Getting Ready for Even more Simplicity

 

I forgot to mention at the start of the week, that last weekend I emptied out the three large planters of potatoes that I planted back in August. it was only when I saw Angela's tasty little harvest that I remembered the photographs languishing in my camera.  

 I had noticed weeks ago that the foliage was all really dying back quickly, but I had to smile to myself when I rounded the corner to the shed and saw that all greenery had completely vanished ... nothing to go into my new bargain tiny compost bin then.  😄

We didn't get many potatoes from the 18 planted but what we did get was split between the two of us.  Alan decided to try and keep his for our Christmas lunch, but I thought I would cook up half of my portion for a shared meal that night and I still have the ones in the blue bag to have for another meal.  There might not have been many, but they were delicious, and of course now I have those huge planters to plant either more potatoes in or something else for next year.

And next year I really do want to try and grow more and finally get my tiny vegetable garden into full production.  I now have both the fancy wooden raised beds and these three large planters, and once December is over I should have a good stash of seeds from my Advent calendar.

Next year is going to be a year of real simplicity as I am already making plans to stop spending on anything but the absolute necessities.  The food budget is to be cut to whatever money I have been able to make this year ... it's not been counted yet, so that could prove interesting.  As most of you are aware this year I have sold at two table-top sales and on and off all year on Facebook Marketplace.  I have just made a final book sale via Ziffit and made myself another £22.48.  

A little tip that I learnt this year, if Ziffit doesn't offer you much for your books or DVDs, try alternating with selling via webuybooks.  By doing this I have managed to get quite a bit more money each time!

It all adds up, so hopefully I have enough in my little pots and boxes of cash dotted about the place to cover my housekeeping budget for next year.  I have gotten into the bad habit of squirreling away the money that I have been receiving over the year in dribs and drabs in the strangest of places, and sometimes where I expect to find money in my old Sealed Pot for example, I instead find something completely different.  Salt and spices anyone?

I have no idea how much there is, but I managed to get rid of most of the small change when we did the table-top sale so it is at least in one and two pound coins and notes which will make shopping with cash much easier.

I have tried doing variations of this a few times and I always seem to make it more complicated than it needs to be, so this time I am keeping it really simple and just having the pot of money to dip into whenever I need to shop.  When it runs out, it runs out ... as simple as that.  So, the only real Challenge is not to dip into it too often!!

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

Random Jobs, Filters, Dishcloths and Souvenirs

Alan has just got himself a brand new Gtech upright cleaner and a little handheld one to accompany it.  We know these are good as I bought this K9 version for the caravan and during closed season we had it at home in Wales for a quick daily clean around to save getting the Dyson out.  Then I used it at the flat and now it's with me here in the Lodge.  So when his Dyson started playing up a bit and the large cleaning head on it broke he decided to bite the bullet and get himself a Gtech too.

Well his sparkly clean new one put mine to shame so the other day I set too giving it the biggest clean of it's life up to now.

Everything was stripped down and cleaned.

Everything that could go in the sink went in the sink and soon everything was nice and clean.

Well except for my dishcloth that I decided to use to clean it.  

No matter I still have more new ones in the pack I bought long before I moved to this new home.  They do last well these cloths and I highly recommend them, Not I hasten to add for the 'antibacterial' properties, this really annoys me ... we need bacteria in our lives to some extent to help us keep our immune systems in good working order, so why is everything anti-bacterial these days.

Anyway the old cloth has now moved down a peg to floor cloth and the new one is on the kitchen sink ready for daily pot washing duties.

While I was having a clean up I came across these ... the only souvenirs that I brought back from our holiday in Spain back in May.  A triangular sachet of sugar from a café on the sea front in Port of Alcudia and two little shells off the beach at the front of our hotel.

Happy memories, at virtually no cost.

Sue xx

Remember When ...?

 

Remember when I got the last Booths voucher and decided to save it to spend on a treat for my birthday?  Well my birthday is nearly here, and the coupon date was almost up so I took it with me to Booths last week when I was picking up last weeks cardholder freebie.

Which made a nice treat for Alan when he got home from work . 

This weeks freebie is a dairy free chocolate bar which will be mine, all mine.  😊

And my nice birthday treat ... one of my favourite hand and body lotions, which along with the £5 coupon cost me just 60p.

Another 'Remember When ...'

Remember HERE when I bought the expensive tinned tomatoes and the cheap tinned tomatoes and decided to do a comparison taste test?  Well I did it, and the verdict is ... you do actually get what you pay for if you are eating them as they are straight from the can or want to make a lovely rich tomatoey sauce for your pasta dish. 

They are lovely rich and, as the can says 'finely chopped tomatoes' as fine as I have ever seen tomatoes chopped in fact and with hardly any watery juice.  BUT and yes it is a huge but when I make anything with chopped or any sort of tinned tomatoes I do tend to add salt, pepper, some dried herbs and sometimes some dried garlic powder and onion powder too, it's just what I'm used to doing.  Doing this made the cheap tomatoes taste better than the more expensive ones in my opinion.

I honestly think that I would buy the more expensive ones again if they were on a good special offer for those days when I just want to be able to open a can and pour them onto some freshly cooked spaghetti or straight onto a slice of toast for a tasty and nourishing breakfast.

So in my humble opinion you are not missing out at all by continuing to buy the cheaper version for day to day meals and sauces.  And of course the very best cooked tomatoes are the ones that you have in the fridge that have gone slightly too soft for slicing for sandwiches, so you quarter and roast them in the oven while you are cooking something else and then simply whizz them up into a sauce or soup.

To continue this theme of playing with my food, I have just bought another expensive and cheap version of something ... more about that another day.

Sue xx

Do the Maths!!

 

My Low Spend Challenge is still going on in many ways, and although I decided not to push myself to post every day or even show every single shopping trip (I've had a bad couple of weeks with my back), I am still keeping the spending much lower than I ever have before.  And it's not just in the food department that I want to limit my spending this year.

The moisturiser in the purple tube ran out two weeks ago and I rummaged through the bathroom baskets knowing I had at least two of the one that I use in Summer with the SPF20 protection factor.  I found that I had four!!  It will be interesting to see how long these last.  

I should have realised that I would have more than two as I do watch out for these being on offer in Sainsbugs which it regularly is.  In fact I've just popped over and checked on the website and it's £5 off at the moment.  So buying four ready for future use saves an impressive £20 ... which is obviously what I did last time!!

I'm trying to keep my meals as simple but as healthy as I can both for my health and because the warmer weather of the last few days meant that I didn't want to be spending ages cooking over a hot stove, so something like this has been my current go to.  

Just simple sautéed onion, peppers and tomatoes with lots of seasoning and 'ready to wok' noodles or ready cooked pasta thrown in for the last three or so minutes.  With a handful of mixed leaves for a green hit of goodness it's a nice light evening meal or a very filling lunch.  And it's a very economical meal too with the noodles being just 79p for a double pack in Aldi (£1 in Sainsbugs) and only a quarter of a pepper, half a dozen cherry tomatoes and half an onion.  I haven't actually done the maths ... maybe I should ... but it's going to be around a pound for the whole meal.

See now my brain is screaming 'DO THE MATHS' ... I bet I have done before the day is out!!

Sue xx

Tinned Tomatoes at WHAT price!!

 

I was rummaging about in the cupboard the other morning looking for some tinned tomatoes to have on toast for my breakfast.  I had an almost heart stopping moment when I thought I was about to use the last tin, then I moved a tin of Black Beans slightly to the left and discovered a whole other double height row of lovely tomatoey tins ... phew!!

Breakfast was had and enjoyed and the leftover two thirds of the tin was decanted and put into the fridge ready to be used for another meal.  I can easily get three meals out of one tin of tomatoes, which got my challenge brain thinking ... how many other food items do I get at least three uses out of?

That would be interesting to note down instead of just thinking about, doing and forgetting.

I don't know why this idea even came to me, but when I was out shopping later in the day I suddenly thought ... What is the price difference between the cheapest tin of tomatoes and the most expensive?

You know me I had to look!!

The ones on the left, picked up from Booths were £1.30 and the ones on the right picked up from Sainsbugs were still available at just 28p.

Wow ... that is some difference for the same sized can of tomatoes.  

I haven't opened either of them yet, but it will be really interesting to see if the taste difference is between the two in any way justifies the cost.  But I would be able to get four tins of the Sainsbugs ones for less than the cost of the others.

The big question is ... Do people actually buy these on a regular basis just as day to day tomatoes for use in pasta sauces etc?  I guess the taste test will tell me when I get around to it.

The slightly littler question is ... WHY did I buy two more tins of tomatoes when I had just discovered a row of eight in my cupboard?

And the teeny, tiny question tapping away at the back of my mind is ... How many other things are there that are so different in price that are just normal every day items of food stuff ... too many for me to buy and taste test I guess.  But it's made me think, and I will be looking a little bit harder at brands and prices next time I go shopping.

I couldn't resist showing you my little seedlings, not bad for six days since sowing.  It always pays to sow seeds a little later than you think you should.  I got home from Manchester yesterday and the Mizuna were up, then this morning all the other ones appeared.  🌱

Sue xx

Money Boxes and Savings

We were chatting in the comments on PP's Small Treasures blog a few days ago and I mentioned those long slim divided money boxes that used to be all the rage for managing your cash back in the day.  I remember my parents having one each and the labels being Rent, Electric, Gas, Rates, Spends etc

Anyway with a lull in work proceedings and over a cup of coffee I decided to look on eBay to see if they were still around, and they were ... at a price!!

The one above had a Buy it Now price of £19.99 so I kept looking ...

... then I found this one, just listed with a Buy it Now price of £3.99.

At that top price I don't think I would be tempted even if it wasn't my No Spend Challenge year, I'll stick with my little drawer, my box and my enamel teapot for now.

Oh and I also came across these, once given away completely free of charge if you opened an account for your child.  Now available to buy for £10 the pair ... I always wanted one of those cute little houses, but unfortunately I couldn't afford to open my sons a savings account when they were all the rage.

Sue xx

Single Use Plastics, Re-using, Re-purposing and Recycling

 

Single use plastics and people talking about them seem to be everywhere I look at the moment.  It's funny isn't it that when you think about something and maybe read about it or watch a programme about it, suddenly it's everywhere.

I was sat mindlessly chewing the legs off my Christmas Gingerbread Man ... you have to eat them legs first so you can say goodbye to his face ... watching a Youtuber teaching me all about re-using plastic bags when I suddenly thought 'you're teaching your granny to suck eggs here'  ...

... because in my kitchen draining over the cutlery tub before being put away for possibly the fifth time was a zip-lock bag, a regular occurrence here in the lodge.

It always makes me smile when I think about how many times I use some things, just take my green Stay Fresh bags from Lakeland for instance.  At £6.99 for just 20 that might seem expensive ... indeed at 35p each it is ... but when you think that I usually have around four on the go at any one time and these get used and used and used until they can longer be used and then they are suddenly very good value.  I can honestly say that I have used each of my current on the go ones more than 35 times each making them less than one penny each.  And thinking of the money they save me by keeping my vegetables fresh for such a long time I have saved so much money.

I remember last year visiting my Mum and she was really upset after watching a programme about cotton buds and their environmental impact when they had plastic sticks.  She had a new pack purchased months before waiting on her table to remind her to ask me what to do with them.  'Should I throw them away' she said 'and get some of the new ones with cardboard sticks'.  It only took me a moment to point out that if she used them one by one as she occasionally did and then throw them away it would be much better than putting the whole tub in the bin and  rushing out to replace them.  They would be thrown away in either instance ... but we should use what we have first. 

And that's just it isn't it, those of us of a certain generation were brought up to use what we have, keep what we buy for so much longer and not to replace things for replacing's sake.  We grew up with the milkman delivering our milk in returnable glass bottles, using our own shopping bags to carry groceries home from the shop.  Having our fresh produce and our fish and chip suppers wrapped in paper, and in the case of the chips it was actually recycled newspaper.  I remember taking a pile of newspapers to the chippy with a friend and being rewarded with a scallop each ... the Manchester version, which is a thin slice of heavily battered potato which was deep fried with the fish and usually for sale at 2d each.

Google Image

I think we were the original re-users, re-purposers and re-cyclers.

Sue xx

Vegetables and Pastry

The last of the potatoes, the last of the celery, a couple of onions and the smaller carrots that I wanted to use up first.  Along with a tablespoon of bouillon and some water and seasoning made the component parts of six meals. 

One of the more finely chopped potatoes was cooked first and then scooped out to cool down and be added to the Cheese and Onion Pasty that I showed yesterday.  Then the rest of the chopped vegetables were added to the already potatoey water along with the bouillon and some more water.  This was then turned into a vegetable stew ... with the late addition of a large handful of peas ... that I had for another meal.  

After the rest had cooled a bit a couple of spoonfuls of the stew left in the pan were then lifted out with minimal water to be added to another strip of the same roll of pastry I used yesterday to make a Vegetable Pasty.  Then what was left was whizzed up with my stick blender to make three good sized portions of Vegetable Soup for some of this weeks lunches.

After making two pasties from this pack of pastry there was a very narrow strip of pastry left.  I could have just made the pasty a bit larger but I had a different plan in mind.

I rolled out the pastry to make it wider and thinner, sprinkled on some of my tastier cheeses, folded it over, rolled it again and cut it into four biscuit sized portions.

They looked like this.

Then I baked my pasty and cheese biscuits together, knowing that the biscuits could come out first and be a tasty little starter while my pasty continued cooking.

Too tasty ... it's a good job there were only four!!

Just like the softest and tastiest of cheese straws but flat and hot straight from the oven.  😋

And finally the pasty ... just my usual vegetable pasty but very enjoyable.  I didn't bother with gravy just a small dollop of mayonnaise.

Not the most balanced of weekend foods if you just look at the photos I have shown but bear in mind there was also the last three of the mandarin oranges and one of the apples consumed, a spinach and fruit smoothie for breakfast on Sunday and a large portion of liquid apple on both Saturday and Sunday evenings.  🍷🍷 😉

I could of course have just gone out and bought a pack of various pasties or pies but isn't making your own from what you already have in just that much more satisfying?

Sue xx

Mavis Spying, Chocolate Eating, Weekend Watching

 

I was busy on the computer when the postman came.  He pushed two of my magazine subscriptions through the letter box with a loud bang, waking the dogs and making me jump.  I stopped what I was doing and started opening the post, just a couple of flyers, a letter and the magazines which were in their now eco friendly paper wrappers ... which are great until it rains hard and then the magazines inside get soggy!!

I could feel eyes on me and sure enough there she was, Mavis watching me from the sofa, sadly she knows Mum doesn't get any sausages through the letterbox so it's rarely worth a run up the length of the hall just to sniff out what has arrived.  😄

None of our dogs have ever been the sort to run up to the post when it arrives, and either rip it to shreds or bring it over to us, thank goodness really I guess.  Mavis does usually do a perfunctory bark just to let the postman know that there is a very savage and dangerous dog in this particular house and he should beware ... but then she gives herself away when I have to open the door to him for any reason and she greets him instead with a very waggy tail and a look of utter admiration.

Inside the two magazines that came ... the Radio Times and Country Living ... there were all these special offer temptations.  

I could save myself money off the National Trust and get a £10 gift card, we're already members so no need for any of that, there were vouchers offering money off kitchen supplies, money off flowers or food delivery box subscriptions, money off furniture and re-upholstering the furniture you already own.

I'm going to save myself SO much money ... I'm going to save a full 100% in fact ... as I'm not buying anything. Nothing at all, nada, nil, zilch.  Into the recycling they all went, and I said a quiet prayer for all the trees that gave up their lives for the waste of paper that these offers are.

I made myself a coffee, and in the interest of using up some Vego chocolate spread that is just out of date I had some on a slice of hot toast.  It's hard work this eating up of the cupboard supplies. 😉

Here are a couple of YouTube clip that I have enjoyed this week, this Cottage Fairy one really resonates with me, you'll see why.

why I chose to live alone - two years in a cottage - YouTube

And I've also been watching lots of Happy Pear videos for tasty food inspiration for the weeks to come.  This spice blend idea really caught my attention, making these mixes up would simplify my spice drawer a bit!!

3 FUNDAMENTAL SPICE BLENDS that make Vegan Cooking SIMPLE - YouTube

Hope you have a great weekend.

Sue xx

Sorting Through the Vegetable Drawer

 

Gosh, now that's an exciting blog post title isn't it. 😄😆

But not wanting anything that I already have to go to waste, yesterday I hoicked out the vegetable drawer and went through it all carefully.  Everything in it was bought either before Christmas or just after and some of the dates were waaaaay in the past!!

The first thing I usually do when I buy celery is to wash it and repack it wrapped in kitchen roll inside a green Stayfresh bag.  This really does mean that it stays fresh for a long time.  However I hadn't done it this time, so that was my first job.

 I know in the past when I have mentioned doing this that some readers have said that they wrap theirs tightly in tinfoil, but I've always found that this doesn't work as well for me.  Anyway prepping the celery all in one go means that I can use all the trimmings for soup and what I have left is ready for use ... or a quick grab and go snack.

I chopped up one and a half red onions my remaining two carrots and added the celery trimmings and leaves along with the stalks of the Tenderstem broccoli  then sautéed these in some oil while I checked through everything else.

The bagged leaves were looking very sorry for themselves, but still edible thanks to the kitchen roll trick.

Not bad when I bought them and opened them a day before this date.

I also opened and used the outer leaves of an Iceberg lettuce that I bought just before the New Year.  The cut end was placed on a double piece of kitchen paper and then into a bag, then it and the cut in half celery sticks were put back into the now wiped out and dried vegetable drawer.

Once the harder vegetables had been cooking for a few minutes I added the leaves, a vegetable stock pot that I found lurking in the cupboard ... I must check if there are anymore in there ... and about half a litre of hot water.

Then almost as an afterthought I added a good handful of washed red lentils, I might as well keep the protein police happy. 😉

It cooked away for a bit longer than I meant it too, as I started hopping around blogland reading lots of lovely posts, but then it was whizzed up and I decided to weigh it to see how many portions I would get.

So I reckon three good portions of lovely warming vegetable soup, so that's two more lunches for me and I now also know exactly what I have left in the vegetable drawer and it should keep me going until at least the middle of next week.

So I have left in the drawer - 

1/4 white Cabbage

most of a head of Celery

most of an Iceberg Lettuce

 Red Onions

Brown onions

1/2 Cucumber

full pack of Cherry Tomatoes

3 Peppers

and

the heads of the Tenderstem Broccoli 

(which are actually in a tub on the shelf of the fridge)

Not a bad little stash of fresh stuff, which after a thorough check is still pretty fresh and very usable.  I have just been adding this photo to my photo files and now I should be able to monitor everything nicely ready for showing quite a difference in the food stash on the 1st February.

I should do the same for the fruit drawer next ... but I think it's coffee time first. 😀

Sue xx