Blogmas Day Thirteen - Jugs, Radishes and a Pasta Bake

 

Today's Advent calendar offerings are my little Emma Bridgewater jug, a packet of radish seeds and some lovely dark jam.

My gorgeous little jug will go near the top of the tree in pride of place.

It's been so cold that I've not been fancying salad at all , so two whole packs of tomatoes were still in the fridge from a couple of weeks ago.  Last night I decided to roast them along with the oldest of the onions and a couple of garlic cloves from the freezer and make myself a nice warming pasta bake for my tea.

After forty minutes in the oven I tipped them into my Nutribullet cup and whizzed the lovely tomatoey, garlicky mixture up and poured it over some dry pasta along with some frozen spinach pellets and another cup of water

Half an hour later I had a gorgeous pasta bake and some garlic bread, with enough over to be able to repeat the meal tomorrow.  So garlicky and so tasty.

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Six - Advent Calendar, Nut Roasts and a £1 Christmas Dinner

Today's seeds are coriander not something that I like at all; I will do a giveaway at the end of the month for all the seeds that I know I won't want to use.  Today's jam is ... well it's just jam.  

The names of the flavours are all in French and to be honest they are all that tasty anyway that I don't bother to look at the back of the box to see what it is.  I have not even been eating this year's yet as when I was sorting through the food on the shelves, I found a stash of little jams from my last Bonne Maman Advent calendar a couple of years ago in one of my enamel tins, so I have been eating my way through them instead as they are well out of date now.  One thing for sure I won't have to buy any jam or marmalade next year; I do have a lot in stock.

I bought this dried mix nut roast a few weeks back, just before I found the one that I seem to have had in the freezer since last Christmas.  They are very tasty, but as I found out the last time that I had one they are very reminiscent of stuffing mix ... which I absolutely LOVE so it's not really a problem.  But when I have a nut roast dinner I go light on the amount of stuffing I dish up or it's just like having two portions of different flavoured stuffings and not much else.

I'm not that particular which stuffing mixes I go for, when I first got married over forty four years ago it used to always be the brand leader Paxo as that was what we had growing up, but then I discovered that really there's not much in it between the brand leader and all the pretenders to the throne.  I found that I even liked the basic lines from some supermarkets which used to be just 20p ... I wonder how much they are now?

Seemingly not that much more expensive, just 25p if you buy this one from Asda ... you know me, I had to look it up!!

I wonder if it's still possible to have your whole Christmas dinner for just £1, as it was when Miguel Barclay wrote his first book.

The photo of the Christmas dinner was taken from this book. The Christmas dinner recipe is on page 160.  Perhaps I could make something similar as an experiment, obviously minus the chicken, which should help to keep the cost down nicely.

Sue xx

Eight Meals for Under Two Pounds

I have been on a mission recently to eat my way through the contents of the fridge and freezer, trying desperately but not always succeeding  not to make too many portions so that the fridge ends up filling the freezer ... if you know what I mean.  

The other day I bought a bag of baking potatoes from Aldi's Super Six, 13 potatoes for just 99p a real bargain.  I decided to use three of them straight away to help use up the last of the celery, carrots and onion from the fridge.

With the addition of some store cupboard staples to add a real blast of flavour I set to chopping and slicing to make myself a large pan of vegetable stew.

I simply add a dash of oil to the pan and then after washing I chop, slice and add to the pan the things that take the longest to cook first.  In went the onions, then the carrots, then the celery and finally the potatoes.

Once everything had been sautéing together for about five minutes, I added all my bursts of flavour and the stock powder with about a litre of water.  It was brought to the boil and then left to simmer for about 25 minutes.

Then it was time to divide and conquer.  

Two bowls of vegetable stew, one eaten straight away and one left to cool.  Two portions of pasty filling lifted out of the pan with my slotted spoon and left to cool.  Then the rest of the contents of the pan were whizzed up with my stick blender and made me just over a litre of nice thick vegetable soup.

I filled my two largest bowls with soup and then froze two more portions for another week ... sorry freezer, I know I'm supposed to be emptying you!!

 

The two containers of pasty filling went into the fridge until the following day.  Then I got out the pastry from the freezer (yay!!) and let it thaw and come to room temperature, before making myself two lovely and very big pasties.

One to be eaten straight away ...

... and one in the fridge.

I did my workings out the next day and found that counting only the foods I used, and always rounding the points of a penny up, my eight portions of food cost me:

3 potatoes = 24p

1.5 onions = 11p

2 sticks of celery = 7p

3 carrots = 12p

2 tsp dried vegetable stock = 2p

herbs and spices = 10p

2 tsp olive oil = 2p

ready rolled puff pastry = 1.05

Total = £1.73.

As I ate each bowl of soup with a slice of toast that added 5p per slice to the final cost of the meals, so I came in at £1.93.

Under two pounds for eight very filling meals.

Of course, you could add all sorts of additions to the basic starter pan using whatever you have lurking in the freezer or fridge.  Frozen vegetables work just as well as fresh and usually cook a lot quicker ... although cooking gently and for longer can greatly improve the flavours, especially with your onion, celery, carrot starter.  

Once you've made the basic pan of stew you could add different things to the stews, the pasties or change some of the soups a bit by adding curry powder or other spices to half of the amount you have.  You could add sausages, tinned or cooked meat or fish to any of the portions and have something completely different flavour wise.   

I just thought I would share this as a basic idea for cheap, warming foods on these cold dreary days. 

 Tonight, I am having the second pasty for my tea ... and I can't wait.

Sue xx