50p a day til Christmas - healthily?! Weezl's next challenge...

Pooky wrote: »

I do my bacon joints this way too - I buy one of the value joints in Mr T's for about £4 and the four of us get 2 main meals worth each - normally with salad and mash, and a cheesy pasta dish, the rest goes in sarnies (can normally stretch this to days worth of lunches for all 4 of us). A great tip for the sarnies - once it's cooled, I mince it and mix with mustard and mayo and use as a spread - a little goes a very long way.

Mine was £3.83..... There was one slightly cheaper (and smaller), but it had a lot more fat on it -- so I figured it was worth paying the extra 20p or so for the extra meat I was getting.

No way I could get a second main meal from what's left for the three of us though -- let alone making the joint do 2 meals for 4 people And we each had a lot less than in the past, which did raise a couple of grumbles from the blokes as they could see some left on the chopping board !! But I think they're getting the hang of this cutting back, as neither actually asked for any extra :rolleyes:

What's left will get used 'as is' on bread rolls. I can't stand mustard (other than in my HM marrow chutney which I adore), and the only things hubby has mayo with are egg, tuna, or cheese and onion (but totally off the menu for him now anyway -- he's not allowed eggs that aren't 100% cooked through as he's a high infection risk)


The peas are now totally swollen and soft, but it'll have to wait to be 'whizzed' until the morning as hubby has gone to bed (in the room next to the kitchen). I thought I'd probably used too many peas for the liquid so have been keeping an eye on it in case I needed to add water, but it looks like I may not have used enough Guess I'll only find out for sure when I blitz it, so I could still end up with some pea and ham juices !! The one thing I know for sure is that the soup isn't going to be the garish and artifial colour of the tinned stuff -- and hubby seems to like the colour, so I'm going to have to hope he's prepared to actually give this a try

munchki wrote: »

Just wondering, could one of you very nice people try and send me a pm please? It seems all of a sudden i can send things least I think i can but it does not always show up in my box and I am not sure if I am even getting replies properly.

sent you a PM

Hi All- can barely keep up with this thread now!!! Anyway guys, I need help!!! My kids broke up from school for the summer holidays today and I am in a total panic about how I am going to keep on budget with the kids at home (and usually their mates)hitting my fridge like a plague of locusts- I've already made a load of homemade icelollies and stuff like chocolate cornflake cakes but they run in grab what they can and disappear again. I think I have teatime sorted as the kids know they have to ask to have friends round and give me warning, and turn up on time to sit with the family- its the lunch/snack/drinks/biscuits/cakes stuff that really frightens me- any ideas for hourdes of hungry teenagers would be gratefully received- I'm really worried as I could do this easily last year but since giving up my job because of ill health we are down to one quite low wage and really struggling, but I don't want the kids to be embarassed because their friends expect snacks and drinks and I am trying to budget- I feel so bad about this. I'd be so grateful for any ideas about cuttings costs over the summer-I'm really dreading it!!!

eselt wrote: »

Hi All- can barely keep up with this thread now!!! Anyway guys, I need help!!! My kids broke up from school for the summer holidays today and I am in a total panic about how I am going to keep on budget with the kids at home (and usually their mates)hitting my fridge like a plague of locusts- I've already made a load of homemade icelollies and stuff like chocolate cornflake cakes but they run in grab what they can and disappear again. I think I have teatime sorted as the kids know they have to ask to have friends round and give me warning, and turn up on time to sit with the family- its the lunch/snack/drinks/biscuits/cakes stuff that really frightens me- any ideas for hourdes of hungry teenagers would be gratefully received- I'm really worried as I could do this easily last year but since giving up my job because of ill health we are down to one quite low wage and really struggling, but I don't want the kids to be embarassed because their friends expect snacks and drinks and I am trying to budget- I feel so bad about this. I'd be so grateful for any ideas about cuttings costs over the summer-I'm really dreading it!!!

I tend to fill empty squash bottles with water put into the fridge to chill and then maybe a batch of muffins for snacks.

Unless I've invited them to stay for lunch then when my 2 come in for lunch everyone else either goes home or just hangs around outside. Without being "tight" can't be expected to feed half the neighbourhood especially if it doesn't get reciprocated.

ISOM - will have to dig it out. Not sure if it's still in my emails on my old PC or not, as it was my maternal grand-mother's recipe that I got my Dad to send to me.

I have it on ham rolls, chicken rolls, cheese rolls, with cheese on toast, with scrambled egg, with ham salad........

The huuuuuge marrow for my last batch (made 3 years ago, and still going strong) was donated by one of hubby's drinking buddies who has an allotment (but not much spare produce ), and I sent him back a couple of 1lb jars of the chutney in return. Think I'm a third of the way through my last jar now, but it's one of the big jars the pickling vinegar comes in so will last a while I also have a couple of jars that size that are just the juices left from when I bottled it -- I love that on chips if I'm not having gravy (use standard vinegar with gravy!)