Absence

Sorry I havent been around much lately, been a bit poorly and theres not been much to post about really. Just have a few things to share:

When my milk gets like this, and I dont have a car to get out to get more, there is a trick I do to spread it further. I should mention, if you have young children who dont eat well you may not want to do this. Mine on the other hand get through 2-4 pints milk a day, 2 blocks butter week and around a block of cheese a week, along with other various vegetables, protein sources etc, so i'm confident that theyre getting enough nutrients.

Make up a pint of powdered milk and add to half a bottle of regular milk.

Shake well and chill.

The first time I did this, we finished the bottle of milk, then I told my husband. He couldnt believe it. Powdered milk does have a unique/odd taste, and he is very sensitive to taste. But no-body could tell the difference. 

I stocked up on powdered milk from this place last week:

www.approvedfood.co.uk

They sell foods past their best before date (NOT! past their use by!) and i've ordered for over a year now, apart from a few issues where they have got the orders wrong, which were immediatly refunded, ive had no problems. The food is certainly very good and ive never had anything go bad. 

They currently have powdered milk, 1kg for £1.20. I have 5kg in my store cupboard and this trick has cut my milk costs from about £5+ week (plus all the extras that fall into the basket when you go for a top-up shop) to just £2 week on my once week shop. 

Another trick some of my adult friends do, is buy 4 pints of whole milk and dilute it with 4 pints water to make 8 pints semi-skimmed. I havent tried this as I dilute with powdered milk which contains extra nutrients, but if you dont have children it could be worth a try.

This is what I bought from Lidl this weekend. Butter I got through a lot of! I use it for all my baking and spreading on bread, frying pancakes in etc. I usually get them for the 98p block. This was half price at 69p at Lidl this weekend, so I filled the freezer. The cheese was £1.30 300g block. They actually had some cheaper mild cheese 1kg for £3.79, but I got the mature as I need to use less of it for flavour, so it worked out cheaper for me. This will be grated, re-sealed in the packets and frozen.

As I'm poorly, I was looking for convenience food that I wouldnt normally use. The pizzas are a pack of 4 for £2.49. I can top them with extra cheese and vegetables. And the bockwurst sausages are 84% meat, so really decent and at 30% were about £1.50. They tasted like giant smoked hot dogs. I can throw a part baked baguette in the oven and serve giant hot dogs with some grilled onions. Very cheap and easy meal.

Thanks to a very good friend teaching me, I have started crocheting.

This is my first dish cloth, although my daughter has currently stolen it as a blanket for her Teddy. And i've also made a hairband for her to keep the hair out of her eyes while it grows out. My next project when I get some more wool will be to make her a little meeting bag. 

B is for butter......

Were doing the letter B as a focus on schooling this week. Slowly working through the alphabet. So I was really please I managed to pick up these at sainsburys last night! 

49p each is a bit more than I try to get them for (usually go for about 10p!) But they are bit 600ml pots and enough to make a decent batch of butter for £1.50. Kids will be making this and posting a picture to their letter B poster. Also making some fresh bread to go with it. And I have (yet more!) bananas to use up. So were swimming in the letter B this week. 

This is really easy. I happen to be fortunate enough to have inherited a Kenwood mixer form my great grandmother. If you dont have one, a normal hand mixer would work. Or you could get an old jar and let the kids go nuts for a while.

Pour it into the bowl, and switch on.

Simples.

It will whip up like over-whipped cream, like this:

Then it will go odd and grainy like this:

Keep going!

I scrape down the sides a few times as the solids tend to migrate up the bowl.

You will turn around to do something, then turn back and this will have happened:

Literally, it goes from weird grainy cream to butter that fast.

The solids, are butter.

Dont you dare throw the liquid away, that is buttermilk and makes the most amazing scones.

You may need to squeeze the butter a bit to get the liquid out or rinse it if you like.

750g butter, 1 1/2 pints buttermilk from 1800ml whipping cream

If you want salted butter use a tiny bit! Seriously, a little bit goes a long way here, i used 1/2 teaspoon sea salt. Mix it up. I use foil to wrap it up and freeze.

Ive never had butter go rancid, even though it is from reduced cream. the buttermilk keeps for about a week. I would recommend freezing the butter you wont use within a couple of weeks-month just to make sure.

Wash out your cream pots and use them for storing the buttermilk.

Also picked up some reduced herbs last night, I'm still waiting for mine to grow on the windowsill, so I always grab fresh ones when theyre reduced, they add very bold flavour to meals which is important if your cooking with less meat and on a budget.

 Chop and freeze in freezer bags, or you can freeze in ice cube trays with a little water and then pop out and into freezer bags.

These are the chickpeas going into the curry tonight, they have literally doubled in size after being soaked overnight:

This was less than 1/5th bag of dried chickpeas I bought full price at Tesco for £1.09. Compared to a can which would give them same yeild for 65p odd, its clear to see you get a lot more food for your money.

One last note:

Got the ingredients for the wine last night. I doubt I will be doing this today as I have terrible backache. But basically the first rule you need to know, for wine kits like this or wild fruit wine - Steralise, steralise and steralise some more! Bacteria is your enemy, in winemaking. Everything needs to be scrupulous. You can use fancy steralising tablets or boiling water or bleach. This kit is a 5 gallon so I will be using my plastic fermenting bucket, which can handle boiling water. For wild fruit you will most likely be using a demi-john which cannot (glass!) so use bleach. On the left is a 29p tesco value bottle of bleach which i will be using for my steralising and I will probably need another bottle later too, seriously, a LOT of steralising.

Sugar!  need 4kg for this kit, and the 1kg bags were 99p bag, this 5kg back was £4.50, so I went for this one to save 50p. You can get proper wine making sugar, it is about 6 times the price but supposedly produces a better wine. Ive tried both and honestly cant tell the difference, so I use bog standard granulated cane sugar. 

Hope that helps some, I'm off for lunchtime now :)

rubber chicken risotto

This is one of my rubber chicken meals. My last 1.5kilo chicken did 1 lunch for hubby and 4 teatime meals for 4 people. This is the fourth.

I had half an onion and half a pepper to use up from the chutney. 

some leftover cooked chicken from roast (dark meat)

Chicken stock from roast

rice, about a handful per person. (I used proper risotto rice, just because I have some I bought cheap, ive never made risotto with normal rice but apparently it can be done.)

seasoning - stock cubes, salt, pepper, garlic.

white wine - I used vermouth 

I added some special mushrooms too (no, not that kind! special chestnut mushrooms, theyre gorgeous and aldi has them on offer this week 59p!)

I'm also doing a baked camembert starter with rosemary and garlic.

So, step 1, fry your onion and garlic. I used butter to make it richer, but you could use olive oil.

Step 2, add your mushrooms and extra veg.

Step 3, add your lovely home-made chicken stock.

Step 4, season with salt, pepper etc.

Step 5,  Add more stock after the liquid is absorbed, I needed an extra pint, and keep stirring.

While thats cooking....

Unwrap camembert and place back in wooden pot. Slice and stuff with garlic slivers and rosemary.

Bake for 15 - 20 mins while the risotto is finishing. And it should look something like this:

Add your cooked chicken

Stir through and your done :)

Im serving mine with garlic bread (34p baguette) and topped with grana padano cheese.

Its official!

First washing line of the year! Spring is officially on its way! *happydance* This also means i'm getting a cleaning bug. The sun starts to shine and suddenly my cozy winter home seems very stifling, must declutter!

We have chicken risotto tonight. This is actually the remnants of last weeks rubber chicken (I froze the leftovers), the last of the dark meat and stock. Will post my haphazard recipe later.

Tomorrows tea is going to be a chicken and chickpea curry. I was going to do potatoe and chickpea but decided we really do have enough meat stocked in the freezer to splash out 2 whole chicken breast fillets on a curry to keep the carnivore husband happy. Chicken breasts are premium meat. I get them when I can afford them on offer, I pay around £1 per fillet. Im defrosting 2 for this curry and bulking it out with chickpeas, which go very nicely in curry. Canned is almost twice the price of dried! I always keep a couple of cans on standby because they are instant. But since i'm defrosting the meat, Ive got two handfuls of dried soaking overnight.

See that wine kit in the background, well get to that later.

Added to this the mango chutney, popadoms, cucumber and mint yogurt I will be making, Naan breads, no-one is going to miss less meat. Or even the absence of it if you wish! 

This is the first time i've made this recipe for a curry paste. I have been buying the Pataks curry paste's, but I have a lot of onions from the special offer at Lidl a few weeks ago (34p kilo!). It is just a base, add to it your own spices, yogurt, coconut, tomatoes etc. Anything you fancy. This is enough for 4 meals to feed 4 people. Keep a stock in your freezer to pull out and defrost for a quick meal when your too tired to do anything elaborate.

So you will need:

1kg onions

ginger (I dont have any fresh so im using a paste)

About 6 cloves garlic

2-4 green chilli's

carton of passata

4 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp tumeric

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/2 cup chopped coriander

1 tsp salt

Start by chopping the onions and frying them well. And I mean really well! They should look something like this, sticky and caramelised.

A this point i turned around to see grace had bitten off half a chilli! Didnt take long before she realised it was probably a bad idea and she should have listened to mummy when I told her to spit it out!

So, after spending half an hour cuddling a severly drooling toddler:

Blend the chilli's, garlic and ginger with a couple of tablespoons water

Add to the onions and cook for 2 mins.

Then the spices and cook for a further 2 mins. On the subject of spices, if you can get to an asian/indian store they sell them in big bags like this: 

These were 99p for 400g! as opposed to the £1.25 for 15g of Schwartz spices you get at tesco, you do the maths! Its a big trek into the middle of the city to get to the shop for me, but I only have to go once a year to stock up.

Anyhow, if the spices start sticking to the pan add a bit of water. Then add your carton of passata, 250ml water and 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander and simmer on a low heat for 15mins, the liquid will reduce.

Leave to cool completely before freezing and you will be left with a home-made curry paste, with about 1/5th the amount of oil of the shop bought versions. Jazz up, spice up and use however you wish to make awsome quick home-made currys.

I froze them like this:

In silicone muffin cases, so when they are frozen solid I can pop them out and put them into a freezer bag, I just hope my next batch of muffins dont taste like cumin! 

Mango chutney

Aldi had Mango's on offer for 59p this week. Not quite as cheap as i'd like, but cheap enough for me to get a mango chutney buzz. Here is the recipe:

2 Mango's 

3 apples 

1/2 red pepper 

1/2 onion 

ginger to taste (I used about 3 tablespoons grated) 

1/2 cup white vinegar 

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons curry powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

Chop up the apple, mango, onion and ginger, chuck into a pan with vinegar and sugar.

Boil for about 20mins, it will go soft and start to congeal a little.

Sorry couldnt take a picture at this point as my little 'darlings' had me distracted!

Add the spices and stir through, simmer for another 5mins.

Pour into sterile jam jars and seal.

Tada! 1 and 3/4 jar of chutney. A spoonful of this stuff can jazz up the most boring meal. These are traditionally indian of course, serve with popadoms, or as a side to curry, ontop of naan etc. But this goes well with almost any meat! Paprika roasted chicken drumsticks? leftover roast chicken cobs? Roast Pork? With fried rice? Possibilities are endless! You could add garlic to the recipe, or cardomom pods, cumin seeds, paprika? Go wild! ;)

A note on jamming: The 'correct' method is to always use new jars and water bath them to seal. I am a bad girl. I dont do this, I re-use jam jars, I pour boiling water into them to steralise them (after making sure they are already warmed up!!!) and I pour the hot contents into the jars and pop the lids on and they seal themselves! I always check they are sealed, if they dont seal, then into the fridge to preserve and use up.

A reluctant gardener

I have this awful habit. It happens every year. I get a fabulous idea to 'grow my own' and start off well, then I dont keep up with it and all my hard work goes down the drain when my little seedlings die. Soooo...yet again...I have decided this year will be different (ha!). Here are my little pots of seeds!

And some BIG pots of herbs

So I will be putting my progress here, call it accountability if you will. I must keep up with it or else the world will know! And I cant wait to show off my homegrown produce (hopefully!) and the recipes I make with them.

I have a good selection started off, possibly far too early (should be around March I think?!) But thanks to my previous unsuccesful attempts at gardening I have all the seeds and equipment, so no enitial outlay of cost apart from the compost. Im fortunate enough to have a decent size garden with a veggie patch, although it is rather overgrown and needs sorting, which I promise I WILL do soon. Last week I harvested the worlds tiniest leeks! They had somehow miraculously survived the winter, and I have also found some 3 foot!!! (yes!) high purple sprouting brocolli! Although no brocolli (boooo!) But the plants are there so hopefully next year I may get some.

So this is the start of my blog. I currently have 2 payments left, and then I am £400 a month down. So I will be posting (hopefully daily!) my money saving tips, tricks, recipes etc. Some may work for you, some will probably not. If I help a few people I will be very happy! We all have different abilities, different circumstances, different families. But we are all pulling together trying to cope with this system of things. Stay strong! Xxx

Coming up - Mango chutney!