It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

mummysaver

Eek! Coconut milk is £1.22 in my Mr T's! Must not be any demand whatsoever here in Mr T's opinion! Either that or the area has suddenly become a whole lot more affluent!!!!

Helzbelz - how about suggesting that you save your salary and try living off his salary? That'd cut his outgoings dramatically! I'm sure you could think up lots of reasons for this, saving for the baby, practising incase you get made redundant/want to stay home full time with the babe, saving for a hol? Keep going, eventually he'll come round!

Eliza - tapioca, euch! It's not the flavour, it's a texture thing, nasty!

Very pleased to find that children have unplugged everything before they went to bed, yeah! They are finally getting there!

cw18

mummysaver wrote: »

Eliza - tapioca, euch! It's not the flavour, it's a texture thing, nasty!

Ooooo..... I luuuurrrve 'frog spawn'.

The one 'milk pudding' I've been given that I couldn't eat was macaroni...... even as a child I didn't think it should be cooked with milk (and that was before I knew what macaroni was!)

elizabunny

cw18 wrote: »

Ooooo..... I luuuurrrve 'frog spawn'.

Me too! I don't know what it is, but I really love it. I can completely ignore the little beads in it . Funnily enough, speaking of textures mummysaver, I have never tried, wanted to try and probably never will try, Oysters. The thought of them just slipping down my throat makes me cringe with horror. My 2 grown up boys have hysterics laughing at me because they love them and they cannot believe that I, who brought them up to try anything, won't even give Oysters a chance. Yuk !Yuk !Yuk!

I think my love of Tapioca stems from my childhood when Mum had tins of it in her stock cupboard -my Dad wasn't keen on it but Mum and me loved it.

mummysaver

cw18 wrote: »

Ooooo..... I luuuurrrve 'frog spawn'.

The one 'milk pudding' I've been given that I couldn't eat was macaroni...... even as a child I didn't think it should be cooked with milk (and that was before I knew what macaroni was!)

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that! We used to get it at school - quite a few of our teachers had been sent there during the war and the old habits lingered on! Did anyone else spend an hour doing handwriting practice every day during the late 70s :rolleyes:

My mum used to make it as well, sadly it was horrid when she made it! She was good at making cakes though

I've just been wondering what to cook for dinner tonight, it's going to be mince based, and strangly I remembered a dish that a friend used to cook years ago, sort of chinese flavoured mince just served over noodles. We've not eaten it for years - just made me think that there are probably loads of things I used to eat that I don't now just cos I've got out of the habit. All this OS and money saving lark though seems to be bringing a lot of it back to mind, and when I remember various dishes they all seem to be quite cheap, no wonder my nan managed to feed so many of us, she was super frugal!

Does anyone remember Lamingtons? My great aunts used to give them to us, I hated them! dd2 made some in cookery yesterday and my kids all loved them! Funny, I remember it being a way of using up stale cake, but nowhere was there a mention of this in dd's lesson!

oystercatcher

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

Oystercatcher - coconut milk isn't the water inside the coconut (which I'm guessing is the thing you remember from your childhood), it's the ground white flesh of the coconut mixed with this water, and is therefore much more dense than the water on its own. Coconut cream is the same thing only made up with more of the solid matter and less of the liquid.

It's a main ingredient in loads of curry recipes including korma, tikka masala, and lots of Thai curries... among other things.

Oh I didn't know that, thank you.
I think I'll still pass on the coconut milk though, there's lots of other stuff to put in curry.

I used to love tapioca pudding as a child. I think I liked it more because so many people turned their noses up at it , I liked being different!!
I remember macaroni pudding being a bit 'watery' the milk didn't seem to thicken up like it did with rice or tapioca.
My mum used to make semolina with black treacle instead of sugar (black treacle was supposed to be better for us ) it was a bit weird but I ate it. I can't remember having black treacle tapioca though I wonder why she didn't do that ?

Oystercatcher

meanmarie

Helsbelz...OH and I have totally different ideas on what budgeting and buying sensibly mean...his attitude is 'if you want it and have the money, buy it'...drives me nuts! The best way that I have found to combat this is for us each to have our own 'pocket money'...I buy no carp with the food budget money and if OH wants to buy some it must come out of his own pocket money. I admit that we have no mortgage anymore, nor any dependants apart from the cat and dog, so this might not be suitable for you....trying to live on one salary until the baby is born might be another option but whatever way you decide to divide your money it must be fair to both of you...good luck with your conversion attempts, I have given up and now just go round turning off lights and heat behind OH!

Marie

Bargain_Rzl

How funny that people are reminiscing about macaroni pudding and Lamingtons! Both of these are things I'd never even heard of until adult life. I came across macaroni pudding through my ex-housemate (born in the 50s), who used to serve it up for Sunday dessert as it was something his mum had used to make. Lamingtons I thought must be an Australian thing, as I'd never come across them until an Aussie colleague (younger than me) starting bringing her home baking into the office.

Lamingtons - yum. Macaroni pudding - nice, but so stodgy - could barely move for the rest of the day after a helping of it!

elizabunny

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

How funny that people are reminiscing about macaroni pudding and Lamingtons! Both of these are things I'd never even heard of until adult life. I came across macaroni pudding through my ex-housemate (born in the 50s), who used to serve it up for Sunday dessert as it was something his mum had used to make. Lamingtons I thought must be an Australian thing, as I'd never come across them until an Aussie colleague (younger than me) starting bringing her home baking into the office.

Lamingtons - yum. Macaroni pudding - nice, but so stodgy - could barely move for the rest of the day after a helping of it!

Talking of stodge do any of you remember the suet puddings that used to be so popular. I remember Mum dishing up several variations. The savoury ones were Steak & Kidney Suet Pudding (still quite popular today) and a kind of bacon and onion suet pudding that looked like a huge sausage but tasted fab. I have often thought recently I might have a go at that (comfort food hm....). She also used to make a sweet, apple and sultana suet pudding -again it looked like a huge sausage and she used to wrap it in a cloth and boil it. It was lovely sliced up and served with custard. Oooooh I'm such a foody:o

mummysaver

Suet puds were some of our favourites as kids! We loved them! Funny but not one of us - me or my cousins - is overweight, must've been cos we were sent outside to play so much lol!

A really simple and easy, and perhaps a more modern version, is to make up a suet pastry (dumpling mix but rolled out) and top a pie with it, goes crispy on top and all dumpling-ish underneath! I did one for the kids a while ago with turkey leftovers that were in the freezer, some leftover veg, gravy and I made little stuffing balls to go in it as well - a roast dinner all in one!

Jam roly poly pud with thick custard - oooh! Real rib sticking food! Now that would prob be a good reason to get a pressure cooker, to reduce the cooking time!

BR - I think Lamingtons might be Australian, dd2's new cookery teacher is doing an exchange with her usual teacher, and she is from Australia.

I have some great old cookery books, and they have lots of delicious food in them, very simple and old fashioned compared to what we seem to eat now, but probably a great deal more seasonal and generally a lot cheaper!

cw18

I love S&K pudding, but used to get a Jam Roly Poly made with suet that was totally out of this world.

The loss of that was the one thing I hated about my move from primary to secondary school -- but my Mum and I found a cafe that did a wonderful version, and every couple of months we'd go shopping in that vicinity so we could call in for some as a treat