From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

We've managed to use less/cost less with leccy & gas, compared to this time last year. I suspect the strategic use of outdoor drying of washing, and the clement weather owe much more to that feat than anything Fam. Greying have actually done. We are now in credit of a month's equivalent payment, and I've been able to change the DD down to what it was in the autumn. So that's a small saving going forward, without losing the safety net of a small balance on account.

LG said this morning that they enjoyed their spaghetti for tea, and it's "not bad for 28p" - and I pointed out that they still have 5+ servings left to enjoy 😁 I won't get ahead of myself and begin to think that they're getting the hang of this MSing mularkey, as eating spaghetti clearly doesn't enable them to listen to me about anything else 🙄

Soup and pud to tea tonight. I've got an idea about the soup, but am struggling about pud.

I need to go and get milk today. I am deliberating whether to walk and 'just' get milk, which is probably the better option; or go in the car incorporating other tasks/visits, but be open to more temptation 🤔 With only £42 left in the budget, I've probably answered my own question, haven't I?

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Right, I've walked and got milk, plus i got the TV listing guide.

I've amended my siggie figgie.

Thankfully there wasn't any YS'd things to temp me at the m&$ foodall on the retail park. I did spot 'golden' sauerkraut though - which at the price they were charging makes me wish I'd take the bull by the horns and make some of my own. But I remain fearful of all things fermented. I wonder if tmv would consider 'hand holding' classes in fermenting, with participants able to lodge in the teardrop? …. 😁 I also saw some Scottish sea salt, which is a brand I've not seen before - blackthorn. Not priced, but a smaller packet than the mal-don it was stocked next to.

I did spot lilac trees in bloom - all the colours; lilac, white and deep reddish purple. I also saw a ceanothus that had the most unusual 'cone' shaped flowers - a bush was absolutely covered with them. Not too sure about scent, as it was in someone's garden, and you couldn't just bowl up and sniff. I also spotted that the horse chestnuts are already beginning to flower, but now I'm wondering if there are different types, as the ones with deep red/carmine flowers were flowering (from the bottom and half way up the spray), in advance of the white (with red centre) horse chesnuts, which were just budding/beginning to unfurl their bottom flowers (of the cone shaped - bract? - that they flower on). Hawthorns and blackthorn hedges are also starting to bloom with us - not quite enough to leave our coats at home, but getting there. And I'm pretty sure I spotted a lone swallow flying over. Wouldn't have seen all that had I been in the car, would I?

Greying X

KajiKita

No, absolutely you wouldn't have see all that if you were in the car …. 😊

I'm another who is scared of most forms of preserving - jams, pickles, fermented etc. so you're not alone … 😉

Oh and I suspect LG is absorbing more MSE (and other Life) lessons than either you or they realise 💖

KK

themadvix

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81971833#Comment_81971833

You are wildly overestimating my expertise at making sauerkraut GP! I've made it twice, closely following some videos that were posting on the aforementioned FB group… have just tried to have a look at them (see if I could share them outside the group) and the blasted pages won't load - no doubt because I'm daring to use the desktop version not the app (which I have no intention of using). So I couldn't make it currently, either. It is very simple though - you finely chop the cabbage, weigh the cabbage, calculate the right amount of salt (vital - a quick look in the group suggests 2%), massage the weighed salt into the cabbage and leave for an hour, and then pummel it all into a kilner jar so that the cabbage releases enough liquid to cover the cabbage (it's self-brining) - it will massively squash down and you want it as tightly packed as possible. You don't want too much headroom either. Then stick a gu pot in the top (universally acknowledged as the best solution for this!) to hold all the cabbage under the liquid and shut the lid. Leave for 6 weeks and voila!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening MFW'rs

Thanks tmv - I may give it a go one day. Kicking myself for giving away jars that would have been perfect for it though ☹️

Tea was Revithia. Lowish cost, used 2 tubs of chickpeas (some blended, some added whole at the end), and a tin of borlotti beans to bulk out the base. I didn't have a lemon, so I used an overripe lime instead for the 'citrus' hit. It was liked and the Fam. said they would have it again, although LG didn't like that I had done a thin drizzle of olive oil on the top - they said they would prefer the soup without that. Fair enough.

I didn't end up making a pudding, so we'll have yoghurt. We're all pretty full from the soup, so it's not a disaster.

Thanks for popping by. Appreciated.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

I forgot to say, yesterday's tea choice was in large part inspired by Owain on R2 Early brekkie show mentioning that it was 'National Chickpea' day. Random, but I got to try a new recipe,which is good enough to be a keeper, so…..

I know I don't watch much TV, but in recent years, there have been one or two standout progs that I've watched that have fallen into the same genre - real-time, minimal sound films, usually about different countries/people/ways of being. The sleigh ride in Sweden was a stand out one. I came across a utood vid/channel last night, which was just rural life in China, filmed in the same vein. It was pretty much restricted to meal prep - using the plants, vegetables, and animals grown/harvested by the family. And of course some of the scenes weren't for the faint-hearted. But it was just mezmerising. I hope when I am 85, I can fill 2 big buckets of water run off from pig effluent, carry them up earth steps, up into the fields, and douse pea plants with the fertiliser, and come back to do it all again……..

I have also noticed that there is a new cooking/chef series on eye-patch-player, that is based in Wales. It started at the end of March I think. Worthy of further investigation. It was possibly shown on beebeecee Wales first, as I've not noticed any listing in the tv guide.

Shopping today. I have my extremely carefully/tightly curated list. I want to try to buy what I need, some things that I would like, and still have a few pounds left over for emergencies/milk next week. I think it will be a triumph of optimism over actual achievement, but if you don't try…….

I have been having extremely vivid, lengthy dreams this week. Yesterday's was just like a movie and was so clear and distinct - you know when you're literally reaching out and touching objects in the dream. I hope there was no reality in it, as it involved one of the families we have previously had mucho upheaval with. Today's dream was centered around a last minute party, that morphed and morphed, from not being, to some bits of food, to then deciding (as the party started, and people began arriving after work), to rustle up a feast. The location of the party was in the old hut that we used to got to Sunday school, many, many moons ago (subsequently demolished and now the site of a huge house and garden). I woke up, just as I'd leapt on a huge motorbike (!) and was roaring, at speed (!) along a road that forked, and I took the wrong fork (!) which went past some really posh houses, in front of which trees had shed their pollen/seed cases all over the road…….. 🫤 Wot could possibly go wrong…… especially since I can't, and am not licensed, to drive a motorcycle…..

Snap to prep. The cheese is holding up well - I grated the remaining cheese block on Sunday, ready for sangers. But there wouldn't have been enough to top a pizza, so it was the right thing to save it for sangers. Portion control is 'boring' isn't it, but it does help - whether you're trying to lose, or save a few lbs/£'s.

Right, best shift-a-tail-feather and get practising wot i whang on about.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Flaming Feasts - I like this guy, and I'm only 2 episodes in of Series 1. Don't know where he's been hiding, but it's all good stuff.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Shopping done.

I was lucky enough to arrive in MrL when some green boxes had been put out, but most of them were not worth £2 to me. The box I bought was worth it, as it had 2 items that I was going to buy anyway from MrS, and there were 2 items in there that I would have liked to buy if my budget was bigger.

I have bought a bag of grated mozzarella (the Stamf0rd st stuff). 🤞 there are no nasty surprises in it.

I bought some YS'd 'English muffins' (are they only called that in the US? It's where i first heard the term, and vloggers call them that), and a bag of YS'd mixed lettuce leaves in MrL.

I did take the time to look today, to see if our MrL had that kimchi that I bought whilst on hols, I couldn't find it ☹️ I wish I'd taken more time to consider my surroundings when I bought it, to mentally 'log' where it was in-store. I mean, it was in the chilled cabinet, but that's all I remember. My loss ☹️

I've updated my siggie figgie, getting close to the wire now…..

Greying X

rtandon27

@Greying_Pilgrim - I laughed at your comment about muffins…

Across the pond English muffins are what we call muffins here as muffins over there are sweet individual cakes, about twice the size of what we call fairy cakes here.

Also Biscuits are cookies (sweet) or crackers (savoury) - Chips are fries - Crisps are chips and scones are always triangular and usually sweet but we do have biscuits which are actually savoury buttery scones.

…and our house is now, 20 years later, fully bilingual in that OH now asks me if I want a bag of s&v chips & I ask him if he wants crisps with his sandwich!

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81973243#Comment_81973243

I think MrL term them 'Breakfast' muffins, and I guess the golden arched 'Breakfast mac Muffin' has coined that phrase/understanding, but for me 'muffins' were more an afternoon/tea time savoury thing - but then i am soooo old that fairy cakes existed in my growing up, way before sweet muffins existed in our everyday understanding - you're quite right rt. But it does mean that if you say 'muffins', most folk now think of sweet cake - rather than a flat bap 😁

I was thinking just now, how nice it is that cookery progs showcase local produce, and I'm quite sure that slow-grown pork, or aged beef or sheep grazing on salt-marshes probably does taste a whole ton better. But I've just had a cheese salad sangwich, and the salad was from the YS'd bag (which, thankfully wasn't liquidified), and with a smear of mayo, on wholemeal bread….. it just tasted lush. Not gourmet, not fancy, but it did feel luxurious to eat. Long may I value 'simple' as I think it's gonna feature heavily in my future 🤣

Oh, I totally forgot to mention - I was coming away from the retail park, waiting for the lights to change, and what swooped, and flashed about 6 feet above the traffic, but a swallow, It's beautiful dark blue, iridescent back shimmered, and then it flipped, and you saw it's creamy belly and the rusty cheek markings, just superb. I'm not sure I've seen one that 'close & low' - with such a good view, in a long time. I was just at the right angle to see it. But I did laugh to myself, sat in my car……… 🤣

Greying X