……………………………………….when you don’t have all of the right ingredients!!!!

Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I would share one of my ‘haven’t got all the right ingredients recipes’. Here’s my version of creamy tomato and ‘marscarpone’ sauce for pasta.

You will need
pasta for 2
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons of oil - use what you have!
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of dried basil
a good squirt of tomato puree
1 tablespoon of garlic granules or 4 crushed cloves of garlic.

Here goes! Get in from work…………….hungry! Put the water to boil to cook the pasta. Whilst you’re doing this, empty the dishwasher and put the dishes away. Rinse out the dog water bowls and re-fill them whilst you let them out in the garden to run around barking at pigeons.

Whilst the dogs are barking, open the window and shout shut up and ferret around in the pantry for some onions and garlic. Peel and finely chop and heat some oil in a pan. With the heat on low and the dogs mithering you to be fed, fry the onions and garlic and then add a squirt of tomato puree. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes along with a spoon of sugar and some salt and pepper.

Whilst this is cooking, gather up the laundry and put a load into wash. Remind husband that he needs to check out the woodstove that he promised to look at. Heat some meat balls in the microwave and grate some parmesan…………..cheap in Aldi and you’ll only need 10g between the two of you.

Remind yourself that you never have Marscapone and get some cream cheese out of the fridge (65p a tub in Aldi) and stir the last scrape of it through the tomato sauce to use instead. Serve with pasta, meatballs and Downton Abbey on the digi-box cross legged on the floor on a Monday night.

I thought I would share one on my imperfect recipes on an imperfect night where anything hot and tasty will do. We all cook with children, or grandchildren, or dogs and cats around our feet and we all have to remember that our best is good enough.

We’ve all cooked and dabbed TCP on a grazed knee with a small child balanced on the draining board; we’ve all cooked with baby sick on our shoulders and we’ve all cooked whilst texting teenagers to actually come home and eat on the same day as the rest of their family! None of us are Nigella with a fridge and pantry full of the right ingredients and we all make do with what we have.

Now it’s your turn Dear Reader. I’ve come clean and told you how I make do and juggle pets and the kitchen and I’m sure you have tales to tell. What do you substitute? What do you juggle whilst cooking? I’ve listened to piano practice with a bowl of spuds that I’m peeling on my lap and listened to reading practice with a young child reading Biff and Kipper stories to me whilst I’ve cooked Sunday lunch. How about you?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

I tried this very thrifty recipe for the first time and I had to share it with you; it’s spicy, zesty and delicious.

Ingredients - Serves 2/3

6 pork sausages (or similar amount of Sosmix or Quorn sausages) - £1 - Aldi
50g of pasta per person - 1p (I buy 10 500g bags for £1 from Approved Food)
100ml of chicken stock (or 1 chicken stock/vegetable stock cube and 100ml of boiling water) - 2p
zest and juice of 1 lemon - 23p - Aldi
large pinch of chilli flakes/one chopped chilli/1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder - 1p
250ml of natural yoghurt - 30p - Aldi
1 small bunch of finely chopped parsley/2 tbsp of dried parsley - (I was given a bunch from Dad’s garden)
salt and pepper to season

Total Cost - per serving 78p per person.

Boil the water and add the pasta - leave to cook.
1. Remove the skins from the sausage and cut into small pieces.
2. Heat a non-stick pan with a teaspoon of oil.
3.Cook for 5 minutes or until browned all over.
4.Add the stock to the sausage meat and let bubble - stir for 2-3 minutes until liquid has reduced right down.
5. Add the lemon zest and juice, chilli flakes and yoghurt.(If it starts to separate - add a teaspoon of butter and stir through)
6. Drain the pasta and return to the pan.
7. Add the sausages and sauce, stir the parsley through the sauce and pasta.
8. Serve immediately. (This is very filling and I couldn’t eat all this, hence my suggestion that this will feed three)

It’s spicy and yet refreshing from the lemon juice and zest. The recipe is from “Good Housekeeping - Family Meals for a fiver” - I made it for a lot less than that! I’m a great believer in eating well, even on a budget. Let me know if you try this recipe as I think it’s a real winner.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Pre heat your oven to 200C/gas 6
Divide your pack of sausage meat by four.
Use a flour coated board.

Flatten out each portion of sausage meat.

Shape around your egg.

Firm with your hands until they are completely sealed.

1. Fry the onions in a little oil until soft.
2. Combine the potatoes, spinach and garlic.

Add the onions and half of the grated cheese and combine.

Roll out the pastry and place the fillings in each pastry case before you trim the pastry.
Top with the rest of the grated cheese.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until completely golden.

These are big and fillings and totally delicious and a complete meal in themselves.

Of course, the obligatory closeups - aren’t they lovely?

They smell wonderfully cheesy and garlicky.

Measure out the amount for each gingernut with a teaspoon.

Form into a ball by rolling between your hands.

Place on a greased baking tray - I always use greaseproof paper.

Flatten with your fingers, a fork or a flat knife.

Bake for 15-20 minutes and then cool on a wire rack. Do not put them into the tin until they are completely cool.

Store in an air tight tin. They may not last as long as you think.

When they are completely cool, they are hard and crunchy. They smell and taste buttery and like the most expensive cookies you can buy in a posh bakers but these are 3p each and have five ingredients.

Let me know if you try these - they are so much better than the ones you can buy.

I’ll be back sooner than usual,

Love Froogs xxxxxxx

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

Hello Dear Reader,

Sorry I didn’t get round to chatting to you yesterday. We had guests for lunch and has such a lovely relaxing afternoon. They brought me some rhubarb from their garden and I thought I would share with you how to make rhubarb chutney. I know I’ll have mostly lovely American readers asking me about canning or freezing this. It doesn’t need ‘canning’, pressurising or freezing as the process of making chutney means that the fruit or vegetables are cooked in vinegar which inhibits the actions of food spoiling moulds. When I make jam or chutney, I also pour it hot into hot (out of the oven hot) jam jars and screw the lids straight on. The cooling process also creates a vacuum (see! we do use our O level physics!) which, along with the vinegar, high level of sugar and acidity stops the jam or chutney from growing mould.

We eat chutney with cold meats, cold meat pies and I always try to make some to eat over the winter period. I like my chutney well cooked and reduced to a viscous consistency that will stick to my ham sandwich. I thought I would mention this whilst I’m here; Poundland are selling huge bags of dates for £1 - if you buy them now and keep them until you can get some free windfall Bramley apples, then you can make some lovely date and apple chutney really cheaply. I’ve got mine and stashed them away. Also, keep your ketchup bottles, your jam jars, coffee jars and containers as the autumn glut will be with us soon and you’ll need to freeze fruit and veg and make jam and chutney to keep you going through until spring.

Rhubarb Chutney,

You will need a wide deep saucepan or jam pan - look out for these in charity shops which is where I found mine for a fiver. It’s the best £5 I’ve ever spent. You will also need 5/6/7 jams jars - it of course depends on the size of the jam jars. You will also need the lids.

Sterilising jam jars

Wash them well and remove the labels if you can
Place them on a baking tray
Set the oven to the lowest setting
Place jams jars and lids in oven whilst you make the chutney.


Ingredients.

900g/2lbs chopped and washed rhubarb,- free
900g/2lbs sugar - I use cheap white granulated. 72p
1 450g bag of sultanas - 85p - Aldi
1 pint of vinegar - I use supermarket cheap malt vinegar - 44p
25g/1oz salt 1p
25g/1oz of powdered ginger - I got mine from Aldi and it came in a 35g pot - 79p and I used all of it.
1 onion finely chopped - 17p
1/2 teaspoon of paprika - 2p - I buy in bulk.
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper - 2p

Total £2.17 - 60p per large jar.

(Thanks to the Dear Reader, who pointed out that I’d missed the sultanas - I’m sure you could use raisins instead)

Stir the lot together and place on the heat - Bring to the boil stirring occasionally.

Turn down the heat and let if plop away and stir occasionally. It doesn’t have the sugar content of jam and doesn’t burn or catch so easily. I managed to get the ironing done whilst waiting for this to cook

Leave it plopping away to itself for about an hour or longer if you want it dark and sticky.

Above, you can see the chutney half way though the cooking.

I just placed the jam jars on a tray and put them in the oven.

The finished dark and sticky rhubarb chutney.

I use a jam funnel and a ladle to pour it hot into the hot jam jars. Hold the jars with oven gloves and be careful that the chutney doesn’t splash you. Put the lids on straight away as they cool down andcreate a vacuum that will help keep the chutney. It will last for years and is best eaten three months after you have made it.

You may have noticed that I’ve catalogued my recipes and you can use the tabs at the top to find ‘Frugal Recipes’. Every time I write about frugal food, I’ll make sure I do my best to make the recipe and instructions clear for you and include a link in the frugal food section so you can easily find the recipe again.

I’m getting into the swing of being a summer break housewife and finding loads to do. I’ve pulled out my sewing machine and I’m working on some unfinished quilts. This time of year always has me preparing for winter and our home made quilts keep us cosy on many a cold night. Thanks to everyone who has taken time to write to me and my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has offered me fabric to keep me quilting.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

I’m no gardener but I do grow herbs in tubs on my patio. I also have mint that has self seeded all over the garden. I’m not sure if anyone outside of the UK (and probably Oz and NZ) are familiar with mint sauce. It is the condiment to have with cooked lamb. I relented and went to the butchers and bought a half leg of lamb (needed a bleedin’ sit down after paying for it) for £5. It has to have mint sauce and this is how to make it.

Pick the mint and wash it. Remove the leaves from the stalks.

Sprinkle with a small amount of salt and three tablespoons of granulated sugar.

Finely chop. Pivot the tip of a very sharp knife on the board and hold the pointed end down, use the handle to move across the mint in a chopping movement. Drag the mint into the middle to incorporate any leaves that haven’t been chopped. Keep chopping as this will take about ten minutes.

You want chopped mint and not a pulp.

Add to a jam jar and add four tablespoons of boiling water and four tablespoons of vinegar. Any vinegar will do, I just used cheap malt vinegar. Put the lid on and shake. It’s best to make the mint sauce a few hours before you need it or at least an hour.

Once you’ve made it, taste it. Does it require more salt or sugar to suit your taste?

The vinegar and sugar will preserve this for months if the jar was full. No need to add heat or do anything else to it. Ha! Contains salt, sugar and preservative!

Yesterday, we visited my parents who filled carrier bags potatoes, green beans, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, radish and lettuce all grown in their garden. As usual, our roast dinner will be stretched to four meals, two of which we will eat tonight and two we will eat tomorrow.

Who else makes their own mint sauce? Is this a British thing? Do Americans eat roast lamb with mint sauce? I’m sure you’ll let me know.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxx