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Latest Tips & Recipes September 2021

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

​Street Bounty Savings 

​Most areas have a local Street Bounty Facebook page. The aim of these groups is to reduce the amount of junk that goes into landfill. Over the last year I have posted requests for a fridge, a flat screen TV, and a portable CD player. Members have offered these item without cost within minutes. We are all trying to help each other find what we need rather than have people buy new products and creating more waste. I would estimate the savings in the last year to be hundreds of dollars to me and even more for the planet. 
Contributed by Tara Anderson

​Banana Peanut Brownies

Ingredients:
2 mashed bananas
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla 
1/4 cup cocoa
3/4 cup SR flour
1/2 cup peanut butter

Method: 
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper, or grease well. Mash bananas. Stir in sugar, cocoa and flour. Add vanilla and melted butter. Mix to combine - don't overmix. Spread into cake tin. Drop the peanut butter in blobs on top of the batter and swirl through.  Bake 30 minutes or until the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool in pan before cutting into squares to serve.

Soap Scrap Spray For Your Garden

​Soap based sprays are useful for dealing with soft bodied insects such as aphids, white flies and thrips. As a contact spray, it must be applied directly onto the pest to be effective. Contact sprays need to reapplied after rain or any time plants are watered overhead by hose or sprinkler etc.

Rather than make a soap solution each time, I keep a stock ready to go by slipping scraps of bathroom soap into a spray bottle then half to three quarter filling with warm water. Replace the spray top and shake the bottle well until the water is good and cloudy. Once the water has cooled, the spray is ready to go. Simply top the bottle up after use and you're ready to go next time too. (If the water is too hot the bottle will distort and it may even damage the spray mechanism).

I keep a bottle in my kitchen (for the kitchen garden and one in the garage for the vegie garden and fruit trees.

Being bath soap, I don't have to worry about the safety of the kids, pets or hens. Likewise, there's no withholding period after use. Vegies and fruit can be used immediately after a good rinse. Best of all, I don't need to find suitable gloves or cover up when using it.

You can add a teaspoonful of veg oil if you like to help the spray adhere to the pests but I find this often isn't necessary.
Contributed by Delaney Avenel

NQR and Reject Shop

​Although I do my main shop at Coles because I can get everything I need at the one shop, I have found checking out the local NQR and Reject shop can save some money on non perishable items. Consistently Dove soap is less than a dollar a bar of soap. Toiletry items are also cheaper. Pasta is about half the price of Coles and Woolworths. So during lockdown when there is plenty of time maybe check out these stores.
Contributed by Ann Green

Cost Free Binge

​Next time you feel the urge to go shopping - especially online shopping - try "shopping" on Pinterest instead. You can have one of everything you fancy if you want and it won't cost a cent.

Pinterest accounts are easy to set up and you can start saving eye-catching pins straight away. All you need is an email account. You can be as anonymous as you like and you can choose to make your collections private if you prefer. Pinterest covers such a spectrum of interests that ensures there's something for everyone to binge on when the feeling hits.

(This hint is especially useful during these times of Covid lockdowns )
Contributed by Delaney Avenel

​A Virtual Emergency Evacuation Box

​Rather than burn important documents or photos on to a disc, I take a photo of them with my phone and email them to myself. I have folders set up and can access my emails any where and print out if necessary. 
Contributed by Danni Marples

​One Meal Into Four

I cook large meals, so there is another whole meal for my family to go in the freezer, and often there is enough left for a single lunch which husband is Meant to take to work the next day. This does not often happen, so I am left with a single meal. I recently figured out a quick way to make it stretch, and everyone ( including picky teenager) will eat it.

This works best for casserole style meals, pasta, chilli, and thick soups.

Get a potato ( or 2 ) for each person,
Prepare like you’re baking potatoes , I steam mine for 10-15 mins in the microwave, don’t forget to stab them all over to let out the steam,
Put potato in the bottom of a bowl,
Put cheese over potato,
Put leftovers on top,
Microwave till hot.
You can add a little extra cheese, or turn it into a fully blown baked potato if you want. :)
Contributed by Denise Scotford

Another Stocktake to Save Money

​I regularly do a pantry stocktake; however, while 'playing' in the shed recently, I discovered another stocktake that will also save money. I was getting some plant food from the shed, and noticed how many containers of seaweed solution, fertilizer and general plant products I had, including double ups, so promptly did a stocktake of what I had on hand. Next time I go to the hardware store, I'll know what I have and what I am running low on, rather than buying something 'just in case.'
Contributed by Paula Hill

Save Your Hair Ties

​I was constantly losing my hair ties (costing me lots of $$) and would find them all over the house, under the couch cushions etc. but most got lost. So I bought a packet of carabiners from the $2 shop for $2. When I take out my hair tie I put it straight onto the carabiner and now I don't lose them, don't have to buy any, don't have to clean them up and have saved lots of money ($50 a year for 3 years so far).
Contributed by Margaret Williamson