Today I looked at breakfasts and fruit, turned cream into something else, and made progress in the garden and office. Plus, more thifty tips and handy hints below. :-)

Lunch was more of yesterday's rice salad and coleslaw, and I had a snack of some kale rice crackers and hummus. 

I checked on the cucumber pickle ferment I set up yesterday - it was starting to bubble, and now the veges have softened slightly, I added a rock in a plastic bag to keep them below the surface. 

And I did some rearranging and set up a table out on the deck, where I will put my crockpot tomorrow with a batch of beef stock to cook overnight - that way it won't be attracting flies into the house. 

When I grocery shop, I use a Master Grocery List. This list is on my computer, and contains everything I normally buy. Before shopping, I use it to do a stocktake of what we need, and then refine the list for taking with me. (Full explanation and downloadable list HERE). Since I'm not shopping for a while, and am slowly checking over what I have in the cupboards, I decided this was a great time to update my master list and make sure it has everything I buy on it, and to remove anything I no longer get now the kids have left home. I am also ensuring that the items are in the most efficient order - grouping like items even more closely together. I started today by reworking the toiletries and fruit sections. 

I also spent quite a bit of time today gathering up and dealing with the accumulated piles of paper in my office. It's a new year - time for a new start and a catch up on filing, small to-dos etc. When I start back at my (from home) full time office job next week, I want a clear, fresh start! 

A clear desk and an organised paperwork system also helps us be more thrifty - bills get paid on time, avoiding penalties, needed papers can be easily retrieved, and one feels more in control, and therefore more relaxed. How about you, reader - how's your paperwork looking at the moment?

It was very hot today - too hot to do much outside until evening. This evening I decided to make a start on clearing the jungle that'd grown around (and over) my poor little lemon tree - nearly smothering it in bindweed. I dug out docks, pulled up grass, and got down on my hands and knees with a weeding hook to remove as much bindweed roots as I could from around the tree. The bindweed (convolvulos) itself is most easily removed from a tree by cutting it off at the base, and then pulling the twining vines up from the TOP, not the bottom. I removed a HUGE wheelbarrow load of weeds, and how at least one can see the tree and find the lemons! It started to rain a bit - so will leave it to hopefully get a bit of a soaking (here's hoping!) and then sprinkle citrus food and water in before mulching with bark. Still some more bindweed on the fence to get - will get in there tomorrow.

Take reuseable bags with you when shopping at New World: They will give you a 5c discount per bag off your grocery bill. Speaking of reuseable bags - those bags that the supermarkets and other stores sell are made with plastic-based materials; they are not biodegradable, and not as green as one would hope, being made from virgin materials in far off places. So if you're thinking about stocking up on reuseable bags ahead of the coming ban on plastic bags by the major supermarkets, look instead for ones made of natural materials such as cotton and jute, or make your own at home out of old t-shirts, cotton fabrics, or even re-fashioned feedsacks. There are lots of ideas online, and I may post a few of my own in the future.

Organise your freezer by grouping like items together, and use boxes to hold them in a chest freezer. I stack white bankers boxes upright, with a label written on the side (freeze things flat first, then stack packs of meat, chops, bananas etc in the boxes). I use banana boxes without lids in the bottom of my freezers to hold items (the lids make them a smidgen too long to fit), and stack a second box on top. This just fits under the baskets. Extra baskets are not very expensive, and help make good use of space too across the top. Do leave enough room to slide them to the side when you want to reach something underneath. Ask the manager of your local supermarket's produce department to keep a few banana boxes for you (make sure you collect them when you said you would).

Create your own Master Grocery List by making a list of every item you normally buy in your kitchen, bathroom, laundry etc, and then grouping them together according to where they are located in the store you frequent most often. A list will help you remember everything you need, aid in planning what you can afford, and help you avoid temptation or unnecessary purchases. 

Tomorrow I'll post the recipe for making wonderful stocks, and also the info about eggshells. 

I'll also be talking about kombucha and one form of homemade vinegar. 

We'll look at some good ideas for dealing with bones, and a simple recycling idea that will help start your winter fires. 

I usually have a smoothie for breakfast, and occassionally cereal. My husband prefers museli. How are we off for those and other options?

Ok, so breakfasts fairly sorted - will have to start making our own non-dairy milks soon, and when the next couple of batches of museli get eaten, then will have to either buy more rolled oats, or switch to porridge for a while. I'll let my husband make that choice.

The 5+-a-day folks say we should eat 2 servings of fruit a day (and at least 3 of veges). If I'm not shopping for a while, what will I do when the fresh fruit on hand runs out? What other fruit servings do I have available?

I decided to do a fruit stocktake - or should that be "fruittake"? 

Fruit doesn't have to be fresh to be good for you (though obviously that's optimal). It can also be frozen, dried, canned/preserved or juiced. Here's what I found we have available:

Seems we won't have too much problem getting our servings of fruit for a while! I usually have a smoothie made with a banana and some frozen berries for breakfast. We can use applesauce on cereal or porridge - or on yoghurt, or by itself - and make snack items with dried fruit. Canned fruit can be used on breakfast or in desserts.

I hadn't realised just how much frozen berries I had, so rearranged the freezers a little to group them together - a small quantity for first use in one drawer of our upright freezer, and the rest in one corner of the chest freezer. If you can't rearrange your freezers completely at this time of year (hard to pull everything out as it will defrost so fast in this heat), then do it a little at a time. It's way more efficient to group like items together - so you can easily see what you have and find what you need. 

It's been a productive day! A recap below - recipes etc are posted elsewhere and linked, plus will be added to the Facebook page shortly. Some handy tips below too.

I started the day with some Balinese Jamu - a wonderful, healthy mix of tumeric, lemon and honey. 

Today I used a large cucumber my neighbour gave me to make naturally-fermented cucumber pickle. (All you need is cucumber, salt and water). It will be ready to eat in 5 days. 

Breakfast was a smoothie for me and museli for my husband - more on breakfasts tomorrow. 

​I used left-over cooked rice to make a delicous rice salad for lunch, along with a red cabbage from my garden to make coleslaw. I added some bread and Nuttlex spread, but really didn't need it as the salads were delicous and filling. 

We celebrated the new year with an afternoon snack of good old-fashioned chips and dip, and a glass of coke - left from my over-zealous Christmas grocery shopping.

I baked some chicken drumsticks on the oven alongside of some kumera for dinner. I was going to cook up some left-over veges from the fridge, but was too busy in the garden, so had more of the salads. Yum! Dessert was a piece of chocolate cake - made with no gluten, dairy, eggs or refined sugar - along with some coconut yoghurt and strawberries from the garden. 

The garden is where a lot of our fresh food comes from. Today I picked the first red cabbage for the coleslaw, as well as mint for the rice salad, and lemons for the Jamu, rice salad and coleslaw dressing. 

I planted sweetcorn today - both seedlings and some seed - as well as some banana melons. My pumpkin and squash patch, planted just four weeks ago, has exploded with growth and lots of young squash are forming. They will supply lots of autumn and winter food for storing right through until next year's harvest (I still have several squash left from last season to use). 

I also sprinkled some dill seed from the kitchen between my super tall marshmellow plants. Won't be long before I have fresh dill to add to pickles and condiments.

I put nets over the strawberry beds (better late than never!). While doing so, I pulled a self-sown potato plant, and up came a very large spud - will use it for dinner tomorrow. Also picked a couple of right strawberries which I used with dessert.

I notice the blueberries are starting to ripen - I must making clearing the weeds from that bed and getting the nets down a priority.

I have mulched the watermelon/zucchini/banana melon bed with fleece from our recently shorn sheep - this stops the dratted birds digging everything up. I've added long bamboo poles along each side to stop them digging under the edges of the fleece.

Some pictures and an update on the whole garden coming soon. 

I decided to empty my bathroom cupboards and see just how much I have of everything, so I can prioritise what home made alternatives to focus on first. Turns out I'm rather well stocked in this department! Details HERE. 

Make bananas last longer - buy green bunches, and place each bunch in a plastic shopping bag, and tie the neck closed. This will slow the ripening process, so you can stagger your banana useage - some on the bench to use first, then open one bag at a time as you need them. The bananas will finish ripening quickly once removed from the bag. Sometimes the skin looks a bit not-so-good, but the banana itself remains fresh longer. 

Make vinegar from apple peels, cores and other scraps: whenever you cut up an apple, place scraps into a jar or other container, and freeze (can add to the same jar in the freezer). Once you have a jar full, remove from the freezer, add a sugar solution, and leave to ferment - it will turn into apple cider vinegar - almost free! Details on this coming soon - meanwhile, save your apple scraps. Organic/spray free apples suitable for making vinegar for consumption. Store bought sprayed apples can still be used to make vinegar, but I use that vinegar for cleaning purposes etc.

Tomorrow I plan to make cultured butter and cultured buttermilk from some cream I bought for Christmas but didn't use. 

I'll also take a closer look at some breakfast options, and show you an easy way to dry and crush eggshells to use in various ways.

I'll probably start some stock brewing in the crockpot, and maybe post an update on my garden.

Today I decided to go through my bathroom cupboards and check how much I had of all the usual toiletries, so I would know what will run out first, and therefore where to focus my first efforts on making my own alternatives. After discarding empty containers, setting aside items belonging to my daughter and our boarder, both of whom moved out recently, I grouped remaining items together. Turns out I must have been very concerned about biting insects at some point - as I have 4 containers of bug spray!! Which I almost never use. If I'm in the garden and mozzies start to be a problem, I just grab some rosemary and rub it on my skin. Hmmm. Let's see how else I'm stocked for things we do use.....

Soap - plenty of regular bars plus 2 natural ones and an antibacterial bar (which I would not have bought) and 2 1/2 refill packs of liquid soap.

Three bottles of shampoo, four of conditioner, and a bottle of all-in-one. Plus some baby shampoo (might give that to my DIL) and a hair treatment thingee. There's also half full bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the shower. I had stocked up recently when there was a really good price on Pantene, though ended up giving some of it away.

                      Two bottles body wash, which only my husband uses. 

My favourite facewash has run out, but turns out there are plenty of others to use up. I don't like them as much, but will work through them, discarding any I react to (I have sensitive skin and multiple allergies). With three daughters, various things got accumulated!

Maybe I should start using toner again? Halfway through the Olay (my preferred moisturiser). Again, others I could use up. Will see how they go.

Oral hygiene - check! Mouthwash nearly out. Will see if my husband would like me to make him up some. 

Shaving is clearly not going to be an issue any time soon.

I stocked up on toilet paper when there was a good recent sale. Plenty to last a while!

Hmmm...ok, so no desperate needs in this department! It will be good to use up some of the extras, or pass them on. We will see how long the shampoo/conditioner lasts, and meanwhile decide what alternatives to try when it gets low, and look at mouthwash options if needed. Otherwise, just keep an eye on stock levels and go from there.