How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

lucielle

Lostinrates, have you got any good buuny recipes? My DS1 goes ferreting and I've yet to find a nice recipe.
Thanks
L

butterfly72

lostinrates wrote: »

And the broad bean hoard has me dreaming of middle eastern style dishes with mince meat and rice and yogurt.

I watched Hugh FW on tv tonight.. he made broad bean humous. It looked really nice. Jamie Oliver does a broad bean on toast recipe which is lovely. Maybe you could google them?

We're not bothering with broad beans on our allotment this year.. we've not have much luck for the past 2 years thanks to the black fly.

ChocClare

kidcat wrote: »

Have found some chicken livers in the freezers that were destined for a chicken pate starter at next dinner party - but as we are moving first am wondering if theres something else I can use them for.

When I lived in France I was served chicken liver stroganoff - sounds revolting but is actually very nice (and cheap). It was a bit of a student standby, but nice enough to eat if you aren't a student.

Pick over your chicken livers and discard anything manky. Chop into bite-sized pieces. Fry off an onion, then stir in the chicken livers and brown for a couple of minutes. If you have a glass of brandy, now is the time to chuck it in. If you haven't, don't knock yourself up about it. Sprinkle a spoonful of paprika and stir in for a couple of minutes. Now tip over a tub of creme fraiche or yoghurt (plain ) if you haven't got any creme fraiche. Stir to heat through but do not allow to boil. Serve on a bed of rice. One tub of chicken livers should make enough for two people. If you have more people, then you could chop up some bacon and fry that off before putting the livers into the pan, as that would make it go further...

lostinrates

lucielle wrote: »

Lostinrates, have you got any good buuny recipes? My DS1 goes ferreting and I've yet to find a nice recipe.
Thanks
L

Sometimes, but not often, I make a ragu from them. DH loves bunny pasta, but its not my favourite. Worth a try though if you have loads: very genuinely Italian. You can make lapin au vin, instead of !!!! au vin, but again this doesn't do it for me much (I think of it as being a way to use up our chicken boys I've dallied over dispatching). I do them in beer sometimes, not bad..

TBH, my favourtie thing to do with rabbit is an old fashioned light stew, with barley and lots of ironic carrots.

But I can have a recipe book trawl and find something new to do with one of these at least and tell you what it was like if it helps!:)

lostinrates

re chicken livers: a very mse supper with some nice bread toasted then the chicken livers flash fried the pan with some finely chopped onion or shallot then the pan deglazed with madiera/marsala/sherry, and a little cream. With some rocket or watercress and a glass of wine...feels much posher than it is. One of my fav suppers.

lostinrates

butterfly72 wrote: »

I watched Hugh FW on tv tonight.. he made broad bean humous. It looked really nice. Jamie Oliver does a broad bean on toast recipe which is lovely. Maybe you could google them?

Thank you, I will, both sound delicious and ust my sort of thing.

lucielle

I've tried them in the slo-cooker but it wasn't for me. Rest of the family thought it was ok. Seems a shame to just feed them to the ferrets. He also gets quite a few goose breasts and I never know what to do with those.
L

anguk

kidcat wrote: »

Does anybody have any brilliant ideas for use as a peg basket, mine snapped again this week so I have nothing and looking in shops they were £3 minimum and not very large?

greenbee wrote: »

Make a pegbag kidcat

I've just made a peg bag out of a tea-towel this evening! I had a lovely Cath Kidston tea-towel that I've never used because OH tends to wipe the worktops down with them, :mad: all of my tea-towels end up stained.

I just folded the bottom of the tea-towel 2/3rds up and stitched the sides, the top 1/3 folds over to make a flap. I then made a long strap with ribbon so it can go over my shoulder like a tote bag for when I'm hanging the washing out. It looks a bit like this but with a flap:
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/22918/Vintage-Floral-Peg-Bag

You could stitch the topflap down the sides, cut a small slit in the middle of the top to slot a coat hanger through so you can hang it on the washing line.
http://www.homesanddreams.co.uk/gingham-heart-peg-bag-53-p.asp

grandma247

Silvermaid It added up to £208 for 52 weeks so that is one of the quarterly interest payments just about sorted.


Mardatha I only empty my freezer and re stock when it needs to be defrosted. My cupboards are rarely emptied because i am constantly buying things on offer. I just make sure they are stacked oldest to the front. I found shopping like that saves me so much money that I will not do it any other way now.

I love the pegbag links Anguk.

GreyQueen

SunshineBear wrote: »

Council Tax

The reason they collect it over 10 months is that they need to have collected it all before the start of the new tax year so the 2 months gives them time to chase up any bad payers, if they remain bad payers it can be added to there next bill.

Annoying eh.

Our council has always collected in 10 istallments for cash/ card payments or 10 for direct debits but this year they've decided they will allow DDs over 12 months but only if the customer is savvy enough to ask for them, none of our service advisers are allowed to volunteer the information. The reasoning, as you say, is so that they have the last 2 months of the financial year to chase down the late payers. Although they chase throughout the year. We have periodic emails about what percentage of council tax has been collected against the target percentage of that month.

I appreciate that no one likes paying it and I personally have to spend one-twelth of my annual net income on it, more than I spend on food. That is hard going.

However, you'd kill yourself laughing or spit tacks with rage if you heard the stuff the defaulting tax payers come out with to my colleagues. We had one last week; living in a new-build, hadn't informed us so we could set up an account and had paid NOTHING for 4 years +. When we did catch up with them they were bleating that they didn't want to be taken to court for non-payment and they wanted to have an arrangement to repay over time. The colleague was unsympathetic; pointed out that they'd known they SHOULD have been paying council tax and that if the WEREN'T and were just going to chance it til we found out, they should have put the money aside. (We recently had a couple pony-up £6k in a lump sum when we caught up with them in an identical case). And that we were going to take them to court and get a liability order but they could argue about it with the Revenues Manager.

I had one guy who'd paid no council tax at all for about 3 years in total hysterics on the phone because he'd opened his payslip and found a chunk of his wages deducted. He was ranting that he'd chuck in his job, he wasn't going to pay yadda yadda yadda. I laconically told him that was OK, we'd just apply to take a chunk of his benefits, not that he'd get any of those for a while if he threw a job over. And that we'd carry on until we got it all back.

The irony is, Provincial City Council is in a two-tier local authority so we have to collect the blasted council tax but we only get to keep 14% of it. Doesn't seem fair that County get 84% when it's our customer services peeps (inc me) who get earfuls of abuse. Sigh.

Incidentally, if you are in financial distress but not quite to the degree that you qualify for council tax benefit (and the percentage income tapers are different for HB and CTB so you might qualify for the second if not the first, always try) you can ask your council for term repayments. They'd send you a Statement of Means (SOM). The SOM is for you to outline your income and outgoings to evidence why you can only make a small repayment.

Before I worked in my current job I worked as specialist admin for a team of debt and welfare advisers and was also a vounteer adviser at the CAB. One guy came in to see me and he'd done the classic head-in-the-sand thing with a horrendous debt situation; rent, council tax, consumer loans, utilities, credit cards, you name it, he was in hock for several thousands on each. What had finally forced him to face the music was bailiffs from the Council on his doorstep over his council tax arrears. I realised that this was going to need months of work from a professional debt counsellor and booked him the nearest appt which was 3 weeks away. Then, with him in the interview room, I took a deep breath and rang Provincial City Council, explained the situation, and asked if they could call it back from the bailiffs whilst we got it sorted out. I was steeling myself for a major-league wheedle but they agreed instantly.

I swear I saw that guy's shoulders rise about 4 inches as some of the stress lifted at that moment. It was one of the warm-and-fuzzy moments which made what was often a thankless task worthwhile.

The moral of this anecdote being, always negotiate, or get a third party like the CAB to negotiate, as it helps. The worst thing people can do if they're in trouble is avoid the council as they risk being seen as won't-pay rather than can't-pay-just-now-but-willing.

Yesterday on the lottie, I was going to start planting up stuff in my little greenhouse (5 foot square) when I realised that the couch grass and the brambles had tunnelled underneath and were coming up thru the dirt floor (not to mention the horsetails grr) so I spent a happy 2 hours digging them out, then dug all around the outside to stop further infiltrations from the brambles and nettles from next door lottie, the one over the back. My h.m greenhouse is built most cunningly by my mother from old pine bedsteads and covered with plastic so I really don't want brambles around the back puncturing it.

I've shared some home-saved english marigold and nasturtium seeds with my lottie neighbour and have left home-saved peas soaking overnight to plant in loo rolls in the greenhouse today. And, the broadbeans planted 3 weeks ago come Monday are up. Think they would've been quicker (they were pre-soaked for 48 hours) but it's been parched here. I also found a pack of shallots which I missed when I planted the other 2 last weekend. Wasn't it funny that they appeared in P0undland etc within days of Xmas and then have been long gone when it's acutally time to plant them. Never mind, at least they will be in today.

Love the idea of having a freezer big enough to mislay stuff like a big joint or even a lobster in. Mine is a counter-top model and I love it, but I do have to really work it well to make maximum use of the bargains and any batch cooking. And I haven't lost anything...:rotfl:

:question: Here's one which I hope you excellent cooks (grovel grovel) can help me with. I have 2 x 240 packs of Te$co Value chunky chicken which I scooped up on whoopsie tickets and froze. It's label says it's good in salads or sandwiches but I'd prefer it as a hot meal. Suggestion would be most welcome, please.

((Hugs to all and hope you have a good day))