Plastic Free July - Menu for Week Two

And here we are - one week in to Plastic Free July, and plastic has been successfully avoided! But the biggest success? Last week nobody went hungry, or complained about the food. Phew!

Here is the menu for week two - since the weather forecast is telling us that we are in for some nasty old wintry weather this week, the menu is heavy on hearty soups to see us through.

Monday
Breakfast - Toast with home made spicy bean dip
Lunch - Minestrone
Snack - Pear
Dinner - Store cupboard lentil soup

Tuesday
Breakfast - Muesli with stewed fruit
Lunch - Left over lentil soup
Snack - Fresh winter fruit salad with ginger
Dinner - Chickpea tagine with dates and couscous

Wednesday
Breakfast - Porridge with bananas and cinnamon
Lunch - Left over tagine
Snack - Bean dip with carrots and cucumbers
Dinner - Potato and leek soup with pumpkin bread

Thursday
Breakfast - Feta, tomato and spinach toasted sandwiches
Lunch - Left over soup and pumpkin bread
Snack - Banana bread
Dinner - Sweet potato and white bean chilli with green salad

Friday
Breakfast - Scrambled eggs with roasted tomatoes and salad
Lunch - Leftover chilli
Snack - Fresh fruit
Dinner - Beetroot and kale risotto with feta cheese

Saturday
Breakfast - Pancakes with poached dried winter fruits
Lunch - Leftover risotto with garden salad
Snack - Fruit salad
Dinner - Roasted veg and feta tacos

Sunday
Breakfast - Raisin toast
Lunch - Salad sandwiches
Snack - Orange butter cake
Dinner - Ribollita with olive and rosemary focaccia

Plastic Free July - Menu for week one

It's July - time for hand knits, snuggling up in front of the heater, and oh! Plastic Free July! I've decided to join in, and will attempt to live without any single-use plastic items (such as food packaging, plastic bags, straws, take-away food containers etc) for the month of July. I have made essential toiletries and medical supplies the exception, but apart from that no plastic shall cross my threshold if I can help it!

You can join in yourself, or just read up on it at the official website. There are heaps of great tips on how to be plastic-free in every aspect of your life.

Most people, when I tell them of my plans, are simultaneously intrigued and baffled. Plastic is such a prominent part of our modern lives - insidiously so, I believe - that the concept of avoiding it for a month seems nigh on impossible. So I've decided to share my weekly menu plans to show that with a little planning and organisation it can be done, and that my family doesn't have to live on raw fruit and vegetables for a month!

The first thing to do is to find a good store that sells dry goods, particularly grains and pulses, in bulk. Most of these items come in plastic packets at the supermarket, but bulk good stores allow you to fill your own bags (or handily provide paper bags), which are then weighed at the counter to calculate the cost. If you are lucky, these shops will also sell an array of dairy products in glass, too.

The second thing to do is to focus not on what you can't have, but what you can have, which is fresh, seasonal food! By making the most of the ingredients you have that come plastic-free, it soon becomes easy to figure out delicious meals that are as plastic-free as nature intended.

All grains, pulses, dry goods and dairy products that I am using this week are from such a store, and our bread is from local bakeries that put their bread in paper bags. Once you incorporate this way of shopping into your routine, it becomes pretty easy to avoid the evil plastic stuff. It does help that my local area has places like this to shop in, but it is getting easier - there seems to be more and more places selling food in this way. Sustainable Table even has a bulk store directory, so you can see if there is one local to you in your state.

Below is my menu plan, including snacks even. Never let it be said that my plastic-free experiments resulted in my family going hungry!

Monday
Breakfast - Raisin toast with butter and/or homemade jam
Lunch - Vegetable soup with spelt bread toast
Snack - Orange, pink grapefrut, ginger and black pepper fruit salad
Dinner - Malaysian vegetable curry with brown rice

Tuesday
Breakfast - Porridge with stewed apple and rhubarb
Lunch - Left over vegetable curry
Snack - Banana
Dinner - Moroccan lentil and chickpea soup

Wednesday
Breakfast - Avocado with black pepper on spelt toast
Lunch - Left over soup
Snack - Winter fruit salad
Dinner - Kale and sweet potato pilaf

Thursday
Breakfast - Soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers
Lunch - Left over pilaf
Snack - Apple, rhubarb, oat and yogurt pots
Dinner - Pumpkin and feta risotto with rocket salad

Friday
Breakfast - Toast with home-made hummus, cucumber and tomato
Lunch - Left over risotto
Snack - Pears
Dinner - Home made veggie pizza with feta

Saturday
Breakfast - Sultana, apple and cinnamon couscous porridge
Lunch - Left over pizza with garden salad
Snack - Carrot and cucumber sticks with hummus
Dinner - Greek bean and silverbeet stew

Sunday
Breakfast - Chocolate chia waffles with banana and maple syrup
Lunch - Left over stew
Snack - Oat and fruit cookies
Dinner - Heuvos rancheros with salad

Baked Cinnamon Donuts Recipe

I have been mucking around with this recipe for the last few weeks, and I have finally cracked it. The challenge, you see, was to create the perfect donut recipe using items that I would already have in my kitchen pantry. I didn't want to be rushing down to the supermarket trying to buy yoghurts or buttermilk, or essentially anything that came in a plastic container, because we are once again trying to be as plastic free as possible here in the Jorth household this year.


We're also living a year of frugality, trying to both boost our bank account *and* be as green as possible. Everything - even donut recipes - now need to meet our green frugality standards!


So you can imagine how excited I was when I created a lovely green donut recipe, with all ingredients coming in either recyclable glass or paper. But the best thing is the donuts have that essential stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-ness that only a really good cup of tea or coffee can dislodge. It's the number one thing I look for in a donut, and now the perfect recipe is mine, all mine! Cue evil laugh, and get baking, kids!


Baked Cinnamon Donuts
60 grams butter, melted
1/2 cup raw caster sugar
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tsp nutmeg, or more to taste
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk


Cinnamon Topping:
20 grams butter, melted
1/2 cup raw caster sugar
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon


1 - Preheat oven to 180 C. Generously coat a donut pan with some of the melted butter.


2 - Combine the caster sugar, plain flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg in a bowl and mix well.


3 - Mix the egg, milk and butter together in a small jug. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture, and pour in the egg mixture. Stir well to combine.


4 - Carefully, using both a spoon and a knife, add the mixture to the donut pans, making sure you don't overfill them. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, or until golden brown.


5 - Meanwhile, add the raw caster sugar and cinnamon together in a shallow bowl, and mix well. When the donuts are fresh out of the oven, dip each donut top in the melted butter, then press into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on a rack to cool, then eat - that's if you can wait that long!


Makes 8 donuts.

Resolutions

Hello friends! Here we are on the other side of the great Christmas/New Year divide, and I for one am feeling fine! I have so many amazing things that I want to achieve in 2014, so I thought that I would post them here, not only so I can refer back to them when they are not so fresh in my mind, but also so I can give myself a quick, swift kick up the ass if I'm not getting them done! So without any further fanfare, here are the things I want to do in twenty-fourteen:

- Read more books. I finished the year on a reading high, having thoroughly enjoyed The Rosie Project, Oil and Honey, Miss Hargreaves and The Two Mrs Abbots. If you've read something fabulous lately, I'd love to hear your recommendations!

- Make a cherry pie. I even bought myself a cherry stoner in the sales. That's a job for next week, I reckon!

- Eat more grains. We've figured out that the Galumph is mildly gluten-intolerant. He can handle a wee bit of gluten (like in his porridge oats) but not much, so we have made a deal: generally no gluten at home, except for the odd homemade baked treat or pasta dish. Having trialled this over the last couple of weeks, it's gone well, so I'm excited to be incorporating more gluten-free grains into our lives. We've been having the most marvellous blueberry quinoa porridge as a change in the mornings - loving the long, slow energy from that tasty dish!

- Eat more fruit. I know, I know - I say this one every year, but I've made a huge effort to eat my two pieces every day of late, and I am feeling so good for it. More fruit!

- Sayonara booze. Remember a couple of years ago I decided that coffee and I were no longer friends, and I kicked it to the curb? Well, it seems alcohol and I have had a similar falling out. I feel so sluggish and crap the day after even one glass, so I'm going to make 2014 alcohol free as I just don't think it agrees with me anymore. I'm going to miss it, but I have a feeling that better energy levels and awesome sleep will more than make up for it.

- Bring back the plastic free. Unfortunately plastic has slowly but surely crept back into our lives since we went plastic free for a month in 2007 (can you believe I've been blogging that long? Cripes!), so I am going to try and eliminate as much plastic from our day-to-day lives as I can throughout 2014. In a similar vein, I'm also going to try and reduce the amount of waste we create in general, such as food waste.

- Blog more. Cos it's fun around here!

- Be a lean, mean, budget queen. I want to use what I have rather than fork out for something new, and if I do have to buy something I'd like it to be recycled and/or ethically made.

- Get out those vintage patterns. I think 2014 should be the year of sewing vintage! Each month I'd like to sew or knit a vintage pattern, and bring a little old school elegance into my life. Should we do a vintage-a-long? That could be wicked fun!

- Do more bike rides. Preferably whilst wearing a vintage dress. Cos that's how I wanna roll! (Get it? Roll? My word, I'm even funnier this year than last!)

- Launch my knitting pattern collection. Wrists, I'm warning you now: I'm going to be doing a LOT of knitting in preparation for my launch later this year. But any wrist ache will totally be worth it. I am SO SUPER EXCITED about this!

Wow. I sure have a busy year lined up! I hope that 2014 brings you much happiness and joy, and if you are in need of a daft joke, don't forget to stop by here!

Clean up

Since it was a stinking hot 40 C here in Melbourne town yesterday, I decided that it would be an excellent time to sit down and do some long overdue blog tidying up. I've given myself a brand spanking new logo, got rid of the "Link Within" boxes, as I felt they added nothing but clutter and also updated my side bar links. Whaddy'all think? Nothing like a good clean up, I say.

And speaking of cleaning up, we discovered yesterday that some pesky pantry moths had made our little food cupboard their home. Dastardly creatures! I'm pretty sure they came home with us in rice from the bulk bins at a food co-op, as the same thing happened last time I bought rice from them, back when we were living in our old rented home. So much for being green and trying not to create any waste - I may have saved myself a plastic bag from not buying rice, but yesterday saw the binning of lots of food the little s#!%s had gotten into. Good times, good times...

Resolve

It appears to be that time of year again - the time to get out a fresh sheet of paper and a newly-sharpened pencil, and to jot down the resolutions for the year. With that, of course, comes hopefully a modicum of self-analysis: Who am I? What do I want to do this year? Who, exactly, do I want to be? And above all else, can I?

So here are mine, pretty much off the top of my head although they have been percolating around the noggin for a few weeks now. Fingers crossed I stick with them!

Year of Frugality
Much to the groans, but then agreement, of the Galumph, I proposed a year of frugality. We both want to just knuckle down and pay as much extra off our mortgage as we can, so we have decided to watch the pennies a whole lot more. I think the key to this being a success is to be more organised. Last year, for example, I got into the habit of buying lunch on the days I worked. Nice as that was, those lunches sure added up. This year I will make sure I always have a little something stashed away in the freezer to take in, rather than duck out to take away.

I'm sure there are a thousand more little ways we can make our dollars stretch further this year. I just need to figure them out, and apply them.

Stash Busters!
This is tying in with the Frugality pledge. I have loads of fabric and yarn sitting in my bureau at home, so I want to try and make up as many of those as I can rather than buying things for new projects. Fear not - I shall treat myself as the need/uncontrollable want occurs, but there are plenty of wannabe projects already hiding away in my cupboard that require my attention first.

Waste Control
I have a zealot's burning desire to minimise to the nth degree how much our household wastes. To this end we are looking at a composting solution to cut down on our food scrap waste (looks like a wormie bin will be the way to go), and I'm trying to avoid packaging as much as possible.

Plastic Free
Apart from necessities (medicine, deodorant etc) I'm trying to go all out for plastic free this year. Milk will be the exception, as it's simply too hard to find in glass bottles, and the plain plastic bottles are the most easily recycled. I was doing pretty well with my plastic free pledge, but the sneaky bugger has snuck his way back in to my home again. No more, say I, no more!

Oil Free
Another green goal is to further reduce my reliance on oil. It's running out, you know, so the quicker we can take steps to reduce oil consumption now, the better off we will be in the future. For my family this means remaining car-free, eating as locally as we can (joining a local box scheme has already occurred), purchasing only locally made goods and reducing our energy usage.

Just Keep Sewin'
Last year was a personal record buster on the sewing front. Apart from one dress (aw c'mon - it was on sale!) some pjs and bathers, I made all my own clothes. This year I want to keep on keeping on - and with that stash busting pledge it looks like I shall have to!

Click that Shutter Button
I'd really like to improve my photography this year. Last year was pretty good, but I know I can do better. I can definitely do it more often, for starters!

Don't You Have a Blog or Something?
Yes, I do, but I'm not sure you could tell by the amount of updating I did in the second half of the year. Please allow me a moment to hang my head in shame. So much for my update every day pledge - phwmph! I do enjoy writing my blog, so this year I'm aiming for regular updating rather than locking myself into a daily pledge. I want to be reliable for both my sake, and yours.

Hey There, Chicken Arms!
A few weeks ago Grumbles was trying to do cartwheels on a lawn. Poor kid couldn't do one to save herself, so I sauntered over to show her how it's done. Um, wake up call: My upper arm strength is so feeble that I could barely manage one myself. I was rather shocked - I thought doing a cartwheel would be like getting up off the couch - a simple action that I wouldn't even have to think about. Ruh roh. So after that blistering moment of enlightenment, I've been doing push ups every morning. Granted I can only manage half a dozen at the moment before collapsing nose first onto the floor and begging for mercy, but I'll get there.

So there are pledges for the year. Watch out 2011 - here comes a greener, fiscally enhanced and superbly toned upper armed Jorth!

In case you've been wondering where I've been

Plastic free, plastic free,
What the *bleep* has happened to thee?
I'm glad to say that it's been going strong
Despite my illness I've been playing along
Ok, ok, there was a tofu incident
Still from the path I have not *generally* bent
We've had lots of soup, and them some more
(In fact our dining has been a bore)
As Grumbles and I recovered from our bug
There was nary a softdrink bottle from which we did slug
I promise more updates will come your way
But now it's time for me to hit the hay.
Ole!

Your daily grossness

As loyal readers would know, I had my wisdom teeth out a few weeks ago. It all went generally well, except one of my dissolvable stitches just wouldn't dissolve. I've tried tugging at it (um, that hurt), poking at it continually with my tongue (that did nothing for my facial expression), and brushing hard over it with my toothbrush.

Alas, nothing. It was determined to stay in there, taunting my futile efforts.

So this morning I bit the bullet and called the surgeon's office, who bade me to come in at once. After a bit of poking around, and fair bit of spitting blood from me into the basin thoughtfully provided, it came out.

Hooray - now even my mouth is Plastic Free Month-ready!

It's all about priorities

Since announcing my Plastic Free November project, I've been doing a bit of thinking, much of it sparked by an aquaintence who scoffed at me over the amount of time I'd have to spend shopping and cooking from scratch. "What a waste!", they sneered.

I'll concur with their point - it does take a little more time. Yesterday, for example, I needed some broad beans for dinner. It would have been much faster to jump in my car (let's presume that I actually own a car, and know how to drive one!), joining the hoards on the road, spewing pollution and carbon emissions as I went, and then lunge into the supermarket, getting a plastic packet of cheapie imported broad beans from the energy-guzzling freezer, then driving back home to quickly throw them in a saucepan, without the hassle of removing them from their pod.

Much, much faster, but at what cost?

Instead I spend an hour or two at the start of each month doing a monthly menu plan, based on what is currently in season. I love this time - I happily dig out all my cookbooks and food magazines and daydream about fabulous meals, drooling as I go. Then, a few times each week, I take Grumbles in hand after consulting my plan (no asking "what's for dinner?" at our place, we always know!) and we sally forth upon our feet down to the local shops, stopping to natter to shopkeepers and friends as we go. It's not quick, but damn it's enjoyable.

Then we walk home, savouring the fresh air and sunshine, or rain if it's that sort of day, chattering about the shoes hung over power lines ("Grumbles, is that where we keep our shoes?" "NOOOOOOOOOO, bwahahahhah!"), listening to the birds, pausing to scratch the bellies of neighbourhood cats. Then we plonk ourselves on the front stoop, scrap bowl and broad beans in hand, and shell them together. Grumbles learns about food, and locality, and the importance of community, and I enjoy watching her learn and blossom, proud to stand by and watch her showing Max the book shop man her new shoes, and informing Zota the cheese shop owner that we're having pasta with broad beans for dinner tonight.


I'm sorry, but I don't consider that to be a waste of time at all. The hand-shelled broadies win for me, every time.

Plastic free for November (feel free to join in!)

As long time readers may recall, last April I took a pledge to be plastic free for 21 days, and it went rather well. I didn't purchase anything that was made of or came wrapped in plastic (except for an odd hiccup or two) as I was sick to death of it coming into my house.

I've mostly stuck with it, but over the last few months have become a bit lazy (having four wisdom teeth out will do that to a girl), and slowly but surely the plastic has been creeping back into my house. Dip containers, juice containers, plastic-wrapped foods - you name it, we've got it. It's insidious, and bloody everywhere, and I am putting my foot down!

No more plastic! I'm making November the new Plastic Free Month. It's disgusting that we scar the earth by drilling for oil (a rapidly dwindling resource), expend huge amounts of energy in processing the oil to turn it into plastic, then manufacturing it, packaging it, transporting and distribution it, polluting heavily the air, the oceans, the rivers and the earth as we go, and then once we get the plastic home we throw it in the friggin' bin. ENOUGH!

My pledge is going to be three-fold:
1 - I shall refrain from purchasing anything that is made of or is packaged in plastic for a month;
2 - I shall try to minimise all waste created for the month, and only purchase products in packaging that can be recycled;
3 - I shall crap on about it here, in the hope of inspiring others.

This does mean that my purchasing over the next month will be limited mostly to food, but that's quite ok as I have enough stuff as is, and I'll be saving money over the start of the silly season.

Now for the interactive bit - who's with me? Trust me, it's easy and green - think of it as an early Christmas present to the earth, as we eshew unsustainable practices, and focus on recycling, reusing and reducing. Now, before you start freaking out and begin wailing "I can't do it, the damnable stuff is everywhere!", I think it's only fair to allow a few caveats. Mine, for example, are plastic lids on glass bottles, plastic linings in canned goods, and plastic-wrapped medicines if we fall ill. I'm not going to beat myself up over any of those, although I'll try and avoid them where I can. I think the key to making this work is making active choices whenever you can, and not sweating the smaller, unavoidable instances.

I'll help you all along by posting menu and recipe suggestions, as well as plastic free Christmas ideas. So c'mon! Sign up, and let's be crazy and plastic free together! I promise, I'll blog about it every day as we go!

What have I been doing?

I can't believe it's Thursday already. Thursday! This week has flown! So, a quick round-up!

- On the weekend we rode down to the Abbotsford Convent for the Slow Food Market. It was awesome! I highly recommend the nougat. I also bought a bunch of nettles, but then felt too intimidated to actually use them (bad me), so they sat on the bench until they drooped into oblivion. As you can probably tell, I'm feeling inordinately guilty about that. I'll just have to console myself with that fact that while I was sitting at a bench near the market, scoffing a supremely delectable lemon tart, the lovely Felicity came over to introduce herself.

- Thinking about it, I'm not sure I made such a good impression. That's the worst thing about being spotted as you go about your day to day business: when somebody comes up to say hello, you're busted with a really bad case of helmet hair (trust me, it wasn't pretty) and lemon tart all over your face. And stinky coffee breath. Note to self: try to look more pulled together.

- In my efforts to maintain that Plastic Free lifestyle o' mine, I bought myself a Sigg bottle. Best thing ever. It's lightweight and is specially coated on the inside so that your liquid cannot be contaminated, which can be a problem with other vessels over time. I think it's rather cool, even if, to quote a friend, it looks like I'm swigging petrol out of a fuel bottle every time I have a drink. That would explain the odd looks I've been given when I offer Grumbles some water. Oh, the trials and tribulations of being me.

- I just finished reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter. I highly recommend that you do not read this book. It was like a long drawn out soap opera. Too many words to say too little, and predictable to boot. It's a pity, because the premise was good, but the story just plodded on by. I was disappointed that they didn't truly explore the issues and the absolute joys of raising a child with Down's syndrome, instead just focussing on the administritive side of it all, like getting Phoebe a decent education. When the author did elect to mention other concerns and worries, ti felt so token and unexplored. And I'm sure that the parents would have felt more emotions that just guilt. But that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree!

- On a sunnier note, how amazing has the weather been?! It feels like summer already, even though winter doesn't officially end for another day. I've been possessed with a need to launder anything and everything, as it all dries in a matter of hours. Fabric in my house, consider this your warning: You are not safe from my maniacal desire to clean!

- There's a laneway at the back of our house, and certain people who work nearby often speed along it in their cars, and give you a lot of grief if you happen to get in your way. Never mind the fact that you may be just trying to get your small children into the back door. As I'm sitting here typing with the window open, I can hear one of my neighbours blasting them for their rudeness. Hooray!

Don't all turtles feature plastic rings around their shell?

For those of you interested, have a read of the fascinating entry on No Impact Man about the impact of plastic on our environment. Shudder!

Put the plastic bottle down or the environment gets it!

Well, it's been a little while since I treated you all to a plastic free update, so here are my latest thoughts on it.

The first week was hard. Not only did it involve trying to figure out alternatives to plastic packaging, but then I had to hunt around and source them, milk being a good example. But, really, once I got on top of that, it started being much easier. I knew where to get my vegies, cheese, milk and bread in non-plastic or, even better, no packaging and this experiment started coasting along more smoothly.

The fact that the only things I seemed to buy were edible goods helped, admittedly, but the fact of the matter is that my mind set, when it came to purchasing/consuming, has changed a lot over the last few weeks. I'll be in a shop, and something that in the past might have not only caught my eye, but ended in a purchase now prompts thoughts like "Hmmm, do I really need that? Is it manufactured using sustainable and ethical practices? Can this purchased be justified? Can I reuse the packaging? Does it meet my environmental/moral standards?" If the answer to any of those questions was "NO!", then my wallet stayed safely in my bag, and I walked home with a halo of shining goodness hovering over my head.

Not to say that I haven't been tempted. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to buy the Donna Hay autumn magazine, but it came wrapped in plastic with a free giveaway kitchen timer, which really has to be the most stupid giveaway of all time, because doesn't pretty much every stove have a timer? And if they don't, then wouldn't most people have a microwave timer they could use? Sheesh! So, no Donna Hay for me.

And - confession time. Once my 21 days was up, I gave up trying to get milk in glass. The delivery schedule was just too unreliable, and the cost was astronomical. $2.90 for 720ml is just too much for a family that easily drinks over 10 litres of milk a week, so it's back to organic milk in a liquid paper board carton for us.

However, I think generally I will continue trying to be plastic free. My bread will be from local bakeries in a paper bag, my cheese wrapped only in paper from the local cheese shop, no more juice/drinks in plastic bottles, and most grains and cereals I'm now buying from an local organic wholefoods shop, where you scoop out what you need in a paper bag and pay by weight.

I'm shampooing my hair with the awesome shampoo bars from Lush (no more shampoo/conditioner bottles!), my facial stuff (moisturisers, cleansers etc) come from Aesop which package their products in glass bottles (ok, the lids are plastic, but they are 100% recyclable, and this was the best I could find), I'm only buying soap that comes in either nothing or a cardboard box, and for general house cleaning it's bicarb and eucalyptus or tea tree oil.

Whew, that's enough babbling for one day. I'm going to sign off now, before the humungous storn that's heading our way hits and we lose power, plus I'm a big scaredy cat who actually turns off the computer when the Bureau of Meteorology tells me too. Enjoy your Tuesday, folks!

I'm green on the inside (of my lungs)

It's not easy being green. Especially when you are sick. It's easy enough to cough up green stuff, but sticking to your plastic free diet - um, yeah. It kinda went out the window. Since Galumph was in charge of the shopping, we completely fell off the wagon. The litany of sins is horrendous - juice in plastic, cheese in plastic, bread in plastic... yikes!

And I was in no position to argue. I spent most of last week lying in bed, half-heartedly trying to read Emma (not bad for bed-ridden reading, actually, which I'm sure all those Janeites just love hearing) and contemplating various ways of wrecking revenge upon whoever gave this nasty bug to me. The last was completely pointless, by the way, as it appears that I'm the only I know who has it. Boo hoo.

Still, I felt sufficiently recovered yesterday to head out for a Mother's Day lunch of Yum Cha (organised for the Mothershipinlaw, not me, more boo hoos) where I drank a lot of tea and consumed not much else.

Still, plastic free shall continue - I decree it to be so from this moment onwards! And if this piece of information redeems me at all, then I offer it up freely - I spent the entire week blowing my nose on pieces of recycled non-bleached toilet paper. Hooooonk!

My favourite white powder

Ahem. I've been neglecting my plastic free reporting, haven't I? So sorry about that. It's just that, well, I've met somebody new. And all I can think about is him! He's great in the kitchen, never smells, always cleans up after himself, and I've even found a use for him in the bedroom* (blush!). That's right - it's Mr BiCarb Soda!

I really need to work on taking a straight photo. Excuse the slant!

Bwahahahahah! Did I have any of you going? Nah, thought not. But seriously, I'm so amazed over how powerful a cleaning agent bicarb is turning out to be. I needed to clean the bath on the weekend, so I made a paste of bicarb and water, with a few drops of tea tree oil thrown in for nice smelling/antibacterial action (thanks for the tip, Herhimnbryn!) and then smeared it on the bath ring with a knife. Waited 15 minutes, and then scrubbed it off, and my goodness! It seriously made all the grime disappear right before my eyes, without any hardcore elbow grease required from me. Really, it was like magic! And the best bit was that I hardly needed to use any water (rather an important consideration in these days of water restrictions) to rinse it off the bath walls. In the past, when I'd used cream cleansers, I'd spend most of my time trying to rinse the gunk off, including all those pesky bubbles which just seem to keep foaming and forming the more you try to swat them down the plug hole, so having the job done so quickly and with a minimum of fuss and water was fabulous.

I've also used it to get rid of the curry stains on my yukky white kitchen benchtop, and once again - pow! Gone! Seriously, I'm so impressed that if I could have any more children, I might have to bestow the name 'Bicarb' on one of them. Heh heh, just as well I can't!
Ummm, what else? I cleaned the toilet using vinegar and tea tree. That was a little weird. I'm more used to dipping chips in vinegar, not toilet brushes, so there was a bit of odd gagging going on from my end, but it too worked a treat. And now our bathroom smells like a fish and chip shop - huzzah!

* Apparently, it's good to sprinkle some on the carpet before vaccumming to deodorise. So the handy hints on the back of the packet tell me!

I'm in!

I'm in! I've decided to participate in S.W.A.P, and below are the patterns I've chosen:

Bottoms:

Black pants - BurdaStyle, Pencil skirt - Vogue 8317, Sailor style pants - Vogue 7546 (not pictured), jeans from Ottobre magazine 1/2006.

Tops:

Bustier - Vogue 8393, Vintage dress to be made as a top - Vintage Pattern Lending Library, Shirt - Simplicity 4077, Blouse - Simplicity 4177

Dresses:

Vogue 8387, Vogue 8184

Jacket:

Burda Style Cardigan

What with the crazy warm Melbourne weather we're having (apparently it's 10 C warmer than the average autumn temp!), I decided to go for a more trans-seasonal range, rather than strictly a winter one. I wanted to have something I could wear on any day of the year, no matter the temperature. I also wanted garments that could be dressed up or down, depending on the occaision, and could take me from playgroup to an evening out (ok, so I might be a leeeetle bit over-dressed for playgroup, particularly in the pencil skirt and bustier, but you know me - I'd rather be over dressed than under dressed!).

Sticking with the plastic free month, I've decided to try and make all garments out of natural fibres only (viscose and rayons are allowed). Zips might be a bit tricky, but any buttons will definitely be wooden, or at least scavanged from what I already have here.

Phew - that's a whole lot of sewing. Wish me luck!

Soon I'll be sporting some plastic free jeans!

Today's post is all about jeans. Or, rather, my sudden lack of.

You see, a couple of weeks ago I glanced down as I was walking down the hallway, sporting my all-time favourite comfy pair of jeans, and noticed to my great horror a hole in the knee. Not a little one either. This hole was so large and gaping that it looked like it was a denim mouth which at the present moment was attempting to regurgitate my knee.

"Fanbloodytastic", I thought. "Just what I need - another expense. What with all the money I'm spending on milk in glass for Plastic Free month, I don't think I can afford another pair of jeans."

Then I looked down at the other knee. Eeeeek! The beginnings of another hole! This surely was far too much horror for a Saturday morning.

So I betook myself to the sewing machine, and patched up the holes as best I could. But you know what jeans are like - once they receive the patch of 'mend-and-make-do', they immediately lose their cool factor, and start reeking of something not so cool. Something like... dagginess. Gulp.

So, sighing and bemoaning my current financial state, off to the shops we went. I checked out Just Jeans (gah! The prices!), then Sportsgirl (gah! the prices, and the cuts - I'm a woman, not a skinny mini 14 year old who thinks nothing of showing most of her bum crack to the world) and a few other places, but came home jeans-less. The music in the shops was so loud I couldn't even think (yes, I am getting old), everything was very expensive, and the quality was crap. I refuse to pay good money for fabric that is so pre-distressed that it will last a scant three months before falling apart.

But do not despair, my friends. Over the hilltop the cavalry came, in the shape of Ottobre magazine. Way back in issue 1/2006, they featured a pair of jeans for sizes 92cm - 170cm. Yeah, yeah, I know they are for kids, but I did the measurements and calloo! callay! It looks like we have a winner, as I just sneak in at 168cm and I have no waist to speak of - I'm a big ol' bean pole. Plus I've already made a pair for Grumbles, and let me tell you, these jeans are sweeet! (Don't worry, her's were done in cord, so we won't be the matchy matchy denim fambly).

So I got myself some lovely indigo demin, a metal jeans zip, and hunted around in the stash and found some red topstitching thread left over from my uni days. Dudes, we're in business! And the best of all - they'll be plastic free! No swing tags to cut off, no bags to carry the jeans out of the store, no plastic buttons. And they'll cost in the vicinity of $30. Huzzah!

Muuuuuum, what's for brekkie?

The thing that has turned out to be the hardest in this experiment of mine is food. I've got the cleaning covered (baking soda fixes all evil!), and apart from Galumph's shirts and whatnots the other day, we're not really buying much of anything else.

But the food involves a lot of walking around to gather ingredients that don't come plastic wrapped, and a fair bit of frustration as it's quite common to get to the shop and discover the milk is late in coming again. Thank goodness I live in the area I do, though - for example, there's an organic grocer, three independant bakeries for bread baked goods, a fish shop and a cheese shop, all in walking distance from chez Jorth. I think this experiment would be nigh on impossible if you lived in a very small town or in the country, where these food opportunities didn't exisit. It would also, I dare say, be rather difficult to achieve if you worked outside of the home (not that being a full-time mum isn't working, but at least I have the freedom to scoot off to the shops whenever I can).

The other food issue is expense. It's certainly not cheap to eat this way, although I dare say the food is far better for us, and tastes much better too. Having reread that sentence, a thought has struck me - maybe the food isn't actually that expensive. Maybe I'm just paying the real cost, rather than a 'watered-down, government subsidised farming, buy in bulk and rip off producers' cost. Excuse the pun, but it's definitely food for thought.

Since this post is all about the food, I'm going to jot some breakfast ideas down. It seems to be the meal I'm having the most trouble with. Dinner is fine, and lunch is usually dinner left-overs, but breakfast is turning into a bit of a nightmare! Yesterday, for example, I had soup for breakfast, because I was too tired to think of anything else. How hard can it be, I hear you ask. Well, while most cereals come in a cardboard box, they also come with a plastic liner on the inside, so they are out, and we are running out of our supplies that we started with. And if I haven't kept on top of our bread situation, then it all goes up you-know-what creek. So, some breakfast ideas, for us all.

Note: The below list presumes that all ingredients come in paper/glass/nonplastic packaging.

- Porridge, by itself; with raisons + cinnamon + grated apple; with stewed rhubarb + apple

- Toast, with butter; with jam; with coleslaw + cheese; with tinned sardines; with baked beans; with feta + cucumbers; with chutney + cheese

- Eggs, scrambled; poached; fried; on toast, mixed with dinner left-overs

- Fruit and yoghurt, either fresh, or stewed i.e. apples, quinces, pears

- Pancakes with honey; lemon + sugar; jam + cream; maple syrup; compote + cream

- Muffins; with rhubarb + apple; apple + sultana; orange + chocolate; feta + spinach

Whew! Any ideas you guys have would be greatly appreciated, so c'mon - leave a comment!

Moudly pasta and stern statues

Statue that resides in the gardens of St Patricks Cathedral. I have absoloodely no idea who he is, but gosh darn he looks impressive.

Yesterday was a very good plastic free day, if I do say so myself:

- I washed the bathroom basin using a baking soda paste. This was so easy, and I'm a bit ashamed of myself for not doing it before. I shudder to think how many scary chemical cleaners I've been responsible for pouring down the sink over the years. Anyhoo, baking soda is very good at breaking down grease and grime, so you just plonk a bit into a cup, add enough water to make a paste, then smear it all over the dirty sink/bath/bench top. Wait 15 minutes or so, then scrub it all off. So simple! And now our basin is sparkling. I kid you not. It's gleam-a-rama in that bathroom of mine. If you're keen to try it yourself, here's a nifty site with lots of baking soda tips and tricks.

- Being a public holiday, you know this means a bike ride for the Jorth household. We took the Bay West rail trail again, but this time rode all the way along to under the West Gate Bridge. My verdict of the ride? Very windy. But a good kind of wind, the sort that blows all the cobwebs out. And a bit of sea air never goes astray. We were even big nerds who packed our own lunch: Moroccan sweet potato, carrot and chickpea soup in a thermos with some fresh organic bread. Yum! Although a word from the wise: Only add one tin of chickpeas to the soup, not two as I did. It kinda tasted far too chickpea-ey, rather more like a liquidy hoummus than a soup.

- With the good always comes bad: the pasta nests I made went mouldy. Sob, sob! In our old house we never encountered that problem, as it got a lot of sunlight in through the windows, and I would have ample room to let the pasta dry in the sun. In this house, however, it's much darker and colder, and the poor old pasta nests just didn't stand a chance. So, I'll make some more this weekend, then hang them over the clothes horse so the air can circulate all around. We live and learn. At least we had one meal out of them.

That'll teach me

Oh my. More plastic free eco-confessions:

On Saturday the Galumph bought two new shirts - both of which featured plastic buttons and those silly little plastic inserts which supposedly keep the collar points straight. Not really quite sure how we could have avoided that one, besides not buying the shirts, but he really did need some new ones for work. However, we did decline bags or tissue wrapping, and just bundled them straight into the pram, so points for that, ja?

He also got a new foil for his electric razor, which came - dum de dum dum - cased in plastic (and cost $50! Geeeeeez! He could have bought a whole new razor for that price!) Still, the old foil (which is the bit that sits above the blade) had so many holes in it that it was kinda shredding his face as he shaved, so we deemed the plastic a necessary evil. Much better than buying disposable razors or razor heads every other week, and much safer than letting old Parky Hands handle a straight edge razor blade. I don't even want to think about how many cuts he would suffer if he tried one of those - eeeeeew!

Enough of the Galumph's misdeeds - I have a confession of my own to make. I'd been trucking along nicely, not making too many mistakes, and then a friend rang yesterday and invited me out to the movies to see Becoming Jane. "Woo hoo!" I said, being a bit of an Anne Hathaway fan. But then we struck trouble - Galumph informed me that he had a meeting until 6, and so couldn't get home until 6:30, which meant I would miss the movie which started at 6:45.
So the movie was off. Until the Galumph emailed at 5:51 saying "Leaving now!"

"Bingo!" I hollered, and quickly got ready, listening the whole time for the ring of Galumph's bicycle bell, which would announce he was home. Listening, listening, listening, all the while watching as the minutes speeded by. Finally he arrived home at 6:20, I rushed out the door and headed for the tram stop. Where I proceeded to wait 10 minutes for the tram. Finally it arrived, I got off at the stop closest to the cinema, met my friend and we ran in, got our tickets (1 minute to go!) and decided to get a snack.

Now, I can tell you, after all that running and rushing, I was feeling a little parched. In the rush of things, I hadn't had any dinner, and forgot to pack my water bottle. And when I say parched, I mean the kind of dryness of the throat that results in your tongue semi-swelling up and obscuring your breathing passages. I needed a drink, but after scanning the drinks fridge realised that EVERY SINGLE BEVERAGE on offer came in plastic.

"I neeeb a dwink!" I dumb-tongued to my friend. "Bub day all cohm in pwastic, andb I'm meant to be pwastic fwree!"

"Bwahahahahah!" she said, which wasn't really useful at all. There wasn't even time to dash off to the loo to stick my head under the tap and gulp away, so I succumbed and purchased a Coke in a paper cup, with one of those plastic lids and a straw.

And the irony of it all? About 10 minutes into the movie I grabbed the drink, and somehow managed to dislodge the lid and spill most of it all over my pants. Grrrrrrr! I should have just asked for no lid, and been done with it. 'Tis hard to enjoy a romantic scene between that hunky smoldering James McAvoy and the lovely Anne when you feel like you've wet yourself. Thank heavens the cinema was dark so nobody could see me sitting in a puddle of environmental evil!