I need to spend in order to start living OS! Advice please

furndire

Have a look here for making your own bread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11929541&postcount=92

Mummy_Jo

I have a year 2000+ kenwood chef - which I do realise is a lot newer than yours but Kenwood have always been great at attachments...

What I am trying to say is that I got rid of my FP as I only ever used a few things on it anyway and bought the attachment that fits onto the Kenwood Chef. I don't know which model you have or if it is possible to buy these things for yours but it may be cheaper to check out ebay to see if you can find a processor attachment for your machine.

It would also take up much less space in your cupboard too. Check out Jumble sales/car boots etc as sometimes people try and get rid of these as they don't use them as much as they think they will...

Good Luck

brila

If you find a food processor, you don't need a dough hook specifically. I used a kenwood fp to make bread for about 7 years and used the normal metal chopping blade (the standard one) to mix and knead the bread to no ill effects. When that secondhand model died (after doing a loaf a day plus other stuff for 7 years), my next secondhand fp (kenwood again) came with a dough hook - but I honestly don't notice the difference. Try freecycle for an fp - it is the only kitchen gadget I have (no bm, slow cooker etc.). I find it very handy for dealing with bulk bargain veg, garden gluts, making soup, pasta sauces out of stuff "on the turn" etc. But it is by no means critical and maybe the point is to make do with what you have rather than spending when times are tight. Get the kids chopping and grating if you have a tough time with your hands and take a more "managerial" approach to home management!

Fivenations

I have trouble with my wrists so keep a stock of prepared frozen veg mixes , chopped onions, garlic and ginger in thge freezer, plus some decent mash powder for when I cant hold a knife. Tes, they cost more but are still cheaper than using ready meals. And then there are the galleys slaves, 17 and 19!

kezlou

sorry to hear about you losing your job.

I have an argos cookworks bread machine and it was very cheap and fantastic, it has 10 different setting inc dough, cake , bread and jam. I use it everyday and it is a god send and has saved me an absolute fortune. Especially when making HM pizza bases. I do also hand make bread but sometimes its just easier to get the machine out.
Food processor i have a very cheap one out of argos and is very good.But i only ever buy cheap ones anyway within my budget.
Ask on freecycle for a FP or a bread machine you'll be surprised. Oh another thing is get a slow cooker they are fantastic, again i have a cookworks one out of argos.
Look at carboot sales you might able to get some things of there.

This thread is really good and helped me out loads when me and my partner lost our jobs and were on an extremely budget, lets just say my children were never hungry with the recipes on there.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1129333
also join the grocery challenge it helps you focus and theres loads of recipes on there as well.
also look out for store reduction you'll be surprised at how you can get for very little money.
PM me of you would like any help.

good luck with it all.

randomer

Hurdy Gurdy I'm rubbish at this ......but meal plan+weekly shop works well. Use cash only.

If only I could stick to my advice.

Aril

I loved the bread that we made in our breadmaker but we've now had 2 break just outside the guarantee period so to be honest they haven't paid for themselves. I will now only get one if I am lucky to spot one on freecycle. I also have a slowcooker that I bought in the sale- again I love the results but find it only to be of use to me at the weekend when I have time to prepare the meal.
If you're thinking about baking maybe start with recipes that are straightforward [my kind of cooking] - when I first got going again I started with maltloaf, rockbuns and flapjacks to build up my confidence. Like many others I start a baking session by making a batch of biscuits and then double a cake recipe so it fills the oven. I then slice and freeze one of the cakes for lunches and it means I only have to bake every 2 weeks. Working fulltime I don't have the time to do more.
With regards to menu planning one of the most helpful tips I was given here was to write the weekly menu against the days of the calendar, then do the same for the following week etc and after a month hey presto you've got a month's worth of menus to start from which can then be tweaked as you wish. At one point I was trying to plan an entire month's menu at a time- it took me a whole evening and I was pretty brassed off by the end of it:D
Equipment wise- I use a basic food processor as this saves me loads of time when baking and I hate rubbing fat into flour by hand, I've got a stick blender which is fab for my bottom of the fridge soup and I treated myself to the burger maker from Lakeland as again I can't abide making that sort of thing by hand. I was thinking about getting the meatballer from there aswell for the same reason until my wise Mummy pointed out that an icecream scoop would do the same thing.
Aril