Good morning!

Last week was productive! Lots of things were added to the pantry, and the present box and our household stores.

In the kitchen I made a huge batch of focaccia filling and froze it in 1 cup portions. I love to make this when we have excess zucchini and eggplant. I turned some into a veggie pasta sauce by adding tomato paste and a little cream (a very little cream, I scraped out the bottle) to the veggie mix. It was delicious mixed with pasta twists and baked. 

I sliced, blanched and dehydrated 3 bunches of celery.

I made banana cake for lunchboxes.

All our meals were cooked from scratch, using pantry ingredients. The only thing on my shopping list last week was milk!

In the craft room I made cards for the happy mail project and posted them off.

I made the samples for World Card Making Day and did a little more prep for the kits. 

After some searching I found a lovely card template and created a fun card for an upcoming card making retreat, and then put the kits together and happily crossed that job off my to do list. 

I attended a Zoom Scan and Cut retreat from 1am - 5pm Sunday morning. And yes, I needed a nap yesterday! I learned so much more and practiced on some small projects, and came away with ideas for so many more. 

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

Last week was busy in the craft room, working on gifts. Christmas will be here very soon!

I made kitchen towels and jar openers.
I crocheted some daisy dishcloths.
I worked on samples for the Christmas workshop and World Card Making Day.
I played around with a design for a prayer journal and I think I've come up with one I like. 

In the garden I kept weeding. The warmer weather seems to have woken the weeds up again.
I fed the fruit trees with worm tea.
I washed down the verandah and brushed all the winter cobwebs away.

I made two orange cakes, one for us, one for a friend.
All our meals were made from scratch using ingredients on hand. We ate kransky (from the freezer), corned beef (home canned), MOO pizza, roast lamb (from the freezer), soup and toasties. We stuck mostly to the meal plan!

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

We had a glorious week. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Some days were positively warm, with a north wind blowing. 

I let the fire burn down once the house warmed up, getting it going again about 4pm when it started to get cold. 

All our meals were cooked from scratch using ingredients from our pantry. We had ravioli, a chicken parma bake, pizza, curry, chicken enchilada wraps and soup and toasties.  Sides were green beans, cauliflower, corn cobs, garlic bread, salad, steamed rice and naan. All the ingredients came from the pantry, I didn't have to buy a single thing.

I added to the pantry with meat and chicken bought on sale. It took me two days to get it all canned and seeing the jars cooling on the bench made me smile. They went a long way towards restocking the canning cupboard. 

​I canned:
14 pints mince
16 pints ugly chicken
6 pints corned beef
6 quarts meatballs
6 quarts ugly chicken
5 quarts corned beef

The freezer grew by:
20 meals brisket
4 packets of burgers @ 4 per pack

All up it the cost was $418.57, giving us enough meat and chicken for 77 meals for an average of $5.43 per meal or 91c per serve based on six serves per meal. I can live with that, especially with the inflated prices of meat and chicken at the moment.

​Time in the craft room was welcome. We have some special occasions coming up, so out came the sewing machine (at last) and three gifts were made using fabric from my stash. I love how they turned out.

The Happy Mail Project is back on track and the cards were made using cardstock, designer series paper and stamps I had. I also made the September birthday cards, wrote in them, addressed them and put them in my diary ready to send. 

I took a free online card making lesson. I used materials from my stash for the test card, then made a few more. 

I also took a free online lesson using the Scan and Cut to perfect making cardstock bobbins. So much easier to get the machine to do the cutting! I love how they turned out, and they have gone into the present box.

​One sunny afternoon the pots all had some attention. It was needed, this winter has been so wet, they all needed cleaning and then the plants needed a little TLC. They look so much better.

The lavender is still looking beautiful, so I cut a few more stems to strike. Not sure what I'll do with them, but lavender is very easy to strike. It takes a bit of time, so I need to be patient, but it's worth it for the free plants. Lavender plants start at $7 from the nursery.

​What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

Welcome to another Make It Monday round-up.

Last week kept me busy working in the kitchen. There was a pumpkin to process, and potatoes, and mince. I ended up freezing the mince, I ran out of time to pressure can it. I may get to that this week.

I made another huge pot of chicken soup. Thomas in particular has taken a liking to it and has been having it for his lunch every day. I love that - it's full of good veggies like onion, carrot, celery and celery leaves, turnip, lots of garlic and made with my MOOed chicken stock and canned chicken. I used the pressure cooker to make 6 litres at a cost of $2. Using homegrown veggies and MOO stock, the cost was the chicken! You can eat well for very little cost. This soup cost 33 cents a litre to make, or 8 cents per 250ml serve! If you think you can't feed the family on a budget, rethink the ingredients you use.

Lunches were creative last week, to use up bits and bobs in the small freezer. Sandwiches, wraps and rolls with various fillings. Muffins and biscuits from the freezer. Fruit from the fruit bowl, including oranges and mandarins off our trees. Our fruit trees are all in pots. I grow the dwarf varieties so they love pots, and while they may look a little squashed, they provide us with plenty of fruit. 

All our meals were cooked from scratch, using ingredients in the pantry. 

We celebrated a family birthday with MOO parmas, wedges and coleslaw with ice-cream for dessert. In our family, the birthday person chooses the dinner, another reason an ingredients based pantry works. 

The garden was just more weeding, feeding, turning over. I checked over all the pots, and made a note of which plants need to be put into bigger pots. 

I picked more rosemary and rhubarb. The rhubarb has been especially giving this winter. 

I cut out some aprons and some pot holders. This week I'll get them sewn up. 

What did you make, bake, grow and sew this week?