The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Well, we've had a good day. We got out and about in the fresh air to give us some exercise, which was nice. We posted a card to let someone know that we are thinking of them and had a mooch up the High Street, just to check that there was nothing absolutely bargainacious that was passing us by. There wasn't So if I hadn't have had to stump up for the milk that DH brought home (we do need it) I could have claimed a nsd today.

Tonight's tea was partially inspired by Friend of the Thread Essex Hebridean (and if you listen to L1za TArbuck on R2, you will know exactly what voice I typed that in......... ) who mentioned sweetcorn fritters on her thread last week. Well, I had no eggs, but I was minded of a recipe that I have used once before for eggless sweetcorn fritters. So I whipped up a batch to use up the remainder of a bag of frozen sweetcorn that was lurking in the freezer. I did put a splodge of yoghurt in mine, as we're not vegan, and I find that it makes the baking powder work better. I also put a spoonful of cornmeal in, because I like the texture, and I put herbs and spices in too, to make them a little more 'fancy' Served with a baked tattie (cooked in the oven with the pasta bake last night), baked beans (mrL 25p a can) and broccoli. Picture here;

joeyjimbles wrote: »

I do very much like the Rick Stein tarka dal recipe but have recently been revisiting old Nigel Slater books and have unearthed a couple of forgotten recipes that I'll try out in February.

joeyjimbles - this is what I was thinking when I was looking for the recipe for the sweetcorn fritters earlier. I use my recipe index all the time, and whilst I am slowly transferring recipes across from my old handwritten recipe book, there are plenty of recipes in there that I have not made in a while. Need to have a bit of a wander through the book for February I think, pull out some old faves - the frugaler the better!

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

My DH

Inspiring people

that $udocrem brings relief and a laugh ...... :rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl:(see Pippi's thread )

Thanks for popping in, reading and joining in. It is appreciated. As ever. By me.

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, those fritters look lovely :j Love how we're all inspired by each other I keep meaning to thank you for mentioning the Frugalwoods blog - it's saved me a fortune! :j :money:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

I have a particularly boingy BG on my lap this morning - could make for interesting spelling!

Have I read that

---

> blog post right, if one of a couple dies after 6/4/2017, the bereavement benefit payment, which formerly could be claimed for up to 20 years, now can only be claimed for 18 months? So, your wife dies in childbirth (rare, but still a risk, even in the western world), and on top of everything else, you can only rely on getting financial help for 18 months? That doesn't even overlap with the free nursery places scheme kicking in, does it? Grief and paralysis only lasts for 18 months in gubberment 'think-tanks' obviously........

I'm changing the meal plan around today, so we will have our 'with rice' meal today, and soup tomorrow, so that I don't have to purchase anything with the 50p languishing in my purse. i can't say that it is all that remains of the budget as that was bust sometime ago

I will probably purchase some bits today, with February's budget - but they will be consumed in that month. Purchasing as I go along makes it easier to carry by shanks' pony .......

So tea tonight will be 'use-up' veg curry with rice.

I will look at my spending diary to see where the money all went in January. I know there were a couple of 'one-off' purchases in the non-grocery line, they are items that will last (crockery and a baking dish), and that needed to be purchased because we entertained for the first time in umpti-tumti years.....

I discovered that DH had been extremely heavy-handed with the cheese for his snap yesterday. 60g of cheese for one day's sandwiches! I have now grated enough cheese for the rest of the week and put it in a box, and given him strict instructions to use that, and when it is gone, it is gone! DH is wonderful in so many ways, and is supportive of a simple lifestyle, but really doesn't get budgetting and 'making things last out' at all. But he has promised to try harder with the cheese and it's easier ready-grated for him anyway - saves time and washing up.

Right, Baby Greying has got extremely fidgetty, and I'm going to lose this post with one swift bash of the keyboard, if I'm not careful, so I best love ya, and leave ya

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Well, completing a spending diary has been a most useful exercise indeed, and actually, things aren't quite as bad as I feared, although prices are rising, I don't care what any gubberment official or BofE pen-pusher says......

I over spent by £20.65 on non-grocery items. But given that £8.00 of that was the crockery/dish, that's not too bad, especially as I bought vitamins & cod liver oil supplements too this month. I will put the non-grocery budget up by £20 in future to cover this.

There was a £7 overspend on food, but again, £4.68 of that can be apportioned to grabbing some of the XXL olive oil and the cheese in the respective mrL deals. So not too shabby.

£20.65 came out of the £140 to fund some wine purchases. We used to have a separate alcohol budget, but amalgamated it into the food budget when i was pregnant to ensure I was getting plenty of fresh fruit & veg, as alcohol wasn't needed. DH would buy a bottle of real ale from his money if he felt the need. And given that the wine was used for NYE (a nice bottle of reisling to accompany the thai-style curry) and entertaining, plus one bottle of red, that's not too bad.

I was pleasantly surprised at bread purchases, it seems like we are buying it all the time. but I recorded 8 purchases, and with the exception of one loaf that cost 65p - DH normally gets the 42p loaves from mrL - means £3.79 spent on bread. Way under what I feared it was costing us.

We've had variety of meals. Plenty of fruit and veg - fresh and frozen, and technically speaking, I do still have 'wiggle' room in my £140 budget, which I will be keen to utilise to ensure I can bulk purchase pulses etc when I need to.

All good and definitely continuing on with it into February a la Cheery

And thinking about my meal plans going forward, I like the weekly format, I like having a theme for each day. I think I am going to move 'fush, chups & mushy peas' to a Sunday, as it will most likely be processed/frozen food, so I don't need to do much prep, and given we try to go out on Sundays as a family, this will relieve time pressures. Then it also frees up Fridays to go back to 'pizza night'. That's my current thinking, anyhoo.......

Greying X

try_harder

Wow ,you are so well organised ,loving all your recipes and how well you eat .I have managed to reduce my food spend to £46 a week for three adults and numerous children and grandchildren who pop in occasionally .It does take quite a bit of planning and like you i do tend to shop around for bargains especially the reduced items ,it is quite time consuming but definitely worth it .

maddiemay

so pleased that the budget does not look so dire after your analysis of the spending diary. I think that you do so well in producing such a yummy looking array of meals.:D

Although finances have been very tight for a large portion of my life, my age group were eating rubber chicken decades before the term was "invented":rotfl: We are fortunate in old age (ATM anyway) to have enough for our needs and a nice amount for wants too (mainly jaunts around the UK in our caravan and yummy local foods when away).

I have to confess to not having a food/household/personal care/personal spends budget:o. I guess that I have always been able mentally to know what was available (£££) and what needed to be spent, old age is making me less aware of this, so I started a spending diary in November, everything went boobs up in December so ignored it and have started again in January, not looking as frightening as I thought (I love food and like to buy staples for stock at bargain prices, so I always seem to be spending). Complicated by having one 4 weekly credit (OAP) and one calendar monthly one, so calendar monthly recording and averages seemed the way forward, unless I can get into situation of having a month's credit in my account:(

Sorry for the essay, it is a long winded way of saying thanks for inspiring me to keep recording spends and trying new to me foods:A

EssexHebridean

Good thinking on your food switches - makes a lot of sense to have an "easy to prep" meal in there for a day when time is more critical and of more value, and a low-effort yet tasty meal may be welcome. Plus it puts us all back on an even keel knowing we can quietly rely on the fact that "Friday night is pizza night" at Greying Towers! :rotfl:

The outcome of the spending diary is interesting too - I'm going to run one myself for the next month, it won't be comprehensive of everything but I do want to see what I spend on extra bits of shopping etc in a month, what our "actual" food spend on routine shopping is, and where I'm impulse spending on odds and ends. Again, may be interesting. Your bread category made me smile. Because our regular bread for lunches etc all comes from the breadmachine, purchases of actual loaves happen rarely - and when they do they come under the heading of treats, from the nice independant artisan bakery, and a single loaf can cost me nearly as much as your entire month's spend! :rotfl: It's worth every penny though!

Greying_Pilgrim

Just jumping on quickly as BG is asleep :j :shhh:

joeyjimbles - was thinking of you today, when I spotted some coconut milk in h3ron f00ds at 2 for £1. I bought 4, as BBE April 2017, and if we don't use them by then, they'll not go 'orf' overnight......... Saved me 19p per can on what I usually pay in h0me bargin$



Also, can all the cheese officionados step forward please, I've a query. m&$ were selling off their 750g blocks of Cornish Cove Mature Cheddar (normally £5, which is too dear), for £2 today (YS'd as they were sell by today's date). Now, that is a bargain too good to miss, so I got 2 blocks (there was plenty left). Trouble is, with the mrL bargain cheese, I'm now awash with the stuff. I have no trouble freezing cheese, and it will be spiffing portioned up for pizza topping. But if I grate it all - 1.5kg - I'm going to use every box and container that I have available. SO, my question is, if I portion it up into blocks, say 150g for arguments sake, and freeze the blocks, when I defrost them, can I grate them? Or do they go into a greasy mush? I have used home-grated frozen cheese before with no problems, but have never frozen a block and then grated it on de-frosting.

Thanks in advance.

Also picked up some whole (skin on) almonds from h0me bargin$ for £1.79 for 200g. Hope they taste nice (not bought them from there before), but at that price, too good to miss, if you like almonds!

Greying X

joeyjimbles

I do find that if you freeze the cheese in blocks then they have a tendency to go a bit claggy. I tend to fare better with smaller blocks - or grated which you already know.
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf/Food_Tips_and_Info/Freezing/Dairy/Freezing-Cheese.html seems to suggest that you can grate it directly from the block. Never tried that.
And thanks for the Herrun tip - sadly we haven't got one here but good to know if I find one on my travels.

hex2

I always grate the cheese before freezing, but I freeze it in bags rather than boxes. I use H&B thick bags (79p/45 medium I think) and I double bag it, but it takes a lot less space. Yum for the Cornish cave though, if I am ever close to food hall I detour for the cheese reductions. If it was me I'd freeze the MrL stuff and munch my way through (all of the) the glorious Cornish (until I was sick of it)

Good price on the almonds too, I must look out for those