Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

[QUOTE=JackieO;
Just had a lovely recipe for banana bread sent to me which I will try and test out tomorrow and let you know what its like DGS Ben's GF emailed it to me so fingers crossed its OK as I'm not too good with banana bread for some reason but I do have some past their best bananas to use up
Right I'm off for dinner have a good evening and keep warm its blowing a hooley here in Kent at the moment
JackieO xxx[/QUOTE]

Jackie - here is another recipe for banana cake which is yummy and uses up bananas past their best! Enjoy!




BANANA CAKE

4oz butter or margarine
6oz caster sugar
8oz self raising flour
2 eggs
2 large or 3 medium, very ripe bananas
2 teaspoons honey
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the oven to gas mark 4; 180C
Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
Mash the bananas with a sturdy fork.
Cream the butter and sugar together and mix in the eggs
Add the honey and cinnamon
Mix together the two yellow sludges you now have.
Mix in the flour.
Scrape into the loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes then lower the temperature to gas mark 2; 150C and cook for a further 30 minutes.


I add demerara sugar to the top just because it looks nice!

:j

Hiya Folks!

I bet you are all looking at the title of this and going 'WHAT!????'
Let me explain - last year I moved a £3100 over to a zero % interest deal on a Nationw!de Card. Today the bill dropped through my door, as it does every month - I opened it and WhooHoo!! It said £900ish!! Why does hundreds sound far more achievable than thousands!! I have till November to pay it off and that is so doable!! Yea!!:j

BTW card was run up that high to finance the renovation of a house that I now rent out to tenants. I am not rich from it - I am a good landlord who actually does the repairs needed and does not put the rent up every 5 minutes.

Am also working at this MMM stuff and today while the oven was on I made a coconut and jam slice (a large traybake which cuts up into 12 big slices) and a liver and bacon hot pot! Tried to find a recipe for this but there wasn't one anywhere so I am joining Viv in putting it on here as it is very economic, and apart from some veg on the side is basically a one pot meal!

Enough for two:
one medium onion (diced)
2 back slices of smoked bacon (diced)
1Lb Potatoes (peeled and sliced into pieces about £1 coin in thickness)
6oz liver cut into thumb size pieces
1oz flour
salt and pepper
1/2pt of stock
Method:
1)saute onion and bacon in frying pan till golden (use !cal spray oil if dieting)
2)line bottom of a small casserole dish with 1/3 of the potatoes
3) tip 1/2 of the bacon and onion on top
4)roll the liver in the seasoned flour
5) put 1/2 the liver into casserole on top of the other layers
6)next layer - 1/3 potatoes - rest of the bacon and onion - then the rest of the liver
7) Top with the last layer of potatoes - slightly overlapping potatoes. Pour over stock
8) Put lid on casserole and bake GM 5 (Electric 150?) for 35 mins.
9) remove lid and bake for another 10 mins till brown.

Hope you enjoy this! It was yummy for my tea today and by my calculations about 70p per portion!

Another NSD for me as the liver was a YS from ages ago and pput in the freezer!

Ta Chez and Cheerfulness for your idea of trying the council - I think they charge round here but I'll give them a call and find out.

Lets keep on saving it!

Morning All,

I'm with your mum, Cheerfulness. It appals me when I see exorbitant asking prices for shoddy goods. I don't mind paying for good quality items if I can afford/need them, but some of the stuff is beyond belief. When we were in the garden centre yesterday my daughter-in-law saw some little drop handles on the bargain table which she thought she could use for her upcycling furniture projects. They had no price on them so we gathered them all up and took them to customer enquiries. I thought that they would probably be around 50p each and that we could possibly do a deal if we took the lot. They were £2 each and made of what my late husband, who was a cabinet maker, would have called 'monkey metal' - ie it snaps as soon as you look at it. A ridiculous price when you can pick up a set of brass or iron antique drawer handles for a fraction of that.

By the way, carolinerunner, I'm female last time I looked!

Here's a quote I heard the other day that made me smile, 'you never hear a man asking for advice as to how to combine marriage and a career'. I think it was one of the leading feminists from the 1960s, maybe Gloria Steinem?

Shamefully I'm not even showered or dressed yet. Will post recipes later.

Have a productive day, Everyone.

Viv xx