My Frugal Tasks 17/4/16

Whole orange cake-so good!

What a week! Well everyone else in the house caught the tummy bug that Mr 10 and I had last week. Miss 17 was really sick and had to take a couple of days off work and hubby was in bed for a few days with gastro and back pain as well. Mr 14 had some tummy aches and nausea but was mostly ok.

I've been feeling quite restless this week and stretched emotionally. But illness does that. Hopefully next week will be a better one, health wise!



-A friend invited me out for lunch or dinner. I declined, but invited her over for coffee and cake at home instead! I made a lovely whole orange cake from Rhonda's Down to Earth blog. You can find the recipe here we have a decent coffee machine at home so I can make cafe style coffee. It was great to chat and catch up. She also gave me a petrol voucher.

-Picked up some reclaimed sour dough loves from the op shop. I recently saw these at Woolworths and was shocked as they are $5 a loaf!

-Did some fruit and vegetable shopping at Spud Shed and got some good bargains. They had olive oil spread for 50c a tub, so I bought 4. I do prefer to make my own butter blend and I have a stockpile of butter in the freezer, but at that price I couldn't resist. I also bought 10kg of both potatoes and onions and might make some onion jam for the gift cupboard too. I also bought a couple kilos of bananas, 3 zucchinis, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, 2 dozen eggs a bag of apples and 3 butternut pumpkins for $27.

-We ran out of sweet mustard pickles so I bought the ingredients and made a batch! I've kept a couple of jars for us and the rest will be gifts. I'll add the recipe to the blog later on. Honestly it is so easy to make.

-My kitchen chairs needed a coat of paint, so I made my own chalk paint and have finished them in a shabby chic style finish. Now to give them a coat of wax and finish the other hopefully today. I also painted the table legs and need to finish them off.

-Received some oranges and bananas from my best friends Dad. I'll juice the oranges and mash and freeze the bananas ready for cake. So grateful for free fruit!

-After a bad day, I got a special parcel in the mail from the gorgeous Annabell at The Bluebirds are Nesting this thoughtful homemade gift and lovely card/letter just lifted my mood so much and made me feel special. Thanks so much Anabelle, I love it!

-This week I cooked easy meals of honey soy vegetable stir fry with eggy rice, slow cooked beef with dumplings- I haven't made dumplings in ages and everyone loved them, I also cooked pumpkin soup and with the leftover soup I stirred it through some pasta to make "pumpkin pasta", mashed potato, carrots, peas and chicken pasties (I made a big batch a month or so ago and froze some) then with the leftover mash and veg I added breadcrumbs and made bubble and squeak patties with salad greens from the garden and garlic bread.

-After being cooped up all week, I took Mr 10 out for a few hours. We went to our local history museum, had some lunch out and went to a Goosebumps interactive zone at the shopping centre, where he got a photo with Slappy from The Night of the Living Dummy books. How exciting!

-Yesterday I had to go to Bunnings to buy more sanding pads for my palm sander and there were inflatable super hero sumo suits that the kids could dress up and push each other around. We only had Miss 17 and Mr 10 with us so they wanted a turn and had a blast. Free fun!

I hope you have all had a good week! x

Budget vegie shopping

I always buy potatoes and onions in bulk, so cheap.

My beautiful gift from Annabell.

Homemade sweet mustard pickles

Free oranges from a friend.

Gifted spotty bananas-perfect for a smoothie or cake.

Mr 10 with Slappy

Table legs painting.

Mr 10 and Miss 17 battling it out.

Bubble and squeak patties with salad and garlic bread.

Slow cooked beef and vegetables with dumplings.