Hello Dear Reader,

Sometimes, it’s the most boring tasks that save us the most money. We do all the big things to save money. We lift share, budget and stick to it, buy second hand, keep all our household bills and personal spending to a minimum, look after what we own so we don’t need to replace, reduce our water consumption and we shop around and get the best deal on anything we buy. 

I still maintain that the best way to save money is just by not carrying any on a day to day basis but that takes planning. It means you have to have all your meals planned, all the ingredients, sides and everything for all the other meals. It’s too easy to pick up bits and pieces if you pop to the shops. It also means I need to take food and drink for work, the car needs enough fuel to last the week and I have the strength to say no if asked to anything that requires me spending any money. 

My shopping always starts with a stock take and I menu plan from what we already have and then I write my shopping list. This week, we had a huge shop as we’d run down supplies before we went to France and our shop came to over fifty pounds! It’ll normally be around half that but we do have three fluffies to feed and I cook everything we eat from scratch.

My little kitchen friend stayed with me today as I cooked for the rest of the week. Having a freezer full of homemade ready meals means we can come home from work and I won’t have much to do and no matter how tired I might feel, I’ll never reach for a takeout or call into the supermarket for a ready meal. There’s no last minute discussion wondering what we’ve got for supper, I’ve got it all planned.

I shop once a week and then shut my purse up until next Saturday, sounds simple enough to me, save money by leaving my purse at home. 

Here’s my ready meals: falafels, carrot and kidney bean burgers, lasagne and cottage pie. We had a chippy tea tonight of homemade chicken pie and chips, affectionately known as ‘fat Friday’ where we eat a fake away instead of a take away.

It’s, as they say, not rocket science, but with a bit of planning, you can just leave your wallet at home. Tough? What do you think?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

I love the concept of a Buddha bowl of delicious good grub. There might be a few lentil recipes ahead as I’ve got a kilo bag to get through. Feel free to leave some lentil ideas.

I just made dal, or a mild version of it.

1 cup of red lentils - add to a small pan with water to cover about 2 inches deep, they absorb all the water. Bring to the boil and simmer, scooping off any scum. 

1 chopped and fried onion, when it’s softened in some oil, add two cloves of crushed garlic, I chopped chilli, add the seeds if you want heat, I added a teaspoon of cumin powder too. 

When the lentil are completely  cooked, add the cooked onions, garlic and spices. Stir in a knob of butter too.

I chopped a courgettes, two cooked beetroot and a tomato, sprayed them fry lite and roasted them for fifteen minutes.

I also steamed some finely shredded spring green, after I cooked them, I tossed them in a splash of olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper.

I also cooked some brown rice.

There it is a bulging bowl of cheap and delicious healthy grub. Well under a pound a portion with plenty of protein in the lentils with a slight kick of spice.

Over to you, a kilo of lentils to use up and your ideas are welcome. Also, any ideas for hot Buddha bowls for the autumn? I know it’s still summer here but it’ll cool down soon enough.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx 

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve always got something in the freezer that I can add something to. I had a portion of bolognaise sauce. I cut two peppers in half, added my mince and tomatoes which I spiced up with some ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and topped it with slices of cheese. 

I cooked them at 180 for thirty minutes and had them with more cheapy Aldi salad. 

You could stuff peppers with anything. They are great with chilli, spicy rice and vegetables, mushrooms in a cheese sauce or spicy minced beef. 

I’m going to cut my shopping expenses so there might be some cobbling together, lots of cheap seasonal salad. Even the blandest of 39p iceberg lettuce tastes fine with some homemade dressing. You could add some crusty bread or serve with rice. The cheese was slices from a pack of 99p sliced Gouda, again from Aldi. 

I’ll now go and have a dig around in the cupboards and put together a cheap plan for the next week.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

I buy packs of cooking bacon from our local butcher for £1.99 a kilo. I turn the pack over and check to see if there’s big chunks of back bacon. I cook it in a very hot dry frying pan, without any oil and I cut off any fat although there often isn’t much.

Tonight we had big chunks of bacon, more like gammon than bacon, with mashed potato, loads of steamed broccoli and carrots, gluten free gravy to finish it off. Mine is weighed to check portion control. 

As I’ve weighed it, I’ve got 23p of bacon, 10p of potato, 20p of broccoli, 10p of carrots and 20p of gravy - supper for 83p and 590 calories and I’m totally stuffed.

Certainly not nutritionally perfect  but great for 83p.

See you tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

Salads these days are ‘complex’, full of grains from far flung lands, with sprouting seeds and exotic embellishments. 1970’s salads had lettuce, tomato and cucumber, in season and  from our garden and with a sprinkle of cress grown on the window sill in the kitchen. Ham came out of a tin, and cheese was cut with a wire on a board in the pantry. 

And……..there was nothing wrong with that!

My salad today hasn’t changed! Salad, boiled eggs, beetroot, ham, a tiny lump of cheese and a measured amount of salad cream……..far more retro than mayo. I keep my portions small, I get enough  and watch the costs.

Dearly Beloved’s salad is the same but much bigger with more cheese, ham and a bowl of crusty bread. Does anyone else get the bread in Lidl? The small baguettes are 19p and great for a man mountain who likes nice bread with everything. 

A parting shot of DB’s supper in all its 1970’s glory…….if we had any pickled onions, he’d have had a sprinkle of them to. Now over to you, who else watches portion size to stretch the budget? Who else loves old style salads? Anyone else have 1970’s food memories?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

It’s official! I love chick peas. I love them in stews, stir fries, hummus and falafels. Normally, I’d serve falafels with pitta bread but as I didn’t have any so I baked a mini-baguette…..you know the sort you buy in Aldi that you bake yourself. Once you open the packet, you can freeze the other one, which is what I did.

To make the falafels.

1 tin of drained chickpeas

1 tsp of each - chilli, coriander and cumin - all ground.

Black pepper and salt.

2 tbs of gluten free flour

1 egg

1 clove garlic - crushed.

Tbsp of dried parsley or fresh chopped parsley.

Add the lot to a food processor and pulse. 

Form into quenelles with two desert spoons and gently drop into shallow oil. Cook on each side until crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

I served it with home made salsa

6 finely chopped tomatoes

Small bunch of coriander - finely diced

1 onion finely diced.

2 green chillies- remove the seeds and white pithe and dice very finely

1 clove of garlic finely diced.

Juice of two limes. 

Salt and pepper.

Combine the lot.

Pile up on the open crusty baguettes.

Pile the falafels on top. I then have a mint yogurt trick, take a cup of natural yogurt and add a teaspoon of mint sauce. Add some salt and the last squeeze of lime. Pour on top of the falafels.

Here’s my gluten free version. 

It’s also lighter in calories without the bread. I just had a pile of salsa and falafels on top.

I had to have a dollop of mint yogurt on top.

It really was as delicious as it looked.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

I found gluten free hot dogs in Poundland but try as I might, I couldn’t find any gluten free hot dog rolls. Fortunately, there were plenty of takers. I just had a hot dog with a piece of gluten free bread……it’s not the same but in my case, it’ll have to do.

I fried two sliced onions, heated the hot dogs and turned the oven up to a high heat. I filled the rolls with the fried onions, popped in the hot dogs and some sliced mature cheddar.

I stuck them in the oven for five minutes until the cheese melted and the rolls were slightly toasted.

Just as DB likes them with ketchup and mustard, with his feet up and watching a movie. I haven’t been to the cinema since Notting Hill was in the cinema and even then we wouldn’t buy a hot dog. They charge a stupid price!  This cost, 15p per slice of cheese, 12p of onion and 15p of hotdog per serving. 42p each, not including supermarket value mustard and ketchup. 

I’ll keep my eyes open for these hotdogs again in Poundland as being gluten free, I could add them to all sorts of dishes. Over to you, what suggestions do you have to use hot dogs? 

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx 

Hello Dear Reader,

The remit for supper tonight was use up anything that could go off soon. That meant anything in the fridge that could go with anything I already had in the cupboard.  I just won’t waste anything and any menu plan of mine will be altered or adapted to make sure everything is used up. This would have been a risotto if I’d had arborio rice but I just had paella rice (so it said on the pack)

I used: an onion - diced

courgettes, red pepper, five portobello mushrooms - chopped into cubes

 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 

three cloves of garlic - crushed,

ground black pepper and salt. 

tin of chopped tomatoes,

tin of meatballs, 

chicken stock cube, 

Tablespoon of dried parsley, 

1tsp of paprika 

cup of risotto rice and boiling water. 

I also added half bag of spinach which just wilted as I stirred it through.
I heated the oil and sautéed the onion, mushrooms, peppers and courgettes until they had softened but not totally cooked.

Add the rice and stir until coated.

Keep adding boiling water, a bit at a time until the rice starts to absorb the water.

Add the garlic, paprika, stock cube and tinned chopped tomatoes. Keep adding boiling water and stirring as the rice keeps absorbing the water. When the rice is as soft as you like, sprinkle with parsley. I served mine up at this point, with the rest, I added a tin of meatballs as I’d been looking at the tin for months. 

It took minutes, used up what we had and it asked great too.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

Hello Dear Reader,

In Cornwall, the ingredients in a pasty are: diced steak, diced potatoes, onions and swede. Cornish pasties are made in Cornwall……made any where else then they’re just a pasty. 

Now here’s a thing, pasties have been around for centuries and in its day, Cornwall was an impoverished place where you ate what ever there was. Seasonal food, season veggies, seasonal fish and I don’t think they’d have been fussed what went in it if they had hungry children to feed.

So…….I’m sure anything went in a pasty and even now……put what you like in it.

We had cottage pie for supper and I played up four meals with two for tomorrow. I cooked too much cauliflower, broccoli and mixed frozen veg and have half a plan ful left. 

I defrosted some homemade pastry I had in the freezer, chopped some bacon and cooked that along with a diced onion. I popped six small potatoes in the microwave (they were tiny) for a few minutes. I then cut them into mouth sized pieces. I grated some mature cheddar and mixed it all together.

My hint for pasties that don’t fall apart when you bake them. Use beaten egg to glaze and before you bake the pasties in a hot oven, chill them on the baking tray, in the freezer for at least twenty minutes. Then bake for twenty to twenty five minutes. They should easily lift from the baking tray when the pastry is crispy underneath too. 

I’m sure some Cornish pasty lovers would think left overs in a pasty just isn’t on but I like to carry on the tradition  that you use what you have to feed a hungry family. 

Over to you, what’s the most unusual filling you’ve ever had or added to a pasty?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx