Thursday 11 May 2017

Working With What You Have


     Yesterday, for the first time in my life I polished a pair of dress shoes that were showing signs of wear. I asked my husband where the polish was and not only did he find it for me but gave me clear, detailed instructions on how to use the brushes and the process. It was very satisfying to see my nice shiny black work shoes when I was done, instead of the dusty, scuffled work shoes that had started to be embarrassing to wear. Since I was repairing them, I also used crazy glue to set the heel tips firmly in place so they would stop popping out. A co-worker the other day said "Why don't you just buy a new pair" and I said "but these fit so well and I hate to throw them away!" I was debating doing that very thing and then I remembered that the husband had a blackening kit so why not give it a try. 10 minutes later I had beautiful shoes again, that fit, are comfortable and all for 10 minutes of my time. It started me thinking, what other things in my house are starting to look ratty or for just a few minutes of my time spent repairing them, would be good as new. I am going to spend some time today while house cleaning, putting aside those things to give them a proverbial spit and shine. What items have you repaired, re-purposed or reused today?

In the kitchen...I am working on using the ingredients that are all ready in my house today. 


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I pulled out the last bag of sausages and was thinking of a pasta sausage dish with pesto (frozen and was made in 2014), carrots, celery and an other vegetable in my fridge that requires using up. But there are so many sausages that I think I will grind some up to make sausage biscuits or potato sausage pastry triangles. 

 I also have some milk that is expired but not turned and I will make some Halloumi or Queso Fresco

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While the cheese was cooking I decided to strain my DIY extracts (Lemon, Almond & Lime in order). Here are the finished results. I did have to add a small bit of green food dye into the lime extract as it had turned an olive greenish color and was unappealing to look at. 


I also removed the vanilla beans from my Vanilla extract and scraped them for their insides. I added this bean paste to the almonds from the almond extract and I am thinking of making some kind of vanilla cookie...

End results: 
-Sausage pasta with Pesto - was delicious and I ate it for days, I also froze some as well.
-Sausage pastry triangles = I added some curry, peas and potatoes and made a modified samosa. More of a cross between a spanikopita and a samosa. They stuck to the waxed paper and the phyllo kept breaking. The flavor was good but I don't think I will use phyllo dough again. 
-I didn't have time to make cookies from the almonds yet so they were frozen for another day. 
Over all it is a good weekend.