Shoveling light rain, banana bread, clothes wash

The forecast was for light rain. Then

11am 

Noon

Still going. Local police now advising inches of snow, roads are slippery, many collisions reported. Shoveling in progress.

 Meanwhile I had stuff to do 

The makings for banana bread. See the cacao nibs, Wilma? 

And, not to be confused, the makings for laundry soap

The Windex jug is empty,  just a handy gallon container for the mixture. The little wrapped thing next to the funnel is the last of the castile soap, to be grated in.  I don't add scents or color or anything, just a simple mixture. 

And later, after a strengthening cheese and tomato sandwich, here's the rest of the story.

The laundry soap needs 24 hours to cure, the banana bread a few minutes to cool.

In the cooling process I turned the loaf out onto a rack, and made handy discovery.

The rack made handy cutting marks for slicing. How clever.

The knitting is moving along 

The boxes are coming along, one repair almost done. Reveal tomorrow.

Then the plan is a pot of tea, cake and a murderer mystery under a knitted blanket.

Happy day everyone, it's okay to cut straight to the tea and cake, if you're not as driven as some of us.

 

Mayo, bread, soup

Today is a basic day. I made a gallon of laundry liquid, next comes stock, then soup, and bread. This is because I was out of all of them. I'll also take another try at mayo from aqua faba, the last try not working so well.

The  laundry stuff lasts ages, needing about half a cup per load, so at least 32 loads, which explains why I can't find the post about the last time I made it. It still seems to be a surprise when it runs out though.

Here's a screenshot from September, which might in fact be when I last made it, for people who fancy trying their hand.

Quarter bar (one ounce) castile soap, grated and melted in one cup water on the stove,  quarter cup each of washing soda and borax, stirred in the container half filled with water. Then add the melted soap solution, fill up with hot, not boiling, water, stir and stir. Leave 24 hours to cure, shake, use. I shake it every time because the contents can settle.

Done. Cheap. Very little shopping involved.

Oatmeal I got this week from Misfits will get into the oatmeal-whole wheat bread I am about to commit.

There's a bag of peeled carrots and a cooked sweet potato in the freezer, plus stock makings. By end of day it will be soup.

And maybe there will be tuna salad if the mayo works out. Aqua faba is a vegan egg substitute. I'm not vegan, (clearly, tuna?) but I like trying substitutes. Definitely for eggs which can only get more pricey. Especially since today's bank alert tells me the plumber cashed his $$$$ check.

On to cheerier things. I heard last night that an online friend on another platform saw yesterday's outdoor picture I'd posted there and her mood improved from seeing it. 

She'd been very down that morning, worried about her SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid and subsidized housing. Old lady who worked all her life until felled by leukemia, now hanging in at home. 

She has a lot to worry about and I was so moved that I'd unknowingly given her just a moment of feeling better. She's unsinkable, but even she needs a cheerful note now and then. So there's that. 

Hamish Macbeth continues and I think I'm near the end of the ebooks, oh dear. I may have to start writing more of them.

Happy day everyone, and if you're up for cutting way back on buying 

A word of encouragement there!

Jam today!

 Yesterday, having seen off the last of the Freecycling for now, I turned to being a pioneer lady, and made a gallon of laundry soap.  

Speaking of free cycling, Gary stopped in to tell me his puppy had attacked and destroyed the dracaena, so the issue of free cycling it was concluded!  I suspect she was jealous of all the attention we were paying the plant instead of her. I've had dogs do that when they were upset with my attention going to projects that weren't them.

 Anyway the laundry soap, blog edited to add in picture of ingredients for Inger

Usual recipe of grated castile soap, borax, washing soda, and this time I added a few drops of lemon essential oil for a scent. This is not hard to make, works just as well as expensive detergents, and suits my frugal soul. It needs to stand for 24 hours before you use it. I didn't mind postponing laundry in a good cause.

The good thing about making laundry soap is that it cleans the grater and the pans you use. You just scrub and rinse them and they're all shining.

So that's why I made the jam second, using the clean pots.

This is dried apricots and cranberries, which is why it looks dark. I soaked the apricots overnight, which gave me a glass of juice yesterday with breakfast, drained off them. Waste nothing!

Then I made the jam, not too sweet. The texture is heavier than with fresh fruit, and the flavor good enough for jam or a sauce with meat or fish. Breakfast today was jam on toasted wholewheat.

I'm planning on a sheet roast today, butternut squash (cooked), onions, hot sausage, carrots, a golden meal, more or less. The sausage is a new thing to me, plant based, the only hot, spicy one available. The turkey and chicken sausage are sweet, not my choice. We'll see.

Our big storm started as snow, was rain when it touched down, and is now a bit of flooding. The high winds didn't happen, but this kind of rain tends to bring down trees as the earth softens, so around here, trees along every road, you drive on high  alert.

Happy day everyone, watch as you go.