Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Baileys_Babe

Happy New Year @foxgloves and my fellow readers.

Sorry to hear you have been suffering from toothache, I hope the antibiotics kick in and do their thing promptly.

Yesterday I made Delia's Vegetarian 'sausage' rolls, as recommended by you. They were easy to make and a great success so they will be made again, thank you.

crazy_cat_lady

Happy New Year foxgloves.
Hope that your tooth is feeling better today.

QueenJess

I was chatting to someone about cooking the other day and I was thinking about how my dad can’t/won’t cook and my mum hates cooking (although she likes baking, which is probably why I’m better at that).

It means I never really cooked and the meals we had as kids were the same meat and two veg on the same day of the week each week. It was comforting you always knew what you were having based on what day it was, but we didn’t have a huge variety of things. I only branched out about 10-15 years ago and started properly cooking. Now my mum sometimes gets ideas from me by watching me cook (totally the wrong way round!).

Anyway, when I started trying to cook some things, I had no idea where to start. I remember say 20 years ago all the recipes taking ages and having far too many ingredients (lots of which were unusual ingredients as well) and so I gave up for a number of years. Is that because I tried the wrong things/didn’t know what I was doing or is it the case that recipes have got easier/simpler to encourage people to cook?

Just a little something that’s annoying me, but I know you or someone else on here will have the answer!

marionmgcars

I was bought a cookery book issued by the W.I. group.  I found that it had lots of everyday simple recipes to try.  I agree that some of the chefs cook books have just too many ingredients that I do not have.

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

hi foxgloves, hope you are recovering from your tooth pain
Deni x

foxgloves

Thanks. No, still suffering I'm afraid, @Deni_debt-free_dreamer. The anti-biotics didn't work so the problem must be a nerve one, rather than infection. Am managing to get a fair amount done. Busy today - Christmas decorations & crockery all packed away by 10am & wrappings salvage, cards etc all sorted ready for their 2nd life. The chair I ordered nearly 20 weeks ago finally arrived & finishes off the lounge beautifully. Two loads of laundry done plus bread rolls & pizza base made.
Budget updates overdue. Must do tomorrow. 
F x

Four_Seasons

Oh so sorry you are still suffering, hope you can get sorted soon x

foxgloves

@QueenJess - My Mum also hated cooking. She would happily have lived on biscuits, scones & jam sandwiches. Like you, we ate a really quite limited variety of meals as children - meat & two veg for Sunday roast, then with my sister being a very fussy eater as a child, we ate the same few meals on week nights on repeat - it was mostly all easy bought-in stuff, as Mum worked most evenings & Dad often had late shifts too. It wasn't as if Mum hadn't had a role model re cooking, as my Nan was an excellent cook. Mum just wasn't interested & as she could afford to live on Waitr*se ready meals, that's what they did. The difference for me was learning to cook properly at school. I went up to secondary school in 1975 & we all had cookery lessons every week. I chose GCE Food & Nutrition for one of my O-level options & the regular cooking required, plus having a very old-school cookery teacher meant that we all learned how to plan & make proper meals as well as the easier option of baking. I don't think I will ever get over the time a colleague told me her 11-year old had been told to take into school some grated cheese, some tomato puree & a bought pitta bread because they were going to be 'making pizza'!! What an appalling waste of an opportunity that was! We were taught to keep an eye on the home economy side of cookery all the time - if we didn't have a particular ingredient, we were told to think of something else we could substitute or whether a cheaper cut of meat would do.We were also encouraged every few weeks to come up with our own version of something we had learned to cook - say a twist on a fish pie, a quiche or a steamed pudding. I didn't do badly in my academic subjects - I followed my degree with an MA - but for sheer everyday usefulness, those cookery lessons must surely have been the most practically useful syllabus I studied between the age of 11 & 16. 
I think it gave me a lot of confidence to experiment, to sub in different ingredients, & importantly, to find creative uses for leftovers. I wonder if people get put off cooking from scratch because of off-putting lists of ingredients required, but nobody goes to the supermarket & fills a trolley with 30 different little jars & pots, a good store cupboard builds up over time, so that now I might come to look at a new recipe - I've got one stuck to the fridge door atm which I clipped out of a magazine - & I might need to buy just one item, or nothing. For this one, I only need to buy a cauliflower as everything else is already in stock. The other thing I will add, is that if you always or almost always cook from scratch, you become much speedier at all the different processes - you can also get ahead for the next meal by say, chopping enough onion for 2 recipes, using spare pastry to make & freeze a quiche pastry case, making double bolognese to turn into a chilli later in the week, etc. - & need to look at the recipe much less, if at all. I really notice this with Mr F - he is a confident cook, but has done very little baking. On the rare occasions where he does bake a cake, I can't believe how long it takes him because he isn't used to doing it. I could whip up 3 cakes in the time it takes him to do one. But I do acknowledge that I was actively TAUGHT the various cookery skills & that has undoubtedly make a huge difference to my confidence & abilities as I moved into independent life.
F x

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas & Happy New Year.
Does anyone have specific savings or debt-vanquishing plans for this year?
We always have our annual Money Summit in January, date TBA, when we discuss how our finances are going generally, flag up any pinch points, any big planned expenses & look at savings goals.
Having shared all my past spendy Sins of Christmas, including wasting money in the January sales, I felt quite pleased with myself at the weekend. I'd made a list for our city centre trip - the smaller of our two local cities, which automatically rules out JL temptation as there's no branch there. I found several of the items on my list on offer, found the cookbook I wanted in stock but still couldn't find a nice nightdress/nightshirt. I am quite fussy, I suppose, as I don't like pastel colours, navy blue, long frumpy garments, things with slogans or characters on the front, styles which would be too hot & I don't like pyjamas. I'd already looked online & found nothing I even remotely like & there was nothing in the shops either. If I did find something 'ok', it was sale rail dregs in size 8 or 10 only. After my fruitless search, I decided to return to the first shop & buy the least worst option. Thankfully, there were 5 people ahead of me in the queue because that gave me time to have a word with myself about my true views on the item: I don't like it, it isn't what I want, I won't enjoy wearing it & it will doubtless be off to the charity shop within a couple of months. 
Put it back on the rack with its frumpy friends & left the shop, purse unopened. 
Will wait till the new season stuff appears instead of having to choose from dregs. 
F x

Sun_Addict

I’m not a fan of January sales, hate rummaging through the rubbish, although I’ve been lucky on occasion as I’m the small size that’s always left at the tail end when there’s 70% off. I only wear short sleeved, shortish length T-shirt nighties and am really struggling to find ones I like at the moment. They all seem to have Disney characters on them which isn’t for me.