New to this and feeling very stressed!

meritaten

you sound so much more cheerful! glad you had such a good holiday!
If you look at the weekly shop and cooking as a challenge and make it fun - you will feel so much better about life!
I realised that a couple of months in to the miners strike. It suddenly dawned on me it was long term and I had better get on top of things and not letting them get on top of me! it got to be fun in a funny way............Could I actualy 'make' treats the kids were used to me buying for them? the standing joke in our house was ' how many different ways can you cook sausage?'. I spent hours browsing cookbooks in the library - wish I had the internet then!
I do have to say that it broadened my culinary skills, the kids learned to eat anything edible, and my Oh appreciated his dinners, (and still does).
the only thing I would say is that while bread has its place - its nutritional value isnt very good. it can also bloat you. and if you like to slather it with butter.............hmmmmm not very good price wise or health wise. much better to use veg, rice or pasta to bulk up meals with.
but well done so far!
oh and if using sausages for casseroles etc - dont leave them whole, cut them into chunks - it goes a lot farther!

kippers

A cheap meal is toad in the hole which my DD's and DH loves. I chop the sausages up so i don't use as many, as this way they always look like there are loads of sauasges even though you have used less and no one has ever noticed. It can be served with mash, veg and gravy or mash and beans...what ever you have left over.

jamgirl

silly question time
do you chop up the sausages before you cook them? or cook them first, chop them, then add the rest?

joedenise

Chop them up before cooking.

Denise

Mrs_Bea

Am cooking toad in the hole for tea tonight, thanks for the inspiration!
Although I think that my kids are fussy they actually eat more than I thought they did (I wrote a list) so this is going to be easier than I thought. Eg they will eat sausages in any form so I think I too will learn 1001 ways to cook a sausage!
Made a £3.50 chicken do 3 meals at the weekend and was really proud of myself (Roast chicken, chicken pie and then enough in the freezer to make a flan - pastry case filled with shredded chicken mixed with some chicken soup, topped with savoury crumble mix, the kids inhale this!)

Thanks again for all the support, could kick myself for not posting sooner!

XXX

Winged_one

You could stretch the chicken "flan" with some mushrooms, this is a favourite dinner of DD's (well, chicken, mushrooms and sauce made from condensed soup, with a puff pastry top, or esle just cooked in a pot and served with rice or spuds - and I use small bits of the sauce to make pies topped with mash for my gran to have in her freezer).

And once you have stripped the chicken carcass, don't forget to make stock with it - boil it up with herbs (bay, thyme, parsley), pepper (no salt), and veggies (carrots, celery, onion, middle of brocolli stalk etc). You can freeze it, use the veggies with some to make soup, and if being really OS, could use the (clean) peelings of the veggies to make stock while using the veggies themselves in another dinner (or put the peelings into a muslin and chop the veg "proper" so the extra goodness and flavour of the peelings goes into the stock but they are easily pulled out before using the real veggies for soup).

Bettie

Mrs_Bea wrote: »

Hello

We suddenly need to 'find' £2,500 for a new boiler/central heating repairs and so it is now imperative that I sort myself out because as a SAHM I have no income and I feel that this is all I can do to contribute.

Are you entitled to a grant for the boiler?

Mrs_Bea

We're looking into that. I think that at the most we would be looking at a £300 contribution which would be great but we would then pay the rest. Because you have to use an 'approved' installer from a very restricted list you have less choice about who to use and they may well work out more expensive in the end. Def worth checking though.

sexymouse

We replaced our boiler recently and would've been entitled to a grant, but as you say, no room for haggling as such, and we found it a LOT cheaper to use someone who wasn't on their list.

Bettie

Mrs_Bea wrote: »

We're looking into that. I think that at the most we would be looking at a £300 contribution which would be great but we would then pay the rest. Because you have to use an 'approved' installer from a very restricted list you have less choice about who to use and they may well work out more expensive in the end. Def worth checking though.

I was lucky enough to get all of mine paid for with the grant a few years ago and as it was warm air I think there was no choice as to who did it, they were the manufacturers recommended company and they were superb.:T