Monthly Archives: November 2014

Stir it up Sunday

Frugal Christmas
This post is sponsored by Aldi, who provided the ingredients for this recipe.


Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve already made my Christmas pudding, but these are for a Christmas lunch that I’m cooking for next week. The great thing about Christmas pudding is that you can make it week in advance. Stir it up Sunday is the Sunday before Advent and as Advent starts tomorrow, I’ve just made it.

To make these Christmas puddings you will need:

1 pack of Luxury dried fruit mix - £1.49 - 500g of dried fruit.
3 slices of wholemeal bread - turned into bread crumbs - this will be 110g - 6p



You will also need a quarter of a bag (125g) of soft brown sugar 25p

and one heaped teaspoon of mixed spice. 5p


a quarter of a pack of flaked almonds - 35p


One Bramley Apple grated, you can leave the skin on.22p


I just grate around the core. and add that too.

You will also need 110g of vegetable suet.50p (Not sold in Aldi but available elsewhere)


You will also need 2 beaten eggs 33p

and half a can of stout - 43p

I haven’t added much alcohol as children will eat this, the stout just flavours it and gives it a caramelish back ground taste.


You will also need to add 50g of plain flour 2p


The easiest part of making a Christmas pudding is that you add the ingredients and then just stir it altogether and that really is is.


This made two puddings and they really swell up. I used 1.5 pint pudding bowls with lids and I steamed them all day in my slow cookers. Once they are cooked, they can be stored in the fridge or somewhere cool.


I will add the photo of the cooked pudding later. For now, my house smells gorgeous!

Total cost - £3.70 for two puddings. Each one serves 8 people (it’s very rich you only have a small portion and it’s eaten with cream) That’s £1.85 per pudding and 23p per portion!!

Here it is after a few hours steaming. It will go back into the sealed pot and will be kept in the back of a cool cupboard until needed. People often make a Christmas pudding one year and eat it the next. In the shops, you will pay double for a year old pudding that’s considered ‘mature’.




Christmas is a time when we want something indulgent, really calorific and delicious. I just don’t think you need to over spend and you can have a delicious luxury pudding for a fraction of the price of buying one. They don’t take long to make and if you use your slow cooker, take very little energy.

On Christmas day, just bring the pud to room temperature and then microwave on medium for 6 minutes, check that it’s hot all the way through and serve with clotted cream, brandy butter or double cream.

Over to you Dear Reader, who else has made a pud on Stir it up Sunday?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Getting busy for Fund raising

Uncategorized
Hello Dear Reader,
A Christmas Fair is fast approaching so I’m making a quilt for the raffle. I’m also going to make some bags. It’s also a great excuse to enjoy some sewing.
I’m also making DB’s present although he knows the reality of my incredibly busy year and that he will probably get it after Christmas!

It’s one of my usual scrappy quilts and I’m sure it will go to a good home.
My Black Friday shopping plan didn’t materialise. Instead, I went to lunch with colleagues and had a cone of chips for a quid and a cup of tea at Captain Jasper’s for 60p. There’s something lovely about sitting on Barbican with good company and a mug of tea!
Now, I’ve a quilt to get on with.
Until tomorrow.
Love Froogs.

Making the most of Black Friday deals

money saving





Hello Dear Reader,

………………the best way to do that is to stay home and make do with what you already have! Alternatively, you could look out for what you need from Freeads, the local charity shops of Freecycle!

Remember this, nothing is a good deal if you can’t afford it and if you didn’t need it. Sorry to state the bleedin’ obvious, but there will be a whole lot of spending tomorrow with people buying because ‘it’s a bargain’ when they might not need it at all!

However, if you do really need something, then tomorrow is the best time to shop for it. Do some research tonight and you might just find what you’re looking for at much reduced prices, especially for electrical items.

I will have a wander in my lunch break as I’m after some new shoes and some outerwear but if I don’t find what I like, I won’t be too worried……………there’s always somewhere have a sale! If I have to buy something new, then I try as best as possible to never pay full price. I will, if I have time, also have a nose around my favourite charity shops on Cornwall st in Plymouth. I especially like the two £1 charity shops.

Any one else got any advice on Black Friday? Dear American readers will be able to tell sorry tales of shopping frenzy and how best to avoid it. Does any one know of some genuine reductions that people might find useful?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Red Pesto and Halloumi burgers with Brioche buns

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

A huge extravagant blow out!

No matter how careful you are, every once in a while we all want to just eat out, or buy a take away or in this case, eat some thing extravagant for supper. This was a use it up and stuff your tummy type of supper.

I have often seen brioche buns being used with burgers by TV chefs, I bought some for DB and he gave them a go. I make my burgers with just ground beef, salt and pepper and an egg to bind. I form them into patties and cook them without oil in a smoking hot frying pan. I like to let them char slightly then turn. We had most of a pack of Halloumi cheese and half a jar or red pesto. So my indulgence was dropping by the supermarket for salad and Brioche buns.

The result was superb, I had mine with salad because I can’t tolerate the after effects of gluten (chronic IBS, no need to say more) and yes my eyes were bigger than my belly and no I didn’t eat all three burgers.


It’s a bit indulgent and way over my usual budget.

Rolls 50p for 2
Salad - 89p bag
Beef for burgers - £1.25 (I bought 2 kilos for £5)
Halloumi - £1.60 a pack
Pesto Rosso - half a jar - 50p
£4.77!

 Ooops!

 That was last night’s supper, for tonight, we had the second steak and kidney pudding I made and froze with savoy cabbage and carrots. Hopefully one cheapie supper will balance out the expensive one.

Nice though!

Over to you Dear Reader, when you want an extravagant blow out, what’s your ‘frugal’ indulgence?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxx

Maple Syrup and Walnut cake

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

We like a cake at the weekend, it sort of balances out the privations of the week. I was sent some Clark’s Maple syrup, so I gave it a bash and tried one of St. Mary Berry’s recipes that I’d found on the net. My version is gluten free and if and when I get some maple syrup and make this again, I will add a tablespoon of oil, or another egg or more butter as GF cake tends to dry out. But, cooking is about learning and I’ve learned that I can’t just take a straight forward recipe and make it GF just by changing the flour.

To start you will need to warm the oven to 160C/375F/Gas 3 and line a deep round tin. I use cake tin liners.

You will need:

225g room temperature butter
225g soft brown sugar - you , like me, might have some left from making your Christmas cake,
zest of one orange - eat the orange, it doesn’t go in the cake,
4 beaten eggs
100ml of maple syrup
2 tsp of baking powder
350g of self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
50g of chopped walnuts or pecans.

With the exception of the ground nuts, beat all the other ingredients together, whether by hand with a wooden spoon or with a hand blender.

Mix in the chopped walnuts of pecans.

Pour into the lined baking tin and bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours - test with a clean dry knife, if it comes out clean then the cake is cooked.

Cool in the tin for a few hours.


The filling is butter icing flavoured with maple syrup and some grated orange zest. I used 300g of icing sugar blended with 140g of butter at room temperature and three tablespoons of maple syrup. Blend with hand blender or wooden spoon.

When the cake is completely cold, slice into three and evenly spread the butter icing, some of you will call this frosting, onto three layers. Decorate the top with more orange zest/walnuts or pecans. You could use whipped cream with the maple syrup and zest but you will need to eat it that day.


It was an indulgence but it’s certainly cheaper than buying gluten free cake. I couldn’t specifically taste the maple syrup but it certainly gave the cake a nutty, orangey sweetness that made a change from the usual carrot or lemon drizzle.

Over to you Dear Reader, when you want an affordable sweet treat what do you make for your family?

Enjoying the thrifty food blog? If you do, can you vote for it on the National Blog awards? Here’s the link Vote Here

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

How long would you last financially if…..

money saving, Saving money


Hello Dear Reader,

I read some sobering statistics yesterday that ‘Millions of Britons are less than a month away from living on benefits if they lost their job.’ I’m not just anti-consumerism at Christmas, I’m anti-consumerism all the time! Now many people may wonder why I live a life of ‘frugality’ when I don’t need to. I would argue that I do.

Let me explain why.

None of us can guarantee against financial insecurity. If the rest of the world’s finances go down the plug hole then we all suffer. Those with the least suffer first and always suffer most. Then the rest of us follow. Hopefully, we won’t get that far. Many people just can’t work their ways out of this as they either don’t have the skills or qualifications to earn any more than minimum wage. There are also the young people, including graduates who can’t find any work at all. I absolutely get the fact that times are hard and they only seem to get harder.

I live with that reality as I well remember DB being made redundant from one job, securing another only to have his salary slashed by 10% due to austerity cuts. We know from bitter experience that even public sector jobs are not as secure as they once were.

I also know that we are in the fortunate position to have downsized our home, paid off all our debts, insulated our home and installed a wood stove so we can heat it cheaply. However, none of that was a gift and we worked for every penny of that. I worked a year at night school to get into college, three years as a mature student who worked her way through uni and then went to work and trained on the job as a teacher. DB trained in his job and worked his way up, studying nights, taking courses and both of us did so when education was no longer free and I took out student loans so I could get to where I am today. We were frugal and thrifty then and we are frugal and thrifty now. We also did extra work and did everything from cleaning caravans, marking exams, tutoring students in the evenings and weekends

Here’s the thing. The cost of living has gone up 28% in the last few years and average earnings have gone up by 9%. Public sector wages have risen by 1%. So, we are all affected by the cost of living. The news might say that the economy is getting better but in truth, every one in the UK has got poorer over the last five years.

This year, I could have taken the money we have saved for a wood stove and new windows and spent it on a trip to somewhere hot, all inclusive and ‘let my hair down’. We could have eaten out each week, gone to the theatre and cinema, bought new clothes every month and bought expensive gifts. Instead, we took the sensible option to make our house draught proof and keep it warm for a lot less. This will pay us back over the coming years. We also chose to make an extra £350 a month over payment off the capital of our mortgage so we will have reduced our total capital by one sixth in one year.

Is my frugality a life style choice or a necessity? I would say it’s a necessary lifestyle choice. You don’t have to be on the breadline to decide to save money, live sensibly and make shrewd financial decisions. If I had done this before I would have a bigger personal pension and no mortgage by now.

We are doing all we can to keep our living costs low and our life style as comfortable as we possibly can. I menu plan and make sure we eat really well by cooking all our meals from scratch. I still get the very best deals on all the food I buy. We live carefully and make sure we get the very best deals on everything we ever buy and make sure we only buy what we need. If we buy what we want then we make sure we have carefully saved for that, our windows and wood burner being a case in point, is carefully saved for. A trip away for two days meant that we kept money aside for the diesel to get there, the lunches we ate when we were there and some spending money. If we hadn’t been offered the hotel stay for free then we wouldn’t have gone away at all. Frugality is the wisest choice we can make and continue to practise the best we can.

I’m going to continue to live on as little as possible for the foreseeable future and I advise everyone else to do the same. Why? My advice to everyone, who can do this, is to save what ever you can. If you are debt free and can, then try and make mortgage over payments. If you can make regular payments into savings plans, even if you think the interest rate isn’t worth the bother, then please try and build a saving habit. If you can cut back on spending then please try and do so.

Being careful with money is the reality that we all have to live by.

That means you and me will have to keep watching the pennies together.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx



Sticky roasted ham hock

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

A ham hock is sometimes called a gammon shank, or if it hasn’t been cured, then a pork knuckle. It’s the very lower end of the leg where it joins the foot. It’s a surprising amount of meat for very little money. A pork knuckle can be bought for around £2 each. One feeds two people or three at a push. I think it makes a great Sunday lunch.

I was sent a bottle of Maple syrup, although pleasant syrup it’s mainly carob syrup and didn’t have the dense flavour of pure maple syrup. Not that I’m complaining as real Canadian maple syrup is hugely expensive, so much so that I usually buy Dearly Beloved a bottle for his birthday! The Clark’s version is £5 for 500ml. I found a very simple recipe for cooking the ham hock in the maple syrup along with wholegrain mustard and a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. You could use runny honey instead and I think this would work really well with duck or pork.


I mixed 100ml of syrup with three tablespoons of wholegrain mustard, Dijon would also work well and two tablespoons of white wine vinegar but any vinegar would do.

I was cooking lots of other items so this went into the oven on low 120/gas 2 for three hours and I turned it in the sticky mixture every hour.

The meat was meltingly tender and just pulled away from the bone, the meat had a sticky smokiness about it.

There isn’t much waste and there was plenty of meat. I returned the shredded meat to the sauce and tossed it until it was completely coated. I’ve had to photograph with a flash today because of the low light levels and it didn’t photograph well, but I can assure you that it was sticky and really lovely. We ate this with a simple salad.


This would work really well in a hot sandwich , a kind of ‘pulled pork’.

I used more of the syrup to make a Maple Syrup and Walnut cake, you’ll have to come back tomorrow for that recipe.

Over to you, does anyone else buy cheap cuts? Where are you in the world and what unusual cut do you eat where you are?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xx

@street_bank advent challenge

Frugal Christmas



Hello Dear Reader,

Christmas and I don’t have a good relationship. I have a way of dealing with one sided over bearing relationships and I just bin them, it’s sort of what I’m doing with the aspects of Christmas that I just find, well……..over bearing and one sided. There are bits that I love: celebrating the real Christmas, time with my family and friends. The bits I can’t love, not even if I try is the relentless commercialism. Don’t think this means I sit in a cave with a blanket over my head, far from it. I take it in good humour and remember that some people love the frenzy of shopping and face stuffing. Each to their own and may they get on with it.

Across Twitter @street_bank is promoting it’s challenge that people ‘give-away-a-thing-a-day’ for advent. Now that’s a Christmas tradition that I could enjoy. It sent me around the house, into the cupboards, garden shed and attic to look for things that I can give away.

I found:

A bag and a half of coal,

Two set of curtains,

shoes,

books,

bags

storage containers

baking tins

washing line

place mats


and that was just a half an hour hunt round.

I thought of ways of leaving books on the bus, the train or in coffee shops. I thought of items I could take to work with the sign, ‘please take me’ This I thought, with a bit of creativity could turn into something really fun.

Now, even if you love buying pressies, or making pressies this will still involve bringing more stuff or new stuff into your homes so why not make the most of this and find things you can give away. You could also come up with some ideas of ways of giving things away. Why not use Twitter or Facebook? Why not instagram items and offer them? You could simply pass things into the local charity shop or take toys to a local play scheme or a local child minder who you’ve heard of or might know. Why not have a give away box at work and people could pop things in it.

I love the work of the Trussell Trust and it would be lovely if you could dig around your cupboards and drop items into your local foodbank collection point. Along with my usual posts, I will include a photograph of the item I’m giving away that day.

If nothing else, it’s a great excuse for a good clear out and it will help my head deal with wall to wall advertising, selling and the constant invitation to spend money.

On that note, I’m off to find 24 items to give away and think of ways I can give them away. How about you?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Simple money saving meals

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

I will be running another frugal food workshop tomorrow. I have worked with Cornwall One Parent Support for almost a year and I have loved and continue to love every minute of it. To answer your question, I do this free of charge, not claiming expenses and DB comes along every time to help as well. I prepare menu plans, shopping lists and work purposefully within the lowest costs so anyone can afford them.



I hope the six participants will go away with some simple recipes to add the a repetoire. The soup can be the basis of a stew, the pastry can be for quiche, pies, pasties and can be used for sweet or savoury recipes. The risotto can have any ingredients added to the stock and rice, a quiche can have meat or veggies and can use or not use cheese. I hope people go away after their children have eat veggies in a bolognese, in a quiche and in soup that cheap wholesome recipes are not just for adults and that children can and will eat most things if it’s tasty and eaten by the whole family.



I don’t mind if people never cook ever again and buy what ever they like but if they think of their budget and making it work. If nothing else, I hope people have a natter, a laugh and some good food with friends.


Here’s what we’ll all be cooking tomorrow.

Winter Vegetable soup with cheesy scones.
·
· 40g butter/margarine/3 tbsps oil
· 1 leek, sliced
· 2 sticks of celery, finely sliced
· 2 carrots, peeled and diced into 1-2cm pieces
· 1 medium parsnip, peeled and diced into 1-2cm pieces
· 1 medium potato, peeled and diced into 1-2cm pieces
· 2 teaspoons of mixed herbs
· 100g pearl barley
· 1.2ltr (2pt) vegetable or chicken stock
· 1tbsp tomato puree/squirt of ketchup
1. Saute all the veggies
2. Add the stock, pearl barley, herbs and tomato puree
3. Bring to boil and then simmer for 40 minutes. You can mash this with a potato masher to ‘hide’ veggies from children or just make it smoothers for them to eat.

One of my many soups - this one? Minestrone

Cheese scones
· 220g self-raising flour, plus a little more for dusting
· 50g butter, at room temperature
· 25g porridge oats
· 75g grated cheddar, plus extra for topping (optional)
· 150ml milk
Set the oven to 220/200fan/gas 7
Grease a baking tray
Mix salt and flour together
Rub the fat into the flour
Mix in the cheese – leave some for the topping
Blend in the milk until you form a dough
Cut out with a glass or cutter
Brush with milk and sprinkle with cheese

My buttery scones - my recipe tomorrow will be the savoury version

Cheese and Broccoli Quiche and homemade chunky chips
Chips, wash your potatoes, peel if you wish but I don’t. Cut into chunky chips, toss in three tablespoons of oil and sprinkle with salt.
Bake in the oven whilst you are cooking the quiche from the very beginning.
Pastry
280g of plan flour
¼ tsp of salt
140g of fat (half lard, half butter/marg is best – but if you’ve got one of the other, then that will do) – chill and cut into cubes.
Set the oven to 200/180 fan/gas 6
Rub fat into flour, add water a bit at a time, until you have a dough.
Chill for thirty minutes.
After 15 minutes - Set the oven to 200/180 fan/gas 6
Filling
1 onion – finely diced
100g of cheddar – grated
8 broccoli florets – steamed or cooked in the microwave
6 eggs – beatem
Half a small cup of milk
Pinch of salt.
Making the quiche,
Roll out the pastry and press gently into a loose bottomed pan
Blind bake for 20 minutes
Fill up with filling and bake for 20 – 25 minutes
Best served warm with chunky homemade oven chips.

One of my quiches, this one with bacon, courgette and tomato.


Lentil Bolognese with pasta. – serves 4 – you will also need 50-70g of pasta per person or 40g per child.
Heaped tablespoon of butter/2 tablespoons of oil
1 large onion – finely diced
1 leek – finely diced – wash thoroughly to get rid of sand/dirt
4 carrots, peeled and finely diced
¼ head of celery – finely sliced
Tsp of dried garlic or 3 crushed cloved
1 tin of tomatoes
100g red lentils
2 teaspoons mixed herbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Tin/half a tube of tomato puree
2 pints/1 litre of stock – 2 veggie stock cubes in boiling water
1. Heat some oil.
2. Saute the onions, carrots, celery, leeks
3. Add the rest of the ingredients.
4. Bring to the boil and then simmer on a low heat for 20 – 30 minutes.
5. Whilst the Bolognese is cooking, boil the water for the pasta and cook for required time, I like my pasta with a bite but the choice is yours.
Leek and Bacon Risotto – serves 4
Oil or butter to fry – butter works best but a marg alternative will do just fine.
½ pack of cooking bacon or 4 bacon rashers – cut into small cubes
3 leeks, finely shredded and well washed
11/2 litres of stock/3 pints of stock – use a stock cube per litre
300g of risotto rice – I have used ordinary rice when I haven’t got this but risotto rice isn’t expensive and is better.
50g of finely grated hard Italian cheese – I just use the supermarkets value version of this, if you don’t have it, just use any grated cheese. I buy hard Italian cheese as it keeps for months and a little goes a very long way.

Fry the bacon and leeks
Add the rice and keep stirring
Chuck in the stock and stir until all absorbed – I don’t add it a bit at a time, but of course, you can if you want. Nibble a bit of rice to check it’s cooked as you like – if it isn’t cooked enough for your liking, add a bit of water a bit at a time and keep stirring until you have it just the way you like.

At the end, stir in the cheese and a bit more butter.
I would eat this with some steamed broccoli or a pile of salad. I might even steam some broccoli and then chop it up and add it to the risotto at the end.

Tonight, has all been about shopping, writing recipes, bagging up recipe/goodies bags for people to take away and printing shopping lists and recipes. It’s hard work but so lovely to share thrifty healthy recipes with some really lovely people.

Over to you, what recipes shall I share at my next frugal food workshop? Also, here’s a challenge, could you share your budgeting, cookery or any other skills for free in your local community?

I’ll be back tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx


Navarin of Lamb with mashed sweet potatoes

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

Some of you already know that I’m one of the lucky few who lives close to a really affordable butchers. They are an abbatoir outlet. I buy a lot of something if it’s on offer. I had neck of lamb on the bone in the freezer. I did a ‘mysupermarket’ search and found most of the neck of lamb in the supermarket to be ‘neck fillets’ which are really expensive. Please save this recipe for when you find neck of lamb on the bone, it’s more affordable. If any of you can get to Tregeagles, based at Trago on the out skirts of Liskeard, then they often have all the cheaper cuts of meat.


I make my mashed sweet potato by microwaving two large sweet potatoes for six minutes. I wash, dry, prick them with a fork and microwave on full power. I then cut them open and scoop out the softened and cooked potato.

It’s a very simple way to mash. I also make ordinary mashed potato this way too in the microwave.I add the tiniest spoon of butter to my sweet potatoes.

I made the Navarin of Lamb in the slow cooker. Neck of lamb really benefits from a long slow and gentle simmer. Plus, it’s another excuse not to use my oven.

To serve 4

1KG of neck of lamb on the bone. In my simple opinion, meat always tastes better cooked on the bone.
Bay leaves, parsley and thyme. I had the bay leaves and parsley from the garden and used a dried sprig of thyme from my herb pot that I’d kept.
4 large carrots - peeled and chopped.
1/4 head of celery - finely diced
1 large onion - finely diced
1 tin of plum tomatoes
4 crushed garlic cloves
salt and pepper
2 mugs of stock - I used veggie stock cubes - mixed with boiling water.

Here’s the simple bit - combine the lot in the slow cooker. Set to low and go to work for the day. I cooked this for twelve hours.

Remove the bones - you will find that the meat will just slide off the bones. Fish around with a slotted spoon to check if you’ve left any bones behind. Pick out the greenery and then thicken with some gravy granules.

I will use what’s left, plus some added cooked potatoes to make a pie filling to stretch this even further. I’m doing well at loading my freezer with ‘ready meals’. It’s lovely to come home, especially on these long dark nights, to something really filling and simple to cook or even just reheat.

I’m now on the hunt for beef bones and oxtail. Any guesses what I will do with them?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx