The commonsense thread

valk_scot

hunters wrote: »

I have to ask, why would you want to faff about making a haybox when you have a slow cooker?

What if you don't have any electricity? I use a "haybox" when we go camping, I carry a lot of my camping equipment in coolbags (very strong, water and vermin resistant) and it's easy enough to pad one of these up with the fleece blankets to make a haybox. Making casseroles or soup on a campsite takes up far too much gas but if I prep up the casserole in the morning, bring it to the boil and then tuck it inside all the blankets it's cooked for when we get in.

The downside of course is that you end up dreaming of lamb hotpot all night because your blanket smells of same but hey, it's one of the joys of camping.

HariboJunkie

I've been thinking some more today about what helps us cope in a crisis or just gets us through the tough times and for me that is feeling as much in control as possible. (Or maybe I'm just a control freak)

We run our own business and our earnings can be erratic. Even if we have lots of work on there is no guarantee we will be paid on time or at all . Apart from working hard in the business to bring in more money I like to make what money we have go as far as possible at home and my most effective way of doing this is with prudent shopping and meal planning.

I sit down on a Sunday after looking in the freezer and larder and come up with a plan. I plan easy meals for busy days and like to double up on meals where possible, This weeks meal plan looked like this.....

Sunday. Roast Beef
Monday. Leftover beef done in gravy with fresh veg
Tuesday. Antipasti to use up cold meats, cheese and olives. The leftovers went into the childrens' lunchboxes today.
Wednesday. Turkey meatballs with hm tomato sauce and mash and veg. Extra mash made for the next night.
Thursday. Salmon fishcakes (Yellow sticker salmon from the freezer and mash fromthe night before with salad and crusty bread
Friday. Busy day so breaded plaice and oven chips.
Saturday. Pea and ham soup made with a ham hough, the meat from which goes into cheese and ham toasties to have with the soup.

If I pick up a reduced bargain through the week, as long as it is freezable it goes in the freezer until the following week.
all this means that I feel I have control on the purse strings a bit more and it means that OS cooking from scratch is easier (as long as I make a trip to the freezer every night to take out the next meal). Once a week if we are having something like stew, spag bol, curry etc, I cook double and freeze so I can have the odd night off from cooking without resorting to take away. This week I will cook double fishcakes and there may be an extra portion of meatballs leftover tonight which can also be frozen.

It works for me.

GreyQueen

babyblooz wrote: »

One of my most favourite memories is playing with my grandma's OXO tin full of buttons stripped from every single garment that was being thrown out. New woollies were handknitted, with scraps being knitted up into dolls clothes for christmas presents. I would tip the buttons out and look at them, sorting them into sets, choosing which ones would go on my handknitted cardigan or whatever, and then hearing about the items they used to be sewn onto before being snipped off again. It was a lovely, cosy time when I truly felt part of the fabric of our family.

Sadly those days are gone and my daughter in law who is not particularly close to her family can't believe that anyone would go to such a bother. My kids grew up blackberry picking and making jam etc. and have these memories to look back on, fondly I hope!
Despite having the money to never have to do anything at all like I did, I think she is the poorer one, not me, for not having the sense of identity that I have. It's not always about the money, its a sense of reconnecting with the values of the people who made you who you are.

Justamum wrote: »

I still take my children to pick bilberries and blackberries. I forgot to get bilberries this year though, so I'll have to wait until next year.

My mum used to knit all our jumpers - she'd often buy jumpers from jumble sales, unpick them and re-knit them. She'd also make all the clothes for my sister and I.

As for the buttons, we used to play with my mum's button tin - it's an old Mackintosh Quality Street sweet tin (from before they merged with Rowntrees). I've got it now, and the buttons really bring back memories. My youngest daughter likes to play with it too, but unfortunately every button is a prisoner and I don't like to part with them There's something wonderfully tactile and calming about buttons.

I'm another button-fan. Used to love playing with the big tin of Mum's buttons, then about 20 years ago, whenI was very ill and chairbound and living back at my parents' place for a while, I started sewing them in sets onto scraps of card. Big needle, scrap of knitting yarn and some thin card such as old Xmas cards, and off we went.

Mum is a brilliant knitter and has some buttons, particularly favourite metal buttons, which have served and re-served on a succession of cardigans over the decades.

The great thing about having saved buttons and other misc haberdashery, is that when you're full-steam on a project and find you need X, Y or Z you don't have to wait for the shops to open. That said, my stash lives in 2 smallish boxes of a 3-box set, so it's not exactly running wild here. Mum and I have also been able to help out others with bits and bobs, zips and patterns which is very satisfying and saves wasting resources as well as money.

I kinda regard OS-ing as a logical addition to green(ish) living. Hey, it makes me happy and I can't see that it does anyone else any harm. I was ironing my gardening shirt last night and noticed a worn patch so quickly cut a bit of fusible interfacing (which I haven't re-bought since the 1980s) and ironed it on the reverse.

My family has what we call "scratch" meals, those ones where you don't have enough of anything for everyone to have the same, but just chase down the strays and round 'em up for that night and it's amazing how good they taste. I think about one main meal in seven could easily be a scratch meal and that would enable us to keep on top of the oddments. If money's really tight, it's amazing what you can eke out of the fridge, freezer or storecupboards.

Last night's meal was a bit of a scratch; h/g lottie potatoes and one carrot in the steamer, with a late additon of h.g chard, deribbed and the ribs steamed for 5 mins and the leafy parts of the leaves added for 30 secs. Add to that a tin of mackerel fillets and all the corners were filled and all the nutritional bases covered.

[Deleted User]

taplady wrote: »

JackieO - another interesting post as always:T - I wish you'd get on and write that book about you and your family - would make you a fortune:)

Thank you Tappers its very kind of you to say that, but then I wouldn't have the time to cuddle or play with my lovely grandchildren

The youngest Mikey when he's feeling poorly loves to sit on my lap and have a cuddle and I tell him all about his Granddad and his Mum when she was a little girl, and even about my old Mum,bless her.To him, hearing about the family gives him an idea of what history is all about.In fact all the boys like to hear family stories,but as to writing them down well I'd never have the time.I remember my Mum when I was a little girl telling me about my Grandpa and her Grandpa and as my Mum was 45 when I was born in 1943 takes us back to the late 19th century.
This afternoon I watched the Wartime Farm programme on catch-up t.v. and blow me if it didn't tell of the Pig clubs during the war.My late Ma-in-law had one on the Isle of Wight where she lived, and all the neighbours used to bring stuff to be used to feed her porker.She had a sty halfway down the garden where they were kept and it worked very well (she did have 3/4 of an acre which helped )
When my two DDs were little girls we were down visiting her and the children wanted to camp out overnight in the sty (It hadn't been used for about 20 years by then so wasn't too bad ) well I wasn't keen but they kept on about it . My sensible ma-in-law said 'don't worry they won't last the night in there' .Sure enough after it got dark the children were in their sleeping bags, but got a bit scared as they could hear lots of rustling noises.By 10.15 there were two little girls on the back doorstep saying could they perhaps do it another day .
I put them to bed and when talking to my ma-in-law asked her what could have spooked them .'Oh nothing to be afraid of, but I do know that a couple of hedgehogs like to use the sty for a bit of romancing' she said
My two DDs were townies and strange rustling noises were not what they were used to bless them.My Ma-in-law knew they wouldn't last the night out there and had made their beds up ready for them with a drink of milk and a biscuit by the side .She really was a terrific lady who knew more about psychology than many people I know:rotfl:
it was years before I told the kids about the romantic hedgehogs:D

Butterfly_Brain

We have one of these
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leifheit-Columbus-Thermal-Insulated-Plastic/dp/B00359OH3Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1348074694&sr=1-3
We just fill it whenever we boil a kettle and it keeps the water hot for up to twelve hours ( Not that we need it for that long) We get enough water in it for four mugs of tea/coffee which means that don't have to boil the kettle all the time so if I am on my own that is three less boils of the kettle, which saves money :j

bupster

Hello everyone,

I don't post all that often, and have been away from the boards for a bit, but really like this thread and was trying to find a way of expressing why I like it.

I noticed after a break of a few months that a lot of the other threads had become increasingly hyperbolic in terms of preparation for zombie apocalypses etc. I think there's a number of reasons for that - it is very easy once you start this OS lark to get a bit carried away, for a start. I spent about two months at the beginning of the year going shopping almost every other day on the offchance there'd be some YS bargains - before calming down and working out that if I was trying to save money then NOT GOING SHOPPING might be a start :rotfl:.

It's also easy to let being OS fill gaps in your life, I found. I live on my own, and it was quite easy to fill my evenings batch cooking and looking through Approved Foods, and trying to buy gadgets on the cheap, and building a big stock cupboard.

One of the reasons I was away from the boards is that my life suddenly got really busy and I couldn't spend all that time online. It was only then that I realised just how much time I had been spending on here, instead of doing other things. It's been lovely having the time to come on here again, but now I'm keeping it as an occasional pleasure, an adjunct to my life instead of a big daily part of it. It's easier to do that because of the way some of the threads have gone all zombie apocalypse - but I couldn't work out why that was making me so uncomfortable, when I also have a storecupboard including at least 15 kilos of pasta :rotfl:

Then yesterday I read a book that quoted the gospel of Matthew - "sufficient is the evil unto the day thereof". I'm a militant atheist with the best of them, but this struck a chord.

I think maybe it's enough for me to make sure I'm okay today, and I've got some bits in reserve, and I'm not living hand to mouth. But if you're spending whole chunks of your life preparing for some event that likely will never happen, then you're not making time to live. Lennon said "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". I think earlier in the year I fell into this trap - so busy planning it filled the gaps where I should have been living.

I've got enough stuff now, and if I haven't, well, you can't plan for everything. I don't have control over the future - only what I'm doing right now. And sometimes I think it's more valuable - certainly better for the soul - to say sod it and drink a bottle of wine with a friend, or to go and make new friends, than it is to sit in a corner on my pile of tinned tomatoes knowing I'll be alright when the zombies come. Actually, come to think of it, I'd rather be drinking a bottle of wine with friends and throwing the tins at the zombies.

Anyway, that's why I like this thread. This one and the toughies thread seem to be populated with people who would join me throwing tins at zombies. Friends are a lot more valuable than stockpiles

she_who_can_not_cook

fuddle wrote: »

Oh so easy. Just put your mixture in your pudding dish, tie the top with greaseproof paper and pop it in about an inch of water in the slow cooker. Leave it for 2 hours and when you go check you'll have a lovely pudding.

thank you i will give that a go

taplady

welcome back Bupster:) a very commonsense post :T

haribo - your menus sound very yummy even to a non meat eater like me:)( I do eat fish though sometimes ) I also cook double a lot of the time and freeze for the following week - it doesn't take any longer but saves loads of time the next week:T

I'll be trying out the pudding in a slow cooker too I think:)

fuddle

With the pudding in the SC you might need to turn it up to high towards the end. Mine needed a 30 min high boost today after 2 hours on low.

Also thanks to the person who mentioned jam pudding earlier in the thread. I make steamed puddings all the time but never thought of a jam one. We had one today and was delicious Has anyone used lemon curd in a steamed pudding? Basics jam is 35p but lemon curd is 22p - thought it might work and is cheaper.

cbrown372

Absolute commonsense bupster!

I was clearing a cupboard this evening and found some twiglets dated may 2010 what a waste of money they were.

I'll sink my money in chocolate this Xmas