Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

NualaBuala

rubytuesday wrote: »

NualaBuala here is a recipe for Spaghetti with lentil and red pepper sauce. Which I guestimate. I know peppers are often expensive now but I get them cheaply from the local Turkish shop and they are often cheap at the market.
Fry an onion and red pepper
Add tin of tomatos
Squirt of tomato puree
A few handfuls of lentils (enough per person)
Stock to cover
Bring to boil and then simmer until lentils are cooked.
Make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom (or is that my pans?!)
Serve with some grated cheese on top.

Thank you RubyTuesday :T That's on my list of meals to try - since I only have to feed myself, the pepper doesn't work out overly expensive and anyway, I like it so don't mind splashing out now and then!
And in my case I definitely need instructions to "make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom" ... it's not just your pans!

enjoyfinancialchallenges

I loved your frugal day out in London just the sort of day I enjoy magimum enjoyment at frugal expense, I laughed at your upmarket wee, the loos are lovely in the Savoy aren't they?

I'm still enjoying my megga challenge, so far Iv'e only managed 2 NSD becuase of my Direct debits etc but I'm starting to forget what shops look like. I went for a long ride yesterday using my bus pass to get rid of 3 books and 3 tops to a charity shop and did try hard to resist buying but I'm weak when it comes to baking things and I bought two biscuit cutters a cat and an aeroplane. I have two little grandsons who will enjoy having biscuits this shape. I make all my grandchildrens biscuits now and take a large container down to them when I visit which is only about once every four weeks. When we lived in Africa I made all my childrens biscuits and my son said to me you used to make ours so how about making them for my children, so I have ever since. I'm known as Nanny Biscuit to them:rotfl:
I got rid of a few boxes to the recycling wheely bill that should go today but still have heaps more, am trying to box up things that I will get rid of at a car boot sale as soon as I identify them so I wont get rid of all the boxes.

I did roast vegetables today for dinner with all my wrinkly vegs but it tasted fine with plenty of onions in, Iv'e liquidised the remainder for soup for tomorrows lunch. I'm pleased the way my eating my way through the freezer is progressing, so far though its not having any impression on the huge amount I'm storing and the meals are fairly normal to date nothing megga creative yet.

I keep saying I'm going to work out a new budget but havent so far but I really must get one letter writen before I go to bed tonight Iv'e just gone back to being known by my single name after being divorced in 1995. Last year it feeing extremely important to get on and do it officially, it does however cause a great deal of extra work notifying people, banks, pension offices, professional organisations and people I see each week but its done now and I'm not walking around with the name of a person I chose not to live with's name.

POppy cat is doing well and her antibiotics have nearly finished thank goodness, both she and I hated doing that time. Her eye is looking much better now so I hopefully I wont have to return to the vets apart from her annual vaccination in a couple of weeks time.

Its good to see so many new people joining this thread but it really does take ages to get up to date each day and if I dont I feel left behind when I do read it.

itsallinthemind

xnatalie81x Wowza, you are on a MISSION! You always sound very determined and focused

cw18 Woo Hoo! How brilliant is the 100 members!

ceredwin Out of my peers I only know one Christian. Not the majority in this day and age. Everyone I know is Atheist/Buddhist, Atheist/Pagan or simply Atheist. Polls show Christianity as being larger as people put it down out of habit or because they attend weddings and funerals

LolaLemon Ice Cream floats, yummy, memory avalanche or what!
Better write this teeny as I take up too much room lol. I'd go for sausage meat on top of puff pastry, layer of spinach, layer of mushrooms, sprinkle a bit of cheese, wrap and seal into a log shape and flip over. Slit the top a few times etc.

Also you can make little mini meat balls with the sausage meat/spinach and some herbs and possibly diced onion(egg and breadcrumbs would help), fry off and pop on some pasta that has been wrapped in either ricotta/cream cheese/creme fraiche. I bet this would taste extra nice if the pasta was cooked with a stock cube/boullion.

My mum used to break it all up and pan fry the rough small chunks and add it to a risotto, that taste would work well with a cup of spinach thrown in, plus onion and garlic.

Or make Cannelloni-Add broken up(roughly) cooked sausage meat along with spinach, ricotta, thinly sliced part cooked mushrooms, top with red pasta type sauce, cheese, breadcrumbs, wack in oven.

Applemint Can you share that please, I have some whiskey sitting here lonesome and a very sweet neighbour who would love this(need to pay her back for her walnut cake, yum!)

Decluttering Well done on the job :j

HelenPie Ouch re the car, as for the other money, why not record it as business expense...you can do this :T

Lynzpower, that is exactally the same quantities of ingredients that I use in mine after playing with quantities. If I may so, I now make the most excellent thin and crsipy pizzas

Lily_the_ledgent Ssoooo glad your phone is working!
Re Pine Nuts, be CAREFUL. OOD Pine nuts are toxic and will make you VERY ill. I do believe they were the feature of a very poor Martin's blog that I unearthed on google recently whilst looking for something else!

NualaBuala I have lots of lovely things I make, give me an idea of your fave ingredients. My meat loving ex did not even realise he had not eaten meat for a week once lol

Ruby Tuesday Your lentil pasta sounds scrummy, I've never used pepper in mine(cost) but I will grab them next whoopsie offering!

Dizzy Lizzy Hope they taste as good as they look. You are very naughty with the food pictures!!!

I can't remember who said yay to the tagine, I'll pop it on tonight as I must get on with my day early. Can't think how much of something I put in as I do it naturally! I got invited out last night by a lovely young man(too lovely so probably has no mileage, I do not 'do' pedestals/guys being in awe) for a meal and drinks all on him(he knows I am saving for the safespace) and so therefore I did not decorate one of the rooms, I have till 6pm so better get a move on now or it will not be dry by the time they get back!

NSD day in the end yesterday as I went out and not to co-op. Also have my JP and chilli for lunch, so that's good as there is not much fresh in really. Will pop to co-op on my tea break later about 8am when they open to get a few bits. Munchkins need a bit of fruit as we only have apples and bannanas left. Will hunt for vitalite too(thanks!!!). Will try make it a LSD and not be tempted by naughties(have a craving for grapes!) but will spend a bit as I think I will stock up on their amazingly priced Nouvelle, whilst I do not have children to carry/drag/coax home! I HATE shopping with my youngest, fruit/veg monster, wants the whole aisle in the basket. Small blessings it is not the junk aisle I guess!

Hope you all have a frugal but fun Saturday and that the highlight of your day is better than going to the co-op!!!

Erme

ceridwen wrote: »

Just clicked and couldnt find the angel card reading. I DID find a daily message from Eileen Caddy though.

NUALA

I've never been there - but it sounds right up your street if ever you get the chance. Errr...you would need extra clothing - as its up the top of Scotland. Don't know if earplugs are necessary? - as its near a military airbase and I would think planes from there fly nearby/overhead? It COSTS though.....:(

Does anyone know if it experiences noise from those nearby planes? I've wondered whether to go for years (at the height of the summer in my case.....:)) - but dont know whether I could or no because I dont know the answer to that question.

Well I live not far from Findhorn (well kind of enroute) so if anyone wants to visit for a day or two and maybe camp or something nearby you can stop off at my place (just one female bed for max 2 nights) or join couchsurfing and sure someone will put you up for free

It's kind of cold but then I used to live in the fens so used to it - but beautiful ..... Peterhead must be the coldest place in the country though (praise God I don't live there) though fab for charity shops

cw18 wrote: »

If memory serves me right (from about 25 years ago!), this means sewing a narrow seam with the wrong sides of the fabric together. Then turn the sewn piece right sides together and sew again so that the raw edges are caught inside your 'new' seam.

Hmmm..not sure...I am trying to make corners on gussets of bags...read something about a french seam..Understand this though. Any more simple info would be appreciated...Hugs

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Budget-wise, I'm going from payday to payday.

I don't get paid on one day every month but every 2 weeks in varying amounts so I do a spreadsheet over 4 weeks then divide by 4 and multiply by 52 to work out the budget for the year. I've just done a revised budget for e-cig (kind of) but no cigs and for some reason it's just under 3200..Obviously this doesn't allow for white goods breakdown but does include a £10 splurge monies per week. Can't recall if it includes £10 RDF monies a week. Is this enough? Food and misc is £25 a week. Think this is reasonable for me. Only thing that could be cut back is mobile which I've been over generous and set @ £40 a mth but this doesn't take into consideration cashback

Maybe not wise in the long term to have a mobile contract but I text alot. Not bothered about the phone. Phones go out of date so quickly as is. Don't need mobile net (what's a dongle for?) just unltd texts and a few mins. End of contract is June so we'll reassess then

Anyhow am now aiming to be debt free in 6 mths ...don't mind if I don't achieve this. Just think I've got to aim high even if I fail

Pray everyone is well

So tired yesterday..still catching up on posts...

E

Erme

apple_mint wrote: »

Does anyone have any ideas for improving the taste of ice-cream?

OH has taken up the challenge with relish. I asked him if he could down grade from his luxury ice-cream treat, thinking that he would go for a tub of plain vanilla ice-cream. He went for Tesco's Value Vanilla Ice Cream. Now, I'm all for giving things a try, and we regularly buy value items such as porridge oats, flour etc. However, I think we've gone a step too far with the value ice cream. Probably because we are used to the taste of premium brands which we treat ourselves to when they are on special offer or our own homemade icecream which we make with cream from the reduced shelf.

We both agreed that there was an aftertaste to the value ice cream which we don't really like. However, we are on a frugal living challenge and no way am I going to give up on a 75p tub (1 litre) of ice cream. :rotfl:It serves us right really, I knew that we should have gone down by degrees rather than straight to value :rotfl:

There is the potential I suppose to let it melt a little and pop it into the ice-cream maker with some other ingredients. I did think about soaking some sultanas and raisins in some rum and experimenting with a rum and raisin flavour - except we have no rum. We do have some whisky that I've been using in a tea loaf recipe but I'm not sure whisky ice cream is the way to go :cool:. I suggested experimenting with milk shakes to OH but he's not sure we'll be able to mask the after-taste.

It may be a case of continuing with the ice cream until we get used to the taste :cool:

Think it's time for my am espresso or an early breakkie or something cos concentration is abysmal

Anyhow I got an ice cream maker last year from a charity shop and I have a couple of good books I picked up I'd really recommend

Look out for a grey one with a yellow pic on the cover in the charity shops called 'Ices - the definitive guide - Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir' (paperback thin and big) cos it has some simply AMAZING recipes some of which are victorian and very frugal


Ice cream made easy is also good but not as good as the above. I don't need any more ice cream books now


Otherwise experiment with custard mixes...Okay not quite non processed but relatively cheap (not least when they're down to 6p each) adding a bit of cream possibly if necessary to water them down pre machine.


Time for this espresso....still off the cigs btw..update on my discoveries with the e-cig laters folks..

E

apple_mint

redglass wrote: »

Lidl's walnut ice-cream used to be delicious - I can't keep it in the house, because something like this always happens....:EasterBun

Thank you redglass, I'll take a look a look in Lidl's ice cream freezer. Without OH, as when he spots the Magnum's on offer he's straight in

JayneC wrote: »

Hello all,

Applemint - I'm sure there's a recipe for icecream that uses evaporated milk so much cheaper than cream and I did a lemon curd version which was luvverly ( I think it was one of Weezls recipe's - I'll try n find it)

Thank you JayneC I'd love that. I really should experiment more. I do with main courses but I tend to do the 'same old' for desserts. Usually a crumble and birds custard, banana custard or a bowl of ice cream. Room for improvement I think

apple_mint

Erme wrote: »

Anyhow I got an ice cream maker last year from a charity shop and I have a couple of good books I picked up I'd really recommend

Look out for a grey one with a yellow pic on the cover in the charity shops called 'Ices - the definitive guide - Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir' (paperback thin and big) cos it has some simply AMAZING recipes some of which are victorian and very frugal


Ice cream made easy is also good but not as good as the above. I don't need any more ice cream books now


Otherwise experiment with custard mixes...Okay not quite non processed but relatively cheap (not least when they're down to 6p each) adding a bit of cream possibly if necessary to water them down pre machine.

E

Erme thank you for making me think. :T:T

1) I have loads of older recipe books picked up from charity shops. I bet there are some ice cream recipes in there (thinking of the WI books I have that were printed in the 70s. I'll look out for the Ices book too.

2) I always have a tub of Birds custard powder in, so I can experiment with making a thinner version of that.

apple_mint

seriouslyfrugal wrote: »

Hi

Apple mint : the tea bread sounds lovley if you ever get the chance the recipe would be nice to add to my collection :)

I'm not very good with the multiple quotes button. The most I seem to be able to collect together is three, so I have to do replies in multiple posts

I'm sure I've missed someone off because I'm sure there were two requests for the Whiskey Tea Loaf recipe

Edited: to say this is lovely with a little butter or spread on top

Anyway here goes:

The recipe is a Delia forum post which I can't rewrite due to copyright but it is here:

http://www.deliaonline.com/community/yourrecipes/baking/Irish-Whiskey-cake.html

We tried it before Christmas when I decided not to buy a fruit cake and to be frugal and make a tea loaf (used to make them years ago) that was Christmassy (had alchohol in :rotfl:). It's huge and challenges my 2lb silicon loaf tin but is delicious. I made another one yesterday at OH's request. It lasts ages with the two of us as it is so large. We had to cut it in two to store it in two containers.

I think the ingredients fill more than a 2lb loaf tin. I put it into a silicon loaf tin and it expands at the sides . The mixture fills right up to the rim. I cook it in my remoska and after 45 mins I put a piece of foil over the top to ensure the top doesn't get burnt. The remoska keeps the cost of baking it down. 1 1/2 hours in the big oven is a long time so this is one which needs to share with something else in the oven.

On the ingredients front, I didn't have raisins so increased the currants / sultana mix. I also popped in some candied peel. On the next batch I won't have enough cherries left so I think I'll add some chopped nuts. I didn't have enough muscavado sugar so I made up the mix with demerara sugar. To be honest, I think it would be possible to proportionally reduce the fruit/flour/sugar to get the mix to fit in the loaf tin.

We have a large bottle of whiskey which has now been allocated to just this purpose. Should take us a while to get through, though my 3 tablespoonsful tend to be generous :rotfl:

mommyof4

Hi please can I join in. Taken me all this time to read all the posts, very inspirational, thanks guys. Havent actually done my sums yet, but am aiming for a food budget of £45 per week for myself, dh and two ds's, pus 2 dogs and 2, soon to be 3 cats. Do you think that is doable? Really need to frugalise this year and clear some debts (currently about £7000, yikes!).
Have dug out my inspirational books (my one weakness)tightwad gazette, nickel and dimed, etc.
Could someone please post a link to the sealed pot challenge? cos I'm a lazy mare lol.

itsallinthemind

Hi mommy of 4, when my ex was living with me and the children, we did £30 most weeks, as long as you have a good store cupboard £45 will not be too much pressure

Right, I having a cuppa before co-op run, taken me ages to move furniture and pop things away gr. I think this is what I do...I am a bung in and see person

Cheats Vegan Tagine (all small as my posts are REALLY long, sorry!)
Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil in a pan, fry 2 chopped medium onions for 5 minutes but not till quite golden along with *2 courgettes(slice along length in to 4 batons then chunk up, 3/4 cm thick aprox).

Stir in about half a teaspoon of ground cumin, ground corriander(brown type not green ) and cinnamon.

Quickly add a tin of cheapy tinned tomatoes and a tin of drained chickpeas, with 425ml of marigold veg boullion or similar. Add a handful of raisins if you like(I hate in food, children love!).

Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for say 10-15

Then add a small tin of peas or same amount of frozen

Then THE GROSS BIT(But this is store cupboard food!) you get your ketchup and and a massive squish of it! Tomato puree and a bit of sugar is not the same, The tomato ketchup gives it sweetness which just works lol. I just decided to try it when the dish was concieved and when I did it without it was not as good!

I serve with cous cous, just do the hot water method(although I use 200g cous cous aprox to 400ml water and 4 spoons marigold boullion as I love the stuff!), do not fry off with butter or oil first, just literally a big old table spoon of dried mint, squirt of jif lemon, then cling the bowl for 5 mins till the cous cous is cooked and the cheats tagine is. Almonds on the cous cous work well.

This serves 2 adults I think, if good eaters. Tastes better by miles the next day.* I always have courgettes, but if your bare fridge yield mushroom, aubergine or whatever that can be done instead.

If cooking for adults I add twice the cumin and some garlic, plus a bit of harissa paste or a bit of chilli powder.

If cooking for meat eaters I have just popped a chicken breast(or lamb) on the plate that has been spiced, or add already cooked lamb to their portion when I add the peas.

Love this as it only requires one type of fresh, or not quite fresh vegetable lurking in your fridge

Right...co-op...