Making The Most Of Citrus Fruit.

When most people think of Winter they think of colds,  the flu and putting the heater on.  I love Winter for the cold weather,  comfort food and most importantly,  citrus fruit.  At this time of the year citrus fruit is in abundance and it's cheap. My girls love oranges as a Winter snack. They cut them up into eighths and eat every last drop of pulp.  Much better for you than store bought orange juice and cheaper per portion size.

I love to make 50 / 50 cordial for the family . It's made with 3 oranges and 3 lemons. So to have the cheap Winter fruit available for cordial in Summer, I zest and squeeze the oranges and lemons into a container and freeze. I also make a whole orange cake that uses one orange. I just blend the whole orange ( minus the pips ) in the food processor and freeze it in a container for all year round baking.

Lemons are coming into season too. With supermarkets selling them at 80 cents each, I'm very grateful that my lemon tree is in it's sixth season of bearing a good amount of fruit. To make the most of the "free" lemons, I zest them and freeze the zest for lemon slice, lemon and pistachio biscuits, lemon chicken and savoury chicken or salmon flan. Then I juice them and pour the juice into ice cube trays and freeze. The ice blocks are stored in an airtight container to be used on fish , pancakes, to make lemon butter, jam.  lemon slice etc, etc. This year I'm planning on slicing some lemons and freezing the slices to make lemon chicken.

It's great to have these items on hand in the freezer. It stops the need to run to the supermarket for one lemon. I'll bet it would be out of season and you'd be paying premium prices.

If you haven't thought about it before, growing a lemon tree is great. It looks good, the blossoms and fruit smell divine and a bowl of lemons on the kitchen bench is a little ray of sunshine in the middle of Winter. It can be grown in a pot too. Best of all, you'll get your money back from the cost of a tree in no time.

So if anyone offers you a bag of lemons, or your neighbour has a tree with too much fruit for them to use, you'll know what to do with it.

Lemon butter

Orange cake and muffins

Freezing the juice.

Lemon butter for presents

Getting ready to make 50 / 50 cordial.

Cleaning The Toilet

Having a clean home is something most of us like to have. If you believe TV advertising, cleaning products can perform miracles. Showers are clean with one wipe and toilets are sparkling with one fragrant little disc. All is not what it seems to be.

Toilet cleaning products are so expensive and can easily increase your food budget by about $10 a month. It doesn't have to be that way. I've been a domestic cleaner for about 17 years and on average cleaned more than 10 toilets a week. I've used every toilet cleaning product on the market. This is what I've learnt over the years -

* Toilet cleaners do not keep mould from growing under the rim.
* Disinfectant wipes are too thin to do a good job. At approximately 8cents a cloth often you need to use two.
* Toilet brushes do NOT get into all the crevices.
* The stick on toilet discs get in the way of cleaning the bowl
* Toilet blocks without the cage disintegrate when you move them to clean the bowl.
* Cheap liquid toilet blocks do not last very long.
* Blu loo ends up splashed all over the walls.

Here's how I keep my toilets sparkling clean on a budget.  I use no name chux type cloths. If they are big I cut them in half.  I spray a couple of squirts of Miracle Spray or disinfectant into the toilet bowl and onto the cloth. I wipe the outside of the toilet first, folding over the cloth when it gets dirty so that I  get a clean surface. I then wipe the inside of the lid,  then the seat,  then the underneath of the seat then the top of the toilet bowl where the seat rests.   Using your rubber gloves and cloth, wipe over the toilet bowl digging down as far as you can go into the pipe. Then wedge the cloth up under the rim ( if your toilet has one ) to get out the grime.

Flush

I throw the cloths into a bucket with disinfectant to soak until my next wash day.   The cloths are put into a linen bag and thrown in the washing machine with the towels. These cloths are so durable they can last up to six months. All for about 10 cents per cloth. Combine that with the budget friendly Miracle Spray which costs about $1 per litre.   Cheap and easy as.

If you keep your toilets clean, then you'll find that toilet blocks and other products are not that necessary after all.

50 / 50 Fruit Cordial

I remember being at my Grandma's when she served 50  50 fruit cordial.  I thought it was just amazing that she could make cordial instead of buying it.  My Grandma had lots of fruit trees in her backyard so I'm certain the lemons used in this recipe came of her tree.

Years later when I had my own family I remembered this drink and wondered if anyone had the recipe.  Unfortunately no one knew of the recipe so I did a little bit of internet research.  As usual I found lots of recipes but combined them together to form my own.  Here's my recipe for 50 / 50 fruit cordial -

3 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon of citric acid
1 tablespoon of tartaric acid
3 large lemons
3 large oranges
5 cups of boiling water

Zest the lemons and oranges and add to a medium saucepan.
Juice the lemons and oranges and add to the saucepan.
Add all remaining ingredients and boil for 10 minutes.
Cool the mixture, strain and pour into sterilised bottles.
To serve mix 1 part cordial to 4 parts water or to taste.

I'm not sure how long it lasts in the fridge but using sterilised bottles will keep it for at least 3 - 4 weeks.

NOTES -

*  When oranges are cheap in Winter,  I buy up big,  zest and juice the oranges together with lemons from our tree.  Then I place the mixture into  snap lock bags ( in batch size as per recipe ) and store in the freezer for Summer.

*  This recipe could be made as lemon cordial.

*  A bottle of homemade cordial makes great presents.  Just add a homemade gift tag and ribbon to jaz up the bottle.

Hot Chocolate Drink Mix

I orginally found a recipe for Hot Chocolate Drink Mix on The Cheapskate's Club website back in 2010.  After reading the free newsletters for a couple of months,  I really wanted to pay for a membership to get access to all the recipes in the recipe file.  This was one of my first light bulb moments when I found I could make my own hot chocolate instead of buying Milo which is dear and tends to go hard when it's not used for a while.

The beauty of finding a recipe is that you can make your own changes to suit your family's taste.  That's what I've done and here's my version

2 cups of milk powder - full or skim milk
1/2 cup of castor sugar or regular white sugar
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
1/2 cup of coffee whitener - optional

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk.
Store in an air tight container

To serve, use 2 teaspoons of the mix in boiling water.  Add a little milk and extra sugar if desired

NOTES -

*  No name cocoa powder can be used.  This is what I use

*  Coffee whitener is found in the tea  / coffee aisle.  It's usually on the bottom shelf.

*  If you don't want to use coffee whitener,  then just add a little extra milk powder.

*  This makes a wonderful present either given in a glass jar or in a cello bag decorated with a ribbon.

Rissole Casserole

This is another one of my made up recipes.  I love a good casserole and mash and this one ticks all the boxes.  I'm the best Mum ever when I make this for my family.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

500 grams of beef mince

1 medium carrot peeled and diced

2 – 3 medium mushrooms sliced

½ a zucchini diced

1 cup of frozen or fresh beans

1 stick of celery diced

1 tin of tomato soup

Salt and pepper to taste

Good shake of dried oregano,  basil,  onion flakes and garlic

500 - 700 ml of water

1 cup of uncooked shell or 1 1/2 cups of spiral pasta

Roll mince into small balls. 

Place into a large oblong casserole dish. 

Add carrot,  celery,  mushrooms,  beans and zucchini over the top. 

Sprinkle on the seasonings.  

Mix the soup with 500 - 700 ml of water and pour over everything..
Cover with foil and cook in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius 

Take out of oven,  remove the foil and add the pasta.  

Push the pasta under the liquid so that it cooks.  Replace the foil.  

Return to the oven for a further 20 minutes or until the pasta has cooked through. 
Serve with mash and crusty bread.  

Serves 4 – 6 people. 

Freezes well.

NOTES -

*  If you have the time,  brown the rissoles in a fry pan first then add to the casserole dish.

*  I'm all for budget ingredients but this is a dish that needs a good quality tomato soup.  The Aldi brand is strong in flavour and dilutes well without loosing too much taste. Please don't use a generic brand unless you add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste for extra flavour..

*  This is a recipe where you can add any vegetables you have on hand. 

*  Left overs are great on toast.

Winter comfort food.

Browned rissoles with added carrot.

Adding silverbeet - because I can.

Ready to serve.