I love reflecting on what we've achieved in the last month. Sometimes it's staggering how much we insource, and almost every month, we learn a new skill. You can too!
This month, we ate well from our pantry, refrigerator and garden. The weather is about to warm up considerably here in the Sub-Tropics, so we made the most of enjoying cool weather food for the fading days of late Spring.
Gluten free pizzas are a favourite here since I mastered gluten free pizza dough as seen above. You can find that recipe here.
Likewise, gluten free pastry is a new favourite. I used my Nannas old faithful recipe, and found that lard makes all the difference. That one is here.
Fried rice has been a go-to easy meal in this household since...well...forever.
Here's that recipe in a couple of sentences Nanna style.
To four cups of cooked rice that you've steamed the day before (or these days, 1-2 family sized packet of precooked rice), add two crumbled chicken stock cubes, a handful of diced bacon, and a cup of mixed frozen vegetables. Stir fry until heated through, and add a teaspoon of Sesame Oil, a tablespoon of soy sauce, 1/2 a teaspoon each of dried garlic granules and dried onion flakes, and any diced leftover meat such as chicken or roast that you might have in the fridge. Done. Just as good as any takeaway...better even.
Of course, now that we are moving into hot and humid weather here (when it's not thunderstorming!), sometimes a platter of chilled things is the only way to go when friends come around. Likewise chilled water is the order of the day over cups of tea and coffee.
The apples have been so sweet, juicy and delicious lately, that it's almost criminal to do anything to them, but we do love a good baked apple with greek yoghurt and honey now and again. So when the aforementioned thunderstorms reduced the temperatures for a nanosecond, these little pretties went into the oven.
Nobody can resist those new yummylicious home made gluten free pizzas. They're a new Saturday night treat. Sometimes more often. We load them up with roast pumpkin cubes, baby spinach, diced capsicum, fresh herbs and semi dried tomatoes, and go easy on the fatty deli meats, so they're lighter and healthier.
And...okay...not the healthiest, but so yummy and retro, home made gluten free sausage rolls. Again, I load the meat with grated carrot, zucchini, cubed eggplant and capsicum and handfulls of baby spinach, wrap it in purchased cheaty gluten free puff pastry, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. In 15 minutes I'd made 18, which is enough for two hearty meals for the three of us for around $10.
One tray went straight into the oven, and one went into the freezer for another day.
Of course you remember that I love fridge cleanout day and I was proud to only have to discard half a tin of coconut cream that had been decanted, but not labelled, and thus forgotten at the back of the fridge.
Here's my fridge all ready for the grocery delivery, which was mercifully small this week, and mostly consisted of pantry items. Here you see all my veges ready prepared for the week ahead. These include julienned carrots, diced green capsicum, halved cherry tomatoes, cubed pumpkin (for those pizzas!), sliced cabbage for coleslaw for burgers and stir fry, and more. This saves us so much time, energy and effort. It's an odd reality, that one hour of preparation, once a week, potentially saves you several hours when you're busy. Truth!
Here's some of my Chinoiserie cushions and pillow slips, either ready to stitch or already stitched. A bit different, but I LOVE them.
And here's a bit of faux tortoishell for you. This one hand painted by me. This is all but finished except for the glass top, which is on its way. I can't wait to share it with all of my pretties back in place.
Here it was before. Not awful, but just in need of a glamor makeover, like many of us...lol!
Going back 20 or so years ago, I'd stained everything this cherry colour.
That included the chess/coffee table, which I neglected to photograph in it's 'before' condition when overcome by a painting and gilding frenzy.
This is it actually upside down so I could paint it more comfortably. That carved detail really POPS when highlighted with a bit of gold leaf Rub 'n' Buff!
And once painted and gilded, Husband laid some faux tortoise shell of a different kind. This is the acrylic that pick guards on guitars are made from. It's found a new life as a coffee table surface.
We love it!
I can't begin to tell you how much money this saved us in October. But professional Faux Finishers are not cheap, and of course, you know that making your own Fake-Away and preparing meals saves a bomb.
I'm going to say $1200 saved on either a professional painter or a new desk.
About $300 on the coffee table.
Minimum $300 on preparing and avoiding takeaways.
And stitching new linens and cushions myself...I'm not kidding when I tell you that has saved at LEAST $500-$750 for the kind of designs I was admiring. That's a whole other story!
I'm calling October a $2300 month of savings, and that's conservative.
You CAN have Champagne taste on a sparkling water budget.
You've just got to be prepared to get your hands dirty.
Tutorial for that Tortoiseshell finish coming up later in the week.
How was your October?
