Tuesday 12 February 2013

Two Challenges in one Post


We're here, at the bottom of the onion bag .....it's the very last onion, poor lonely little thing.

You may remember I told you there were two left, well Lovely Hubby fried us some onion to have on a sausage butty on Saturday for our lunch and he went mad ...... and used a whole one!!  I'll have to teach this man of mine a lesson :-)  The sausage butty was absolutely delicious so I shouldn't be too hard on him. (I had Quorn sausages, just in case any of you thought I had started eating poor little piggies.)

So last night that left me with one onion, at first I was tempted to make some onion rings then I discovered a bag of them lurking in the depths of the chest freezer, so I changed tack and instead went for a Spanish Omelette.




I was aided in this decision by the fact that I had a tub of leftover potatoes from the night before, I have a little challenge  going on in my head this week to save little amounts from the previous nights tea to inspire the next nights, no matter how small the amount.  I think I have been inspired by THIS blog, well worth a read, some wonderful concoctions.




So the last onion was sliced up and added to four of our lovely eggs with some peas, sweetcorn, tomatoes and the potatoes.  It was a lovely tea, served with sausages for LH and just on it's own for me as I found it very filling.  There should of course be a picture but we ate it all before I remembered to take one!!

And there is one sausage leftover LH was going to give it to the dogs, but I told him it's his tea for tomorrow night, so he didn't!!  Now what can I add to that............


At the top of my shopping list now is one word ..... Onions.

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This Blog post encompasses two of my Challenges, at the top there is 'The £2 Shopping Challenge', making the food last as long as possible and the money too, and then now I am about to veer off into 'The Year of Less'.

I was going to start on the spare room this week, but I have been waylaid by surfaces.  After seeing the picture of mantlepiece in the 'Me and Green' post yesterday, I looked at things around the house with fresh eyes.  The kitchen windowsill had been bugging me for a while, it contained useful things but just a couple of things too many and it was starting to look cluttered.  So I decided to tackle that next instead.



This is how I would love it to look, but I guess that is a bit unfeasible, at the moment anyway.



So everything was taken off, the windowsill cleaned and everything that was going back wiped down (and watered in the case of the plant).  It looks much better, and the things that are missing .....



... the scales will find a niche at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards, I don't use them that often, I like my little digital scales that I can zero and continue adding ingredients to the same bowl, but these ones go up to 10kg and sometimes they are really useful.  So they do earn their place in the house.



... and these three things are going into the car boot box.  I like, no I love the cream cast iron casserole pot but I have only ever used it to cook in once.  It's an awkward shape and I have others that I love even more. Where were the other two items on the window sill I hear you ask, well .... they were hidden inside the casserole pot and have been there for months, serving no useful or even decorative purpose, so they are OUT ... even though I do secretly love them too!!

Since reading the book at the top of my sidebar 'The Joy of Less - A Minimalist Living Guide' I have been inspired to look at things differently.  It's really opened my eyes, in fact I recommend it so much that when I have finished reading it I am going to offer it on here as a giveaway, so watch out for it appearing in the near future.  The information has ingrained itself so deeply in my mind because I agree with it so much I don't need to keep the book.

I can see the car boot stall looking lovely this Spring, laid out with all the things that I love so much, but I must say I love the space they leave me when they go even more.

Off now to tackle another area.

Sue xx

10 comments:

  1. Ohhh i love the cream one too - so so far away. Confession - ive never been to a car boot sale. Im living by the motto, at the moment, that if i really need it, ill make the time to go get it but otherwise im not looking so i cant be convinced to buy what i dont need. Not even junk mail (much to my hubby's disgust). He's forever digging it out of the recycle bin.

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  2. You're being very ruthless, I don't think I could part with things I love. Perhaps that's why I live in a house full of junk. I like the challenge of keeping something from your meal to inspire the next day's meal.

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  3. I love omlettes and would eat eggs numerous times of days if I could. Those weighing scales are like mine and I use mine all the time, despite it being a "cup" measurement world here in Canada!!

    Gill

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  4. You have such resolve!!! The Joy of Less is brilliant - it set me off on my minimalist kick. And I love 'Sudden lunch!' too. Thanks for recommending it xo

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  5. Snap! I am on a mission similar to yours at the moment Sue- I realised that while I love some things, I actually love the gleam of light shining off the polished wood where they once stood, more :-)

    Well done on the onions - but they do last a long time in store, Sue - we are still eating ours from the garden in July 2012 - and they are fine :-)

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  6. Sue,have just come across your blog and really made me smile.As for the sausage today I have made bread,pithivier and sausage rolls(photos and recipes in my nxt weeks blog) but just so you can use the sausage!!! if you have some puff pastry,take the sausage out of its skin,roll a small amount of pastry into a rectangle,smear some onion chutney or any nice chutney you have,roll the sausage into the pastry making sure it rolls around a couple of times,seal with a beaten egg also brushing the top of the sausage roll,cut some diagonal slits on the top and bake in the oven gas 7 for 30mins.Enjoy :) Flowerlady

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  7. I like being surrounded by the tat I collect. You are doing very well though by getting rid of things you don't use.

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  8. I think I recognise that pot on the far end of the sill! I'm with Compostwoman - getting rid of stuff gets easier the more you realise that less clutter = a much more relaxing way to live. it also gets easier to analyse what value things actually have to you.

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    Replies
    1. Robyn :-)

      I grew onto a bit of a hoarding habit in adult life - my evil stepmother threw away ALL of my childhood books, etc which were stored away by me in the loft of my family home - I was 22 at the time so it was all chosen by me to be kept. She was a right bit*ch! She also destroyed all the family stuff after my father died in 1999. Horrible woman!

      So I went through a period of getting stuff and hanging on to it.

      No longer - I only keep things which have a use, a memory I cannot find elsewhere, or give me joy ( art, memories, pleasure)

      I don't throw other people's stuff - obviously!

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  9. I bought Jess the same set of scales in cream. They sit out on the sideboard. Her digital ones stopped working. She used the scales yesterday to make a lemon drizzle cake for my birthday tomorrow. It didn't rise well and as it is to be served to friends, she is making another tonight .... it just means we have two cakes to eat -yum !

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