The land of the eternal stripey list returns.

Pippilongstocking

rtandon27 wrote: »

They are scrummy! These look good - but I've not tried that particular recipe.

Back across the pond we grew up eating zucchini bread! Click HERE for a really delicious recipe!

Also yummy pickled!

Happy Marrow Culling!

I'm very excited you've learnt to do clickable links too.

:T

Love the muffin recipe.

And that pickle recipe looks interesting going to give that a bash later if I have the stuff.

:T

Pippilongstocking

Wellyfest one good thing.

I organised a hairdresser for the girls. Its booked and paid for out the clothing budget which is hardly touched due to the cancer research shop being so lovely and obliging..

I say the girls - I am not a fan of hairdressers nor their pesky fingers in my haystack. I'm doing my own hair with the help of those beautified girls who will love that wee treat - what we save on frocks we spend on frippery. OK so they COULD do their own hair - but to be honest its nice to save in some ways to treat in others.

one thing achieved today

My MOH has just texted to say she's got double staff discount next week - so I do need to finish the grub list and see if we can't exploit her good will a little.

If we're canny we might save enough for a few hairbobbles for the lasses too.



If I'm totally honest I'm not really very comfortable with spending so much money on one day. However, I know that those we love and are with will appreciate the efforts where we've made them and the choices we've made.

We could have gone off and done this all for less than £3k and with less than c100 folks, but this is how we've chosen to do it and I need to remember its OK to make a game out of saving/foraging some things and its also OK to treat for others.

I think I'm having a hard time justifying this expenditure to myself.

I know it probably doesn't make much sense but the game bit of it I like - and yes I can do without most things to make folks happy. But, I'm beginning to realise its also OK to spend some money and not feel guilty.

I'll work on the guilt bit.

Honest injun.

I suppose others find it hard spending without feeling guilty? Or am I just very 'special'

After the 'we doo's' - its save save save. Honest.

Pippilongstocking

Ok so I busted the food spends today.

Bought a truck load of fruit (have veggies) some reduced but mainly just proper price.
A bit shellfish for soupy lunches (miso) and oatcakes
And some depleted store cupboard stuff.

£26.03

Oh and woofle food

It's needed and been a long four weeks but its made me think about my hoarding :-) so a good lesson.

:-)

Greying_Pilgrim

Pippi - do you really need to ask if we think you are 'special' ?? :rotfl::rotfl:

Have a think on how much the 'average' hitching costs these days, ain't it summat daft like £13k - probably more than that now, it's not something I keep abreast of

You're putting on a fine 'fest, a feast and dancing for less than a quarter of that - although I appreciate that it is still a lot of money - but heck you're getting value..... I love that you are treating the gals to a hairdresser session - how pampered. And if you can squeeze those extra pennies to afford to supply hair bobbles too, well.......:D

I think you're organising a swell 'do' - it's interesting how you have sourced things, how folk are helping (and have responded) and how it'll all come together on the day.

Perhaps as 'pay days' start to roll in around the country, then the accommodation cheques will start to flow through to you too? Hope so

Keep on with the lists - but dispense with the doubt!

Greying

troglodyte

Morning!

Pippi, please don't berate yourself for spending money on your special day! After a while, being careful with money becomes so ingrained that its hard to spend it on anything, but just think, what is all this scrimping and saving for? It's to avoid frittering money away on trivial, unimportant things, so that you have some available to spend on the special things - and this certainly ought to be one of those! There's no point saving up all your life then dying a rich old lady who hasn't had any fun!

Marrows, hmmm... well when we have excess overgrown courgettes I make them into bahjis (using onion bhaji recipe, just grate courgettes then squeeze out excess moisture). Another favourite is this savoury bread http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2889/courgette-and-mushroom-bread (although it always seems to need more flour than the recipe states). My OH doesn't like mushrooms so we use chestnuts instead, its yummy! And we make a lot of a sweet courgette bread that I can't find the recipe for just now, but it contains pineapple and raisins and is very good. Or as a vegetable if the inside is too pulpy I discard that (compost of course!) then cut the flesh into strips to stir-fry or brush with flavoured oil and grill or barbecue.

A nice morning here today, got up early to try and get some writing done (looming deadline of end of month) before the others woke up. Partially successful! Went outside to hang nappies on the line but really it was just an excuse to go outside and enjoy the fresh morning air.

By the way, are you going to send us the info about where wedding present contributions should go? PM please? I want to do some tree-planting by proxy!

rtandon27

Can't say it any better than Greying & Trog! So I'll vote to say exactly what they said!;)

troglodyte wrote: »

By the way, are you going to send us the info about where wedding present contributions should go? PM please? I want to do some tree-planting by proxy!

Yes please - OH & I would love to contribute to your edible woodland! Please do PM the details over!

(On another note - your September storecupboard challenge was such a hit here we are going to continue it into October - more than anything, those Pippi inspired stock lists have done wonders to ease up the craziness of the busy week & add variety to our humdrum meals.)

Pippilongstocking

Greying my lovely lady - thank you - for lots of things including the 'special' bit.

that's very true. And the average one does I think cost at least that much. and I think hopefully we'll find extra for hair bobbles. I'm having forest brash in my hair - which whilst they all look dubious about - I'm not kidding.

Mr Guitar god is off practising his set again this morning - the 'tother band are confirmed booked which quite rightly is just about a third of the wedding cost (£900) but they're playing for hours and are by all accounts a killer band. So we'll have two bands for the price of one

I think I do lose perspective a bit - like Troglodyte says, when you're in that mind set (as we all are) its hard to see past it. But I'm getting there - yesterday was a particularly down day, for lots of reasons.

Today will be brighter! I promise. And Trog - I love the idea of the rich old lady bit - I think perhaps not!

Those recipes sound really interesting - I'll tottle off and look at them in a mo.

You lot don't half cheer me up!

This weekend I'm not working and its prob my last with guitar god before he tottles off to his stag weekend. (Mountain biking and curry - what else?)

So its a weekend of getting organised and sorted and making proper lists.

Coffee first though.

Waves to RT too - how lovely - we're in the process of the tree nursery adapting their website for their first ever 'wedding vouchers' - they seem chuffed. They're putting on various buttons - starting at a lovely £1 which will of course buy a lovely tree - and once we're sorted they'll source everything we need in whatever size we like including lots of edibles. They're a nice bunch.

But - in the mean time - a comedy teapot has come to the rescue.

Still waiting for the tree place to sort out the e-voucher thing. In the mean time our wedding contributions are hiding in here ........ who'd have thought a tiny teapot could hold so many potential trees - there's at least 40 hiding in there

I'll see if I can fathom to put a photo up!

Pippilongstocking

RT how did you cupboard foraging go this month? I'm falling at the last hurdle but not done too badly.

Pippilongstocking

Fridge audit done.

Found some stew in there and some tatties.
Now in freezer for a sneaky pie sometime

Found a fair few courgettes
These are now pasta sauce all whizzed up and yummy with some of the tomatoes.

Bit left over fish just mixed with some noodles for another sneaky lunch.

Other edibles included
A chicken (roast tomorrow and the start of a rubber chicken)
Cheese but not much - we may need cheese
Enough veggies for the week - all the 'iffy' ones ended up in the pasta sauce including some lettuce.
Bread
Bacon
Veggie - cabbage, beets, spinach, onions, marrow/courgettes (HG), cauli (reduced)
Fruit - apples, kiwi, pomegranate, etc all looking grand

This weeks meal plan will be in no particular order of excitement
Roast chook
Special fried rice
Bacon and pasta sauce (gnocci or pasta)
Meatballs (reduced aberdeen angus burgers)
Roast chicken dinner pie yum
Baked tatties
Thai noodle soup (with leftovers)

We need
Milk (although there is a 1 pint in the freezer)
Cheese is under 2oz so that's something we could 'do with' but won't die without.
Down to the last stock pots/cubes - so we do need those
Marmite (non branded equivilant) as I just used the last for stock for the pasta sauce.
Soy sauce
Reduced bread if it appears but otherwise we'll make do with oatcakes.

The freezer is pretty bare - aside some chicken nuggets clearly bought by a visitor for their kids in the summer - we've not eaten those - might feed them to the dogs unless anyone can think of something awesome to do with them.

They are not the kind of thing we would normally eat, not cos we're food snobs but I just don't like rethingmybobbied meat - but when in rome.

(eta just looked at the chook content - um perhaps dogs me thinks - if they're 47% chook...........)

Kitchen looks like chaos.

Pippilongstocking

rtandon27 wrote: »

(On another note - your September storecupboard challenge was such a hit here we are going to continue it into October - more than anything, those Pippi inspired stock lists have done wonders to ease up the craziness of the busy week & add variety to our humdrum meals.)

Brilliant - just brilliant - thank you RT that's really made me smile.