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Latest Tips & Recipes June 2021

Here you'll find the latest tips and recipes added to the Tip Store and Recipe File during 

​Keeping Warm for Free

Sleep in a sleeping bag on your bed, or sit in one to watch tv. This will keep you toasty warm without using electricity.
Contributed by Gabrielle Pellissier

​Simple Shoe Repair

I have used super glue to repair shoes before, when the sole comes off away from the top of the shoe. This has been short lived. I was recommended a product called SikaFlex which is a sealant as well as an adhesive and it works quite well, just be sure to use as directed when gluing the sole back to the top of the shoe. 
Contributed by Lori Woodward

Keep Those Gumboots Upright

​To save your gum boots from bending over, and being hard to get on, place a spaghetti tube or rolled up thick magazine inside them. 
Contributed by Faye Lording

No More Tangled Jewellery

​To stop jewellery tangling, place necklaces and chain bracelets in paper straws then lie side by side in your jewellery case or bag.
Contributed by Faye Lording

Apple Pancakes

​Ingredients:
1 cup of self raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder optional
1 cup milk (lite, whole, oat, almond etc.)
1 egg
1 apple grated
Rind of 1 lemon grated.

Method:
Whisk ingredients together until combined. Add more milk if needed.
Add some butter or margarine to a medium hot frypan. Add spoonfuls of batter to pan to cook until lightly brown on both sides. 
Serve with strawberry jam and ice-cream.
Contributed by Chris Prendergast

​Easy Orange Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup SR flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
2 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp butter or margarine, melted

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line and grease a 20cm round cake tin.
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Beat for 2 minutes. Pour into prepared cake tin. Bake 25 - 30 minutes until gold on top and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin 5 minutes, then turn onto cake rack to cool.
Cool completely before icing with orange icing. 

Orange Icing
Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1-1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp orange juice

Method:
Beat butter into icing sugar until smooth and creamy. Slowly add orange juice until desired spreading consistency is achieved.

​Double the Freebies

Sign up at Lincraft, spotlight etc. and when you get your free birthday vouchers. Buy products you can turn into craft items you can sell for double the value or more. 
Contributed by Julie Stroud-Watts

Trenching

​I was taught this art by my father many, many years ago and it still remains my favourite way of feeding my veggie gardens. It does require a little more garden space, either 30cm between rows or with smaller veggies 30cm between each two rows. Anything compostable can be used but remember compost does not like too much lemon skin. Dig a trench 30cm deep between rows, chop your compostable stuff fairly small. Fill your trench with a layer of veggies etc. then a layer of the soil you dug out. Continue to the level surface. This will break down really quickly and feed your garden at the same time. The extra benefit of course, no more mouse or rat problems
Contributed by Jen Nelson

2 Ingredient Muesli Bars

This is a great recipe for using up muesli that no one will eat.

Ingredients:
3 cups muesli
1 tin condensed milk (or the equivalent in MOO Condensed Milk)

Method:
Line a slice tray with baking paper or grease very well. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Mix muesli and condensend milk. Press into slice tray. Mark into slices with a knife. Bake for 25 minutes until golden. Cool in the tray. Store in air-tight container.
Contributed by Joy Sleeman

Sour CReam Pineapple Slice

This is a great quick slice or dessert if you need one in a hurry.

Ingredients:
1 pkt plain cake (generic is fine)
125g butter, melted
800g tin crushed pineapple
200ml sour cream
1 egg, beaten

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a slice tray with baking paper or grease well. Mix the melted butter into the cake mix. Press into tray. Combine the sour cream, drained, crushed pineapple and the beaten egg. Spread over the top of the cake mix. Bake for 30 minutes or until topping is set.  Serve warm or cold.

​Get More Out of Tubes

​When you reach that "spurtie" stage of emptiness with your hand cream or moisturiser (or sunscreen, or anything that comes in a plastic tube), I get out the scissors and cut the tube in half. Then you can used your fingers to clean out the tube or cut it lower to reach the bottom. To close it up for another day, just slide one cut end over the other telescopic style. You can get so much more product out of your tube that you thought was empty!
Contributed by Trina Bergmann

Hang on Hangers

​I used to put the shirts on hangers and hang on the curtain rail above our heater. Worked like magic.
​Contributed by Karen Thompson

Buying Bulk Meat Saves $500 

Due to health reasons I'm very fussy about the quality and ethics of the meat I buy. But grass fed, organic/free range meat is SO expensive. I also have a lot of dietary restrictions, so ready made things aren't an option for me.  I've found a company that is a farm and butcher all in one. They are within 200km of home (I'm in a major city, so cattle farms aren't just up the road!) You can choose to buy large amounts of meat - up to a whole cow if you have the freezer space. I get a 1/4 cow, and spend a day portioning it out into one meal serves for my husband and I. This way we are getting the amount we need and not wasting money by eating more than we actually need. I prepare most of the mince into ready made patties with herbs and salt and pepper and this saves a lot of time on busy days. And if I run out of plain mince, I can still use these for most meals even with the flavouring in them.  I cut the steaks down to weight and save all the off cuts for packages of diced meat. While I'm doing this, I throw all the fat into my slow cooker and render it down so I've got tallow as well. This gets frozen in small amounts and used instead of oil. For a day's work I usually save $400 - $500 vs buying it in smaller amounts from organic butchers and I know for certain I'm reducing food transport distance and supporting local farmers! 
Contributed by Sonja Smout

​Cheapest Meat 

​I buy BBQ meat when on special; it makes the best goulash, stew and soup.  I can buy it for $22 for 2 kilos on special at my local butcher, cheaper than chuck steak, gravy beef etc.
Contributed by Di Koszek

​Quick Effective Weather Strip

​Another thing you can do to stop wind from coming in under your doors is cut a water spaghetti length ways and slide under your door. I have found them in the rubbish throw outs so it costs nothing just time to find them.
Contributed by Drew Willard

Tea Bag String Scarf

​Use the strings from your tea bags to knit a scarf. It takes about 2,000 - but what else were you going to use them for anyway? They turn out a lovely colour, stained by the tannin in the tea. Knot the strings together to form a ball of string, and get knitting.
Contributed by Narelle Williams