Hello Dear Reader,

Don’t panic! I’m not eating falafels with marmalade! In this post, I’ll share how I made the falafels and marmalade!

I bought the falafel mix from Approved Foods and the mixes were three for £1. They are really caloric and a box doesn’t make many. I decided to pad them out, to make them healthier and to make them ‘go further’. My answer to everything is to add grated carrot. It makes any thing go further.

Firstly, you will need a falafel mix or falafel recipe. They can be expensive to make but you can decide what level of seasoning you want. I usually just add garlic, cumin and corriander powder to make them more affordably. I grated two carrots and one large courgette and mixed them into the falafel mix. I followed the instructions on the pack to make up the falafel mix first and then added the grated carrots and courgettes.

I mixed them well and then formed them into patties. We have ours burger size but you can make these smaller.

Costs - falafel mix 33p
2 Carrots/ 150g - 11p
Courgette - 23p

Total Cost - 67p and I made ten small ‘burger’ sized falafels - at 8p each! They are so lovely too!

I fry them in as little oil as possible. Anyone else finding oil increasingly expensive?

I make these in advance and warm them through in the mini oven. I make a mint dressing by adding mint sauce to yoghurt and sprinkling the yoghurt with smoked paprika. We will eat them for supper with cauliflower cheese. It makes me hungry just thinking about it!

And onto the marmalade.

I use the tinned prepared seville oranges made by Hartley’s. It contains prepared oranges, citric acid, water and pecitin. The oranges come from Spain. The tin cost £1.75 and I buy sugar for 80p a kilo and used 1.8kg. The total cost was £3.19 and I made seven large jars. The total cost was 45p a jar, which is about what a jar of ‘value’ marmalade will cost. This is 47% fruit in comparison to the 20% fruit that you will find in a ‘value brand’. Even Robertson’s marmalade only has 20% fruit per 100g. Tesco’s ‘finest’ has 30g of fruit per 100g. The nearest brand which has this much fruit is Wilkin and sons ‘Tiptree’ marmalade at £2.09 a jar. I think my 45p a jar competes with marmalade four times the price!

I used one tin of prepared seville oranges, 1.8kg of sugar and 425ml of water and stirred it all together.

I brought it to the boil and kept it on a rolling boil for fifteen minutes stirring all the time.

Whilst that was boiling, I sterilised the clean washed jam jars and lids in the oven by heating them for fifteen minutes.

I allowed the marmalade to cool for five minutes and then used my jam funnel to pour the marmalade into jars. I never test to see if it has reached setting point but it always seems to set. The secret is having the marmalade on a good rolling boil for fifteen minutes.

You can get perfectly good sticky labels from Poundland! I’m yet to buy any. Dearly Beloved loves toasted homemade bread for breakfast with marmalade. He gets through jars and jars of it and he prefers my homemade marmalade to anything I can buy.

I’m off to do some quilting and I’ll see you tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxxx