Miserly March - Thrifty Thursday Tips - Week 4

 

The last three Thrifty Thursday tips have been about freezing, leftovers and growing, each requiring the input of the previous, well if we are looking at things that way what comes first in this list of ways to save money - YOU DO !!

 

You have to look after yourself to be able to do any of the others.  To be able to grow the food to freeze and to use as leftovers you have to be as healthy as you can possibly be and as happy in your own skin as possible.

 

Well to my mind you do.  And this is how I stay healthy on a budget.

 

 

 

The first thing I do, and this is really cheap and easy, is to drink lots of water, whether it be free from the tap, or bottled water it really doesn't matter, what I do know is the most expensive bottled waters don't taste any better really than the cheap ones.  I drink either filtered tap water or any supermarkets basic Sparkling water, sometimes I have a slice of lemon or lime in it either straight from the freezer or at the moment I have a jar of these slices in the fridge that were reduced to 39p from £1.59 an offer I could simply not say no to :-)

 

 

 

I eat as healthily as I can.  I have treat now and then, and I can rarely say no to a piece of chocolate (that would be  so rude), but by and large we eat well, we eat what we grow and supplement it from the shops and supermarkets aiming to have the fewest possible additives.  I don't read the fat/calorie/sugar content of the foods I buy I read the ingredients list on the packet or label instead.  I buy foods that have only the ingredients that I recognise and as few of them as possible.

 

The best foods to buy don't have labels at all. The longer you can stay in the fruit and vegetable aisle the healthier your supermarket shop will be, and also the cheaper.  If you buy vegetables to make a nice veggie casserole or curry you will get a heck of a lot more for your money than if you buy a pre-prepared ready meal version.

 

If you're short of time during the week have an afternoon at the weekend when you set to and make big pan fulls of soup, stews or curries and freeze them in meal sized portions, then you will have ready meals of your own for pennies rather than pounds.

 

 

 

Once you've got your insides nice and healthy, the outside is starting to look better too, so don't throw money at buying fancy products, find out what you like and what suits you and stick to it.  I make our own soaps because I like to have simple ingredients and it works out so cheap compared to buying the same quality of soap from the shop.  But you can find some really good bargains, especially if you buy supermarkets own baby or 'simple' soaps.  But find out what suits you and use that.

 

 

 

Find products you like and trust and stick with them.  I dye my brown hair blonde because it brightens me up and makes me feel good, but I do so economically, as my hair is so short I only use half a pack at a time, so these four packs bought when on offer will last me nearly all year.

 

 

 

I recently pared down my make up bag and rarely any make up now, the chickens just didn't appreciate the effort :-)

But I do spruce myself up when we go out together, using my favourite brands of foundation and mascara, even these I buy when on offer making sure I get a years supply at the time.

 

I did try switching my face creams to the supermarkets own brands, working my way down the price scale, but I honestly found that for me it didn't work, my skin was dull and sometimes greasy and I had more spots.

So now I've switched back to my favourite brand,  yes, it is more expensive but it suits my skin and I use it wisely and try to buy only when it's on a really good offer, stocking up when it is.  In my opinion being frugal is not about struggling to manage with something you don't like or that doesn't like you it's about knowing what to spend your money on and when.

 

 

 

And once you've spent your money on something, it's about making sure you get every last drop of that product available for use.  If you hear a quiet 'thud' in this house it's usually the sound of an upended bottle falling off the neck of the bottle it's been balancing on for hours as it finally lets go of every last little bit of content.

 

 

 

 

  In this picture you can see cheapo shower gel being dispensed into our handwash dispenser, I do this because it costs only 10p for the shower gel and it does a brilliant job of getting our dirty gardening hands clean, this is one cheap product that does suit us both.  I usually add a couple of drops of tea tree oil to it and give it a good shake, this helps to heal any cuts or scratches we might have picked up and makes the 'handwash' smell lovely.

 

In this house all tubes are cut in half and the products scooped out for use, usually you get at least an extra few days out of them.  If you have never done this before next time you think you've used all your hand cream or toothpaste just snip the end of the tube, you will be amazed at the amount of product left in there clinging to the sides trying to avoid being used.

 

So it's all about commonsense and getting the most for your money, spending that money wisely on products that suit YOU.  No matter what the adverts may promise us and what the airbrushed girls in the glossy mags imply that we might end up looking like, we will a;ways ever only be ourselves.  If we get the inside as healthy as possible then we can work on the outside in the way that suits us best.

 

The best beauty treatment of all of course is absolutely free and that is SLEEP and while you are asleep you cannot be spending any money at all ... so the most frugal tip of them all is to go for a nap.

 

I hope you have enjoyed Miserly March's Thrifty Thursday Tips, now what can we do for April :-)

 

Sue xx

 

 



Miserly March -Thrifty Thursday Tips - Week 3

 

 

My name is Sue and I am a 'growaholic'. 

 

 

Tips for the first week of Miserly March were all about using your freezer wisely, then we moved on to using your leftovers and wasting nothing.  What comes before these things ..... well in my world it is growing the food that will live in the freezer and become some of those leftovers.

 

 

This 'growing thing' crept up on me slowly and pretty slyly, it made it's first appearance many years ago when my boys were small and it was a necessity to put fresh good food on the table.  Then I went out to work and built a career of sorts, there was no time for much gardening and growing of foods so I handend over my cash and bought from markets and shops.  Then suddenly I had an unexpected life change and my green fingers were once again called into action. 

 

Luckily although I had disguised it well the green was still there, and I have managed for the last four years to grow the majority of our veggies and some of our fruit.  Last year was a disappointment as it was for so many gardeners in this country.  The weather defeated all but the very best of us.  Losing my polytunnel on our move (the wind ripped it to shreds just before the move and then we decided not to re-assemble it here as we will hopefully not be staying too long), scuppered my chances of growing under cover, so I was at the mercy of the elements apart from my draughty, slug infested greenhouse.

 

 

 

So what's this got to do with Thrifty Thursday Tips I hear you asking.

 

 Well do you honestly expect me to be the sort of grower that throws money at the garden, that has posh wigwams of shiny steel for her beans to grow up, that buys hundreds of little pots to start off her seedlings.  That heats the greenhouse to temperatures warmer than the house.  Now don't get me wrong if that's what you want to do go ahead, you will still save money in the long run, lots of money and your plot will look beautiful as well as productive.  But I started cheap and I continue to do things as cheaply as I possibly can, indeed with each passing year it gets cheaper and cheaper.

 

The plan above was done on the computer for me by Lovely Hubby taken from my quickly scribbled plan of the Veggie Patch and made all posh.  Thank goodness we noted down the positions of all the trees and fruit bushes in the tyres around the edge of the plot because some naughty little geese have chewed off all the labels from them.  Now we have to rely on this plan.

 

So at the start of the growing season I get out last years plan and see what worked and what we enjoyed eating, what went where and for how long and generally bring myself up to speed on things.

 

 

 

Then I get out these.

 

All year we save up all the inners from toilet rolls and kitchen rolls (and so does my lovely Mum), these are kept squashed in bundles ready to be brought into action at planting time.

 

 

 

 

I cut each toilet roll inner into half and kitchen roll inners into four, and then I plant virtually everything we grow into these first, this way each and every seed gets it's own little pot to send out those delicate first roots into, and that vital little infrastructure is never disturbed as I plant the entire thing undisturbed into the ground when the conditions are right.  The cardboard disappears completely after a few waterings or heavy showers of rain and adds its nutrients to the soil.

 

You can leave the tubes full sized for peas and any other plant that likes a long root system, but half sized works well for most things.

 

 

 

Sometimes I plant in what comes to hand ...

 

 

.... and I waste nothing.  Icrecream tubs and margarine tubs make excellent plant markers.  Just cut them to size and write on them with permanent marker and you have a weatherproof plant label. (But not puppy or goose proof - they just run off with them!!)

 

 

 

The fruits of all the hard work make it all worthwhile, and a stroll around the veggie beds on a Summers morning lets you know what you will be having for tea that night.  I used to plan the meal and then go and pick the veggies to go with it, but after a couple of years I switched this around.  Now I go out and pick what we have the most of, what is the ripest and ready for eating, then I bring it in and plan the meal around it.

 

This way nothing is wasted and everything is eaten at its very best.

 

 

 

There are some wonderful treats available when you grow your own.

 

 

 

 

I don't think I fully appreciated just how much money I was saving until I did the workings out for Below the Line last year, it blew my mind.  The post HERE gives all the costings of what I had to eat for the five days of last years challenge, and this is the homegrown food that I used to bulk out my shop purchases, luckily after the year before's challenge I had thought to save myself lots of veggies in the freezer as the challenge is slightly early in the year for most of what I needed to be large enough to harvest.

 

All the above food came in at less than 5p (4.8p to be exact).  I was queried at the time at how could this possibly be so cheap and this was my answer -

 

This shows just how cheap it can be to grow and eat your own produce.

My brother said I should add the cost in of the growing, the compost and the fertiliser, as well as the price of the seeds so I sat and had a think.

I grow (plant, dig and weed) because that's what I enjoy doing - FREE. The compost we make ourselves from scraps, waste and manure (horse and chicken) - FREE. The fertiliser we make ourselves from Comfy, Nettles and worm bed run off - FREE. The water for the plants we use is saved rainwater - FREE. So the costings of the veggies really is just for buying the packets of seeds, which I do in the sale at the end of the Summer usually at 50p a packet. So the costings are based on the price per plant obtained from the seed planted, and, believe it or not, always rounded UP.

 

 

 

 

It really puts things into perspective when we see just how cheaply we can grow our own foods. And you DO NOT need lots of land, although we currently live on four acres, only a small plot of this is our Veggie Patch, I purposely made it the size of an average largish garden or a normal sized allotment plot so I could see how little land I would be able to get away with for growing food at our next and final house move.  As you can see from the picture the beds could be squished a little closer together or be larger and therefore be even more productive, but there are only two of us (and the chickens) to grow for and I had the space so I went for larger pathways.

 

So my Thrifty Thursday Tip for this week is to grow your own. 

 

Whether it be turning your whole garden over to fruit and vegetables, using just a small part of it, planting in amongst the flowers and shrubs or planting in tyres, containers, troughs or pots.  Use your hanging baskets for trailing tomatoes as well as, or instead of flowers.   If you have no outdoor space use those lovely sunny windowsills in the house for herbs and 'cut and come again' lettuces, move them away onto a table top on the hottest of hot days so they don't scorch or get too leggy.  One packet of seeds could see you in herbs or lettuces for a whole year and save you an absolute fortune. 

 

 Think about it, a nice Parsley plant at the supermarket will set you back anywhere between one pound and three, and for less than that you can buy a packet of seeds which will give you hundreds of plants.  You could get together with a friend or two and each buy a different herb or vegetable and then share the seeds out between you.  So for the price of one packet of seeds you will all have two or three different herbs or veggies.

 

You save lots of money, you reap the rewards in cheap, nutricious, tasty and fresh foods and you get the satisfaction of feeding your family with something you grew yourself.  Involve the children in growing with you and who knows they may even want to eat more veggies each day.  Happy time spent together in the fresh air and good food as a reward, what could be better.  And it's about time more children learnt that vegetables come from the ground and not out of a plastic bag from the supermarket!!

 

I'll be back next Thursday with the final Thrifty Thursday Tips and it's all about YOU.

 

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

 

Miserly March - Thrifty Thursday Tips - Week 2

 

Last week tips for Thrifty Thursday were all about using your freezer wisely and indeed lots of the things I am about to mention this week also make good use of the freezer.  It is a useful piece of equipment for anyone trying to save money on the food bill each week.

 

This week I am mainly talking about leftovers.  Of course leftovers can be just that, the last few ladles full of stew in the pan, the last few cooked potatoes that just didn't fit on the plate or made the portion size too big, or they can be purposeful leftovers.  The sort of leftovers that you plan ahead, roasting a chicken that is too big for your family and knowing that you can make extra meals out of it in the form of curries, soups, pasties to last all through the following week, and of course using the bones to make your own chicken stock ready to be popped straight into the freezer for future use.

 

 

 

Sometimes leftovers can be the last few items in the bag of frozen veg, that you would like to turn into the basis of a meal but seem too small to insignificant to fill up the family.  Either way with a bit of imagination you can stretch leftovers to make whole meals and sometimes meals that you would never have thought of making, and they can be wonderful.  This bake I made a while ago is a good example,

 

 

 

I simply added a bit of cheese sauce, (this one was made from half a tub of Philadelphia soft cheese mixed with some milk) to some frozen broccoli and the last few bits of cauliflower saved from the previous nights tea ....

 

 

 

.. adding a good handful of breadcrumbs and a topping of grated cheese straight from the freezer and then baked for 30 minutes in a hot oven, totally delicious and using up the last of lots of things and leftovers.  A meal out of virtually nothing and yet filling and tasty.

 

 

 

No matter how little I have of something left over, I pop it in a tub and put it in the fridge as soon as it has cooled down.  This gives me time to think what I want to use it for, if there is nothing I can think of or fancy for the next nights meal I will put it into the freezer instead and save it for future use when inspiration (or lack of funds) strikes.

 

These Mediterranean roasted veggies were actually made into two quiches with simply the addition of a ready made pastry bases, two eggs per quiche and a sprinkle of cheese, but they could just as easily been used to top a homemade pizza, popped in a couple of pastry circles, folded over and made into pasties, whizzed up in the liquidiser with a can of tomatoes into a wonderful pasta sauce or, if made a bit thinner with some stock, a big pan of soup.  So this little tub of leftover veggies would then be forming the base of a meal for at least two people,

 

How much better to save a little part of a meal rather than leaving the table stuffed and feeling yuk after forcing down that last little bit rather than 'wasting it'.  Better for the purse and the waistline!!

 

 

 

Of course purposeful leftovers are a really good idea to save money on fuel too. 

 

If you cook just a little bit too much one night you don't need to use extra fuel to cook from scratch the next day.  In this case the previous night we had a large plate of pasta each in a tomatoey sauce, so I just cooked a couple of extra handfuls of penne pasta, cooled it quickly under cold running water and stashed it in the fridge, knowing full well that the oven would be on the next night for baking a loaf and I could turn the leftovers into a tasty pasta bake with a large handful of homegrown spinach and some cheese sauce (and again it ended up with breadcrumbs and cheese on top) and have it in the oven at the same time as the bread.  Saving me time and fuel cooking the pasta first.

 

 

 

Sometimes leftovers can be as simple as a bowl of homegrown New Potatoes, saved in the fridge from the previous nights evening meal and then served cold for lunch the next day with a sprinkle of herbs and a good dollop of mayo.

 

 

 

What do you do when you have half a lettuce and half a courgette leftover and not much else in the fridge and you have sudden lunch guests, once when this happened to me I turned to .....

 

Mum’s Lettuce and Courgette Soup

 

 Ingredients

1 oz butter plus a small amount of olive oil

8 fresh large outside dark lettuce leaves roughly chopped

1 medium onion cut into small chunks

1/2 medium sliced courgette

1 chicken or veggie stockpots diluted with 1/2 a pint of hot water or a stock cube

1 level tsp turmeric

1 clove of Garlic, crushed or finely chopped

salt and pepper

2 large spoonfuls of yogurt to stir in at the end

Method

Soften the onion, lettuce, courgette, in the oil and butter for 5 minutes, do not let it brown

Then stir in the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes

Then blitz with your blender.

Serve with a swirl of yogurt, if you have it.

 
 

It turned out a treat, and with addition of a bit more water served three of us with a slice of crusty homemade bread each. It doesn't taste of lettuce really which you would expect to be a bit insipid but has a depth of flavour that you really do have to taste to appreciate. I've made it since and it freezes beautifully. 

 

So this was a case of unplanned leftovers, but it does show you that it is wise to hang on to that half a courgette that might otherwise have found it's way into the compost bin ... or heaven forbid the dustbin.

 

A brilliant Blog to read if you want inspiration for leftovers of all kinds is Suzy Bowler's Blog 'Sudden Lunch' on my sidebar to the right. HERE is one of my favourite and quick ideas for using up a little piece of salmon you might find lurking on a plate in the fridge. Delicious :-)



Oh, and what I meant to say right at the top of this post, is you see the pies in the picture, well virtually any leftover can be popped into a small pie or pasty and be turned into a wonderfully filling meal. Everything from pasta in cheese sauce (a favourite in many Scottish pie shop are Macaroni Cheese pies and that is what you will be making), to a spoonful or two of baked beans either on their own or mixed with some leftover potatoes (mashed or chopped), a tiny bit of meat, see this post for more info on making a teeny tiny bit of steak go a long, long way, of course my absolute favourite pie filling is cheese and onion, and using a handful of grated cheese from the freezer and as much onion as you have left over from making another dish makes this a quick and economical pie filling. If any of your proposed fillings are a bit dry a little bit of gravy mix made up will soon remedy this or make a simple white or cheese sauce.



I hope some of these tips are helpful, and to those of you who may have read them before I apologise, but I do seem to have a lot of new regular readers - welcome to you all. Any way it is always nice to have your memory jogged with things you may have done yourself before and then got out of the habit of, something I am notorious at.



After a comment yesterday asking for recipes I will try and include some whenever possible, I might even get round to having a stand alone page with the cost cutting recipes I use on a regular basis at the top of the Blog.



I'll get to it soon - promise !!



Sue xx

Miserly March - Thrifty Thursday Tips - Week 1

 

 

I thought I'd start my Miserly March Thrifty Thursday tips with the thing I do the most to save money ...... and that is to use my freezer to it's capacity. 

 

Any freezer works best and uses less electricity if it is as full as possible.  If you have huge air spaces that is what you are paying to freeze ..... air, and you can't eat air.  The minute you open the lid or door you let all your nice frozen air escape and let new room temperature air in so when you close the lid the freezer has to spring to life to chill it all down again.  So it really makes sense to have your freezer as full as possible all the time.

 

If you don't have much money to fill the freezer all in one go, think how you can fill the space.  I always keep all my freezer blocks in the freezer ready for use.  If the freezer was pretty empty I would put my freezer bags in there too, then they are always nicely chilled for when you need them to take them shopping or on family days out.

 

If you want to fill your freezer with edible things, buy lots of cheap loaves and work your way through them in the order you buy them, double wrapped they will last a few months and not lose any freshness.  I always have a sliced loaf in the freezer even though I make my own bread usually, sometimes I just really fancy my favourite seeded commercial made loaf.  Because I only have it now and then when I buy a new loaf I open the bag, loosen the slices slightly then refasten excluding all the air and then pop it in the freezer.  Because the slices are not so tightly packed I can take one slice at a time out whenever I feel the urge.

 

 

 

The first three photos show what I do when I find offers in the supermarkets, I buy in bulk and then as soon as I get home, repack into individual portions.  Although there are two of us I still package everything singularly, after all sometimes we may have different meals or one of us may be away, sometimes we have guests and so would need more than two portions, packed in ones you can take out exactly what you need.  I use 'easy-leave' that I bought from Lakeland a couple of years ago, it has lasted and lasted, but you can help yourself to a couple of extra bags when you are weighing out your fruit and veggies at the supermarket and cut them into sheets, It is exactly the same type of plastic.  If you don't like plastic use greaseproof paper or the wrappers from the insider of cereal cartons, or simply whatever you have that won't stick to your food.

 

 

 

 

Once wrapped I put everything into large freezer proof boxes and label with one of the labels cut from the food wrapper.  This usually gives you all the information about the product plus an approximate date of when you froze it.  The square and rectangular boxes stack nicely in the freezer (I have a large chest freezer).  If you have drawers or a smaller freezer you could just as easily put all your individually wrapped items into a strong plastic bag as this would take up less room. 

 

 

 

Something I've started doing recently whenever I buy bread rolls from the shop is to separate them and pop them all into a freezer box, that way there is never one sad roll left to go stale in the bread bin, you simply take out the number you want for any meal.  Similarly we freeze crumpets and sliced bagels ready for when you want just half a bagel with your morning coffee.

 

 

 

It's not just big things that I freeze, any leftovers are popped into their own boxes too. 

 

Here is half a pack of mushrooms, I'm not really keen on mushrooms unless they disguised in a sauce but Lovely Hubby enjoys them with his steaks and salads, so usually there is half a carton over when he has had a meal and rather than making him eat them meal after meal I will simply slice them and pop them straight into the freezer while they are nice and fresh.  They take minutes to defrost and this is also a good way to use up a 'yellow sticker' bargain if you've been lucky enough to nab one.

 

 

 

Sometimes you can purposely make lots of something to put in the freezer, my regular Scone making sessions are one such event.  Once I have rolled out the dough and cut the scones to size they are open frozen before being put into boxes and stacked in the freezer.  Then whenever we fancy a scone and the oven is on for something else we can take however many we need straight from the freezer, brush them with milk and bake, they take about 5-10 minutes longer than baking from fresh but rise and turn out exactly the same.

 

 

 

I also always have a box of leftover cheeses in the freezer, why let it go off in the fridge when it can be frozen at it's best and be ready for whenever you need it.  This one has lots of small portions of Stilton that I cut up from large cheeses after Christmas as well as lots of other speciality cheeses.

 

 

 

 

But the best and most economical way to freeze cheese is to grate it first.  Once grated if you pack it loosely into tubs and then remove from the freezer after an hour or so to give it a shake before placing back, it will freeze nice and separately so you can remove just the amount you need for any recipe or to place on a sandwich.  If you look at a one ounce piece of cheese as it is and then grated you will be amazed at how much more it looks when grated.  I always have a tub of grated Cheddar and a tub of grated Parmesan style cheese in the freezer.

 

The other thing I always have in the freezer is also in this picture, that is grated breadcrumbs, again they freeze nice and free flowing so you can take out just what you need to top a pasta bake or to cover fishcakes etc.  Never, ever throw your old crusts and half used loaves away, doing this they can make a tasty topping to many a dish, and mixed with some of the grated cheese make a doubly nice topping.

 

 

 

Other things I freeze are surplus crops, when it Rhubarb season I pick and open freeze as much as I can....

 

 

 

...the same with Damsons or any fruit you can gather for free. 

 

Freezing your pickings means that you have them at their absolute freshest and that you can turn them into cakes, pies and meals at your convenience.  It also means you can buy things like Raspberries and Blueberries when they are in season and get some really good deals at the supermarket.  When it's 'Buy One Get One Free', why not have one now and one for the freezer or even one now and five for the freezer.

 

 

 

Something else I nearly always have is lemon and lime slices, whenever I have bought a net of lemons for a recipe or nabbed a good bargain at the end of the day I slice all the excess lemons or limes up and open freeze them, once they are frozen they are tipped into a freezer box and used for cooling down and flavouring my favourite sparkling waters or drinks.  (Absolutely delicious in Pimms.)

 

In the freezer at the moment I also have a large stack of 'stew packs', vegetables chopped up when bought at their freshest and when on offer and then mixed to form the basis of soups and stews. I don't blanch them or anything like that, simply wash, chop and then freeze, giving the boxes a shake an hour or so after putting them in the freezer to keep the contents free flowing.  I use them from frozen and simply cover with hot stock to start them cooking.  (If you thaw them out before using you will find that the potatoes go a bit brown but they still taste fine.)

 

 

 

And of course there is my favourite tip ..... making my icecube trays earn their keep.  Red Wine cubes.

 

 

Homemade pesto cubes.

 You could also freeze the last of a jar of bought Pesto if it is in danger of going off before you can use it. 

 

 All herbs freeze really well and usually at the end of Summer I strip any plants that will not last over Winter and freeze them, either open freezing on trays and then tipping into boxes or by chopping and placing in icecube trays with a little water.

 

 



 

Tomato puree, taken from an open tin. 

Each cube is equal to about a heaped teaspoonful of contents.

 

Of course now and then I actually make ice cubes with water, but some of them will have a pretty flower submerged in the depths to prettify a Summers drink.

 

I guess there are lots more tips and things that I process in some way and pop into the freezer without even thinking about it, but all these are off the top of my head this morning and I really do feel I have rambled on enough for now.

 

So, you never know what you are going to find in my freezer but one thing is for sure it will be as full as possible.  Once or twice a year we will eat our way through the food so we can defrost the freezers and while we are chomping our way through the supplies we are not spending any money on food shopping, so it's a nice cheap time of year, and yes that is this month!!  I always find it is an inventive period, we eat things we may have put off eating for a while and use them in ways previously not thought of, and sometines it's pretty amazing to see what treasures have been buried from sight deep in the depths.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this little recap of some of my favourite freezer tips, some of you will no doubt have seen some of the tips and photos on here before, but I know that recently there are lots of you who have just started reading my Blog and I hope this post helps in some way.

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thrifty Thursday

We're still deep into our How Low Can You Go Challenge and this month the emphasis is on emptying the large chest freezer.  To do this I am really emptying all the freezers of some of their stores so that all the remaining food will fit in the smaller freezer in the kitchen.  Then we will be turning off and defrosting the large one ready for moving in the New Year, saving us electricity as well.

Last nights tea was a couple of yummy pies each, with some of the last homegrown carrots tossed in butter with Pine Nuts, not the pies shown above, but very similar, made with a pack of Filo pastry found lurking deep at the back of the freezer, luckily there were two packs because the pies turned out really nice and we want to repeat it.  Lovely Hubby wants to sample the pies that I made for myself as he said they smelled delicious.  I had Cheese and Spring Onion and he had Steak, Mushroom and Cous Cous in Gravy.  Truly a meal made from leftovers.

And this is the first Thrifty Thursday tip .....  if you have any assorted leftovers put them in a pie or pasty and turn them into a feast, if they are dry leftovers make up a bit of instant gravy, onion gravy works with anything and is completely vegetarian.

My second tip is to make good use of your ice cube trays, although I am emptying the big freezer I will continue to use the smaller ones to help me save money and by using the very last of every bit of food we have I can do this.  This was a rather nice bottle of wine that LH was drinking, being a good boy (!!) he decided that he didn't want every last bit so I decanted the final glassful into an ice cube tray and once frozen the cubes were popped in a re-cycled butter tub.  Next time I am making a stew or casserole I can use one or two cubes to add an extra depth of flavour.

I also have cubes of Pesto still in the freezer, both Red and Green, made from our lovely Basil and Garlic grown here on the farm.  I use them whenever we are having a Pasta Bake.  A couple of cubes dotted straight from the freezer onto the bake before it gets popped into the oven adds a gorgeous fresh flavour.  Of course I could also simply thaw a couple of cubes out and simply stir it through hot pasta, with a sprinkle of fresh Parmesan style cheese on top you would have a supper fit for a king.

My last tip for this week is so simple, but when you actually sit down and work out how much it saves you, you would be amazed.  Save every useful bottle and jar you get to use for your own sauces, jams and chutneys.

At this time of year if you have pretty jars you can give them filled with your culinary or other creations as gifts.  If the jar is a bit bog standard pretty it up with a fabric top or simply a pretty ribbon with a handmade tag for a label.

Mayonnaise anyone?

If you don't want the recipient to know you are using old mayo jars simply give the jar top a quick rub down with sandpaper or wirewool and give it a coat of emulsion paint.   Match Pots are brilliant for this and can usually be obtained really cheaply from the bargain shelves at the DIY stores.

A few ideas that I use on a regular basis ......... I've missed Thrifty Thursdays ....... have you?

Sue xx

Thrifty Thursday

Take a tub, an ice cream tub, a margarine tub any plastic tub will do, best with straight sides though.  Use it for freezer storage,  fill with soups, stews, curries, blanched vegetables and delicate items pasties, pies etc.  They stack well and, providing you label them on the top and the front, you can find what you're looking for in seconds.  If you don't have enough tubs stand a plastic freezer bag inside your tub and then fill it, once the contents are frozen you can take out the bag and it will be tub shaped and you can stack that and re-use your tub over and over.  A full freezer uses less electricity to keep its contents frozen and frozen rectangles fill the space well, with less little pockets of air that could get warmer.

If you have too many tubs......

... cut the straight flat section out of the lid, and then cut each side section into a flat rectangle.

Then cut each rectangle into strips and you have plant labels, lots of lovely plant labels all ready for next Spring when you sow your seeds.  You can write on them with permanent marker and re-use over and over again by cleaning this off with a little meths on a cloth.

Better to do this than send to landfill where they will sit for years not rotting away.

A big bundle of labels from one icrecream tub.  I get about 25 from each tub, but you could make them narrower and gets lots more.

You could also make shaped large plant labels to go at the end of rows in your veggie beds, but this way you get less plant labels from one tub, the choice is yours.  But in my mind a nice looking veggie bed makes you want to work it more and look after it better, so treat yourself to big, decorated labels if that's what you want, after all they cost you nothing but five minutes of your time.

*****

Icre cube trays are brilliant for freezing small quantities of foods, here I'm about to freeze the Basil Pesto, I made a while ago.   After a week or so in the fridge, we hadn't eaten it all so I decided to freeze what was left so it would last us through the Winter.  The jar behind is a fresh batch, I was determined not to waste any of my lovely Basil plant that was starting to look worse for wear, so I made some more.

Once frozen tip the contents into a tub, label it well and stack it in the freezer.  These little cubes will keep us going for ages, because they are small they thaw quickly and are each approximately a heaped teaspoonful, so you can dot them over pizzas, quiches etc and have little puddles of lovely Pesto exactly where you want them in your finished dish.

You can use the 'ice cube' method of freezing for all sorts of things, another one is to buy the tins of tomato puree, much cheaper than the tubes, and then once opened put the remainder of your tin into ice cubes trays and freeze, each time a recipe calls for a teaspoonful of puree, simply pop in a cube.  Your herbs can also be frozen this way, preserved chopped in a little water or oil ready for use all through the Winter when your plants have died off.

Pop a raspberry, blueberry or slice of strawberry into an ice cube tray and top up with water, these look gorgeous floating in your glass of chilled water or wine and add a special touch to party drinks.

If you don't have an ice cube tray don't rush out and buy one, first have a think, in the past I've used the plastic liners from boxes of chocolates, the plastic trays that divide piles of biscuits (these make BIG ice 'cubes' but as long as they fit in your jug or hold the amounts you want frozen for your other things does it matter?).  Ice 'cubes' don't have to be cubed  shape!!

So start saving your tubs, before you throw anything in the bin ask yourself, 'What could I do with this?  There's usually something.  You paid for the product inside it AND you paid for the tub/packet/bag, if it goes in the bin your throwing away some of your money...

....THINK before you throw money away!!

Sue xx