Good Friday Goodies

When I came down to breakfast this morning it was snowing; the roofs and garden were white and it was drifting down quite heavily. By the time I'd finished breakfast, emails, checked my to-do list and written a couple of birthday cards the sun was shining and all the white stuff had disappeared! Feeling so much chirpier now!

I was just in the mood for baking and what could be better than Hot Cross Buns? As I was happily kneading away I spotted out of the widow a female blackbird collecting swathes of dried grasses for nest building, joined briefly by our resident robin. Drat! I couldn't un-dough my hands quickly enough to get a photo, but I did catch the resident squirrel making his way down the beech tree, across the garden and up and away over the garage roof.

On the Home Organisation Front, my new board is now in situ by the kitchen door, and is proving very handy, not least in sorting the freezer contents out.

Regular bread making is proving (oh come ON!) to be quite addictive, both in the doing and the eating! I'm enjoying ringing the changes with various flours and extras. This loaf is one of a pair I made with Einkorn flour - a bit like spelt, just as 'ancient', and tasty. I've thrown in a good handful of linseed and other ground seeds which have given it a wonderful colour and flavour.

We had the last of the freezer faggots - recipe care of Dc at Frugal in Norfolk - yesterday for dinner. They are so tasty, I shall certainly be making these again.

Right, back to the Hot Cross Buns. Erm ....... - well, I had no candied peel so I chopped some dried apricots very small, raisins I had, but no sultanas so I finely chopped some stoned dates (they were SO chilled out .......) and er ....I didn't have any milk powder so they were made with water not milk. And to be honest, as they are for private consumption only, I couldn't be faffed making the pastry crosses. So all in all, they turned out to be  ..... just Hot Buns (now there's an image to conjure with!) and blummim' gorgeous they are too.

Yes, they look more like scones, don't they, but they are definitely dough-ey. After lunch we both spent half an hour or so Jim at his fly-tying desk and me sorting my photos out. (oh the joys of retirement)

Next I popped into my sewing room and picked out the fabrics for my jacket. Some are from my friend Magie (one G) at The African Fabric Shop, and some I remember buying at a market stall in Caen on our way to the ferry home. Must be 12 years ago, blimey! Others I have picked up at various quilt fairs over the years.  I need to crack on and get started arranging the pieces onto the jacket.

Now we are both pottering about doing what we do, and what needs to be done. The sun is shining and  the day has a contented feel about itself. How have you spent Good Friday?

So, the plan is .........

                          A recent and regular visitor to the garden. Just before he hurried away!

Somewhere or other I likened trying to get - and keep - my life more organised, as like someone sitting atop a coach, driving a team of six independently-minded horses! As soon as I get one under control, one or more of the others breaks out and chaos reigns. (No pun on reins intended!)

Consequently stuff mounts up. Clutter proliferates (they don't call this Haemorrhoid House for nothing, there are so many piles about!) Food is wasted and gets thrown - despite freezing and planning ahead when THAT particular horse is in the lead. Sewing projects languish. Ironing mounts a protest from the TWO baskets in the utility room. Meals are scrappy and not very healthy when THAT particular horse isn't in the lead. The freezer is disorganised, which leads to disorganised shopping which in turn leads to unplanned meals and hence wasted food..... and so it continues. Meanwhile I am fed up with myself, wishing I could get stuck into some stitching but feeling I haven't got the time (or the inclination.)

Some of you are tutting to yourselves, never allowing this state of affairs to develop. Others will be nodding and saying"oh yes",  knowing only too well how easy it is to let things slip. I'm not apologising for it. I'm just fed up with it and determined to get things straight...and CONTINUE to keep on top of things.That is the salient point.

So, where have I gone with this so far? Well, lots of reading up and cherry-picking the bits that I felt applied to me and would be useful. Some of the more helpful blogs I will introduce to you as time goes on.

General Organisation:
I cracked and bought a little book (not as pretty as Penelope's, admittedly)to make my lists, menu planning, and so on.

                                         (Do you love those two little coloured pens??)

I've also made use of my MacBook's "Notes" facility to store my menu plans and ingredients lists.

Sorry, poor photo, forgot to take flash off. You can see how it works, the ingredients/shopping list continues as I scroll down. When I write a fresh note, the older one shoots to the left side until I need it again. It may be a 'belt and braces' kind of thing as I have my new note book and pens, those I can take anywhere,and will contain ideas and other spur of the moment thoughts.

I have also ordered 3 A4 wipe off boards and pens to hang on each freezer. Years ago, when we bought our first freezer (the 70's!) I was very organised, and colour coded everything, wrote everything down and crossed off things used.Sadly, that sensible behaviour fell by the wayside and eventually resulted in the disorganised mess that I lived with until this week. As things are put into the freezer they will be listed on the board, and wiped off when used up. Simple, isn't it? And it takes no time at all.

Another aid to organised living is "30 Minutes". I am going to apply this to those jobs which either I hate doing, or which have grown to such proportions that I feel too overwhelmed to deal with them. 30 minutes is not too long to set aside to clear a cupboard, whereas you may baulk at sorting out the entire kitchen/bedroom/bathroom etc cupboards in one go. Sorting one freezer took me about this long. Culling several bookshelves would take another 30 minute block. My sewing room, were I to attempt to clear it in one go, would take a couple of days, probably, and never likely to happen at that rate, but if I tell myself I will clear for just 30 minutes, I am more likely to start. I picked up this idea from Tawny over at The Frugal Hill Way - Simply Living a Richer Life. As a start I cleaned out my cooking oils tray, giving away a bottle I didn't need, washing greasy containers, organising the various oils into a sensible- use method. Not an essential piece of work, but useful, and my tray looks much nicer now!

Some of the blogs I've been checking out are about frugal cooking. Now I am in the fortunate position of not having to worry where the next meal is coming from, and able to decide where, if anywhere, I wish to economise. However, I do think it is thrifty to shop carefully, cook properly, and use up - one way or another - everything you bought. Because of my disorganised freezers, my food shopping was haphazard, we swung between well-planned, and hastily cobbled together meals, and I was throwing away too much spoiled/unused food.

So the menu planning will certainly help with that, as will the freezer routines. I've been making "freezer hash", that is chopping herbs, soup bases, grated cheese, bread crumbs etc and freezing in small pots, for some time now, since I read about it on Sue's wonderful blog"The Quince Tree". I shall be regularly, not just sporadically, batch baking, or cooking double meals, one to eat one to freeze. You know, I've been doing this for years, just not consistently. Here's what went in the freezer this week.

Two medium and one huge lamb pasties, with left over roast lamb and freshly sautéed carrot onion and swede.

Three portions for two of trout and spinach fish pie mix. We had the fourth portion yesterday.
Not into the freezer, but a good example of frugality, I thought, the remains of (sad to say) one shop-bought lemon drizzle and one chocolate brownie cake, bought for a visit from my brother-in-law and niece. I whipped up two 'use urgently' eggs, and milk, poured it over the broken up cake pieces, and cooked gently for an hour while I had the oven on for something else. It did us for pudding for 3 days!

And yes, I did get into my sewing room and get on with a few stitchy things. A few rows of quilting on the cuddle quilt:

And a wool cushion for someone-but-it's-a-secret!

The stitched wording is just for guidelines, this isn't how it ail look when finished. I may need to snip a bit at the front legs as it is meant to be a hare, and it looks suspiciously bunny-like! That is the moon below, BTW, not an exercise ball!

Phew, this is quite a long post, isn't it, again. Well, I wanted to get my plans for home organisation organised! There is still so much I wanted to say, but will leave it for another post. I'd like to thank those of you who write these helpful blogs; I may not be quite the person you write them for, I'm not in debt, trapped in a house full of rotting newspapers and mouldy food, or struggling to pay off a huge mortgage. But the very steps which help people who ARE in these situations can help all of us who just need a hand getting their houses in order, so to speak. I started by regularly reading DataCreator's posts on her blog Frugal in Norfolk. I also enjoy reading about Rhonda, in Down to Earth, she has LOADS of useful information. From their blogs you can find other bloggers in their side-bars.

Now I hope I haven't bored you silly, and that you will come back and read the next post. Catch you then!

Getting Organised

Hello there! I make no apologies for using a similar photo to my previous header - this is such a beautiful bunch as is still going strong since last Wednesday. SO cheerful Hopefully it won't be long before there is some colour in the garden as well.

Now then. I'm a little late with the New Year Resolutions (not that I make any, usually!) but I feel the urge to make a statement of intention. I am going to get myself organised. Yes, you may laugh. I can be very organised. My problem is I find it difficult being organised in more than area of my life at a time. And while one area is sparkling and fresh and working well, the other areas are falling behind, becoming more and more tangled in their own miasma of disorganisation, eventually spilling out and spreading the chaos over everywhere else. Then I am back to being totally disorganised again. This needs taking in hand.

I have started making plans - oh I'm great at that! And I have begun tinkering with certain bits that needed attention urgently. But more is needed. I'd like it on record that I have made an attempt to kick the sewing room turmoil into touch:

OK, OK, so this is just my desk, but scroll back to my last post and see the state of it then! All my felt / wool is tidied away properly, and the Taupe Basket blocks which never came out of their box while I was in New Zealand! A long way to go I admit, but even this has made me feel better.

Now on the food front, I have been thinking for some time I need to get back to planning my menus and also wishing to be a bit more frugal with ingredients, not so wasteful with purchases, and cooking more from scratch. (which last, to be honest I mostly do.) So I intend to go through the freezers and make a list of what's in there, (yeah, you uber-organised people, some of us don't, you know!!) and try and use it up before buying anything else. Hmmm, we'll see. But I made a start. I had in  the freezer some smoked haddock which was bought as a bargain. In the fridge some smoked bacon, part of a clump bought cheap as 'cooking bacon' (what the heck else would you do with it??)and as I don't like smoked bacon on its own I  knew it wouldn't get used. Half each of a red and yellow pepper, couple of ribs of celery, two small red onions, a solitary courgette, a bunch of coriander which I forgot to use up the other day, and a couple of baking potatoes which wouldn't last much longer.

Spuds were flashed in the microwave then sliced thickly and reserved. All ingredients except fish were sautéed, fish chopped and gently cooked in milk in the oven. I added some flour to the veggies, stirred to cook, added the milk from the fish, with a spot more, and added some seasoning. Piled the mixture into a dish, dotted the chunks of fish through the sauce, and topped with the spuds. Into the oven to cook and crisp up. We had half for lunch and will finish it off tomorrow. It may not look like haute cuisine to you but it was pretty good!

In my search for inspiration in the field of frugality I have been regularly reading a blog called 'Frugal in Norfolk', and some weeks ago the blogger - who does not reveal her name - gave a recipe for faggots. Now I know they are not everyone's favourite food, but I rather like them, on a cold day. I'm sure amongst my many cookery books I must have a recipe, but this one was there in front of me  and I bookmarked it for further use. On Monday I made a batch of my own. Now I stupidly made them meatball size - they should be a bit bigger - but they tasted really good, with some lovely thick gravy. From a 300g pack each of pork shoulder and pork liver I got a fine meal for two and all this for the freezer:

Yes, the meat is eked out with homemade wholemeal breadcrumbs (from a time when I was obviously being 'organised ' on the food front!) and veggies such as onions, garlic, celery, a chunk of lonely chorizo, some of that cheap bacon (misshapes, they used to call it), and seasoning and herbs. But I think this is how we probably should be using meat. It made me feel pretty pleased with myself, I can tell you! (In fact I think there is enough in each pack to have some left overs. )

So, there it is. I am on a mission. However I don't want to make too big a thing of it because I will then fail at the first fence. Little by little. Gently does it.. Any tips or hints on the organisational front gratefully received! My next topic to get to grips with is my sewing projects. Hmmm. Wish me luck!