Old Style Diary Archive - AUG 05

Penny-Pincher!!

you guys are so lovely and caring Im OK-all I seem to do is moan..lol.

OH is out gardening front garden, lamb in the oven and have parcelled up about 12 items sold on ebay. I recycled most the packaging from what people had sent me :rolleyes: I would never of done that 6 months ago :eek: DD has made £3.50 from her books that she no longer wanted-so will write a cheqe for her and pay into her account, or she will blow it on rubbish..cruel mother I know..lol

Our freezer is on the blink and am looking at getting a largish chest freezer 2nd hand. Does anyone know how expensive they are to run? It wont be a new A rated one. Hubby said that if we get a bigger one we could try freezing milk, more bread (instead of running out), cheese etc, so we could maybe get away with one shop a month....would that be possible do you think? Theres 3 of us.

Thanks again for all your lovely comments, I appreciate them a lot :grouphug:

Penny-Pincher!!
xxx

scuzz

greenlogo wrote:

Hi Scuzz - me too (well, since 8..) - will you be there a long time without eats? I'd send you some of my sarnies if I could...

Goodness knows how long I'll be here. Officially till 1pm, but got soooooooo much to do. Might have to break money saving and venture to the shops for a bite of something. BUT will use co-op dividend to get some money back!

nicki_2

Afternoon all (it's just turned 12.01!).

This is my first full day at home since.....erm....last Sunday? (library Monday and then work all week and IL's Friday/Saturday) so the washing is piled high and waiting to be washed, the house is dusty and needs cleaning throughout but not as bad as I thought it would be.

Todays plan is to go shopping for a big shop including a rubber chicken (or two) which I'll cook later. I need to do the washing and clean house throughout. OH wants a day off today, but I'm planning on getting everything done so that we can have tomorrow off instead. *wink*

Oh well, he's out the bath now so I better get moving...just check the weather forecast .....

scuzz

Yey! Finally going home!!!:j :j :j :j

apple_mint

Hello everyone :hello:

Had a good time at the car boot sale. Got 2 flan dishes (one large and one small) and a couple of cookery books. Delia's Complete Cookery Course and Return of the Naked Chef.

Made lunch, watched an old film on TV and then promptly had a nap!

Penny Pincher the Quiche is from page 25 of the new Be-Ro cook book.

Basically I made the short crust pastry from page 22 (8oz plain flour, salt, 2oz lard (I used the white veg. fat version), 2oz marg (I used butter) and cold water to bind). I lined a flan dish with this and baked blind (covered with grease proof paper and held down with dried peas) for 15 minutes at Gas 5. It doesn't say to bake blind but I did so that the pastry wouldn't be soggy.

I lightly fried 4oz of streaky bacon which I had removed the rind from and chopped up with a pair of scissors. I grated 3oz of mature cheddar and placed half of this in the bottom of the flan case and lay the fried bacon pieces on top. The recipe said to beat 2 medium eggs with 1/4 pint of milk - but I added an extra egg to make it 3 eggs. I used free range eggs and also added a sprinking of dry herbs (not in the recipe). I poured this onto the bacon and cheese base and then sprinked the other half of the cheese on top.

The recipe said to bake for 40 minutes at Gas 5, but because I had already baked the flan case blind, I cut this down to 30 minutes.

I'm going to make another one today, but without the bacon so that my daughter can have some (she's vegetarian).

Pooky

Afternoon all - Up at 6 this morning to do out bootfair/garage sale --- was great - managed to get it all set up before we were rushed off our feet.....was quite a slow morning but nice to be able to nip indoors and make everyone bacon sarnies and coffee.

Went for a wander round some other sales, picked up some ribbons for craft stuff and some books and lego for DDs. DH is looking rather sore - a bit too much sun i feel. But we made a profit of £140 which we were chuffed with, we've been all organised and put all the left over bits straight back in the loft so there's nothing cluttering up the house for our last weeks holiday.

We're off to the zoo tomorrow (free tickets won on the radio) and will take a nice hm picnic with us.......

Hope you all have a relaxing weekend

Glad

greenlogo wrote:

How well does mango work in a stir fry? what other flavours go in with that (I'm intrigued but a little scared of making chicken pudding :eek: )

chicken
1 crushed garlic clove
1 fresh chilli deseeded or tsp lazy chilli
grated fresh ginger
broccoli florets
mange tout
baby sweetcorn
fresh or canned bamboo shoots
1 peeled and cubed mango
4 tbs ginger wine
2 tbs tom puree
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp cornflour

use a large non stick wok
stirfry garlic chilli ginger broccoli mange tout and sweetcorn for 5 mins
and chicken bamboo shoots and mango, heat through for 2 mins
mix together ginger wine tomato puree soy sauce and cornflour, add to pan, heat until sauce thickens

can be served with noodles or rice to make go further

or made with fresh chicken pieces but stirfry them 1st
or can use tofu for veg option

Zziggi

Hello everyone :hello:

I haven't posted much recently because whenever i get on the computer it's about 10pm and it seems a bit pointless talking about my day.

Anyway, in this last week we've managed to get a new bed (1/2 price of course!) and after quite a lot of searching found somewhere that sells super king sized bedding. It's a lovely big bed, plenty of space - which is more than i can say about the space around the bed. Had a worried few minutes when the bed arrived when i though it wouldn't actually fit in the bed room!!

I've been bramble picking quite a few evenings this week (and hence why i'm not on the computer until late). I've managed to freeze all the brambles. Also a friend has told me that if i'm willing to pick the apples from her trees then i can have them. So that's a job for me in a couple of weeks. She said normally she just lets them fall off her tree and then picks them up and bins them! Before i started OSing i'd have thought nothing of it. Now i'm horrified!!

I've started yogurt making this week. It's going great now. So easy once you know how. Yogurts and milk were my 2 biggest expenses every week as my lot get through tons of the stuff, especially as i have to buy goats milk & yogs which are extautionately priced. By HMing yogurt i've cut down there, now i've just got to cut down on my goats milk expense. I can only think of getting a goat for the garden!! Don't think the neighbours would be too keen....

Penny-Pincher!! wrote:

Our freezer is on the blink and am looking at getting a largish chest freezer 2nd hand. Does anyone know how expensive they are to run? It wont be a new A rated one. Hubby said that if we get a bigger one we could try freezing milk, more bread (instead of running out), cheese etc, so we could maybe get away with one shop a month....would that be possible do you think? Theres 3 of us.

I was given a chest freezer at the beginning of the year, practically brand new and i remember pricing them up after i was given ours and mine would have been about £150 to buy. There is obviously some running costs but i understand that they are quite efficient as long as you are not popping in the freezer every 2 minutes and lifting the big lid. Also if you are prone to impulse buying when you are only popping to the supermarket for milk, then you'll save money by avoiding the temptation to impulse buy. You can also stock up on reduced price stuff or BOGOFs if you have freezer space. Since i've been OSing i've really appreciated having a chest freezer. However there's sods law that says ''no matter how much freezer space you have, you'll never have enough room to freeze all your HM cooking!" My advice would be to get the biggest freezer you can afford & have space for because you will fill it - whether it's HM cooking or filling it with reduced price stuff from the supermarket. My chest freezer is permanently full and i now can't imagine how i managed without it. It is handy for stocking up on reduced price stuff and for freezing milk/cheese etc etc to stop you running out of it. I even freeze my ripe bananas now until i need them. I used to always throw them away until i read on this site i could freeze them. It's amazing what you can freeze. You know if i had another freezer i bet i'd fill that as well!!!

elvis_bloggs

I had a king-size bed once, I felt like a dwarf when I was near it.

Zziggi

elvis_bloggs wrote:

I had a king-size bed once, I felt like a dwarf when I was near it.

well imagine if you had a superking sized bed (6 foot across!)