Gadgets ... and Simple Meals

 

I claimed the soup maker back from Alan a few months back, he wasn't using it at all ... the level of dust on top was amazing.  😄

He regularly makes soup but he makes a humungous pot full at a time, and he loves it so thick and unblended that his Granny would be proud.  She used to say that a good soup was one that the wooden spoon stood up in the middle of pan all by itself.  His soups are just like that.  I like mine in smaller quantities, blended and liquid enough that you can dunk your bread easily and even occasionally drink it out of a mug, and the soup maker is very easily controllable for all these things.

We've had this particular gadget for well over ten years now, we bought it when we had an Aga and wanted to be able to turn it off in warmer weather if necessary.  So we cooked with our gadgets anytime that the Aga was off.  We used the soup maker, the Remoska, the microwave, the rice cooker and the toaster, sometimes gadgets are very handy and it's always good to find the ones that work best for your needs isn't it ... as long as you have the space to store them when they are not in use.  I still use all those mentioned.

Anyway, with all this chilly weather the soup maker has been in weekly use, it makes me three good meal sized portions at a time, I usually have a couple over two or three days and pop one into the freezer for future use.

Other simple meals, not done in the soup maker, have been simple noodle dishes to make good use of bits and bobs from the vegetable drawer in the fridge.

And a really simple red kidney bean, cumin and onion mixture served with brown rice, using the rice cooker.

It's good over the years to whittle away at any gadgets that you might have bought and rarely used ... my brief foray into having an air fryer springs to mind ... but when you have limited space everything that you have really does have to earn it's keep.

I would say out of all my gadgets, my Remoska* is the one I would choose if I could only have one ... what would yours be?

Sue xx

*Gosh they are expensive now though, but currently on special offer.

Preaching to the Converted, and Rifling Through Bins

 

I seem to have a plethora of little cut in half tubes of various things around the place at the moment.  But as you can see from this photo of the mini travel sized hand cream, originally picked up from a hotel stay, there is always a lot more in tubes than you can possibly squeeze out in the proper way.

I wonder how many years of throwing away nearly a quarter of my products I had!!

I know so many of my readers already do this, so I really am pointing out the obvious, but if it helps one person to see the light and save some money in these price rising times then it worth a bit of repetition.

This particular one looks so cute now that I have popped it's 'top' on.  😄

There's an even tinier one in the bathroom.

My lips really suffer in the Winter months, and even more so when I am constantly blowing my nose when I'm not well.  So having a few tubes of this in the bathroom cabinet has been a godsend.  But I'm not wasting even a drop of it.

There was a tube of toothpaste also chopped near the bottom, after I had scrapped all the contents down, but that is now all used up and it was the dropping of it into the bin that inspired this blog post.  

Yep, I get my ideas from everywhere.  😁

Alan asked me the other day if I had bought any kitchen paper yet. 

 As you can see here from the kitchen roll holder under my wall cupboard the answer is still no.  I think the last time I purchased a new roll was probably in either November or December of 2024, so I am doing well with my paper napkin saving from cafés etc.

I do have to admit to carefully retrieving Alan's thrown away cardboard roll from the paper recycling bin yesterday ... he had thrown away the cardboard roll off his kitchen paper with two pieces of paper still attached. 😧  

I will make sure to use them for peelings or wiping up and not for anything to do with fresh food making, although they were sat quite neatly on top of an empty box of assorted chocolate biscuits that Alan had for Christmas.

Sue xx

Latest Bungalow Update - Devastation and Demolition

 

Where once there was a garage and a garden there is now a hole and two mountains, one of soil and one of blocks.

Things have to get worse before they have a chance of getting better, and now perhaps we can all see why this is going to take us at least a year of taking down and rebuilding.

The bathroom is now mostly out, just the toilet waiting to be removed.

https://youtube.com/shorts/5NM9o5LiLrE?si=5WWIOV6HWO68Ry4y

And to keep everything nicely up to date here is a quick walk through that I did yesterday, while we were waiting for the builder to come and have a look at the hole that will be the new garage foundations.  

Alan planned to have the garage rebuilt first so that we will have secure storage for any of the building materials and tools needed on site.  The old garage was unsalvageable as it's concrete pad had cracked and the walls were in a terrible state, in fact Alan said that once the roof was taken off the lefthand wall came down all by itself.  While we don't actually need a garage to put a car in, as we will have off road parking for at least three vehicles, we do need it for the storage it will offer us as there will not be much in the bungalow.

Sue xx

Gloomy Cupboards ... and Moneywise

 

I tried to take a couple of photos of the inside of the food cupboard yesterday, but it was so gloomy that this one was actually the best of a bad bunch. 

 It shows in a small way that I have been pretty successful in eating my way through the mass of out of date tins of food that I had in there.  In another week or so I will spend a few hours sorting out the food from the bottom cupboard and moving most of it up to where I can see it properly.  Reacquainting myself with the food that I have had for quite a while, but that was moved down to the lower cupboard so that I could keep my eyes, and my mind, on what needed using up first.

Virtually everything in my cupboards now has the date that it is supposed to expire written in black marker pen, which will save me a lot of time looking for dates and putting my reading glasses on and off.

Moneywise, I think I mentioned the other day that I would talk about my little cash stashes that are going to be a bit of a back up for my miniscule £10 a week (plus an extra £10 a month large purchase) shopping budget.  

I think most of you know all about my little change box.  It's not got a huge amount in it, just odds and sods of small change, and in fact since the other day when I shopped for a bottle of San Pellegrino water at the services and had to borrow 19p off Alan as I had already reached this weeks £10 limit, it has gone down ... by 19p.

To the right of it is my little drawer of FB Marketplace sales money.  Somehow, just selling my French bedside table and some little odds and sods before Christmas I managed to accumulate £73.  I was pleasantly surprised when I counted it up.  It's a handy amount to have for an emergency back up.

On top of it is the £50 a month for the next three months, January's cash was photographed as you can see below and is now in my purse.

All neatly organised.

Sue xx

My Diary ... and a Warming 'Mince Mix'

 

For many years I kept a diary, a large A4 page to a view one usually.  I quite enjoyed the start of the year filling in of all the names and addresses, some personal information and any things that I needed to pull forward from one year to the next.  

Then I started finding that process tedious and slightly ridiculous so I reverted to my old, old way of a personal organiser.  It had been vital to have one of these when I managed two shops in two different towns and needed lots of information about both at my fingertips as I travelled between each of them numerous times a week.

For the past six years now I have just purchased a new 'diary section' for my organiser and all the other pages stay the same.  The names, addresses and phone numbers, the banking pages, the Christmas lists and birthday pages.  It also means that once I slip the new section in, I can put the previous years into the plastic bag the new one came in and my history takes up very little space in the drawer of my sideboard.

My old A4 diaries made a spectacular little bonfire before we moved house from Wales.  😀

Today has been bitterly cold so I kept myself busy in the kitchen making a 'mince mix' from store cupboard items.  Nothing complicated, just a bit of chopping then a lot of slow simmering to let the flavours develop.

It might not look much, but it tastes delicious.

Hopefully it will be nice and warming for Alan when he gets home later.  He's been out in the frosty, snowy weather helping the builder demolish the garage at the bungalow, ready for it being rebuilt next week.  He must be chilled to the bone.  I gave him firm instructions to take a break and either call home, which he hasn't done, or go to Booths for a fresh cup of coffee and a warm through.

I was going to turn the mix into the base for a Shepherdess Pie, but after being reminded in yesterdays comments that I have a couple of part-baked 'cook at home' baguettes waiting to be used, I might just serve it with one of those each for dunking and scooping purposes.

Sue xx