Day 18 summary

Day 18

18.07.19

So today was a pleasure day as I walked the dog this morning along a nature reserve, did some washing and went for a litter pick along the canal with The Pickup Artists volunteers. My dog also went for a long walk along the canal and is currently fast asleep. Plastic free today which has been lovely. The teachers received their gifts from the children and two teachers expressed their joy of a plastic free gift and went on to explain how they also are reducing plastic within their households.

Once again the menu was decided the weekend and we had a lovely homemade Chinese chicken buns with sweet and sour noodles. 

I made the filling and my nephew made the dough and buns.

The homemade bees wax candles turned out lovely

So I am going away the weekend for my son's birthday and his football team families are coming too. To my delight we are staying on a Eco campsite and will fill you all in on what happens over the weekend regarding plastics or any tips I can use from the campsite itself.

No much to report today its been a very relaxing day.

Day 17 Summary

Day 17
17.07.19

My delivery arrived

Today was a bread machine disaster however there was success on the plastic free family today. My shampoo and conditioner bars arrived with my husbands shaving bars. I stole one of these for a teachers gift but I won't tell him.

The shampoo and conditioner bars if left in the bath for instance by the kids will dissolve away. So I am going to crochet a soap bag for them to put the bars back in after they have used it on their hair. Rules must apply if these are going to last and be good value for money.



So the children reminded me the last day of term is Friday and their teachers presents are not ready. So off to work I went making candles, wrapping up my homemade soaps and collecting some bamboo toothbrushes that my friend had personalized for each teacher.

My homemade candles in the yogurt jars for teachers gifts

So I added a litter note

perfect for a male teacher with a candle of course

no plastic in sight
I brought the cards from card factory as they sell the cards without the plastic wrapping.

It’s my sister in laws birthday today and I asked the florist to send a bouquet without plastic My sister in law said.

Yes they had a grass woven tie on them and no plastic stick holding card with kids names on they stuck that and flower food to the paper wrap with blob of glue 😃. Xxx

The kids were happy when they returned home to more home baking made and cottage pie for dinner. I did not visit a supermarket or shop today so again planning ahead is proving more relaxing. 

As i'm typing tonight summary the husband has just walked in with this in his hand.
 MY BREAD SUCCESS without a machine. lol

Day 17 Bread Maker disaster Hilarious

Day 17

17.07.19

So last week I visited a friends house and experienced her son's bread made from a bread maker and how he puts the bread maker on every night so that they have fresh bread for the morning. They have not purchased plastic covered bread for a long time. 

So a bread maker went on my list and I mentioned on Facebook that I was looking for one and a second hand one came available for £10. Bargain so I thought. My nephew accompanied me to collect it and we decided to have a bread off competition. If you remember from yesterdays blog he made a lovely loaf by hand that everyone in this house has enjoyed.

So the competition was on "Who was going to make the best bread?"

As he moved around the kitchen being all kneady, I smugly followed a recipe and found that when using a bread maker you simply put the ingredients into the bread maker and turned it on. how easy was that, I then sat down with a cup of tea and watched him work his bread laughing how difficult mine was.

However after his bread had proved and cooked my bread machine was still hard at work so I thought? turns out the machine kept blowing the fuse in the house and when the machine turned back on the program started over again. The trouble being that the bread maker had been running for a hour and when it stopped and then started again once the electric switch was turned back on, the bread dough was ruined. 

So my nephew won the bread off and smugly reminded me all day that his way was the easy way. The funny part was I moved the machine in determination to another plug today and it only went and blew the fuse again. So if anyone wants a bread maker I now have one going for free.

The bread maker 

The nephew's handmade success

Mine today given up on the machine

Day 16 Summary (THE COST SO FAR)

Day 16

Today has been a relaxing day full of a breakages, reduced waste and baked goodies. The ice cream is ready from our berries, mousses are done for pudding, Biscuits and more dough made to pacify kids snacking needs and bread crumbs made for the dinner. 

Laundry has been put away and the house is now organised from the weekend. The dog is happy sleeping after her long walk and I am not stressed running around shopping for plastic free alternatives.

So far day 2 of this week I am convinced the organised lifestyle is the best way to go for plastic free living. This whole challenge has been refusing to buy the unnecessary single use plastic's covering our foods & house goods, Living by producing less waste and living a healthier life style.
 Today is day 16 of 31 meaning 15 days left. 

As I have been driving around feeding more CO2 emissions into the environment, reducing plastic waste to landfill, using more recyclable glass and metal (tins),  I have to question is it all worth it. The only real question people are asking is 

"Does plastic free cost more"
*  My answer so far is yes more time as I don't really know where to find alternatives!
*  More time prepping the fresh food but fun with the kids!
* More fresher food being eaten
* More car journeys

Food Expenses
July 19 verses June 19 

2019
Total spent so far in 16 days is??????? £348.79
This might seem excessive but this weeks food is in the fridge plus i'm feeding 6.

2018

Total spent in month June 2019 is????? £544.21 
So day 16 of July I've spent £348.79

If I spend more than £195.51 in the next 16 days this month has cost me more going plastic free so I will keep track of this.

Mousse looks great

Ice cream maker 

Homemade ice cream with blackberry
 and raspberry fruit from the freezer.

The bread machine I up-cycles for £10 from Facebook group
 "Every bit helps"

My nephew decided to prove me wrong about the bread machine and made a perfect loaf by hand, this was after the machine made it home that he showed me this talent of his.

The last biscuit role 

biscuit role cut and ready for the oven for when kids come home from school

Yummy

My confession today was that yesterday I purchased these plastic items. Please don't be disappointed as my overall plan is reuse the bottles. I ran out of washing up liquid and fabric conditioner and I was going to make the 7.3 mile journey to the Eco shop when I realized I did not have enough refill bottles to fill. Also if this family is going plastic free it needs to be planned better and I hope to only visit a shop that is 7.2 miles away from my home once a month. So my plan is to use up these bottle contents and then refill the lot at once.

  

AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE ABOVE plastic free needs to be a transition in a household, if someone gave me a list of where to buy just what I needed and used this transition would be easy. Every family run their household differently and finding the alternatives to suit my family is still on going so at the moment yes, plastic free is impossible straight away in plastic free July. However it is not completely impossible long term and when i'm looking at my plastic waste today it has reduced massively. Plus I'm not feeding the plastic supply chain any of my usual money which delights me after watching the recent documentary War on plastic and knowing that the plastic producers plan to grow and make more instead of less. 

I will continue this challenge to achieve my plastic free family and I am also looking at ways to reduce my tin can and glass waste within the household to.

Day 15 - Day 16

I would like to apologize for my missing blog yesterday 15.07.19.

Monday's for me are far too energetic as the kids return to school after a weekend of messing the house up, relaxing and lounging around and basically laundry everywhere. Mondays are very much mom job day and the house needs to return to some kind of organisation.

Breakfast has been easy omelettes, pancakes, cereal.
Lunch we had sandwiches and children had lunch at school.
Dinner for the children was Chicken and bacon pasta bake, for the adults we had salmon, bacon, cabbage and sweet potato.
Pudding was homemade snacks

Monday evenings I am a volunteer scout leader, that's why yesterdays blog is being done today, I was just too tired to type after having so much fun with a bunch of great kids.

Also

Monday am, after taking kids to school my friend came round to make more homemade soap, then I had to walk my dog, do housework, laundry and I need to go to the hardware store to get some plumbing  repair items. Guess what PLASTIC only option. I was actually quite proud that I was able to fix the plumbing issue without the hubby, however the nephew did help me with it.

I had to buy the plastic as the broken part
 needed to be replaced because
it had a great big hole in it.

I am still looking for a bread maker and hopefully I will have one today 2nd hand and can start making fresh bread rather than buying bread in its wrappers.

Day 16

Today's dinner we have homemade chicken strips and chips, with a mousse pudding. The children will be helping me make the dinner on their return home from school. I did suffer one issue with the bread crumb making!! My food processor has finally died and I started to panic as the menu had been planned, kids excited, shopping had been brought, money spent....HELP....
Then my wonderful nephew came to the rescue with a brilliant idea that I would have never thought of, we had the most fun laughing our socks off as the bread crumbs crumbled away.

Take a look

The blender worked a treat panic over lol

So then I thought the biscuit snacks that I have been keeping in the fridge are making about 18 cookies per time and I have one of the three dough rolls left. So I thought lets make some more dough to last us until Friday. I opened my baking draw to find my light brown sugar has been used since we have been a baking July family so my next dilemma was "where in the world do I get light brown sugar without the plastic wrap. (answer NOWHERE) 

I did however have dark brown sugar so I set to google for a cooking dough recipe and made the three cookie dough's I need to pacify the snack craving the kids seem to be having at this stage in July plastic free challenge.

   

I will let you know how they turn out and if they are a success with the kids.

Day 14 summary Don’t take the husband shopping (£= ouch)

Day 14

Sunday is usually a relaxing day in our house however today has been a journey and a half.

Tomorrow is my eldest sons school trip and he, out of all the children is the fussy one. Sandwich wise he loves loads of filling so that way I'm winning, however the snacks are a issue as he likes junk in plastic wrapping, His 12 and eats me out of house and home. So I've baked and brought alternatives to suit him. 

I found a household winners to keep as an alternative for the dishwasher.

My husband and children joined me for a trip to Sainsbury's and it turned out when hubby and kids accompany you very expensive. I am pleased I took them though as they went around the isles searching the plastic free options, Sainsbury's has quite a few alternatives.

Very please to find dissoluble wrapping on the dishwasher tablets, I did if you remember make my own but they did not clean very well and I ended up rewashing the dishes by hand after. So until I do a workshop on making dishwasher tablets this is the only sane option. 

Turns out the husband has a great eye for searching out our alternatives. As you know from following this blog I suffer terribly with my skin, as I have atopic eczema. I am intolerant to many foods and have to make many food alternatives to cater for simple dishes such as pizza. For my base sauce on a pizza I usually roast and blend peppers as tomatoes are a no go for me. Today the husband found a premixed ready blended option that will go perfectly on a pizza base.
The chili peppers I could not find for my curry making without them being in plastic packaging, he found the jar alternative, I will give it a go and let you all know how we get on.  

we had many frozen berries in the freezer that have now been turned into ice cream by Chloe.

Cold ham and fresh salmon fillets for the week from the deli

This biscuit recipe can be adapted to suit with the flavors and it makes 3 lots of dough you can use as and when needed just leave it in the fridge. The dough last 4-5 days refrigerated.

Berries blended and sieved

I'm very tired today and I am feeling the plastic free challenge due to the amount of washing up needed after making alternatives. I have been talking to many parents about my finds and the reality of this journey is staring to sink in. I can understand someone expressing their thought as

"This plastic free stuff is far to difficult for them to do".

The time consuming side to this is ridiculously difficult but the rewards are also incredible, more fun and time with the kids, reduced waste, etc. But when a mom is tired the grab the packet option to pacify the kids with is a very attractive alternative.

So I'm not giving up, last week I was unorganized, busy, tired and stressed, the reason we went to the supermarket was to plan our meals for this week. That means that everything is in the fridge ready to grab, make and bake. Let's hope it was my busy schedule last week and that this week it can be made a lot simpler, by having the products I need at hand, snacks made today ready to put into the oven as and when needed and no more shop visits needed.

wish me luck guys

Day 13 summary

Day 13

13.7.19

Today was a non plastic day experience outside of the home as i spent it with friends at breakfast and dinner. I had a buffet breakfast and a restaurant dinner however my family was left with my husband having omelettes on toast for breakfast, chicken burgers, roast potatoes and peas which were some of the remaining items in the freezer and for dinner they had a Domino’s pizza. The pizza when collected and brought home was the wrong order but they eat it anyway. 

Another positive things happened today as after cleaning the kitchen this morning I started to fill the recycling bin with recycling items. Noticing the glass pop bottles I thought someone might want to up-cycle them. I went on Facebook page “Worcester waste exchange” and advertised that in a few weeks I will have a few glass bottles if anyone wants them. Straight away I was given a contact who will be collecting these bottles saving them from landfill or the recycling system. 

Decorated with fluff on Facebook thank you for wanting my glass bottles and jars. 

Up-cycled not recycled 

My lovely recycling bin is cleaned and ready for my reduced
waste this is where this challenge should show how my efforts  have worked. 

As I started to fill it I was disappointed with the amount of waste considering
The amount of work it has taken for me to reduce and change my shopping habits to plastic free. 

My next dilemma what bin bags do I use that  are plastic free??