Talia Carbis

The Ten Minute Way

There are a few things in my life that I don’t do, but should. I have been trying to think of a way that I can do these things more often, even when I tell myself that I don’t have the time. I got the idea from Rhys, when he was telling me about his 15 seconds a day. The deal with that is that you write for 15 seconds every day. Who can say that they don’t have 15 seconds to write? No one. Especially when you want to be an author, and writing it something that you love- you’re just too busy for it most of the time.

So I modified it to 10 minutes, mostly because 15 seconds of the things that I want to do everyday make it worthless.  So for ten minutes every day I will:

1. Exercise. I’ve worked out that if I walk to the bottom of my drive way, back half way and take a detour to my shed, then come back and walk the rest of the way up to the house, it’s about 10-15 minutes. It’s up and down hills, and along straights and it’s really quite a work out, especially if you jog.

2. Pray. I’m a Christian, and I hardly ever pray. I know that I should do it more then 10 minutes a day, but it’s start, right?

3. People. People are an important part of my life, but my timetable hardly shows it. I’ve decided that I need to dedicate at least 10 minutes a day to one member of my family. That’s one every week day (weekends I’ll save in more entirety for everyone, including Luke). 10 minutes isn’t much, but once a week it’s meaningful, and 10 minutes will inevitable turn into 20, and in some cases more.

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Health Benefits of Everyday Foods

I found this cool post about the health benefits of some everyday foods. It’s a really interesting read.

Tips in the Kitchen

Here are a few tips for in the kitchen:

1. Don’t freeze beer, especially not imported beer. It’s an expensive waste of money.
2. If you have left overs in your fridge eat them either the next day, or the day after. Otherwise they’ll be no good. Unless you freeze them.
3. If you freeze things, make sure that you put them in an AIR TIGHT container. That means in a container with a lid that fits properly, that doesn’t have cracks and whatever in it.
4. Cheeses- any kind, have a limited time of use. It’s not very long, particularly if you’ve already opened it. So either eat them quickly, or buy smaller amounts.
5. Fruit is not like other food- just because you leave it in the plastic doesn’t mean that it will keep longer. It’s ideal to eat them within a week of buying them.
6. If you open something (like pasta sauce) try to eat that quickly as well. You may need to have two pasta sauce related dishes in a row one night. Maybe spaghetti the first night and just a basic pasta with cheese and sauce the next night. OR a really good tip is to use pasta sauce in mince to make really flavoursome rissoles.
7. ANYTHING you open and put in the fridge should be put in an air tight container, not just left in its packaging. Particularly bready things like cake, bread, slice, sponge roll etc. because they will go stale and aren’t nice to eat.
8. If you buy something reduced it means that it will expire in the next few days/ one week. If you’ve bought something like this then try to eat it BEFORE the expiry date, and make sure that that one’s kept packaged and wrapped up as well.
9. Don’t put things in the freezer unless they’re IN something. I don’t want to see any bacon just sitting there on a plate or whatever.
10. LIDS are important. They are invaluable assets in the kitchen. USE THEM.
11. When you finish lunch try to dispose of the waste (lunch wrap and scraps) at work or school or Uni or where ever it is that you had lunch. If you can’t because there’s no bin then take them home and put them in your own bin STRAIGHT AWAY. MOLD and other yucky things just love to grow in scraps and you’ll be amazed at how much there is for mold to much on when all you had was a sandwich… Besides, it really, really stinks if you leave the lid on and then try to do it later. The sooner the better with these things.
12. If you have a flat mate and you’re not sharing food then for God’s sake keep your food separate. Make sure the rules are clear- I won’t take your food and you don’t take mine. ANYTHING that’s mine you need to ask to eat/use, unless it is already established that certain things will be shared. Things like washing up responsibilities will need to be sorted as well. Better that these things are done before rather then later.
13. Spirits left in the bottoms of glasses stain and turn all sugary- it’s hard to get out. Just rinse your glass once you’ve finished and you’ll be right. If you’re that wasted that you can’t even rinse out a glass then shame.

So there’s 13 tips that will hopefully make things easier for you in the kitchen!!!