I Miss the Food .....

I miss the food posts on this blog, they all seem to be over on the 'Year Without ...' blog at the moment, but I thought I would put up a photo of my just strung onions on here, as they are homegrown food and that's what our life is all about.  

I even clicked on the Approved Food link on the righthand sidebar to see what they were selling these days, it seems ages since I did a blog post about them, but then I've not ordered anything at all this year.  It was interesting to have a trawl around the website though ... and I was almost tempted to place an order.

Yes, the onion crop has been poor this year the ones you see strung here are pretty much all we have at the moment.  The overwintered leeks all went to seed before I could harvest them and before they had time to put on any real growth to make them worth harvesting (and yes I have saved some of the seeds for next year) and the best onions I have in the polytunnel at the moment are the Spring Onions.  They are doing well, this reminds me I need to get another batch of seeds in asap to replace the ones we are eating.  The tomatoes are turning slowly ... ever so slowly ... red and the cucumber plants have started giving us enough cucumbers to keep us going.  Shortly, hopefully, there will be some extra and I can gift a couple to my neighbour to say thank you for all the gooseberries and red and blackcurrants that she allowed me to pick a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know what has happened to my courgette plants, they seem to be on a go slow, at last there are a few flowers but no fruits to speak of at all, I'm sure I'm further behind than I was at this time last year.  It seems nothing has enjoyed the strange unpredictable and changeable weather we have had over the last two months, well except the bugs, slugs and weeds of course.

One really good thing is that the Blueberries are now ripening and this morning I picked this trayful, currently open freezing ready to be tipped into a box in the freezer for free flowing easy use.  I only stopped picking because the little tub I had taken over was full, so I will be back first thing in the morning to gather in all the rest that have turned that delicious shade of blue that means they are ready to eat.   I'll bring you some next week Mum when I come to visit ... we always share they were Mum's bushes before they were mine :-)

Today's main job has been pruning the tomato plants of the excess leaves and extra little side shoots that have sprung out seemingly everywhere, but it was so hot in the polytunnel this morning that I had to end that and leave some for later on when the temperature goes down to a more tolerable level.

It's that time of year when it almost feels like a full time job growing the food we eat ... but a good one at that!

Sue xx

Changing Food Habits

I used to blog a lot about Approved Foods and get all excited when my latest order arrived, photographing what I had just unpacked before cramming it into already full cupboards.

I had an email from Approved Foods the other day and just as I was about to delete it I decided to unsubscribe from the emails they send so regularly to stop them bouncing unwelcomed into my email box.   Then I had a sudden thought ... "I wonder if there is any money in my Friends Recommendations account", so I went over to check ..... and there was!!

A whole £16 to be exact, plus I had £6.97 of unused credit (I can't remember why I got that).  So while I was on the site I decided to spend this money.  I thought I would spend it wisely on things that we needed and things that would last.

Although why I thought we needed 5kg of Tagliatelle I have no idea!!

And it's in a HUGE box, the only place for it for the moment was on top of the larder unit, where it is now looking down at me very reproachfully.  If I sort out the gardening bits and pieces and kitchen stuff that is on the top shelf it will fit in thank goodness.

I started this post off with the paragraph  'I used to blog a lot about Approved Foods and get all excited when my latest order arrived, photographing what I had just unpacked before cramming it into already full cupboards.'  because while I was in the process of lining up all the food on the worktop, my heart was sinking.  It didn't look right, possibly because it didn't fit in with the way we eat now, too many wrappers and processed foods, too much colour that isn't in the form of home grown natural goodness, and ..... well just too much!!

Yes I have bought some treats, the crisps, the Twixes, the salted peanuts to sprinkle on Lovely Hubby's salad, the Poppodums that will go with the curry sauces that still linger in the kitchen cupboard.  There is nothing there that is not what we will at some point eat (and Lovely Hubby will love the cakes and custard), but seeing it all together it just looks so wrong.

The only thing I was even half way excited about opening was this, the 'Lucky Box'.  I couldn't resist adding one to my order.  

I loved 'Lucky Bags' when I was little, the big gaudy colourful paper bag that always contained a tiny toy, a few dried up almost inedible sweets and sometimes a mini comic.  Even as a child I knew these were not worth the large percentage of my spending money that it involved laying out to get one, but it was the unknown that you were paying for.  The surprise of purchasing something that you could run home with and slowly savour pulling out item after item that your hadn't chosen yourself.  The disappointment afterwards as you tried not to break your wobbly little teeth on the rock hard 'chew' did not outweigh the excitment you had felt on that ten minute journey home.

As it happens on this occasion I did quite well with my 'Lucky Box'.  For the outlay of just a single pound this is what I got.  a large bag of foreign crisps, reading the ingredients list  they appear to be cheese and onion flavour, the instant noodles will be handy to be added to soups, the drinks have gone straight into the fridge and no doubt will be consumed by Lovely Hubby when he comes in with a desperate thirst from working outside.  And the little pack of Dill dried herbs is actually the only herb I have missing from my collection that we do use.

If anyone is interested in what I bought and for how much this is the breakdown.

Hovis Flour 2 for £1 saving £2.40 - in date.

Sharwoods Plain Puppodums 9 packs for £2.97 saving £13.14 - in date

Lucky Box £1 - saving £3.99 - all bar one item in date

Cake Mix 6 for £1.98 saving£6.96 - just out of date

Ready Popped Popcorn 6 for £1 saving £1.10 - in date

5kg!! Tagliatelle £2.99 saving £4.00 - in date

Custard Mix 12 for £2 saving £2.80 - just out of date

Seabrook Crisps 18 for £3 saving £4.20 out of date

McCoys Crisps 10 for £2 saving £5.50 - just out of date

Nobby's Nuts 12 for £2 saving £6.40 - out of date

Twix 12 for £3.96 saving £3.24 - in date

So I 'spent' £16 worth of recommendation money,  £6.97 of unused credit and £6.92 cash and I got food (and drinks) to the value of £77.63.  Not a bad little shop.  It all fitted easily into the cupboards now that I don't store as much, but still I doubt I will be shopping with them again on a regular basis.

  From now on there will be no more money dropping into my Friends Recommended account to tempt me to spend with them because I have deleted the link to it.  If you want to shop with them yourself simply Google 'Approved Foods' and you will find them easily.  They are still a good site for so many people to use with good products at very good prices as you can see above,  and I do highly recommend their service. 

But things have changed a lot round here food wise.

Sue xx

Treats for the Doggies .... and For Us

Every time a parcel is delivered to our house the dogs rush eagerly into the kitchen to supervise it's opening.  

It all started when Rosy was a puppy, we lived at Jointers Farm and our track to the village was almost two miles long, she had a thing for chasing cars off our property and I quickly had to find a way of making her more interested in the parcel than she was in the delivery van.

And so was born .....  "Oooh what have we got, what have we got?"

It caught her attention immediately and she followed me into the house to see what treat for her the delivery man had brought.  All I had to do was surreptitiously sneak a doggy chew into the parcel and let her discover it lying on top of the things for Mum.

The other dogs quickly picked up on this surprise tasty snack, so I do it to this day, we all need a tasty little surprise in our lives from time to time.

This time it was my parcel from Approved Foods.  I had placed the order to take advantage of the low priced tins of tomatoes, six tins for just £1 and the catering sized bags of Crumble Mix, although they made a mistake and sent me just one instead of the four bags that I ordered.  They have refunded my money as they have now ran out of it .... I would rather have had the other three bags  :-(

I don't order from Approved Foods as much as I used to, but sometimes when the email drops into my Inbox and it's something that we need and is a real bargain I will succumb.  This was bought and paid for before the start of Stoptober so I have no guilt to feel either!!

I added some Gingerbread Mix to my order as it was on offer at three boxes for a pound.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually an M&S packet mix .... ooh err proper posh!!  There is even a proper little man shaped cutter in every box.  I think I'll tie them all together on a length of tinsel and turn them into a Christmas garland.

Oh no ..... I said the 'C' word.

Sue xx

Stoptober - Enough Food to Last?

 

Enough Food to Last?

 

That title was a bit tongue in cheek because, as you can see from the photos, there is more than enough food to last the two of us and the two house guests we are expecting during October, for the month ..... and eating well at that.

 

 

As you saw yesterday the freezer is almost full to the top, and the cupboards are also pretty full, although not groaning under the weight of food as they used to be before my Challenge of the first part of this year. 

 

The '365 Days - £365'  challenge (see HERE for the blog) really kept me accountable and stopped me buying a lot of unnecessary things.  Unfortunately, once I stopped the challenge I found the habit of buying creeping in a little bit once again.  So my main aims for 'Stoptober' are to free up cupboard space and nip this excess shopping in the bud. 

 

 

It shows the space that is now available in the cupboards as I was able to neatly fit in the bargain packs of pasta that I bought last week.  Last year they would have had to live on the worktop awaiting a space, or be used before they even saw the inside of a cupboard.

 

The only food items in a non-foody cupboard are these two jars of coffee, one of which has just been tipped into the coffee canister on the worktop ready for use.  I'm so much better than I used to be ....  Lovely Hubby used to have to be ready to catch any falling foodstuff each and every time he opened a cupboard door, poor man   :-)

 

 So apart from a couple of one pint cartons of milk for emergency use I will be buying nothing now in readiness for my start tomorrow. I do have an Approved Food order that was placed and paid for last week arriving any day.  I was tempted by the catering sized bags of Crumble Mix that were well within date so I placed an order using some of my PayPal balance that I accrued selling some clothes last month, but these will be my last foody purchases. Each time I feel the urge to shop I will take a couple of the dogs out for a walk instead ....... leaving my purse firmly at home!!

 

If you're joining in with Stoptober, and I know a lot of Bloggers are, please leave a short comment and then we can all link to your blog posts by just clicking on your name and finding your Blog.  I should have some spare time in the next couple of weeks to read all about your exploits as the work will be starting on the conservatory, and as I can do nothing to help with this apart from supplying teas and coffees to the builders I should have a bit of time to spend on things that I want to do ..... that should be good!

 

Good luck to everyone that is taking part, and remember it should be fun, not a hardship.

 

Sue xx

The Store Cupboard

 

Someone asked me what will I miss most about this little bungalow.

 

There have been lots of advantages to us living here for the last two years.  The fact that it's half the price in rent than our last place meant we could save up even faster to get together the deposit for our forever home and that was very important, that it was a fifteen minute drive for Lovely Hubby to get to work instead of the previous hours journey each way was brilliant and meant more time together and less money in fuel and wear and tear on the car.

 

But the one thing in the house that I will miss the most ....

 

 

... is the little built in larder in the kitchen.

 

They knew how to make provision for storing food in the 1930's.  The shelves are deep enough and with enough space between them to store the maximum amount of food, the cupboard is nice and dry and everything is totally accessible.  I've been amazed at how much food it has managed to hold.  Even a full Approved Foods order has fitted neatly into the shelves after each delivery. 

 

If I can find a way to replicate this in the new house I will be a very happy little bunny :-)

 

(This picture was taken before we started eating our way through the stores, it's looking a lot emptier now.)

 

Sue xx

Stocked Up for Winter

 

It might be Austerity August but when an opportunity to get stocked up for Winter comes your way you simply have to take it.

 

The other day I got my usual daily email from Approved Foods and on it was a brilliant offer for cake mixes.  Now cake is not something I eat a lot of, honest .....  but Lovely Hubby is very partial to a nice slice of cake with his morning or afternoon coffee when he's been doing physical work on the land and who am I to deprive a man of obviously much needed sustenance.  He's also rather partial to a slice smothered in custard for his supper after a hard day at the office and then I'm usually quite happy to join him on that occasion.

 

 

And these were all on at a brilliant price.

 

I got 12 packs of Madera Cake Mix, 4 packs of Ginger Cake mix and 8 packs of Oaty Crumble mix all for just 25p each, a total of £5.50 for all these cakes and crumbles.  With our own eggs and using powdered milk and the only expensive thing I have to add is a spoonful of butter to each cake mix, which means we have 16 cakes that will come in at around 40p each.

 

 

As I have tipped all the Oaty Crumble mix into a tub in the freezer I can make many more than 8 crumbles with it, possibly up to 14 crumbles for two people I would say, we like our crumble thick on top of the homegrown fruit.  With nothing to add to that it means 14 nice crumbly desserts for two people for around 15p each.

 

 

I also got six boxes of Carrot Cake mix, which comes with everything you need for the cake and frosting, again I just need to add powdered milk, butter and eggs, these were also just 25p each (and still well in date).  So that's another six cakes for around 40p each.

 

 

I ordered three packs of shortbread for £1.20, I normally pay 50p each for something very similar from Sainsbury's, but I thought I would try these while the order was going in and there's still a small saving.

 

Some of LH's favourite salad dressing at 60p a jar. (Also in date until the end of the year.)

 

Enough tea bags to keep my man happy for at least eighteen months both at home and at work at just £3.49 a box  ...

 

... and enough Vegetable Bouillon Mix to keep us both happy in veggie friendly stews and soups for a lot longer, for just £1 for a 2.5kg tub.

 

 

Also, very unusually for me I was in the right place at the right time and they had some of their Lucky Boxes available, they have a hundred or so every now and then, you get about £5 worth of food for £1. 

 

Now when I was little I loved the Lucky Bags you used to get from the sweetie shop.  Never knowing what sweets or little gift you were going to get was a brilliant way to surprise yourself with your spends every now and then.  Obviously this mentality has stayed with me :-)  so I ordered one ...

 

... and was pleasantly surprised. 

 

 Lots of lovely goodies and well worth my £1 outlay.  Lovely Hubby's eyes lit up when he saw the jam tarts.  Everything was well within it's sell by date and fine to pop in the cupboard to use whenever we need them.  Luckily with our eating our way through the cupboards there is room for all the new purchases ... just!!

 

 



 

And following on from yesterdays 're-use, recycle and repurpose' mantra once I had unpacked all this lovely store cupboard stock I had some bubble wrap and nine cardboard boxes to use for our impending move, two large, six medium and one small.

 

And one bemused little Pug that was obviously wondering what on earth Mum was up to yet again!!

 

And I have to stand up and confess to buying a few little naughty treats, well it would have been rude not too!  The Yorkie was a freebie for ordering more than £25 worth of goods and the box full of Snickers Cruncher just could not be ignored at only £2.99, making them 12p each.  These have now been reduced again and are £1 for a case of 24 making them now only 4p each - WOW, I missed out on that one!! 

 

The Easter Eggs ..... well who can resist a cute chicken and cow with Easter eggs AND fillings for just 50p each - nope not me!!

 

Obviously with our juicing journey still being well and truly ON, these treats are to be rationed out and we have decided that cake and chocolate will only be consumed in moderation and only at weekends if we have worked hard enough to earn them.  So no dossing on the couch and munching our way through the cupboard :-)

 

I've temporarily moved the Approved Foods link to the top of the sidebar if you want to nip over and have a look at any of these goodies for yourself. 

#

To look at any of the pictures, especially if you want to read the prices on the invoice a bit more easily just click on the pictures and they should enlarge.

 

Now I'm off to pack up one of the boxes with some of the things that we have been buying for the new house with our Car Boot sale profits, I'll be back tomorrow to show you what we bought.

 

Sue xx

 





Imagination - Then and Now

Picture from The Optimism Revolution

 

I loved this picture, it brought back memories of playing make believe boats, shops, trains with my brother when we were both small. 

 

 Mum and Dad had saved their money, no mean feat in the 1960's with two small children to raise, and had the built in cupboards and drawers in the large alcove in our living/kitchen/dining room removed to replace them with something not a million miles away from ....

 

 

.... this. 

 

Completely modern in its day and full of useful storage for the 1960's family  Although theirs was a more modern version and totally snazzy in red, black and white.  It must have been heaven for my Mum who struggled to cook and wash up in a teeny tiny room that can only be described as a square walk-in larder with a sink, gas fridge and gas cooker

 

Well anyway the best bit of this for me and my brother was that we were each given one of the lovely deep drawers that had been removed to use as toy boxes.  Unlike the children of today ALL our toys neatly fitted into these drawers and were slid out of the way under our beds, nice and tidy.

 

Well nice and tidy until we discovered that the best bit about having a toy box WAS the toy box. 

 

Picture from Google Images

Similar to ours but ours were more than twice as long.

 

All through school holidays we would tip the contents out push them rudely to one side, except for the teddies that were to accompany us on our journeys and adventures, and play in the boxes.  We used them as boats, trains, lorries, we turned them on their sides and used them as shop counters with my little plastic till and paper money coming into it's own, we begged Mum to stop her baking and be our customer, although usually by the time she came in armed with her purse to 'buy' from us the boxes had been turned into something completely different and there was no shop to be seen.

 

Picture from Google Images

 

I would have loved this - but would it convert to a pirate ship or a delivery lorry!!

 

Our imaginations ran wild, all because of two large drawers and I honestly think that has set me up for life. 

 

When I see something, anything, I see alternatives, I see a million and one uses, a slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.  Reusing, re-purposing, re-planning it all takes imagination and I wonder slightly if with todays children being given everything ready made for them, in garish plastic usually, will they have the same imagination in the future, I really hope so, although in my heart of hearts I doubt it.

 

 

When I bought bargain fish fillets I saw that they came in seed trays, open freezing trays, trays that I could stand six plant pots on and catch the water that ran through.  Trays with so many uses that to throw them away or even pop them in the recycling would have been a crime.

 

 

My fish was wrapped in 'easy-leave' so we can take out single portions or many depending on the need and stored my nice sturdy box in the freezer.  Leaving my new 'trays' to be rinsed and set aside until I need them.  They are currently in the freezer with blackcurrants on being open frozen.   We didn't even know we had a blackcurrant bush it was growing where the old little tumbledown shed used to stand - result, free fruit!!

 

I have to go now and unpack an Approved Foods order that has just arrived much to the delight of the little doggies who always get a treat when they are nice to delivery drivers .... and boy can they be nice to folk when they know there's a treat to be had!!

 

 I wonder what I'll find in there that can be reused and re-purposed?  Perhaps I'll take some photos and show you tomorrow :-)

 

Sue xx

Why is there always .......

 

Why is there always ..... one banana that goes like this?

 

I hate the overly sweet taste of them once the skin has gone black, so really there was only one thing for it ...

 

... add it to some of the Approved Food Chocolate Sponge mix, only this time I didn't turn it into Muffins, I went for the loaf style cake, because I had a plan ......

 

 

... scrumptious, healthy, well it has to be it has fruit in it, dessert.

 

We've had this two nights running now and totally scrummy it was too.

 

  

 

 

I'm finally coming to the end of this enormous bag 12.5 kg of chocolately loveliness, (ordered by mistake ... I thought it said 2.5kg) but I will be glad to see the back of it, I'm not that keen on chocolate cake, although in the interests of frugality I have done my best :-)

 

We worked out the whole bag has kept us in chocolate sponge for over six months and made us a cash profit of £20 up to now, with enough mix to make another 4 dozen Muffins which would bring the profit up to £29.60.  A pretty good purchase!

 

 

 

And it was with this in mind I placed an order with Approved Foods last week and it arrived yesterday.  My Challenge is to make this 'cost neutral' to us by selling off a large part of the order at our next Car Boot Sale.  So I have to go off and do the maths now and see what we want to keep and what we will need to sell to accomplish this.  Knowing how well foodstuffs sold at the last car boot sale it should be achievable. 

 

As you can see from the receipt I spent a total of £123.03 (including the postage and packing) and managed to get foodstuffs to the value of £502.93 not a bad saving at all and most of the foods I bought this time are either well in date or only just out of date.  I'll let you know how we get on.

 

I just missed out on being able to get a huge bag of Chocolate Fudge Cake mix when I placed my order but there are lots of other big bags of cake mixes available if you want to do something similar yourself.  You can click on the link on the right hand side bar to get straight to Approved Foods.

 

I'm off to sit with a calculator now and do the maths, oh well maybe one more cup of coffee first and a little whizz around Blogland before I start.

 

Sue xx

 

A 'Meal Deal'

I went to Sainsb*rys for this weeks shopping armed with my Nectar points and a £2.01 coupon I didn't expect to spend much money, and I didn't.  I bought all the things above ...

 



 

... and four tubs of our favourite icecream as it was on offer at half price, for the grand sum of 83p.  With the other 17p going into the Sealed Pot that's a spend of £1 on food shopping this week, and I've still got £6.69 of Nectar points left :-)

 

The proof. Yay....I remembered to save the receipt :-)

(The receipt can be made readable by clicking on it to enlarge the picture.)

 

On the big advertising boards outside they had their 'Meal Deal' offer of a sandwich, drink and a bag of crisps for £3, I really don't know why, I'm not usually, but I was sorely tempted by the thought of a nice easy lunch when I got home.  But I literally pulled myself together and thought things through.

 

My favorite loaf is £1.50, I had freshly grated cheese in the freezer at home, jars of homemade pickled beetroot in the cupboard, I have more than enough choice of drinks and lots of Approved Food crisps, so I made myself a 'Meal Deal'.

 

"Buy yourself a loaf, get the cheese out of the freezer to thaw while you are putting away the shopping, open a new jar of home pickled beetroot and make an icecold drink of sparkling water with ice and a slice.  Sit in the sunshine and enjoy an hour off and a saving of £1.50."

 

Now that's my idea of a good 'Meal Deal'.

 

Sue xx

Food for Free

 

 

I started this month with the delivery of my latest Approved Foods order (see the link on the sidebar if you want to nip over there yourself to see what goodies are available today).  I was tempted over by the reduced price Pickled Onions, 3 jars for 99p saving me almost £5 on the shop price, unfortunately I only got the last three jars I really wanted more, and as you can see while I was there I bought a few other things too.

 

 Balti Sauces - 50p - saving £7.14

 Lloyd Grossman Madras Sauces - 50p saving  £8.94.

Oxos - 10 for £1, saving £6.80

McCoys Crisps - 5 for £1, saving £1.95

Walkers Crisps - 36 for £5.94, saving £12.06

Cheese Sauce Mix 2kg - 2 for £1.50, saving £18.48

 

As I had credits in my Approved Foods account and just enough to cover the rest in my Paypal account after my recent charity donations ...

 

... I got my food for free :-)

 

 To be honest I'm not totally sure what I intend to do with 4kg of Cheese Sauce Mix, but I guess lots of cheesey pasta bakes would be nice alongside our homegrown salads through the summer, I'll have to experiment with it, although any ideas would be gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

I have decided to photograph and put on here receipts for all the food I buy from now on, for my own records and so you can see that I am really sticking to this years tight budget.  I just have to get out of the habit of throwing them away once I have checked them at the supermarket (or out of the Approved Foods box).  I hate bits of paper in my purse so I stand and check the receipt and the coupons etc before I leave the shop and deposit all unwanted scraps of paper straight into their bin.

 

I must remember to tuck them in my bag instead!!

 

Somehow the larder cupboard has managed to hold most of the new purchases thank goodness as I like my now uncluttered worktops in the kitchen.

 

So the current £2 House Keeping Challenge money left in the tin now stands at £127 and all these new purchases should help it last even longer.

 

If you use them what was your best ever bargain from Approved Foods?  Mine I would have to say was the mistaken purchase of 12.5kg of Chocolate Sponge Mix mentioned yesterday, as well as keeping Lovely Hubby supplied with chocolate cakes it has made us lots of money and paid for itself over and over.

 

Sue xx