Food for a busy day

Happy International Women's Day!  I wonder if there is a men's day as well...if not, I think there should be! :-)  A friend of mine is organising a fundraising event for Oxfam nearby, so I will go over there at lunchtime with a batch of jam doughnut muffins.  I hope it will be really successful as she has put a lot of work into it.

I've started having a good sort out at home.  Unbelievable just how much stuff we have :-(  It's not all our fault though because we basically inherited a house full of stuff and then had to move the contents of my flat into it.  Bursting at the seams comes to mind and I can just see some stuff ending up on Freecycle where you give things away for free.  What a great invention that website is - if you haven't come across Freecycle before, why not have a look if there is one in your area?

So, it's busy busy at the moment and food will have to be quick today.  I will have one of my favourite things: red lentil stew.  Well, this can be a soup or a stew really and you can have it on its own, on top of rice or with roti flatbreads.  I use red lentils for this as they don't need soaking beforehand which makes it a lot quicker.  I love the warming curry flavours in this and the bits of sweetcorn and I usually top it with a dollop of plain yogurt (although the stew is not overly spicy - I just find it adds an extra dimension to it).  I can't wait to tuck in... :-)
Have a wonderful weekend!

Pond update & Leftovers of a different kind...

An update from the pond (given the title of my blog): The pond has been frozen over for the last few days but we have been able to spot the frogs under the ice. I have no idea how they manage to live under there but they seem to be doing nicely :-) Lots of birds in the garden as well - one of my favourites is the little wren that comes down to the path by the pond to check what's on offer.

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In my last post I wrote about food waste and using up leftovers. But this is about other types of "leftovers"... Having just moved house I found far too much clutter lurking in the back of wardrobes and in boxes; stuff I hadn't looked at in at least a couple of years and obviously hadn't missed either. And then those things that I had bought and then hardly ever used (luckily, not too many of those but still...) - those things could still be useful to someone else. This is where "Freecycle" comes in. On the attached link you can find information regarding the UK network of Freecycle and also similar ones across the globe. Basically, you advertise what you are trying to give away on your local Freecycle website (and the important bit is give away, so it has to be free and no money should change hands) and people interested contact you to arrange picking the item up. So my "leftovers" can go to a new home rather than landfill. Brilliant!

Now, I guess the idea is not to amass so much stuff in the first place. I am now trying not to buy things I don't absolutely need (and let's face it - how many of us in Western Europe actually need more things?), despite advertising campaigns and society wanting me to continue buying. One exception for me are books - always worth having! One of my favourite books is "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau (free download via the link) - it amazes me that someone in 1845 could write about simple living and the madness of having too many possessions. Very inspiring, still very relevant and definitely worth a read!