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

weezl74

ceridwen wrote: »

:silenced: I'll just nip off and take that plum out of my mouth right now.....and stew it up with honey to put on my breakfast porridge tomorrow:o

The voice is a bit more "human- like" in person honest

you sounded very human and lovely to me.

She's not like a 1950s newsreader folks, I think I just expressed myself a bit clumsily, sorry C...

ashia_2

Just have to say, Mrs M's bagels ROCK!!!!!!!! Although I can gaurentee you she didn't manage to lose that weigt the way I'm eating my tester (smothered in butter and phily).Needless to say I'm well impressed with how they've turned out, peanut butter cookies (with and without jelly beans) are now cooking, yay! Even got some jelly beans left to have with lunch (which will probably be more bagel, maybe test how they toast, yes thats right I'm testing). Maybe I should figure out how to get piccis on puter, I wanna commemorate my productive day off.

still trying to decide weather to go to Mr A for butter, 'snips and carrots...hmmm

weezl74

ashia well done on your batch cooking day! You're taking to all this frugalista living remarkably well!:T:T:T We'd love to see pics if you can figure it all out.;)

Lesley_Gaye

further to posts re sharp replies. I thought I would post this here, in the friendly zone!

I recently purchased (at VAST expense - maybe missing the point of money saving!!!) a couple of gadgets. One was an extension lead that we plugged the TV, dvd, video and Sky box into, then when we switch off the tv at night, everything is powered right down. Works well, no effort on our part and doesn't seem to upset the Sky box.

At the same time I got an EcoEye, which shows how much electricity you are using at any point. The first day, I went round the house, switching things on and off to see how much they use and got a few surprises. The iron causes a big jump, so now, instead of wandering off for 10 minutes or so, leaving the iron on, when I get bored , I make sure I finish it one go and turn the iron off.

I knew kettles used a large amount of power, and have been making sure we only boil what we need for ages now. But when I saw just HOW much it used, I was quite shocked. So we have now started using two 2 litre flasks. I boil the water up in the morning, and fill the flasks and they last us for hot drinks all day. Have started drinking more tap water, without filtering it first, since reading Weezl's musings on calcium on the USDA thread (still reading that one, 39 pages to go at the moment, so a way to go yet. GREAT thread, and LOVE this one too.)

Have been musing on power usage generally recently and wondered how you frugal lot save on it. We are pretty power conscious, lag everything, filled the cavities in the walls, did the loft, turn the lights out etc.

Has anyone explored the power usage on slow cookers versus Remoska for instance. Or using a slow cooker for one casserole for that day versus filling up the oven with lots and then the power needed to keep it frozen. I can work out how much an appliance is using when it is using power, but of course, no appliance uses power for the whole time it is on. Plus, when trying to work out how much it costs to keep a casserole frozen for, say, a month, that gets pretty complicated with how much you have in there, how often it is opened etc. And I can't seem to work out how to work out IYSWIM the fuel usage for the various cooking methods to use the most cost effective one

Any ideas out there on the most cost effective way?

System

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

Yesterday I took milk out of fridge & warmed it in MW with the dried milk, added a tablespoon of yog & filled he easy yo with water just up to top of red thing it sits on (there isnt a line on mine but that means the water rises to about 1/2 way up the container). Am now determined to get it right (not stubborn just focussed .....The only thing I can think is the yog being OUD & the temp so will use the thermometor this time. What temp should it be? Suggestions gratefully received

I'm no expert, and it is quite a few years since I last made yoghurt from scratch rather than buying it or using the EasiYo sachets, but in a spirit of "trying to be helpful but please ignore me if what I say is rubbish"...

(1) Are you absolutely sure that the yoghurt you are using as a starter is live? Some commercial ones aren't.

(2) If it really and truly is live, try using more of it, as Shaz suggests. I always used a whole small tub (5 fl oz, maybe?) per 2 pints milk (roughly equivalent to the EasiYo capacity) when I used to make yoghurt from scratch, but I can't remember if I was following a recipe or just found that those proportions worked for me.

(3) Have you got the EasiYo red insert the right way up? It is embossed with "This side up" on one of the surfaces. Then you just fill it to the top of the red thing with *boiling* water. And make sure the lid is on properly to retain the heat (although I can't imagine that it wasn't!).

(4) If you heated the milky stuff before putting it in the EasiYo, and used boiling water in the EasiYo itself, maybe the yoghurt got too hot? When you use an EasiYo sachet, the contents are stone cold, with water fresh from the tap. Maybe yoghurt-from-scratch-in-EasiYo-flask might work better if the mixture was cold to start off with, since the boiling water in the EasiYo will bring it to the correct temperature?

Can't think of anything else, I'm afraid, but good luck with the next batch. Third time lucky!

weezl74

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

...
Has anyone explored the power usage on slow cookers versus Remoska for instance. Or using a slow cooker for one casserole for that day versus filling up the oven with lots and then the power needed to keep it frozen. I can work out how much an appliance is using when it is using power, but of course, no appliance uses power for the whole time it is on. Plus, when trying to work out how much it costs to keep a casserole frozen for, say, a month, that gets pretty complicated with how much you have in there, how often it is opened etc. And I can't seem to work out how to work out IYSWIM the fuel usage for the various cooking methods to use the most cost effective one

Any ideas out there on the most cost effective way?

Hiya Leslie, very interestin....

shouts, kittie! Are you there hon?! I know she has done some brilliant calcs on all this, and saved a packet... I hope she'll be along to share her findings....:D

Lesley_Gaye

weezl74 wrote: »

Hiya Leslie, very interestin....

shouts, kittie! Are you there hon?! I know she has done some brilliant calcs on all this, and saved a packet... I hope she'll be along to share her findings....:D

Great, look forward to that. I thought there might be someone on here who had worked it out. You are such a clever lot.

Loved the Recipcal thing BTY Weezl, I have worked out calories for meals for years (perpetual dieter!), but using that, not only is it easier, it gives me a much broader picture of the nutritional value as well.

System

weezl74 wrote: »

Piggy pie updates:

Fab pictures! The filling looks and sounds delicious. Hope the pies live up to their promise Out of idle curiosity, assuming that some are intended for the freezer, will you be freezing them baked or unbaked?

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

Fab pictures! The filling looks and sounds delicious. Hope the pies live up to their promise Out of idle curiosity, assuming that some are intended for the freezer, will you be freezing them baked or unbaked?

thanks!:D

Since the pie mix ended up being a mix of raw and cooked, bacon=raw, brawn=cooked, I thought that my best anti-food poisoning chance was to thoroughly cook it all now with the minimum of elapsed time (!) and then freeze as they are. DH intends to have them cold, so that should be ok. He has just sampled one warm from the oven, and is very impressed (ODD choice of elevenses!).

I'll post a piccie of all the pies shortly...

House smells lovely, and I'm having one of those 'little house on the prairie' moments....

I used the jelly from the trotters in the pies, and I glazed and stuck the lids on with a little saved pigs fat.

Really NOTHING is going to waste here. (Well his teeth and bones are in the bin...)

DH thought I should post why piggy is a he not a she. He thinks it's amusing.

'because I shaved his cheeks and chin!' said I. Makes perfect sense in my head...

And on the topic of gender....:o

Erm avocet, are you a she or a he? I don't mean this to be an insulting question, but it's a bit clearer from others user names, and I didn't want to use the wrong pronoun and offend you!

Love Weezl x

System

weezl74 wrote: »

Erm avocet, are you a she or a he? I don't mean this to be an insulting question, but it's a bit clearer from others user names, and I didn't want to use the wrong pronoun and offend you!

I'm a she. Wife, and mother of two (teenagers). But don't worry - I wouldn't be offended if anyone did assume the opposite. That's what I deserve for choosing a deliberately ambiguous and unidentifiable user name!