Home Made Tomato Sauce

I would love to do more preserving however I never get around to it for various reasons.  It's actually been 2 years since I have made this tomato sauce so I wanted to give it another go.  It's quite sweet so I think I could cut down on the amount of sugar in the recipe next time however I had fun making this.  My friend Karin and I did a preserving course at Green Living Australia in Brisbane back in December 2013.  It was such a hot day in Brisbane however we were in air-conditioning so it was a great day to do the course.

I ended up selling my stick blender a long time ago because I have a Thermomix however I think I might get one from Kmart because when you have a big pot of tomatoes that need blending when they are hot, the stick blender is the way to go.  I didn't get this blended as much as I would like because I was blending the hot liquid in the Thermomix and you need to be very wary when doing this.  I think it's safer to use the stick blender in the big pot. Because of this I only produced 3.5 jars and then with the pulp I dished it into ice cube trays to use as pizza sauce on our pizza bases.  Last Friday night we made some pizzas and used some of these and it was great.  Once they are frozen I take them all out and put them into a ziplock bag.

HOME MADE TOMATO SAUCE (from Country Life Experiment blog)

Ingredients
2 red onions – finely diced
5 garlic cloves – finely sliced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons curry powder
2.5 kg ripe tomatoes – roughly chopped
2 cups white sugar
600 mls white wine vinegar
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cornflour (optional)
2 Tablespoons water (optional)

Method
1. In a heavy saucepan, saute the red onion and garlic in olive oil until soft and clear.
2. Add in the curry powder, and cook for a further minute.
3. Add in the tomatoes and cook them until they have collapsed.
4. Add in the sugar, white wine, and salt.
5. Simmer for an hour, until the sauce has thickened.
6. If the sauce is too runny, blend the cornflour in water, and then add into the sauce. Allow to boil and thicken slightly.
7. Spoon hot sauce into sterilized jars, wipe the top, and seal (I got 5 large jars from this quantity).

Around here - Term 2 - Week 1 in Queensland

Well it certainly makes a change with the kids in school at home without doing daily drop offs and pickups.   Due to their schedules, some days they go at different times in the morning and are collected at different times in the afternoon so it could be 2 trips to school or 3-4 trips to and from school depending on the day and I'm grateful we live 2 kms from the school.

Both kids have adjusted well to online school at home although some of the lessons that might be completed in a class at school can take 3 times as long, or half the time depending on the lesson so they have both been kept busy.  It's new for the teachers and the kids and everyone is doing their best under the circumstances.  With the new ATAR system for Queensland for year 12 this year the schools have been preparing for changes for a couple of years readjusting years 11 and 12 and even year 10 and yet due to the Coronavirus they had to adjust everything from scratch in a matter of a couple of weeks including at that stage, teaching normal lessons in school at the end of Term 1.  I take my hat off to everyone doing their best to both teachers and students.

I have loved the slow mornings without the ironing of uniforms and telling someone to hurry up and brush their teeth so we can get going to school.  Not having to make school lunches in the mornings at home they make their own lunch when they are hungry.  There are lots of perks for this online schooling at home and I"m grateful that they are teenagers managing their school work as it might be a different story if I had little ones at home.  I know the way I was taught at school how to add up by "carrying the 1" is very different to how my kids were taught in primary school, so again...we are in a pretty good place.  I would love to go on a local bush walk and get into nature however all good things come to those who wait and it's about saving lives not about me getting into nature.  Here's some photos of our week and I hope you are all enjoying the slow mornings as well.

I made Sweet Chilli Sauce yesterday from Additive Free Lifestyle blog.

Home made Sweet Chilli Sauce.  The top two jars will go into the fridge and the bottom 3 will go into the pantry.  The kids think it smells and tastes more "sweet and sour" however we all agree we love it.

Sienna made some Anzac biscuits this morning.

This photo is an old photo taken on Anzac Day 2017.

A photo of my front hallway with pretty light.  I took it out out of focus on purpose because there are a lot of things in the hallway that need to get put away.  A High Pressure Cleaner, a large bird cage, a chair, shopping bags to go in the car to name a few.

I made another half batch of this Tomato Sauce from Additive Free Lifestyle blog and haven't bought a bottle of tomato sauce from the shops in over a year.  You cannot beat the flavours in this recipe.

Our menu plan for the week.

The beautiful sunset earlier in the week.

Banana smoothie for breakfast.

I can highly recommend Tracey & Jo's Everyday Cookbook as a standard everyday recipe book for the family.  There are no fancy ingredients, and simple Thermomix instructions along with the stove top traditional method of cooking with each recipe.

Given we are all in ISO get someone to buy you this book online for Mother's Day as it's kid friendly as well with teenagers preparing dinner for the family.  There's a list of what's in the book in the above link.  Also all those store bought condiments you may buy like gravy mixes, KFC-ish spice mixes etc. tomato sauce, pizza sauce, mayo, etc. there are recipes for all of these in the cookbook and I can highly recommend it to any family.   Just a reminder Australia Post are running a bit slow at the moment and it took over 2 weeks to get a standard Easter Card from Melbourne so be patient during these times however you will love the book.  It's a good old fashioned family cookbook without the additives and preservatives that you would be buying from the supermarket.

I can highly recommend you read this post and listen to the 7 podcasts about these additives and preservatives and what they do to your health.

School Lunches - Pizza Scrolls

This is week 8 of Term 1 and thought I would mix things up with the school lunches this week.  James takes a ham sandwich everyday and Sienna takes cold pasta with tomato sauce on it.  Sienna loves sandwiches on a weekend at home when it's made fresh but doesn't like sandwiches for school.  James just wants ham however I know they both love these pizza scrolls so yesterday I made a batch for them for school lunch this week.  I last made these in September last year and you wonder why it takes so long to do something so easy.

I really need to make these every other week and they are really cheap to make.  I ended up making small ones this time by cutting my roll into two however last time I just rolled the whole thing and made them bigger, it's up to you.

I made a pizza dough recipe, let it prove and then rolled the dough really flat.  I sprinkled flour onto the bench first and then rolled it flat and spread out the tomato sauce that we made last week followed by some chopped up ham, cheese and some dried oregano.  Once they are cooked I cool them down and then pop them in a container in the freezer and take them out each day.  If you haven't made them before I highly recommend you make them.  My kids eat them cold at school however you could heat them up in the microwave for 15-20 seconds for afternoon tea and would be great during the colder months for an after school snack.  You could put any topping on them including Vegemite and cheese, bacon, even left over bolognese would be nice.

Making the pizza dough.

Roll the dough out on the bench, sprinkle with flour first.

Spread lightly with tomato sauce or BBQ sauce.

Add the chopped up ham.

Top with grated cheese.

Sprinkle with herbs.  If I had spring onions I would have used this however I used dried Oregano.

 Cook in the oven on 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

Let cool on a wire rack.  Delicious.

Around here - Additive Free Lifestyle - 7 days of Podcasts

Around here I have been thinking more about the food we put in our mouth.  We all get time poor, lazy or can't be bothered sometimes that things slip.  It wasn't until a few weeks ago I listed to a podcast called "Whole Circle Podcast" by Tracey & Jo who are Mums and live in Tasmania.  Their website is called "Additive Free Lifestyle" and they have a program to help families meal plan and get more preservatives and additives out of their food whether they cook it themselves or learn how to select the right brand from the supermarket shelves.

Jo's story about why she went additive free truly makes sense.

Here's a few episodes that might be of interest to you. Personally I think all of them are amazing and you should work your way through them.

How to save money whilst eating additive free.

Top 5 Questions from our additive free challenge.

Top 5 episodes.

This week the girls are running a free 7 day challenge to help you become additive free which I'm in the middle of.  It focuses on one thing a day and the first day it's about preservative 282 found in supermarket bread, wraps etc. to extend their shelf life and stop mould from growing.   It has reminded me to get back into making our own bread on a weekly basis as my kids love it.  This bread is the Thermomix 5 Seed Bread recipe which you could easily make even if you don't have a Thermomix as most food processors these days have dough settings.  I can highly recommend an electric knife [mine broke a while back and ended up throwing it out] and then someone was selling theirs for $5 on our local FB buy sell page so I snapped it up.  So along with your electric knife I also have a D.line Bread Slicer Cutting Guide which is fantastic to get uniform slices of bread that fit into the toaster.  I can highly recommend this item if you make bread all the time.

I listened to these podcasts a couple of weeks ago and it was very eye opening.  The 7 day challenge is happening now and each day there has been an information sheet sent to your email address and a little task to complete ie check your pantry to see what things contain Caramel 150c or try making this home made ice cream recipe.  Or give bread making a go.  A bit like "That Sugar Film" where manufacturers put things on the front of boxes so you think you are selecting the healthier option the labeling really is a mind field with numbers and things listed we don't even understand.

With all the time in the world we would all love to make everything from scratch however sometimes that's not an option.  When it is, you are doing your family a great service, however it's even more important to understand how to purchase things if you don't have time, run out of time or aren't that way inclined.  Listening to these podcasts was such a reminder and eye opener for me to be more organized.  On labels when the words "natural flavours" are used what does that mean - it covers a lot of "unknown" things to the consumer and we assume "natural flavours" must be okay.

Here is a quote about spinach wraps you buy in the shops.

 "You will notice that the reason they are green is from a combination of blue and yellow food colour and they use spinach ‘seasoning’ (no real spinach!)"

This is the ingredient list from the store bought spinach wraps [as per Additive Free Lifestyle blog]

Ingredients: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Shortening (Interesterified Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil and/or Palm Oil), contains 2% or less of each of the following: Seasoning (Spinach Powder, Onion Powder, Spice, Salt, Garlic Powder, Soybean Oil, Artificial Colors [FD&C Yellow #5 Lake and FD&C Blue #1 Lake], Natural and Artificial Flavor), Salt, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Corn Starch, Monocalcium Phosphate and/or Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Calcium Sulfate), Distilled Monoglycerides, Enzymes, Wheat Starch, Calcium Carbonate, Antioxidants (Tocopherols, Ascorbic Acid), Vital Wheat Gluten, Cellulose Gum, Dough Conditioners (Fumaric Acid, Sodium Metabisulfite), Preservatives (Calcium Propionate, Sorbic Acid and/or Citric Acid).

Here is a recipe to make your own spinach wraps using real spinach, flour, baking powder, salt, butter, water and olive oil. These 7 ingredients we all know what they are compared to the list above.  It's quite frightening and if you were buying wraps generally you would think spinach wraps are healthier than plain wraps so again our perception of healthy is buy the spinach ones when in fact they are probably all the same.  It's a bit of false sense of security about buying the healthy option for your family as we think we are doing the right thing.

Here are the podcasts that relate to the 7 day challenge that is truly eye opening and a good reminder about why products are able to sit on supermarket shelves for a long period of time.  It's simple they use lots of "preservatives an additives" that we shouldn't really be consuming.  Some of these things cause lots of health and behavioral issues in children and adults.  I can highly recommend you listen to at least one of the podcasts below once a week until you get through them.

Day 1 - Preservative 282

Day 2 - Annatto 160B

Day 3 - Perservative 220

Day 4 - Caramel 150c

Day 5 - Take Away Foods

Day 6 - Swapping it up

Day 7 -  Embracing the Change

Years ago we swapped from Margarine to Butter as it's a natural product so that's one step already done.  I am wanting to stop buying store bought Tomato Sauce, BBQ Sauce and Sweet Chilli Sauce and am going to try the following recipes and see if I can keep up with using these instead of relying on the supermarket sugar preservative ones.

Tomato Sauce
Easy BBQ Sauce
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Tomato Paste

My kids reminded me the other day about how fabulous this sauce was and we also used it on pizza's which is what we were making at the time the kids thought about it.

Big changes can be so overwhelming and the idea of the 7 day challenge was look at one thing at a time.  Just like anything making your home made laundry powder or cleaning products just do one thing until you get that right and then move onto trying the next thing and pretty soon you'll have a whole lot of things you do on a regular basis.  Baby steps and do one thing at a time.

I recently purchased this little ceramic butter crock so I can make some butter and have it spreadable.  I did try and make some spreadable butter a little while ago by whipping it up in the Thermomix with olive oil however all I could taste was the olive oil and it was so horrible I ended up throwing it out.  My sister has been doing this with her butter for years however she said you need a "light" oil not extra virgin olive oil like I used.  It put me off after my first attempt so I'm going to make some butter in the Thermomix and store it in this little container.

A description about this.  The Butter Crock works by storing up to 170 grams of butter in the bell and placing water in the crock. This keeps the butter airtight and controls the temperature of the butter. All you need to do is to change the water every 3 or 4 days for soft, spreadable butter year round.

Around here

Last May I undertook a 7 day challenge additive free challenge which opened my eyes to hidden preservatives and additives in our foods.  Here's another blog post on things I was making.  I have always made our food from scratch however there's making things from scratch and then there's making things from scratch.  I used to use some sachets for stir fries or devilled sausages etc. we used to have store bought mayonnaise, coleslaw dressing, tomato sauce, BBQ sauce, sweet chilli sauce.

I now make these ingredients from scratch, they don't take very long, they taste great and more importantly I get a kick out of doing it and I love making healthy choices for my family.

Food companies are clever and they know consumers are a little more savvy these days so putting things like "natural flavour" on the box we as consumers believe this is better for us because it's natural flavour as opposed to chemical flavours [listed as numbers on the packet].  I for one thought "natural flavour" was just that, natural and not chemical however if you read this latest blog post from Tracey & Jo from Additive Free Lifestyle about this subject you will be a little shocked.  

Home made tomato sauce.

Home made bread.

Home made crumpets.

What we perceive to be healthy and what is healthy can be two different things. I've copied this from a post from last year. Here is a quote about spinach wraps you buy in the shops.

 "You will notice that the reason they are green is from a combination of blue and yellow food colour and they use spinach ‘seasoning’ (no real spinach!)"

This is the ingredient list from the store bought spinach wraps [as per Additive Free Lifestyle blog] - Honestly what is all of this stuff.

Ingredients: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Shortening (Interesterified Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil and/or Palm Oil), contains 2% or less of each of the following: Seasoning (Spinach Powder, Onion Powder, Spice, Salt, Garlic Powder, Soybean Oil, Artificial Colors [FD&C Yellow #5 Lake and FD&C Blue #1 Lake], Natural and Artificial Flavor), Salt, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Corn Starch, Monocalcium Phosphate and/or Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Calcium Sulfate), Distilled Monoglycerides, Enzymes, Wheat Starch, Calcium Carbonate, Antioxidants (Tocopherols, Ascorbic Acid), Vital Wheat Gluten, Cellulose Gum, Dough Conditioners (Fumaric Acid, Sodium Metabisulfite), Preservatives (Calcium Propionate, Sorbic Acid and/or Citric Acid).

Here is a recipe to make your own spinach wraps using 6 ingredients real spinach, flour, baking powder, salt, butter, water and olive oil. These ingredients we all know what they are compared to the list on the packaged wraps above.  It's quite frightening and if you were buying wraps generally you would think spinach wraps are healthier than plain wraps so again our perception of healthy is buy the spinach ones when in fact they are probably all the same.  It's a bit of false sense of security about buying the healthy option for your family as we think we are doing the right thing.

In our pantry we have a lot of ingredients and not packets and I've made a lot of progress over the last year.

Tracey and Jo run Additive Free Workshops from time to time and they bought a packet of Anzac Biscuits from the bakery of a well know Australian Supermarket to take along to the workshops to show the ingredient label and explain all the items on it.  The other day she posted a pic of the biscuits on IG and they looked like she had just bought them that day.  She asked people how old did we think the biscuits were and she said she had bought them for their first workshop 3 years ago and they were still in the packet going strong, not mouldy, not off.  That is scary that a packet of bakery biscuits still hold their structure in the packet and haven't gone off in 3 years.  On occasions when I have run out of time I've actually bought these biscuits myself for afternoon tea for the kids after school.  I was shocked and will not be ever buying these if I run out of time.  I would have been shocked if she said 6 months however 3 years that is crazy...just like the burger at the fast food chain that doesn't go off for 20 years.

We have full control over what we put in our bodies and having knowledge about how to go Additive & Preservative free is easier than you think.  Next time you see even an organic product with "natural flavouring" think again.

This is another great resource that I got onto years ago "100 Days of Real Food" and Lisa's cookbooks are both great.  This is their story and oh so jealous of their mountain "tiny house" too.  This is their holiday home and what a location how beautiful.  I have two of her books here and here.  In her book she tells you how her family went additive and preservative free and committed to trying it for 100 days.  She and her husband were into healthy eating and exercise however when they started the 100 days of real food they realized how little they did know because of food packaging and what the marketers of food try to tell you.  I can highly recommend her books and also lots of articles on her blog as well.  I love the internet and the fact that we can get access to so much information from right here in our homes.  Have a good week and let me know if you have any great blogs or books you have come across that made you aware of these things.

  

Around here - Coronavirus Update

How has your week been going?  This weekend Queensland will be lifting certain restrictions however I am concerned that every man and his dog will be out on a picnic on the weekend and that there will be crowds everywhere.  I for one, am staying put this weekend that's for sure.

Last week I mentioned that I made Tomato Sauce and Sweet Chilli Sauce from Additive Free Lifestyle blog/book and this week I have made the Pizza Sauce and BBQ Sauce and I can highly recommend them all.  I haven't taken any photos of the jars yet which I will do tomorrow.  If you make these sauces you will never buy the store bought ones again and they only take 30-45 minutes to make.  The recipes have a Thermomix and Stove top version so there are no excuses I can highly recommend them as they have so much flavour.  For the Pizza Sauce I just used whatever veggies I had in the crisper so just use up whatever you have you'll still get the flavour with all the tomatoes.  I used half fresh tomatoes and half tins as I only had about 800gms of fresh tomatoes and wanted to make both the Pizza Sauce and the BBQ Sauce so I used a can of Aldi organic tomatoes in both recipes.

Since I haven't got any photos of my cooking here's a couple of photos of Sienna with our chicken since she can't hang out with her friends.

WEEKLY CORONAVIRUS UPDATE [I have included the last two weeks as I didn't do a post last week]

On Thursday the 2nd of April, 2020 I started posting these numbers so am updating them weekly on a Thursday.  So these figures are basically 3 weeks apart.  World numbers can be seen here.

WORLD WIDE
Wednesday 25-03-2020        World Wide Cases        417,348                Deaths    18,596
Thursday     02-04-2020        World Wide Cases        936,886                Deaths    47,264

Thursday     09-04-2020        World Wide Cases     1,513,243                Deaths    88,403

Thursday     16-04-2020        World Wide Cases     2,084,042                Deaths  134,669

Thursday     23-04-2020        World Wide Cases     2,663,064                Deaths  183,882

Thursday     30-04-2020        World Wide Cases     3,212,993                Deaths  227,784

AUSTRALIA
Wednesday 25-03-2020        Australian Cases               2,144                Deaths not sure didn't look
Thursday     02-04-2020        Australian Cases               5,124                Deaths          24

Thursday     09-04-2020        Australian Cases               6,052                Deaths          50

Thursday     16-04-2020        Australian Cases               6,462                Deaths          63 **

Thursday     23-04-2020        Australian Cases               6,649                Deaths          74 **

Thursday     30-04-2020        Australian Cases               6,752                Deaths          91 **

** 21 of these deaths are related to the Ruby Princess Cruise that docked in Sydney in March.
** Another death from the ship however the person had flown home to America and passed away overseas.

** 17 deaths are related to two nursing homes.
Most of the cases in Australia have been linked to people returning home from overseas.

It took two months to get to over 1 million cases and then only two weeks to get to the second million cases.

Stay safe and enjoy the down time with your family and get all those odd jobs done around the house you never had time for.

Around here

During the school holidays we went strawberry picking which was great and we especially love the strawberry ice cream we have while we are there.  It's not a big outing in that we are only there for about an hour and it's an hour's drive there and an hour's drive back.  I can say that the strawberries were delicious and I made a pavlova and decorated it with fresh strawberries for our family BBQ.

We also bought some party lights from Bunnings and put them up and they look great and now the outdoor entertainment area has a nice festive appeal.  These I bought plug into my outdoor power point however there are lots of different solar lights as well if you don't have access to power.

Tracey & Jo from Additive Free Lifestyle are currently running their "beginners guide to going additive free 7 day challenge" this week and even though I did this May last year it's a great reminder to keep going.  Food companies do get away with a lot of things and try and trick us into thinking things are healthy.  Have you read this blog post about "flavour vs natural flavour"? 

This is a link to my blog post when I did the 7 day challenge which has links to some podcasts.

Today's topic was on caramel and it's not good for you and it's in lots of things.  I went through the sauces I have in the cupboard and pulled these out to throw away which either has nasty preservatives or caramel.  To be honest I only the Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and Oyster sauce.

I have been making my own Tomato Sauce, BBQ Sauce, Pizza Sauce and Sweet Chilli Sauce since May last year.  I believe Melrose brand has some better options and Ceres Organics.  It's just a matter of double checking labels which I normally do however as I make most of my sauces now there is less to read. 

If you get a chance to listen to the podcasts listed above in the blog post from last year they are worth your while.  Hope everyone has a good week.

I made some condensed milk this afternoon for the first time in my Thermomix which took less than 3 minutes to make and OMG it's delicious.  Tomorrow I'm going make this ice cream and I thought I would have a go at making condensed milk myself as it's so easy.  I have used brown sugar so that's why mine looks brown rather than cream as you get in the tins.  I also used salted butter as that's all I had on hand and it's fine.  The original recipe calls for unsalted butter and can be found on Sophia's Kitchen YouTube channel.

I also like to have the recipe on my blog so here it is:-

INGREDIENTS

50gms unsalted butter [I only had salted so used that]

125gms water

200gms brown sugar

110gms whole milk powder

METHOD

Place butter, water and brown sugar in Thermomix bowl and heat on Varoma temp for 2.5 minutes on speed 2.

Add the milk powder and blend for 30 seconds on speed 10.

Transfer into a sterilised jar and leave to cool before refrigerating.  You can keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.  So quick and simple.

Around here

Around here we are in Week 7 of Term 3 and the teenagers are wearing masks to school in Queensland.  I think we will be wearing masks here for a bit longer and I guess with the protest march on the Qld/NSW border last weekend we may see some cases in Queensland in the next few weeks.

New South Wales and Victoria are still in a world of trouble with New South Wales recording their highest daily figure yesterday of 919 cases with a 30 year old Mum of 3 passing away overnight.  Her husband is now in hospital with Covid and I can only pray that he makes it so those kids have one parent.  It's so heart breaking and I don't know how the NSW cases are going to end to be honest.  Victoria was given the virus by NSW people [I believe] heading there when they were supposed to be in lockdown.  Only a couple of weeks ago [7 weeks into NSW lockdown] two girls flew to Melbourne who had Covid.   I don't understand how "stay at home orders" means getting on a plane and flying interstate whether you have Covid or not.  Today, the 26th August, 2021 there are 1,029 cases.

Grade 12 mock exams start with the count down to the end of the year with the Senior exams starting on the 25th October, 2021.  I still can't believe I will have my oldest graduating High School in 12 weeks time as I can still remember walking him into school for his first day of Prep back in 2009.  That means next year I'll have one at University and one in Grade 11.  Both have great part time jobs and have a great social life as well so my Mothering days look a lot different these days to 10 years ago when we moved into this house in June 2011.

I am still loving making my sourdough bread and I can't believe how easy this recipe and process is compared to many others and in particular starting with a cold oven as well.  I also made some tomato sauce using the recipe from Additive Free Lifestyle.  The girls [sisters] have just created a Gluten Free 4 week online course which is the pilot course which I subscribed too.   I'm not gluten intolerant however having extra recipes up my sleeve which are healthy is always good and the girls recipes are amazing.

I have also experimented with making home made ginger beer using Rhonda's recipe from Down to Earth blog which I'll write about in another post.

This lovely Kookaburra has been hanging around our backyard this week.

Home made Tomato Sauce using this recipe.

Home made non-alcoholic ginger beer in the making.

Home made pizza for dinner.

Healthy Brain Balls using Dr Libby's recipe.  This batch is half the recipe.

I dried some of my home grown oregano which ended up being a huge effort for a tiny bit of dried oregano however I have been wanting to do this for some time.

Around here - New Year Budgeting

It's that time of the year when we reassess our goals and budgets and try and pick up as many tips and tricks as you can to squeeze that extra little bit of money out of your budget to pay for bills or savings or having your "mojo" [emergency] account.

This week I came across this $1,000 savings plan recently which I thought was wonderful and you can download the sheet here.  This chart is flexible so you just cross off any box with the amount in it each week and pop the money into a jar.  The largest amount is $60 and appears once so I love this plan.  I'm going to do this myself this year.

There is also this book on saving $1,000 and then investing it called "The $1000 Project" by Canna Campbell.

I've spoken about the 52 week money challenge before where you save a set amount each week and it increases each week however the last half of the year the weekly amount goes up significantly and is pretty steep. I think the system above where you can pick any amount is more flexible and doable.  The idea is that you do something and whatever appeals to you the most to save $1,000 for the Christmas Holidays or those December/January bills and back to school expenses.

Here is a link to a blog post I wrote out in January 2018 you might like to read.

If you haven't read "The Barefoot Investor" or the "The Barefoot Investor for Families" I can highly recommend you do.  Don't let the word "Investor" put you off...it's money tips and how to manage your money, mortgage, bills, expenses, save for holidays and generally how to handle your money.  It is a MUST for anyone and particularly young teens who start earning money.   These books are super simple to read chapter by chapter with a summary at the end of each chapter and what to do. ie if you want to ring your bank and get a better interest rate there are scripts in what to say.  These books are worth their weight in gold and every person needs to read them from cover to cover.

This year my goal is to do better in the area of food budgeting.  I do my best however I need to meal plan more and stay away from the shops.  I plan to do buy my fruit and veggies at the farmers markets once a week as the experience of the markets is beautiful and a happy place and it seems healthy too with no 2 for 1 specials to entice you.

Last year I did the "Addictive Free Made Easy" 4 week online course" which was great and reinforced the need for cutting back on products I was buying that were shelf items ie tomato and BBQ sauce and Coleslaw Dressing etc, pizza sauce.  The home made versions are 100 times better for you as you know what goes in them and also they taste incredible hands down.  The recipes are in this blog post for Mayonnaise & Coleslaw Dressing and they are super quick and easy.

This week for the very first time I made my own "Almond Milk" using Fiona's recipe.  I bought myself a "nut bag" about 6 months ago and never got around to making any Almond Milk as I have been buying it from the supermarket.  I guess a lot of the recipes make a large amount and as I am the only one using it in morning smoothies I don't need a huge jug of it however this made a small quantity and it tasted great.  Another item I no longer need to buy from the supermarket.  

A few months ago I typed up a word document with a list of all the things I now make under headings like Condiments, Breads, Main Meals, Cleaning, Dips & Spreads, Biscuits, Cakes & Muffins, Breakfasts etc. I also included the date I first made the recipe and from what book or website the recipe was from.  If there was a recipe I wanted to make and haven't yet I had that in red with at "to be made" comment.  I found it so handy having all of this in the one spot and to see just how far we have come in making our own things.  

Home made crumpets.

Home made Pizza Pin Wheels

I have ordered the "Everyday Addictive Free Cookbook" which should be arriving in the next week as well however any recipe on their website I can highly recommend them.  I can highly recommend you listen to the 7 podcasts in this blog post from the AFL girls because it will be mind blowing for you.  Making your food from scratch is time consuming however it also gives you the most satisfying sense of pleasure.  We have been making our meals from scratch for many many years however taking it to the next level of condiments etc has given me a new sense of satisfaction and knowing it is good for my family and my food budget too.

Home made Tomato Sauce

Home made Butter

So my goal this year is to cut back on the food expenditure even by $20 a week so that money can be used elsewhere.  Home made, farmers markets, less trips to the supermarket and grow more veggies.  My poor garden is pretty sad at the moment with the heat so next week will be a priority to get weed the veggie garden and sort it out as eating lettuce, tomatoes and herbs from the garden is such a feel good thing to do and it makes me so happy.  What are your 2020 plans?