Nasi Goreng - using up the leftovers

This was my tasty lunch the other day - leftover rice transformed into Nasi Goreng. Yum!

After realising half-way through the month that I'd already spent our food budget for the month, I knew that I'd need to 'use what we've got' for the remainder of the month and get back to more baking and cooking. Something I've been a bit slack on lately.

Last weekend I had a day's baking and stocked up on cakes and treats for the week: (brownies, honeyed scone ring and spinach and fetta triangles).

My Nasi Goreng came from us often having a small pot of left-over rice from dinner. Sometimes it gets made into 'smashed sushi' (it's not sticky rice so we can't roll it into proper sushi, but it gets mixed in a pot with tuna mayonnaise and cut seaweed sprinkled on the top - my girls like that in their lunch boxes!)

I did make fried rice for a while, with bacon, peas and soy sauce, but the girls tired of that quickly.

So what else to do with the left over rice?

A couple of years ago we had a family holiday to Bali. One of our favourite lunchtime dishes was Nasi Goreng.

I tried the 'packet mix' for this from the supermarket a while ago and wasn't too impressed. So when I stumbled across a recipe in one of my many many recipe books:

I had to try it.

So first I made a quick basic omelette with 2 eggs. We always have plenty of eggs in the fridge.

Then rolled this and sliced it.

Next was getting some other ingredients out - fresh ginger, some garlic, mushrooms and spring onions. 

Stir fry those a little...

Then add the rice, some kecap manis (like sweet thick soy sauce) and sambal oleak (spicy hot chilli paste).

When that was all mixed and heated through, I added back the egg and served it up with spinach leaves and fresh tomato!

Very tasty, and I'll definitely be making that again with whatever veggies I've got in the fridge!

With my plan for this year to 'use what I've got', and the smashing of this month's food budget, I've been prompted to start looking at my many under used cookbooks to create some tasty meals and treats with what we've got in the pantry and fridge!

I'll let you know if I find any more tasty recipes!!

Pool Salt Bags upcycle!

We are lucky enough to have a swimming pool in our backyard.

Every now and then, particularly after heavy rain, we have to add bags of salt to the pool to keep the chemical balance right.  

Once the salt is added, the bags themselves just get thrown in the bin.  

So this got me thinking - what else could we do with them...

Make bags of course!!

All I did was box out the corners at the bottom of the bag to give it a flat bottom. Cut two strips from around the top of the bag and used them as handles.

A nice sturdy bag that you can wash out easily. I'm going to fold and keep this in the boot of my car for when we do 'muddy stuff'.  My husband and I do trail runs, and the kids to endless sports - rain hail or shine, so we often have muddy shoes and soggy clothes to bring home - I think this bag will be perfect for this!

I'm slowly looking at the idea of zero waste, finding more recycling programmes for various bits and pieces, but seeing what else I can upcycle instead of throwing away!!

I have to say I tried to look up 'things to make with old pool salt bags' and found nothing!! 

A new niche perhaps! 

Do you have any other suggestions for these bags?

More upcycling - a birthday card

I've been wanting to try this for a while - and finally got

A Round Tuit!!

Our recycle bin each week has LOTS of cardboard in it - lots of packaging. And while it's great that it all gets recycled - reusing things is a step up from that - uses no energy (except my own) and if I can make something useful, so much the better.

I always make gifts for my daughter's friends when they have a birthday, and my girls make them cards.  But this time, I've got in ahead of them and made the card too!

We had an empty cardboard box destined for recycling.

Fabric scraps left over from making the gift itself:

I cut a rectangle of card, and fabric about the same size.

Then simply stitched it on around the edges of the card, using an old denim needle on my machine.  The fabric was stretchy, so I had to trim it a little when I was finished. I used pinking shears to stop the edges fraying.

Then I hand stitched along one edge of a strip of the denim scrap, and pulled it into a kind of flower. Stitched a button in the middle and then stitched it to the centre of the front of the card. Finally I snipped the flower into 'petals'.

The inside is blank so my daughter can write her own birthday message to her friend in it.

So now her gift and her card are all matching!

Now we just have to decide how to wrap it....

I think I might make some more birthday cards from card from our recycle bin and fabric scraps!

What do you think?

Jill

Uniforms upcycled to bags - all finished!

Our swimming club is changing uniforms this year, so something had to be done with the left over old style uniforms. 

What else to do but upcycle them into bags of course!

I've had lots of fun making a few different sizes and styles.

We had 8 old shirts - some new, some second hand, and mostly the larger sizes that hadn't sold - which was great as it meant more fabric to work with!

I made large tote bags (from my tutorial here) lined with waterproof fabric.

Some simple drawstring bags (using my tutorial here)

Some zipped pouches from the sleeves. (tutorial here)

A large duffel bag (tutorial here)

And a few extra small bags too..

I'm very pleased with how they all turned out.

Hopefully they will sell now and raise a little cash for our club.

I've also got a few scraps left over - maybe later in the year I'll come up with something to make with those too!

Have you every made anything with old uniforms?

Which bags do you like best?

'New' upcycled jeans pocket hanger for phone charger

I saw this idea on Facebook the other day and just had to dip into my jeans stash to make myself some!

About a year ago, I made a holder for our phones when charging out of a plastic bottle and thought that was pretty neat!

We've been using that for a while now but I think our new holders are even neater!

From this...

To this..

And of course one for my husband's phone too!

A super simple and useful upcycle.

What do you think?

Jill

A quirky koala mascot - a jeans upcycle!

My daughter's teacher at school asked me a while ago if I could make a koala mascot for his hockey team. He could have bought one - there are endless cuddly koalas in the shops here in Australia, but he wanted one that was unique!

 I did warn him I'm more of a bag maker and it may not look exactly like a koala, but he appreciates my upcycles and was happy with quirky!

My first attempt wasn't great - the koala had no neck and a very large behind!!

This is as close to a photo you get to see of that one...

So yesterday I tried again.

I used an old pair of grey jeans and a scrap of white for the fabric...

(you know I love creating with old jeans)

Adjusted the pattern pieces I'd made for version 1..

So far so good..

And here's the finished koala. I'm still not very sure about him. You can buy cheap cuddly koalas in every souvenir shop here that look much more like ..well..koalas. But this one is certainly different and unique!

I'll have to check with my daughter's teacher to see if he's happy with this little koala - then just need to add a hockey shirt the right colour and it'll be all done!

What do you think?

Have you ever made cuddly toys before?