Recently I made a salad in a make shift kitchen which turned out rather well…unfortunately I did not take any photos as I never thought to do it at the time. If you would like to give it a go and try it out here is the ingredients.
Charmaine’s Salad
1 pack of Tabuli salad
4 pickled onions
2 spring on greens
4 cups of rice pre cooked
1 punnet of cherry tomotoes
1 cup of flax seeds
1 seeded pickled chilli
1/4 cup of soaked sultanas or raisins
1 cup of olives
1 cup of pickled gerkins
Salt and pepper to taste
So easy!
Just mix and eat. I hope you like it as much as we do.
Just recently I have decided to take a whole new approach to shopping and am saving a lot of money…….I am finally back to explain a few things that I have found that has helped me.
Buying only what is on special for that week
If you have not got a fussy eating house hold or you don’t mind thinking outside the box when it comes to meals, then these ideas really could help you save more than $40 per week!
Just recently I have taken a whole different approach to meal prepping and planning for the week. Lately I have let whatever is on sale at the time of shopping, dictate to me what meals I will prepare with what is in the trolley.
Stir up your imagination
This can stir up some great parts of your imagination to think of how you can make a meal out of what you have in front of you as well as in the stock cupboard already.
Hunter Gatherers
Remember that hunter gatherers never had the luxury that we have today to just drive up to our favourite local shops to buy whatever was on there shopping list, their list was what was in season and available in their local area.
Early Ancestors
When you really think about it, our early ancestors were eating everything for their body’s requirements at the exact time they needed it and being supplied by mother nature which was all around them. We have lost touch of this connection to the consciousness of the earth, I hardly know what is in season anymore.
Timing is everything
Timing is everything and if you can go in the afternoon say after 3.30pm when most things are marked down for the fresher things that are going to be put on the shelves for the next morning.
So here is an example of one of my special that I got at one of my weekly trips to the store:
Asian Style Chicken & Corn Soup
We froze the whole thing and have stocked that for another day when the sales at the supermarket are too low to make much of anything else. Its a really handy for another base to a meal later on. NOTE: if you reheat this make sure you eat it all or throw out the rest as you do not want to expose yourself to food poisoning.
These are the packets I found that were all marked down at a great price.
Thai Style Salad Kit with the whole packet of bean sprouts added. Would have cost $10 now $5 for them both
This salad fed us for that night and a enough for a second night as a side dish for the crumbled frozen fish that we got on sale three week before. I did not put the bacon bits as we do not eat bacon and I used two fresh lemons with some sesame oil instead of the packets as who really knows what is in them except loads of sugar most probably.
Simple Stir Fry Traditional veggie the whole packed. Was $5 now $2.502 cups of rice from the stock cupboard, stirred in hot coconut oil to brown before cooking
So with the rice I fried up one onion, a bit of ginger I had around left and mixed it into the rice, but you could put anything you like to for flavour that you may have in the house or for medicinal reasons. Then I mixed the veggies through and sectioned it of into meal sizes as there is only the two of us, this made us our meal for that night and two more meals each.
When I re heat the other meals, for one, I put in a handful of cashews and one chopped up chillies to change the meal taste completely so it did not feel like we were eating the same meal. For the other meal I dropped in a can of corn and tuna that was on special the last week I went shopping. I often do this if I am making a base veggie meal (with no rice or pasta) for the whole week so each meal is still different.
I always comb the fresh food prep areas as you can find some quick meal add ons, this works ok if your not a total organic minded person, saying that I have bought many times very marked down organic broccoli, cauliflower, beans, mushrooms, corn ect.
The cost of the weekly food bills are going up…this is a fact. So how do we make the most of our hard-earned money when it comes to shopping? There are so many things all of us can do to keep the cost down.
Grocery advice on specials
I personally do not have time to troll through the specials that come in the mail or through targeted emails from our favourite grocery stores. Most of the basic advice on doing the shopping I do adhere to……The top of my list is that I do not go to do grocery shopping when I am hungry, this is very useful for me keep in mind.
A basic shopping list
I used to have a basic shopping list of what I had to get and then top it up with things that caught my eye, but even this approach to shopping would have me spending way more than I had expected by the end.
Under $10 meal deals
Some supermarkets are trying to help families out by making $10 meal ideas, these are good if you have family and have trouble thinking outside the box. There are a few problems I have with this marketing angle from certain supermarkets.
Most meals require you to buy a lot more than is needed for that one meal.
A lot of the meals don’t cater for those with diet requirements.
I have noticed that a lot of these meals do not have quiet enough veggies in them for our daily requirements.
I have at times made meals using these recipes and have frozen the rest for more meal later as there are only two of us. I have also reduced the amount of meat in these recipes an added more veggies which significantly brought the cost of the meals down to even $6 instead of $10.
If you adapt you will save…Big time!!
Just recently I have decided to take a whole new approach to shopping and am saving a lot of money….Be on the look out for my next blog where I will explain it in detail.
Currently we are on our third house sit and this is our longest one yet….it’s for 6 months. This is really good for us with such a big project, as it give us time to work on finishing off the bedroom and start on the bathroom. When the weather is good, I am get to pulling out the rest of the old air-con unit on the roof too. There are still holes to patch up, plus a bit of water proofing, since we are putting a roof top deck some time later on. Having a shed a the house to store our stuff makes it so much easier than trying to work around all that crap you still need.
We didn’t think we had so much stuff still, but every time we stop there is less to move.
Pets in all shapes and sizes…
The main part of most house sitting is looking after the family animals both big and small….. so far it’s been from cats to cattle. Our first sit was in Bowen for Michael & Michelle they have 13 acres about 20 mins out of town. We looked after their property for three weeks through the Christmas /New year time so they could go on a family holidays with their son, Jay. They have two lovely and very affectionate Border Collies, Buddy has long hair and Rosie has the shorter hair. They have two outside cats, one ginger in colour called Tom and Timmy is grey, all of them warmed to us very well.
Our February house sit was in Sarina Rangers, QLD, in a peaceful place that has a lovely running (all year) creek that is great for swimming and a cool down in the heat. Which we did almost everyday. We looked after Tyson and Tommy Tigger, four cow + one bull. This was a different house sit as we stayed in the coach half parked in their shed. Elaine and her partner, were in the middle of building their new house. Our blog top photo was taken by her, it was such a good photo we had to share it! It will be nice to pop in an visit them on our way up north next time.
The coach didn’t make it all the way in, at least the solar panels still got the sun.The house was being built so it’s really a shed sitBest friends Tyson (L) and Tommy Tigger (R)We look after all kind of pets when your house sittingOne happy bull to have 4 cows to look after.
Then you think it couldn’t get better we had our own creek to swim in every day.
It’s a hard life house sitting at Sarina Range, QLDWe had to take Tyson for a swim or did he take us every day. lolThe creek in motion.
Chuwar near Ipswich is our new house sit at the moment, we are here for 6 months. We are looking after two dogs, Kingston and Lexy as well as Charlie the cat.
This is Kingston, still missing mum and dad, some days more than others.This is Lexy (sexy Lexy we affectionately call her)This is Charlie.
In addition we get to eat all the fruits, herbs and veggies of other peoples labour, how good it this!
Just one or two Paw Paw, so sweet an delicious.We will be dehydrating most of the bananas and giving some to family.Chuwar house sit Dragon fruit.
House sitting has turn out to be one of the best ideas Charmaine’s come up with. We have pets to cuddle and love part time, as well as meeting some loverly people on our adventure around Australia. So click this link to go to aussiehousesitters it is a great way to get out of the motorhome for a short break or long one, whatever suits you. Housesitting has given us time to keep fitting out the coach, one house sit at a time.
