A new royal start

edinburgher

Love a fruit cake, what recipe do you use?

QueenJess

edinburgher said:

Love a fruit cake, what recipe do you use?

I tried a new recipe from a classic recipe book I was given for Xmas from my sister (the Be-Ro one).

South_coast

Ooh, my Mum loves her Be-Ro book! That takes me right back to being a kid and reading out the ingredients for her 🩷

daisy_1571

it's the first baking book I reach for 😀 

QueenJess

I'm glad there are other Be-Ro fans out there :) I do love an old recipe as often you just need to make unfussy things to eat. When I was growing up, all recipe books were full of recipes with 25-50 ingredients that were completely impractical. I have to say that stopped me learning to cook for a long time. Sometimes simple is best.

A bigger than I would have liked spend on food this week - I did change my Riverford order to make it as money efficient as I could by swapping my box and used £25 worth of points from my credit card to offset my sm spend. Some of the reason for the bigger spend was because I needed food for DS's party tomorrow and he also insisted he wanted steak for his evening meal with us (I know… expensive tastes already!). We genuinely have loads of food in and so I shouldn't need to be spending much at all. I think I will do a use up challenge in my cupboards to remind myself of the stuff in there and hopefully reduce the spend in Feb a bit more. I always seem to have more than we need (it is all used and not wasted) - I am trying to break myself out of the panic mindset of "what if we run out?". Obviously we would find an alternative that we do have, do without or simply pop out and get something… no big drama, but it's a tough mindset to change. I'll give myself a pass for today as I ran out of mental energy to plan properly yesterday as there were major announcements made at work that took all my brain energy. It's going to be chaos..

Overall spend this week was £141 made up of £23 Riverford, £7 M&S baked bean stock up (DD seems to live on them!), £12 zero waste shop (I couldn't resist the sherbert lemons that come without the horrible plastic wrapping - a new item in the shop and one of my favourites :) ), £99 sm.

Food today was mushrooms, beans, scrambled egg and toast for lunch. Dinner will probably be chicken (spicy for the adults) with veg and chips as one of the few meals DH can make. We have apple crumble and evaporated milk for dessert. The latter because it was leftover from my fudge making yesterday that I use for party bags. Gosh… eating it with dessert was a flash back to my youth 😄. I will be busy ferrying DS around and finishing his birthday cake today. I made a chocolate cake yesterday and need to make the chocolate fudge buttercream to stick it together and cover the cake later. We have some pretty candles as a pattern on top.

Better go as I also need to put all the clean clothes away before we are descended upon tomorrow.

South_coast

Ooh, I love evaporated milk 😋 Don't think I've had it for at least 20 years! We always used to have it with a sliced banana and a sprinkle of brown sugar 😋

QueenJess

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81863832#Comment_81863832

I hadn't either. It took me right back to desserts as a child. We used it on everything really and I particularly remember using it with berries from the garden. It is exactly how I remembered!

daisy_1571

We have it most nights in a bowl full of berries, lovely 😍 😋

QueenJess

Just a quick check in between work tasks. My mortgage ends 30 April because the people I have the mortgage in have 2 year fixes which last for 2 years and 3 months 🤔. No, I don’t understand either. It also means the overpayment threshold of 10% resets after 24 months and then resets again 3 months later (assuming you get a new mortgage with them). I have used this in the past to overpay even more, but don’t have spare cash right now.

I have fixed a new 2 year mortgage to start 1 May which will decrease my monthly payments by £90. Nothing to be sniffed at. I will continue to monitor until 1 May as I will ditch and change (no charge) if the rates go down more.

I am still rounding down the mortgage and it is now £110,900. I am itching to start paying it down, but have to be sensible and build up cash reserves and mend the joint account first given I am not in secure work. I would rather be conservative in case work dries up. So just plodding along really.

Better get back to the spreadsheets!

QueenJess

Been a tiring week at work with so much happening. Tried to keep spending to a minimum and am planning on using up food in the cupboards/freezer. Shopping this week wasn't too bad £107 spent including vitamins for the kids that I've found some cheaper versions in Lidl. Spend was Lidl £4, Aldi (for oats and weetabix stock up) £16, sm £55, Riverford £17. We still have loads of food, so hoping for another cheapish week next week.

Need to get on and do the washing, tidying, baking etc in a minute as it's my birthday tomorrow and I refuse to do it then. I have to make my own birthday cake, so will be making a lemon drizzle as it's my favourite. Lunch is going to be bitty today as we have a portion of tomato pasta leftover that needs to be used, so will feed that to DD. I think I'll make a salad with tinned mackerel or if I am feeling ambitious I will roast veg to serve with quinoa and goats cheese. DS won't eat that, so he will have a sandwich and fruit. Dinner will be chicken (spicy for the adults), chips and mixed veg as I am tired so DH can cook (he only cooks a few things).

I have rescued the ys beef joint from the freezer to defrost ready for my hm beef roast tomorrow to be served with red cabbage, parsnips, carrots, roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings. That's DH's task for tomorrow! I have asked for scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon for breakfast (salmon also in the freezer).

Right - better get on as lots to do today and need to take DS to gym in a few hours.