I have been working my way through a couple of lovely books based on the home and living a simpler life. Lemons and Lavender and The Edible Balcony have inspired me to try and live more in line with what I can make or produce rather than just purchase. Not that I am going to go all hippy and say I won't eat anything I can't personally produce and I will never enter another shop again but I have been giving the produce more, purchase less lifestyle a bit of a run to see how it fits.
So far I have produced a few big batches of my own home-made lemonade, which has been very tasty (even if I do say so myself) and grown my own salad sprouts. Wow, that is ground breaking I can hear you gasp! O.K even I know it's not but you have to start somewhere and to be honest I have actually enjoyed these couple of little changes. I usually only drink water (sometimes a small glass of coke - but only if it has alcohol in it, or really what's the point) so having a cool glass of my very own home made lemonade was just lovely. I am even looking at picking mint from my garden and freezing a few leaves with water into ice cubes as a refreshing addition to it. I know - look at me go!
The only reason I decided to grow salad sprouts was so that I could show my two year old how something went from being a seed to something we could eat but I actually got much more satisfaction out of the process than I ever thought I would. I really loved adding my yummy little sprouts to meals and they gave my salads a little something extra, made me feel fuller and actually helped me feel a little lighter. Nice.
Anyhoo, I will leave you with my lemonade recipe and a how to grow sprouts - just in case you are inspired to take action.
I googled a lot of different lemonade recipes but basically just played around with it until I created something which made me happy.
Lemonade
Ingredients
* Lemon juice
* Water - use twice as much water as you have lemon juice, (if you don't want it too tart you can even have three times as much water)
* Castor sugar (some recipes mention 2 to 3 cups of castor sugar, but I would rather add a little more water to soften the lemonade than too much sugar - so pour in half to one cup and taste it to see how you like it. Once the sugar has evaporated of course. If it's not sweet enough - add some more)
Process
Pour ingredients into a big pot heat it up on the stove until the sugar evaporates. Let it cool down. Drink. (Told you it was easy)
Sprouts
There are heaps of links on you tube with people showing you how to go about growing your own sprouts. Some of the videos take longer to watch than it takes to grow the actual sprouts. So I really liked this one.
So far I have produced a few big batches of my own home-made lemonade, which has been very tasty (even if I do say so myself) and grown my own salad sprouts. Wow, that is ground breaking I can hear you gasp! O.K even I know it's not but you have to start somewhere and to be honest I have actually enjoyed these couple of little changes. I usually only drink water (sometimes a small glass of coke - but only if it has alcohol in it, or really what's the point) so having a cool glass of my very own home made lemonade was just lovely. I am even looking at picking mint from my garden and freezing a few leaves with water into ice cubes as a refreshing addition to it. I know - look at me go!
The only reason I decided to grow salad sprouts was so that I could show my two year old how something went from being a seed to something we could eat but I actually got much more satisfaction out of the process than I ever thought I would. I really loved adding my yummy little sprouts to meals and they gave my salads a little something extra, made me feel fuller and actually helped me feel a little lighter. Nice.
Anyhoo, I will leave you with my lemonade recipe and a how to grow sprouts - just in case you are inspired to take action.
I googled a lot of different lemonade recipes but basically just played around with it until I created something which made me happy.
Lemonade
Ingredients
* Lemon juice
* Water - use twice as much water as you have lemon juice, (if you don't want it too tart you can even have three times as much water)
* Castor sugar (some recipes mention 2 to 3 cups of castor sugar, but I would rather add a little more water to soften the lemonade than too much sugar - so pour in half to one cup and taste it to see how you like it. Once the sugar has evaporated of course. If it's not sweet enough - add some more)
Process
Pour ingredients into a big pot heat it up on the stove until the sugar evaporates. Let it cool down. Drink. (Told you it was easy)
Sprouts
There are heaps of links on you tube with people showing you how to go about growing your own sprouts. Some of the videos take longer to watch than it takes to grow the actual sprouts. So I really liked this one.
I also liked the fact it demonstrated how to grow them using equipment from around the house instead of having to go out and buy fancy schmancy sprout growing equipment from the shops.
I used a sprout salad mix. This is how much I put in to start with and soaked them for 8 hours. Next time I will put a little less in.
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Two days later. Still expanding and now starting to sprout.
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This was day three and they were ready to start adding to my salads.
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At the very least this was a great little project to get a small person involved with because it didn't require expensive equipment and didn't create a huge mess.
Do you have any simple living tips you would like to share?
Cheers
Lee
Do you have any simple living tips you would like to share?
Cheers
Lee
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