Simple Saturday Musings

 

Art - Nettle Tea by Lore Pemberton

There is so much sadness, anger and distrust in the news each day at the moment.  Horrifying incidents and things happening that there is just no justifiable reason for them to happen.

It can get so easy to become bogged down with the horror, upset and mistrust of it all.  But the world can be a good place, indeed it mostly is a good place ... it's just that headlines like that don't seem to attract enough attention so they are drowned out.

It's at times like this that pulling ourselves back to the simple every day things can be just what we need.  Take the time to watch yourself doing the simple day to day things.  Making a drink and having it in one of your favourite cups, making yourself a sandwich and having it on a 'best' plate.  Hanging the washing on the line and taking the time to step back and watch as it begins to move in the breeze.

Take the time to enjoy the small moments, and your brain will thank you for momentarily drowning out the things that you can do nothing about.

Sue xx

Getting to the Bottom of Things

 

This made me happy.  😀

You'd think that getting right to the bottom of the fridge drawer and having nothing left in there might have been a worrying thing to do, in fact years ago I would have been horrified.  But the way my mind is working at the moment it was actually a relief to use everything up and especially not to waste any of it.

The last three things in the drawer had been most of a kilo of carrots, bought during the 'cheap veg wars' of the Easter weekend, a few sticks of trimmed and chopped celery and the single brown onion that I 'borrowed' off Alan.

The carrots were topped, tailed and peeled and added to a baking tray with some cumin, mixed herbs and olive oil and then roasted in the oven for about thirty minutes or so.

I served some of them with a piece of fish that had been in the freezer for far too long for my lunch.  The fish was awful, but the carrots were delicious.  So basically I had carrots for lunch and Ginger had a surprise fish snack!!

The rest of the carrots, and the onion were whizzed up in the Nutribullet and have made a large portion of soup for a lunch on another day.

 The final bit of that red onion, also cadged the other day, was mixed with the remaining half tin of tuna and a big dollop of mayo and went into the two remaining white bread rolls from M&S.  The white rolls were so insignificant in texture that I managed to eat two of them for my lunch, something I can rarely do with brown bread rolls.

The celery had it's browning ends trimmed off and was served for another lunch, with the last of my Aldi 'Ritz' crackers and a tub of homemade hummus dug from the freezer

And then just like in the top photo ... the bottom drawer of the fridge was empty.  😀

So I celebrated by giving it a good wipe out, a clean tea towel and bought it three new red onions.

Although I didn't need anymore shopping I did need some onions to help me carry on using up the rest of the contents of the fridge, including the cheese drawer, after all what is cheese without onion.  🧀🧅

So my shopping this week was just three red onions for 95p from Booths, and while I was there I picked up this weeks freebie, which was a Meringue Bar, which on getting it home I sadly discovered has milk in it, so it was gifted to Alan to say thank you for the two borrowed onions.

Sue xx

A Backstage Tour

 

A cosy book corner. 💖

Sue xx

So, What Were My Plans for the Onions?

 

I was asked via email what my plans for the food, specifically the onions were.  Well the red onion was immediately cut into to add to a 'wrap quiche'.

Halfway through preparing it I remembered something I had to tell Alan, so I nipped round to tell him, only to find him sat at his kitchen table tearing up bread for the birds.  Now I knew that particular loaf was only about a week old as we had bought it to take on holiday with us, so I cadged the last two slices and left him tearing up the end crusts.  

Sorry birds, my frugal needs are greater than yours ... anyway you shouldn't be eating too much bread!!

The quiche came out perfectly, well better than my last effort when the eggs seeped under the wrap, effectively gluing some of the wrap to the tin ... now that took some soaking and scrubbing!!

I had a nice sit down watching an episode of Signora Volpe on television and eating my dinner.

The plan I had for my two nabbed slices of bread was a nice simple tuna, onion and cheese toastie, as this would use up the last of this packet of cheese and some more of the onion.

Which seems very similar to the quiche but in fact tasted completely different.

I now have half a tin of tuna and the rest of the onion to use up.  As you can see each meal from the fridge moves me forward using cupboard items which then get added to the fridge and this is why although I have been eating this way for a couple of weeks the fridge has not yet emptied.

I do seem to be very good these days at making things go a long way and last a long time, as this tin of chocolate balls shows.  These were bought HERE just before Christmas and I still have the last four to eat.  Or maybe, because I have now noticed them they will all vanish this week, but even if they do, keeping chocolate in the house for over five months must surely be a new record for me.  😁

Sue xx

Free Food from M&S, and the Non-Challenge Challenge

 

I didn't really need any shopping after our little break away, and I actually said no when Alan asked me if I wanted to join him on a trip to Aldi on Saturday ... as he didn't mention going for a coffee, that made it much easier to say no.  😄

But on our way back from visiting Mum yesterday I decided to ask Alan to do a slight detour on our way back to the motorway, so that I could use the £5 M&S voucher that was burning a whole in my pocket.

As you can see I didn't buy much, in fact I was determined to stay around the value of the voucher.  I did well as my shopping came to £4.88.  Luckily Alan had picked up a pack of yellow-stickered cream scones, that he just couldn't say no to, two M&S cream scones for £2, it simply had to be done.  So that meant that I got the full value of the coupon and all my food was free.

I don't usually buy white buns or bread of any description, but rather weirdly they had absolutely NO brown bread or rolls in the store!!

I made myself a cheese burger for lunch when we got home, and although the bread was beautifully fresh, it just had no substance or flavour.  

It's back to brown for me as soon as I can.

I wasn't hungry at all by teatime so I ended up having a very late supper of a bowl of pesto pasta.  It was tasty and very satisfying, but doesn't green fusilli look a bit weird in photographs ... maybe that's one instance where white would have been better.  😄

I would usually have added some halved cherry tomatoes for a bit of an additional colour pop, but supplies in the fridge are very low now and I didn't have any.  I am determined to use up all the old fridge stock before I buy anything new, and it's going really well.  The only things that get added to the fridge are the opened jars from the cupboard, such as the pesto or things that I purposefully cook too much of.

Something that I had completely run out of before our little holiday jaunt was onions, but that nice man next door asked me if I would like one of his.  So when he asked "red or brown?"  I said "yes" ... and managed to snag one of each.  These should enable to me to make good use of everything that is left in the vegetable drawer and mean that I don't have to go out and buy anything and get tempted by a visit to the shops again.  

The red onion was called in action straight away yesterday, it's leftovers are in the tub on the bottom shelf, and I am about to make good use of the brown onion.

This non-challenge challenge is going really well, better in fact than some of my actual challenges.  😄

Have you ever completely eaten through the contents of your fridge, freezer or cupboards before having a complete restock?  In all my years of blogging I don't think I have ever managed it completely.

Sue xx

Back Home Again

 

Those of you that now follow me on Instagram will quite easily guessed that for the past few days we have been away on holiday, as I was busy sharing clips from days out and boat rides etc,  those of you that don't will find the title of todays post unusual to say the least.  😄

A while ago we booked a mid-week break to this lovely little cottage in the Lake District, around four miles from Keswick.  My son lives in Cumbria so we were going to combine it with a visit to him, and we did. 

Our first morning out was to Keswick, for a little mooch around the shops, a couple of coffees and lots of people watching.  After getting some shopping from what is seemingly the largest Booths in the chain of stores, we headed back to the cottage for an early tea and then set off for Simon's.

It's a picturesque journey to Frizington along the A66 passing by lakes and glorious views, and one that we hadn't done for quite a while.  Happily two of my grandsons visited the same evening so that we could all spend some time together.

Wednesday morning saw us heading to Wordsworth's house in Cockermouth.

What seems like a plain house on the outside was in fact a lovely homely house on the inside.  

The 'best office'.

A well-stocked larder.

The walled garden was absolutely glorious and buzzing with bees.

As requested I helped myself to a teaspoonful of wild flower seeds.  ⚘⚘⚘

The River Derwent over the garden wall.

We decided we needed some fresh sea air after the heat of the morning, so we drove to Whitehaven Harbour and sat on the front enjoying sandwiches and coffee ... not a bad way to spend a lovely afternoon.

We got home had a bit of tea and television watching, and then Simon and Emma returned our visit and came to see us at the cottage.  No doubt stealing a few ideas from this beautiful decorated and equipped cottage for their own home, which they are currently taking back to original stone inside on some of the walls.

For our final day we headed to Ambleside, stopping at Hayes Garden World which sadly has now been taken over by a much bigger company.  We had a nice lunch there and then continued through the Lake District heading for Bowness on Windermere, where I worked at a couple of jobs many years ago.

We had a little stroll around and then decided to have a sail on Windermere on one of the large boats ... neither of us was in the mood for a rowing session.  😉

It was lovely to be on the water for ninety minutes of calm, breezy peace and quiet.

We ended a lovely day with tea, coffee and cakes in Lakeland's café, before making a few purchases and heading back to our cottage home.

After a lovely evening drinking wine, eating up the last of the food that we had brought from home and watching television, we turned in for the last time, drinking in the wonderful views from the upstairs windows.

I don't know if officially it was allowed, but as we had sadly lost Mavis after we had made this booking we decided to take Ginger with us.  All the booking forms and the blurb for the cottage talked about 'pets' being welcome, not specifically dogs, so he came too.  While he was a little angel at the cottage itself he really did not like the journey there or back, yowling all the way.  

He will not be joining us again!!

It was a good little break from home and one that was really needed after all the stresses of the past year and the first few months of this one.  Now we just have to wait until August when we have another mid-week break booked, just us two ... no cat!!

Here is a link to Squirrel Cottage if you would like to have a little look around it.

Sue xx

Just Some Lovely Images

 

I used to have lots of scrapbooks, I saved clippings from magazines, pages from books that had fallen apart and little bits and pieces that would be stuck in to decorate the pages.  Then lots of house moves happened and one by one the books and folders were no longer with me.

Now I see a lovely image on the internet and save it for me to pore over in the computer memory.  It takes up a lot less room and I can save at the press of a button.

And when we next move house there will be no heavy box to carry.

Anything can catch my attention, but beautiful houses, rooms or china are pretty much my favourite things to save.  For a few years I tried to save things on Pinterest but it simply wasn't as easy to me as it is saving them into my photo folders on my memory backup box, and I rarely went back to visit them.

  So it was just an online version of dusty photos in a box at the back of a cupboard.

Isn't this lovely cool looking bedroom inviting after all these hot nights we've been having recently.

  Although in the dead of a cold Winter you would have to hang some lovely rich looking curtains, and add cushions, throws, and rugs on the floor to cosy it all up.

Yes, photos make me think and plan.

I think I would look forward to washing the pots, if these were the pots that needed to be washed. 💖

Of course it's not all just staring at pretty photographs and 'pie in the sky' dreaming.

It was looking at photos like these that helped me design my own kitchen when we moved into our current homes.

Useful and beautiful ... William Morris would be proud.

Sue xx

 

While I love the thought behind this graphic, and agree with all that it states are the real luxuries of life, the spelling mistake and the spelling of 'colorful' make it grate slightly with me.

I do wish people would proof read before putting things out online, or perhaps they are now doing it on purpose so they can gather in comments from everyone telling them that they have made a mistake.  Of course, if the person that made the meme is from the US the spelling of colorful would have been right for them, but my spellcheck is hating me at the moment.  

Gosh, I had better really proof-read this post before pressing publish hadn't I.  😄

I've now opened the jar of Aldi strawberry jam that I bought here a couple of weeks ago, when my Compost Heap Jelly was about to run out.  This one had been highly recommended as a good non-UPF but very affordable jam, or conserve as the label calls it.

The ingredients are:

Sugar

Strawberries

Lemon Juice

and the gelling agent is Pectin.

So exactly what I would use at home if I were making it myself.

It's very tasty, a bit sweeter than my usual homemade jams or jelly, but it's very nice to have a jar of shop bought jam for a change, and at £1.49 for a jar it's very good value for what you get.  I will possibly be buying it again, as I rarely make my own strawberry jam.  It always seems a bit sacrilegious to boil some lovely fresh strawberries to death when they could just be eaten as they are with some lovely ice-cream. 🍓

Sue xx