Impossible Pie. We had a slice of this with soup for lunch on the day it was baked and then warmed up for dinner the following night. It's just so good! 

While the pie was baking in the oven, I used fresh juice, from the oranges my friend grows in her garden, to make batches of orange and chocolate chip muffins. I simply added chocolate chips to Nigella Lawson's Orange Breakfast Muffins recipe. They freeze beautifully and are perfect for adding to school lunchboxes.  

Tangy & luscious lime butter.

The juice from the limes I have been foraging from a local tree has been made into batches of tangy and luscious lime butter. While there's jars of jam in our pantry, they remain unopened while lime butter is in the fridge. It's sublime on toast!

Making the most of our homegrown produce, as well as that so generously shared by friends or foraged for free, baking up a storm while the oven's on, making big batches of simple and nourishing food that can be frozen or enjoyed as leftovers, eating seasonally and having ways of eliminating food wastage means that we eat well and save at the same time in multiple ways.

What simple savings have you been making at your place?

Meg

Up to the Hinterland

Just over an hour's drive from here, up into the Blackall Ranges, is a growing hinterland town called Maleny.  This bustling, eclectic village, set amid a countryside of rolling green hills and spectacular views of a not-too-distant coastline, is a beautiful place to spend time away from the city. We visited recently, on a very cold Wintery day, to see a dear friend. Rather than venture into the busy town, we spent the day breathing in the blues and the greens around the local lake.

Across Lake Baroon to the sky above.

On our drive down to the lake, formed by the Baroon Pocket Dam, we passed lush paddocks, edged with fencing and dotted with old and beautiful trees that cast deep shade underneath. Cows and horses grazed on abundant grass against the backdrop of wide blue sky. 

An old and shady tree.

We stopped at the Platypus Viewing Platform, along the Obi Obi Creek, and waited quietly for the telltale ripples of the shy platypuses that make their homes along the creek's banks. Our glimpse of these unusual creatures was fleeting, and gone too soon for photos, but there are images over on National Park Odyssey's blog, of this elusive Australian animal in this local creek, if you'd like to spot one too.

A horse in one of Maleny's paddocks.

After the morning outdoors, rugged up against the Hinterland's cold, somewhere warm was most welcome. Out on the deck of Secrets Cafe, located in a stunning timber building on the edge of the rainforest, we enjoyed a delicious lunch that came complete with a beautiful view through the trees and across the water of the lake.

The inviting Secrets on the Lake at Maleny. 

A window box planted with geraniums.

A bright yellow orchid growing on rocks outside the restaurant.

Artworks, like this bright red waterlily piece, in the gallery.

After a lunch that included a souffle made with local cheeses, salad and a lemon myrtle creme brulee sprinkled with macadamia nuts, we walked along a well-used track around more of the lake although I could easily have curled up beside the warm fire and read all afternoon! 

The warm and welcoming fire.

My delicious dessert.

It was quiet along the path we walked, that for a time hugged the edge of the lake before winding its way back to its beginning. We passed tall trees, a few with possum boxes up high, and were accompanied by bird song, including that of the distinctive whip bird, along the way.

A possum box up high in a tree.

A view across the lake.

The afternoon was casting long shadows as we made our way home from the hinterland. We could have spent this day, strolling the streets of Maleny's town centre, but I am glad that we soaked up the blues and the greens of nature on its outskirts instead. 

Meg

Just One Word

Nestled inside a beautiful gift ...

A tiny pendant bird.

...was the hint of a word... 

Handmade & sweet.

...that says so very much.

I shall treasure her.

Meg