Make It Monday 14th October 2024

Good morning!

I had a very, very slow start to my week. It took until Wednesday afternoon before I started to feel even slightly better, but by Friday I'd improved so much I was able to sweep and mop and clean the bathrooms. I even managed to cook dinner on Friday night, with a lot of help.

Being so unwell for two weeks that I not only didn't want to do anything but just couldn't do anything, made me very grateful for the days I can do things, and for a meal plan and a freezer full of meals, and for a pantry that is stocked enough that shopping wasn't a priority. And I'm thankful for kids who didn’t mind picking up milk and bread as needed. 

So one of my goals for the coming week will be to stocktake and check the gaps, and then fill them. I'm feeling a need to get the pantry as stocked as it can be, right now!

Since Friday I've done a few things, some needed to be done, some I just wanted to do. Here's the list.

Making
Worked on Christmas cards, writing them and addressing them as they were finished. 
Worked on the kits for the Christmas Craft Bonanza.
Made some Christmas ornaments for this year's family room Christmas tree. 
All these things I could do sitting down, they didn’t require me to talk, and there was minimal moving around and those all combined to keep the coughing down.

Baking
ANZAC Slice for lunchboxes and snacks. This seems to be our current favourite morning tea snack. I've been using coconut oil instead of butter to make it (butter is so expensive) and it's working really well, still a nice moist slice that holds together, and it tastes the same to me.

Soaking fruit for the Christmas cakes and puddings. I restocked the dried fruits after last year's Christmas baking, and I've been using it all year to make fruit cakes, so this lot won't be as expensive, with mixed dried fruit going up by $1/kilo. I'll start to look for cheaper dried fruit now to restock the shelf.

Pizza bases for the freezer. If I'm going to do a batch, I may as well quadruple it and get some into the freezer. Beats making a mess four times, and only takes about 5 minutes longer. This time I weighed out the dough into 270g balls, double wrapped them in clingwrap and then into ziplock bags and into the freezer. We'll use these up over the next month so they will be fine like this. 

Growing
Picked rhubarb from the garden and pickled it. We love this with cheese and crackers. 
Picked rosemary from the garden and put it in the oven after baking the pizzas on Thursday night. I think this will become rosemary salt. 
Picked lemons from the garden, zested them then juiced them. I put the lemon shells in a bowl of water and used them to clean the microwave, then they went into the dishwasher to clean and deodorise it - waste not, want not. 
Weeded the pots and gave them all a compost tea drink.

Sewing
When I had the energy I sat at the sewing machine to get some kitchen towels and a few other things finished, some for Christmas, and some for a little market stall I have coming up. It was only a few minutes here and there before I ran out of oomph, but it all adds up to getting things done.

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