Light the fire...

pinkypig

I've really enjoyed your diary WF, so upbeat and full of thrifty food ideas:)
Good luck with your new job and your MF journey. I've subscribed and will be cheering you on

PP x

woodfired

Hello Pinkypig :j:

Thanks for calling in :beer: glad you thought my rambling were a bit useful, I feel like I just waffle on about what i'm eating but i REALLY like eating and food is one of my fave subjects!

So tonight we have the most random tea on the go! Its a combo of requests, food going OOD and stuff brought in from the veg garden that needs eating (namely the biggest courgette you've ever seen and millions of cucumbers!!). So we have roasted med veg (ok so far), cucumber salad (fine), new potato salad with chives, runner beans and homemade mayo (get me ) these thing are all passable together, but then we also have ham hock parcels in puff pastry (bought as part of a meal deal that didn't get used due to oven issues in caravan) and guacamole!!! :rotfl: So DH saw me cutting avocado (to go in the cucumber salad) and suddenly remembered how much he loved guacamole. He insisted I use the avos for this, hence the weirdest food combo known to man. It's all just finishing off cooking, god knows what it will taste like! Time will tell but its looks very fresh and healthy, just a bit of an odd mixture!! Can you tell I'm trying not to go shopping before we go on holiday on wed??!

In other news, my euros arrived safely and we have bought the last bits for the holiday and found none of us needed too much so only spent around £180 for the four of us, which I thought was quite reasonable when it includes two fast-growing kiddies. I just need to clean the house thoroughly this weekend. This is a habit that I picked up from my Mum, she is obsessed with leaving the house spotless "as it is so nice to come home to", in reality, I usually find a thick layer of dust has settled in our absence and the bags/kids/washing mean it looks a tip approx 5 minutes after we get home anyway!! Ah well, can't break the habit of a lifetime now.

At least we are managing to sleep in the heat. Friends are complaining that they haven't slept in days, we have velux roof windows directly above our bed (we sleep in the extended part on the back of the house), these mean that the warm air rises and on really hot nights we leave the large bedroom window open and this creates a really lovely draught through the room which keeps it really cool. The back of the house also faces north so doesn't get the sun which must help too. I feel sorry for those who are suffering, it's no fun now. Its a nightmare to work in and not sleeping on top of that must be awful.

Hope evreybody else is managing to stay cool and calm Prosecco time now, happy friday.x

woodfired

Hello All,

We are back from a lovely, if slightly eventful, family holiday. Eventful consisted of; the 'Iberian plume' heatwave, thunderstorms and wildfire smoke/ash clouds that turned the sky red and 'snowed' ash for several hours :eek:.

Still, we managed to have a great time.

I was happily surprised at how we managed to stick to a budget, I had changed £1183 into just over 1300 EUR before we left, the resort was quite expensive and we ate out every night at a cost of around 80 - 120 Eur depending on what we ate (incl 2 children and all drinks). We also had a few lunches out and drinks/ice creams at the hotel were very expensive and the kids did some paid activities incl water sports. I did a couple of supermarket shops for breakfast and lunch ingredients and drinks etc which helped keep costs down. I was expecting to need to draw out another 400 EUR or so but only needed 150. So total spending money was £1331 for 4 of us for 10 days. Some may think that is a lot but we had lovely meals out every night (the food was excellent ) and we felt as though we had enjoyed ourselves and not scrimped on anything. Our friends were there for a full two weeks and spent almost double what we did ( on top of paying double for the holiday itself) so I am happy.

Having said all this, we have decided on a different holiday for next year. The children were too easily bored of being by the pool and seemed to need more 'entertainment' so we have decided to do a Norfolk (or Cornwall) caravan holiday next year in our new tourer. This should give plenty of opportunity to keep them entertained (and be much easier on the purse too)..... I am thinking of pottering about on the broads for a day or two, playing at the beach, fishing for crabs etc .

So I have spent the last couple of days washing the holiday clothes, all dried on the line yesterday and I spent an hour ironing this morning so now all put away and suitcases waiting to go back up to the attic. I am on a mission to lose a few pounds for my sister's wedding next weekend so on a bit of a diet which is very boring but necessary as I am a bridesmaid and am 4 pounds heavier after my holiday (did I mention how good the food was??!) I am also inundated with millions of cucumbers and courgettes as nobody has been eating them whilst we were away, tomatoes are also ripening nicely. At least this will help with the diet.

Happy Sunday all. x

woodfired

I have worked today, 7.20 - 3pm. I used the time to plot some baking (this weather has this effect on me) and stocked up on some bits from the shop (alongside doing some actual work obvs!). Picked the kiddies up and came home to try and make a dent in the courgette glut. So the recipe was lemon and walnut courgette traybake but sans walnuts as I didn't have any! It turned out rather 'interesting' however, a lemon syrup to turn it into a drizzle rescued it quite well. Trouble is only I like lemon drizzle and I'm wearing (squeezing into) a bridesmaid dress on Saturday :eek: so I think i'll freeze it to have at DS birthday party next month.
The other baking was some melting moment biscuits I saw on the OS board, they were really quick and easy to make and are delicious. That dress is going to be snug :rotfl:

So anyway, the purpose of this baking was supposedly to use up some courgettes, unfortunately, the recipe only needed 200g which was less than an eighth of one of the monsters that grew in my absence. It's going to take a lot of cake to shift that lot. :rotfl:
I have frozen some, grated, in portions in case I have the urge to make another lemon courgette cake in the depths of winter but really not sure how that will turn out? Can imagine it being mush when defrosted but may not matter?? We will see.

Dinner for the children was ald1 burgers in brioche bun I froze before we went on holiday. It was meant to be an omlette for me and DH but turned into cake/biscuits for me and cereal for DH (he's at spin so only eats something light). Bath time now for kiddies, up early again tomorrow.

greent

I regularly freeze grated courgette - it *is* terribly mushy afterwards, but I use it in cottage pie/ chilli/ bolognaise/ courgette and tomato soup.

I've never made a lemon and courgette cake, but chocolate courgette cake is nice and people never realise there's courgette in it https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/35487739#Comment_35487739

woodfired

Oooh thanks for the recipe greent!! That looks great! Will give it a try.

I defrosted the lemon cake on fri and took it with me to mum and dads as we helped to set up for my sister's wedding this weekend. It was in a marquee at the farm which is fabulous but very hard work as all the set up and dismantling is done by us. Anyway the cake was a great success and so was the wedding, Sis looked beautiful and we had a great party (as always!). We have stayed in our caravan this weekend as it's kept at the farm and meant we didn't have to get home late last night (only a mile away from home but too far to walk with tired kiddies and in heels at 2am) we actually paid a babysitter to stay in the house with the kids later on (they fell asleep on air beds) then we carried them out to bed in the caravan, this worked really well and the cost was shared with my sis as the sitter had her baby boy too. It was really nice to relax and enjoy the party but be able to check on them all the time. Worth every penny.

We haven't been at home all weekend and have been fed up there since friday lunch so I didn't shop last week, I got a few bits from B00kers when they delivered the shop order but could do with some shopping. May do an online shop to arrive tomorrow night. We are treating ourselves to a takeaway tonight though as we are a bit delicate and it saves cooking!! Diet starts (again) tomorrow!

In MSE news, i'm waiting for my HBSC regular saver to mature (date was the 18th) and wondering what to do with the £3k + Int. I really want to throw it at the mortgage but DH wants to keep hold of it to make sure we are ok if something goes wrong with the new business. I suppose this is sensible but i'm impatient! We have had a cheap weekend really considering we have been at a wedding. Our gift to them was a pic n mix stall. DH made some rustic crates to display sweetie jars (borrowed from the shop) on an old pine table of ours. We painted the crates to match the colour theme and decorated with fresh flowers, candles and fairy lights. It looked lovely. The sweets were bought through the shop so it didn't FEEL like it cost us anything other than time and effort. At the do itself there were lots of arrival drinks such as pimms going round on trays and then loads of wine on the tables for the meal. I managed later to acquire an unopened/unwanted bottle of rose from a neighboring table so only paid for one drink all day!

Finally I a looking at moving DH's old HBSC acct but dont seem to see and good cashback deals for switching accounts at the moment so wondering if it's worth waiting? Any recommendations?

Hope you all had a lovely weekend (and well done for reading this far ) x

woodfired

A happily frugal day today

Breakfast was a past-its-best slightly mushy plum and a similar looking pear chopped up with yoghurt (and a few crunchy nut cornflakes for texture) which cleared the fruit basket nicely.
For lunch I had a ready meal that a lady dropped in the shop. It caused the film top to split but didn't contaminate the contents so I ate it, and very nice it was too (by ready meal standards) it also meant it wasn't wasted and I had a free lunch!
Dinner was half a courgette (the size of a small country ) with peppers and onions roasted with 3 cooking chorizo and a couple of chicken breasts from the freezer. This was served with potatoes that had been taken off the shelf at the shop (sprouting slightly) but still perfectly edible. I made them into slimming world garlic and herb chips, yum. Also had a salad of \HG wonky tomatoes and spiky cucumbers (peeled as they really are quite spiky!)
Pudding was baked oats made with the yoghurt I left out at breakfast and out of date blackberry jam (scraped the mouldy bit from the top ) I made 5 portions so the rest will be breakfast (good job as the yoghurt was on the turn and needed using!). Love a frugal meals day. Lots of left over dinner too, for tomorrow.

Also gone out of date at the shop was 2 further fresh ready meals (frozen for DHs work lunches) and a tin of evaporated milk, need to get my thinking cap on for that one.
I love trying to use up the OOD stuff, it's free, perfectly edible and saves hugely on waste. What we can't/won't use gets given away to like minded family members and friends.

The business loan went out today so the new balance will be available tomorrow to view (interest applied quaterly).

Off to bed now, still v. tired from weekend celebrations! Night all. x

pinkypig

Good for you - my kids were raised on ys and ood goods and they are as fit and healthy as can be:D

Your sister's wedding sounded lovely:)

woodfired

Thanks PP! Yes, I always do the sniff test, that speaks volumes!! And I have the evening staff well trained to freeze any perishables on the last day so they can be used/distributed later. They used to take them out of the fridge and just leave on the side in the kitchen so totally unusable next morning.

I also believe that manufacturers have to leave a margin for error with use by dates, on products with 3 week dates, how can they be accurate to within a few hours?!

Thanks for stopping by! x

Runders

Hello Woodfired,

Inspired by your gooseberry compote and making the best of on the turn fruit, I made a gooseberry, strawberry and raspberry compote the other day. I love the tartness of it from the gooseberries! I made enough to last me a good few breakfasts and I still have some gooseberries in he freezer