Happiness Homemade 23rd February 2020

What made me happy last week:

Carol gave me a big box of Fowlers Vacola jars, rings, lids and clips. What a generous gift, and just in time for preserving season.

I picked the first of the red tomatoes from the garden. They are huge - one I weighed was 438 grams, another was 405grams and another was 277grams. They tasted so good. I kept them for our salads, and one was enough for the five of us to have tomato with our dinner.

I picked some capsicums and eggplant from the garden.

I picked basil, chopped it and froze it in ice cubes. There wasn't enough to dry.

Joy was able to get 10 kilos of brown onions for $3.99 so I've chopped, sliced and dried most of them.

She also picked up 15 kilos of potatoes for $3. Wow! That was enough for me to practice pressure canning potatoes. We use tinned potatoes when we go camping, so if I can can them when they're cheap, it will be a big saving for us.

In my downtime, some cards were made. Photos need to be taken, and then uploaded.

I've been down with a migraine since Monday. It is apparently caused by the infection I had a couple of weeks ago, I wish it would just go away! It has eased, although for four days I lived in darkness and tried really hard not to move my head. The cough is lingering, even with antibiotics and lots of Manuka honey, so talking is almost impossible (some may say that's a good thing). That meant no You Tube shows last week, it would've been a horrible experience all round between coughing, wheezing while trying to talk, taking gulps of water to ease the cough - so the shows were cancelled. Hopefully by Tuesday I should at least be able to have a short conversation.

All our meals have been made from scratch, using pantry, fridge and freezer ingredients.

I made a meat pie for our dinner, using the large Kmart pie maker. It was on clearance for $15, and can be used to make cakes and quiche too, so home it came. I wasn't sure - the logic was to try it and see how it went, if it was a dud then it was only $15 I was donating to the op shop.

Well it is amazing. So far we've made meat pies, quiche, and a delicious chocolate cake.

I kept reading online how small it was, and honestly to look at it you don't think it is a family sized pie, but it is. It fed the five of us, with a wedge leftover, and the serves were plenty big enough. Along with the individual pie maker, this may become a well used kitchen appliance.

Petrol is coming down - after jumping 50 cents a litre in one day, it will be nice to see it down again. I have a 4c off voucher, and another 10c off on my Flybuys, and then if I buy the milk instore I'll get another 4c off, bringing it to 18 cents a litre off.