Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday may be officially over, after all it was destined to run through September, but I've decided to keep going for as long as I can think of things that I do that I consider 'thrifty'. Hopefully they will be of interest and even of some help to any of you who needs to watch those pennies at the moment.  I know I am trying to save as much as I can and to lighten my load on the environment, and lessen my dependence on supermarkets.

This weeks theme is Luxury Frugality.

How can those words even GO together I hear to ask, well think about it, just because we have no money doesn't mean we can't treat our families and ourselves to the best in life that we can possibly manage.

Look at that homemade bread, made from pennies from supermarket cheap bread flour, sprinkled with cheap porridge oats and yet it looks good and tastes amazing.  You would pay a lot for that from your local artisan bakers or even from the supermarket.  The difference is your house will smell divine, warm from the oven the children would love a slice straight after school, slathered with homemade jam, made cheaply from forage blackberries or bargain end of day shop bargains. Result, no bag of sweets to buy from the shop, just the promise of a slice of 'mum's bread' when you get home.  You could make it even more exciting by getting them involved by making their own buns to eat

Truly a Frugal Luxury.

What's more luxurious than big chunky oven wedges, instead of buying a bag of frozen ones, in which there will be a dozen or so mediocre wedges in the bag, make your own.  If you scrub the potatoes well, you can leave the skins on, making them extra filling and even healthier.   Par boil them for five minutes then drain, pat dry, pop them in a baking tray drizzle with oil and a sprinkle of paprika, curry or simply salt and pepper and then bake for about 20 minutes in a medium oven, giving them a shake half way through cooking. 

 When my boys where small and times were really hard, sometimes I would thickly peel the potatoes I was using for homemade chips (after thoroughly washing them) and then use this 'peel' to make a big pan full of soup, simply adding a chopped carrot, onion and whatever I had to hand in the bottom of the fridge that needed using up.  When it was it was all whizzed up we had a bowl of nutritious soup for the next nights tea.  Two meals for the price of one!

If you have hungry mouths to feed and not a lot to feed them with, choose pizza, your base can be anything you have to hand.  The base in the picture above was two rolled out scones, just your basic scone mix (flour/margarine/salt/water), I made us two scones for supper, and rolled out two more even thinner to make small pizzas, topped with a couple of spoonfuls of tomato pasta sauce, some veggies and then topped with cheese.  Very filling.

You can use all sorts for your base, slightly stale bread is brilliant, pop it in the oven for a couple of minutes and then top with whatever you fancy, if you have buns, slice them in half and make small pizzas, children love to decorate their own so put all the toppings and the sauce in dishes and let them loose, you will be guaranteed they will eat their tea this way and if the pizzas have 'faces' even better and SO much cheaper and more nutricious than the ones you can buy ready made at the pizza counter.

Buy the 'French sticks' that the supermarkets often sell off cheaply at the end of the day and cut them into 'French Bread Pizza' size lengths before freezing them and you have a stash of bases just waiting to be used at a moments notice.

Have a stash of cheap custard mix tucked in your cupboard (currently 6p a packet), and a homemade quick sponge can become a luxurious pudding.

If you have only scraps lurking in the fridge, wrap them in pastry add a bit of thickened stock to any dry fillings, and you have yummy pies, that look good, smell good and will taste good too.  Let children choose their own filling from what's available.....baked bean pie.....why not!!  If they all choose different, stick their initial on top with pastry scraps and you will be able to tell which is which.

I hope you find some of these ideas useful, they saved my life (and my sanity) on many occasions and made what can be a worrying time (feeding picky children on virtually no money) tolerable.

For the price of supermarket value 'ready meals', you really can have good nutricious food on your table and not spend a fortune.  And really what is more luxurious than home cooked food made with love.

Sue xx

Rosy and Matilda

Are you coming in to play?

Where are you going.....

you won't get in there.....are we playing hide and seek then?

That's a good place under Mum's desk......but I can see you!

You can't leave now it's my turn to hide!!

You have to turn your head like this and count to 10.

See I've vanished bet you can't find me!!


Playtime in the living room yesterday.

Sue xx

Pinched from Hester

We've only just got our power back on after a day without electricity for 'essential maintenance', so I must apologise for not posting first thing this morning.  When we did have power we had no internet, now I'm back with full electric and on my 'hamster powered' internet (exceptionally slow) so as I have no idea what to post about this late in the day I've cheated and pinched Hesters post idea.  She pinched it too, we're a cheeky lot us Bloggers, I saw it somewhere else but I can't remember where....sorry!

Go on pinch it from me and lets keep it going around!!

A - Age - 51 years young.

B - Bed Size - King Size for us  and  Double for guests

C - Chore You Hate- Ironing, so I only iron Lovely Hubby work shirts!!

D - Dogs - 2 - Border Collie, Sophie and Jack Russell, Rosy

E - Essential start to your day - Water, Coffee, Oatbran Porridge (in that order)

F - Favourite Colour - Green

G - Gold or Silver - I love and wear both

H - Height - 5' 6"

I -  Interests - Growing veggies, reading, films

J - Job Title - Company Director

K - Kids - 2 sons,  Simon and Jason, 4 grandchildren, Liam, Shelbie, Kyle and Oscar

L - Live - Oxfordshire, I have also lived in Manchester, Eccles, Barrow in Furness, Askam in Furness, Ulverston, and Reading.

M - Mothers Name - Joan

N - Nickname - Lovely Hubby calls me 'babe' apart from that none!

O - Overnight Hospital Stays - a couple of minor ones and two when I had my sons

P - Pet Peeves - Dishonesty, lies, mob mentality, time wasting, screaming children that the parents give in to - be tough they won't scream for long!!

Q -Quote From a Film - 'I'll be back!!'  (Arnie in Terminator)

R - Right or Left Handed - Right

S - Siblings - One brother, Graham

T - Time You Wake Up - without an alarm clock it's ALWAYS 6.45am, but when LH's alarm wakes us up during the week,  it's 5am

U - Underwear - Usually black, unless you can see it through my top, then I'll change. I also have a good collection of pretty and frilly that you really don't need to know about!! 

V - Vegetables You Hate - Brussel Sprouts

W - What Makes You Run Late - Too much to do!

X - X-Rays You've Had - Foot, Teeth, Baby (Simon was breech)

Y - Yummy Food That You Make - Banoffee Pie, Garlic Bread

Z - Zoo Animals - Should only be there for conservation not entertainment, circus animals should not be there AT ALL.

There if you fancy giving this a go, let me know I'll be over for a read.

Sue xx

Car Boot Sale Goodies, a game and a question .......

I had a lovely time yesterday at the Car Boot Sale, something I've not done as a buyer at all this year.  I bought quite a few things, but nothing that didn't fit in with our ethos.  As well as the haul above I got myself three shirts, 2 check ones, one from M&S and one F&F as well as a new blue Monsoon one ....all for 50p each !!

So my purchases in the photo above are ...... a signed copy of  Country Notes by Ian Nialls, lovely reading for a dark winters night - £1.50, Beachcomber Cottage by Monty Halls (the story of the TV series) - 20p, a crime novel that Jason might like also cost 20p (if he doesn't it can go into our car boot box for our next sale and we'll sell it for 50p), 1 roll of gingham ribbon and one of lovely cream lace, both full - £1 each, a full dispenser of hand and body lotion - 50p, 5 copies of Homes and Antiques magazine - £1 the lot and a brand new basket for displaying my handmade cards at the Farmers Market - 20p ...bargain of the day.

So a total spend of £7.10, a brilliant morning browsing in the sunshine and chatting to some lovely folk that were sweltering in the 24 degrees that it had reached by 10am (the main reason we chose not to do a sale ourselves), I was home by 11am with my goodies and more than ready for a cold drink in the cool of the house.

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A game.....

...spot the odd one out ?

Yes, that's Archie the cat sat under the old apple tree this morning in Chicken World.  I'm not sure why ....  he doesn't chase the chickens, he pretends to ....  mock pounce and all that, but he's never once tried to catch one in all the time we've had them. It could be something to do with being chased by a similar sized, very angry cock pheasant the week before we got our girls !

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And, finally a question ...

This morning I discovered a 'new to me' Blog.  It's fascinating and so well written and it made me stop and think.  We all do the rounds reading our favourite Blogs day after day, not really having the time to trawl around for new ones or even having the time to dip into others sidebar lists of favourite Blogs.  Would you enjoy a peek into some of my favourite Blogs if I were to highlight one each week that I recommend as extremely good reading?  If there are a few yes's I will start this week, if you would rather find them for yourselves I will abandon the idea.

It's over to you.......

Sue xx

Off to the Car Boot Sale.....

Off to the Car Boot Sale in the next village, this is a Google picture but it's exactly the same layout as ours, with sellers on one side of the field and a huge car park area on the other.

  Time to set off for an hour or so all to myself wandering and browsing other peoples stalls for once, we decided not to do one ourselves this weekend as we are both exhausted and not on top form, so it's a well earned day off for us.

What will I find to buy in this 'Year of Living Simply'.......

... I'll let you know tomorrow.

Enjoy your day, I hope the sun shining on you too, it's still glorious here with temperatures over 27 degrees yesterday, we have to make the most of it Winter is just around the corner!!

Sue xx

Who knew......

Who knew ....... that cabbages had babies .... not me for sure.  That's the nice things about growing your own food there's always something new to learn.

This yucky looking cabbage was left in the cabbage patch seemingly no use to anyone, but closer investigation .....

... revealed it had little babies growing at the base ...

... and when opened up it was perfect inside.  The chickens got all the outer leaves (with their resident slugs and caterpillers) and we had the inner leaves shredded and made into coleslaw with onion, carrot, kohl rabi and mayonnaise ...... yummy !

The little babies, in total there were four, were lightly steamed and tossed in butter and pine nuts and were eaten with our homemade quiche for tea last night.

Sue xx

Thrifty Thursday

Well after missing last week what can I say ......... nuts to you!!

Yes nuts, lovely little packages of goodness that can cost the earth if you buy them in those little 'snack packs'.  But when bought in big kilo or half kilo bags when on offer at your local shop can last until the next offer and give you readily available healthy snacks and ingredients for your other recipes always on hand.

I tend to buy mine from Julian Graves a brilliant shop that always seems so quiet in my area so I can happily browse to my hearts content, and looking up this link for you I've just found out they do free delivery for orders over £50 from the online shop, something to remember for the future.

I stock up about every three months and buy bags of the nuts, seeds  and dried fruits that we love the most and some things that we may not like as much but that are little powerhouses of goodness who's taste will be masked by everything else they are with.

I tend to make up two mixes, an iron rich mix that's more for me and a general mix of nuts fruit and seeds that we both like. Lovely Hubby takes a small box to work each day to pop in his drawer ready for when he feels the urge to nibble, much better for him than nipping to the machine for a Mars bar or Snickers like he used to and so much cheaper.

Of course once I've got them in store I make other things too, a favourite is homemade Muesli, none of the cheap oat dust and a few dried currants that some supermarkets kid you is muesli with the main ingredient being cheap oats.  I start with a base of good Mixed Oats and add dried chopped fruits, chopped nuts, sunflower and  pumpkin seeds and Goji berries anything that we fancy really. We eat this either with milk or some homemade yogurt, really yummy. 

 

If you are in a rush in the mornings you can pop your dish in the fridge overnight with your muesli soaking in it's milk or yogurt and it will swell and go gloriously soft and yummy by morning. You can also use this muesli mix to add to your flapjacks and have really tasty chewy bars to just pop in your lunch box, so much cheaper than the packs of Muesli bars currently available.

Once I've made up the mix I fancy, it varies slightly each time, I use my jam funnel to decant it all into a storage jar and it sits on the work surface so we don't forget about it.

An ideal breakfast or snack, made to your own specifications.

As soon as you buy your big bags of nuts. seeds and dried fruit decant them into storage jars and leave them lined up in your cupboard, then when you have the urge to snack or make up a fesh mix they are all to hand inspiring you, and looking beautiful at the same time.  Get your jars the frugal way by saving all your coffee and sauce jars, or alternatively watch out at car boots sales for some posher ones,  there are nearly always a box of jars being sold for pennies that folk just don't seem to know what to do with.

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My other tip for today is toilet rolls, well the middles to be exact, if you're eating all the nuts mixes and muesli you will be nice and regular and have lots of these.....lol!!

Now is the time to start saving them for next years growing season.  They make wonderful little starters pots for all your seeds.  Simply cut each toilet roll in half and each kitchen roll tube into four and they are the perfect size.

Pop them in your seed trays and fill with compost.  Place one or two seeds in each one and give them a good water. 

When they are ready to be planted out pop the seed in its little pot straight into the soil.  By not disturning its root system you do not give it the shock that can stop growing for a while and they have their own little band of nutrient rich compost around them.  Excellent for the plant and easy for you.  As the plant grows and you water a couple of times the tube starts to break down and rots easily back into the soil.  I start ALL my seeds off this way now and have family and friends saving me all their tubes all year round, it saves a fortune on the little pots that you can buy and makes for easy planting. 

As I said last time I like to get full value out of everything I buy, so using the toilet roll middles this way is brilliant, I also use the large bag the toilet rolls come in as a bin liner once it's empty.  There's a use for everything if you just think before you lift up the bin lid and throw away something you've paid your hard earned money for!!

Linking this post to Angela over at Tracing Rainbows where you can find all the others that are joining in with Thrifty Thursdays on her side bar.

Sue xx

A sneaky peek at a teeny tiny selection of my cook books, that were hiding behind the nuts in the top photo.   I don't know about you but I LOVE noseying,  taking an interest in other peoples books!!

Click on the picture and it should get bigger.