Six Shops in Eighteen Days, and Weekend Watching

I've just spotted in my diary that I have actually shopped six times in the first half of February.  Just how is the shortest month of the year going to be the month that I shop the most, it's ridiculous!!

The bread and tomatoes were bought on Wednesday ready to be turned into corned beef and tomato sandwiches for Alan and Mum and cheese and tomato for me.  We each had a flapjack from my food stash for dessert.

Total spent - £2.10

The little jar of jam was in my handbag and was what I brought home from the afternoon tea, I wasn't going to waste that nice jam on horribly dry gluten free scones!!

Then yesterday Alan asked if I wanted to go to Aldi with him ... of course I said yes. 😄

I mostly shopped for the Foodbank but the items above went into the trolley for me.  It's funny but ever since we were talking about sausage rolls when we went for the afternoon tea I have been fancying some.  I could of course have made them myself with the ready rolled pastry in my fridge and the Linda McCartney sausages from my freezer ...but I was in Aldi, theirs are some of the best and they are one of the rare items that have never increased in price.  They have been £1.19 for around three years now, so when I spied them in the freezer next to the pizzas I just had to buy a box.

I also decided to buy some sparkling water and fresh orange juice because just the evening before I had been stood looking for something to drink other than coffee, tap water or wine, and I had found nothing.

 

I did remember to keep the receipt, again it's another very faded one  Is Aldi too poor to buy fresh ink for their tills?

I spent a total of £9.96 on these six items for me, and quite a bit more on the Foodbank ... but that doesn't come out of my challenge budget, hence me not showing the rest of the receipt.

A couple of the YouTube videos that I have enjoyed this week.

https://youtu.be/cPdlMLf7bWo

Firstly Madeleine Olivia and her ongoing decluttering.  

It's a bit long and there's quite a lot of waffle but some good ideas, and it does spur me on to keep sorting out the nitty gritty of what I have left.  What I am always astounded by though is her talk of all her work tiring her out so much.  

She's an influencer, she films her actual day to day life and occasionally food videos ... and has other people working for her to get these edited and put onto YouTube and various other platforms. I may be being over-critical but we all live our lives and just get on with it.  Spending a portion of nearly every video that she has put out recently, saying how tiring she is finding it all just seems a bit much when she is earning a LOT of money just for filming herself living.  What is clever though, and something I thoroughly approve of, is that this video does seem to be addressing most of the criticism aimed at her on Tattle Life. 

It's a pretty despicable website with people really being keyboard warriors, and being very negative and sometimes extremely nasty about people online or in the media.

https://youtu.be/wVtY4h3GvzQ

Claire's Journey

Now there's a good pantry for storing all your food in one place.

https://youtu.be/LDequNEitcM

And finally ... a bit of What's for Tea.  

A Scottish lady with an accent that's very different from Alan's, she simply shows us the meals that they've had over the previous week.  She has a huge following of people that love to pick up new meal ideas.  A new meals video comes out every Sunday, a shopping haul on Friday and sometimes there is a recipe video too ... and yes Mince and Tatties is one of Alan's favourite meals.   

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Sue xx

Ramekins, Lids and Food in Unexpected Places

 

I've been getting a head start on the Spring Cleaning, just little bits here and there so that there will be no need for an almighty cleaning session.  The other day while the computer was firing up I noticed a fine layer of dust on this shelf ... you can even see the dust here in the photo ... so I decided that this would be that days little task.

So the shelves were emptied and wiped down, while they were drying I emptied inside the cupboard too and wiped that, putting everything back a little bit neater and getting rid of some of the excess plastic lids that I had for the Gu ramekins.

My world was made happy when I discovered that Pringles and Stacker lids fit these so neatly!!

But I did have to start being ruthless when we were packing to move from Wales and I discovered just how many of the little ramekins and lids we had actually saved!!  

While I was organising the contents of the cupboard I decided to streamline the bulging sachet bowl.  So I opened and tipped the contents of all the brown sugar sachets into my little sugar jar.

And did the same with the salt, leaving just a few of both in my little sachet stash for emergency use.

It was when I went to lift the enamel teapot down that I discovered the 'food in unexpected places' !!

 I can't remember when I put salt and spices in there, but the minute I picked up the teapot and felt it's weight I knew what it contained.  They will come in very useful, and I'm really pleased that I found them before I ran out of any of them and purchased some more.

Sue xx

Flowers, Overly Sweet and Mavis on The Chase

 

My Valentines 'flowers' off Alan and my card.

He's doing that man-thing and whilst he's now remembering that I like greenery and dislike some flowers, he's not remembering that I absolutely adore nice simple flowers, all of one kind that sit happily in my little cream coloured jug.  So this is what he paid a lot of money for, when I would have just loved the £2.29 little bunches of simple flowers in Aldi.  

He can't help it ... he's a man!!

The Afternoon Tea that he paid for for us both for Valentines Day was nice.  

There was so much on the three tiered plate stand that we both needed doggy-bags to bring the leftovers home, and everyone else that left their tables went out of the restaurant clutching doggy bags too.   I had my flapjack for breakfast yesterday and the slice of chocolate cake for supper last night, and then this morning I decided to have the last thing which was the lemon tart ... with a dash of my squirty cream of course.  😁

I actually think that this will be the last afternoon tea that I will have.  There were just too many sweet things, and we both agreed as we drove home feeling very podged and over-sugared, that we are more savoury people now.  There were literally four tiny sandwiches on each stand, of which I couldn't eat two as Alan had forgotten to let them know that I am allergic to avocados, and then everything else was cake, tart, mousse or scones and jam.

A little vegan sausage roll or quiche would have made all the difference.

Anyway now I'm just sounding picky, so I'll shut up!!

Is anybody else in the UK noticing that the sponsors of The Chase seem to have Mavis on the quiz team.  😀

It makes me smile every night.

Sue xx

So, How Do I Think of a Subject for a Blog Post

So I was asked two questions, the first one 'How do you think of a subject for a blog post?' ... most likely the question came up because my posts are here, there and everywhere, bouncing off the walls with no steady theme.   I bet a lot of you wonder exactly what you are actually going to find when you get over here.

Foody, housey, garden-y, dogs, challenges, decorating ... chickens!!

Well usually something catches my attention the day before and I think 'I could write about that!!'  So the next day I do.  Sometimes I do admit to sitting at my computer and I really do not have a Scooby Do what I am going to say, on those days I go into my photo files and choose a photo ... and away I go.

So the other day in my Facebook Memories I had a wonderful selection of photos that I had shared on Facebook over the years on that particular date.  I though how random and what a good idea for a blog post.   And these photos are the ones.

The top photo shows my three Skyline chickens from back in the day when we lived on our second smallholding in Berkshire, it was from a Facebook entry announcing the death of ... and celebrating the life of ... Enid who was the last of them to die, she is at the front with her sisters Ethel and Dolly behind her.  Their names were picked by readers of my blog who each won a very unusual prize for having their choice of names chosen.  🥚🥚⚘

 

This was another photo that came up in the Memories, and I still feel that it's very true.

And one that I thought you would all love was a memory of Suky in the caravan, refusing to part with her hot water bottles or to get out of bed.  And looking that cosy who can possibly blame her. 💖

So this post was inspired by Facebook Memories and the photos that it threw up.

Other days  it can be day to day life, something I buy, something I see and I bet like all of you who are blogging buddies just something that captures my imagination.  I could never be simply a recipe blogger, or a gardening blogger or a minimalist blogger, I really do feel the need to jump here, there and everywhere between everything that encompasses my life.

So I guess the answer to question number one is, my subjects tend to choose themselves, I just have to be on the ball and notice things  ... and then remember them.

Question number two was 'Do you read other peoples blogs before you write yours or after?'

When I come onto the computer to do a blog post, first I check the previous couple of posts that I have done, reply to comments, answer any questions, check the Spam box, there are nearly always a few comments trapped in there, including some of my own previous replies that initially published and then seem to have migrated, it's all very strange at the moment.  

Next I do whatever blog post I have got on my mind to do ... and only when it is done, checked and set to publish do I go and read what my blogging buddies and other blog writers have written on their blogs.  I always feel that reading other blogs first may influence what I write and I would not want that to be the case at all.

I think the beauty of blogland is that we have all found a way of posting that suits us and we have all chosen what we are going to write about, be that one specific subject or a myriad of different subjects.

I hope you found that interesting, I have no idea what you may find here next .....

Sue xx

Valentines Day Shopping, Points and Vouchers

 

Very special shopping yesterday, ready for today.

Valentines flowers and a bottle of Port for Alan, including a tasteful bunch of flowers and a wacky multi-coloured rose to acquiesce to his garish sense of style.  

£32.50 spent ... GULP!!

But at least I collected some Nectar points and looking at my App it says that I have just over £15 worth of points.  They should come in very handy for restocking the vegetable drawer in the fridge next week ... perhaps if I had looked at it earlier I could have saved half the cost of this little spending spree.

Oh well what is done is done and at least I still have them.

I also have these.  😀

The two on the right arrived over six months ago and the three on the left last week.  That should help out with the cash flow very well, and luckily they have really long dates on them so there's no rush to spend them.

Sue xx

Acquiesce

Shopping, Pizza Dough and a Question

 

This weekends purchases:  Eggs £2.90 and pizza dough 99p from Aldi.

Alan went shopping and asked me if I wanted anything and as the dogs had worked their way through all my eggs I asked for the eggs.  Later on I had to go out myself and I was tempted by the Pizza Dough.

I'm so easily tempted.

But in my defence I had a plan for all the fridge vegetables yesterday,  and I thought that once I had chopped and cooked everything a nice simple tea with some of the rewards of my labours would be just the ticket for a Sunday evening.  And it really was.

The fridge drawer before I began chopping.

The results of the chopping.

And here is all that is currently left in the vegetable drawer.  I thought it best not to cut up all the onions, so I saved the best of the red ones to be eaten raw or in dishes this week.  I was supposed to save one of the carrots so that I could make some coleslaw with the heart of the lettuce that I have left, but oops I sliced and froze all but two of them.

The spare two were cut in half and put in a tray with oil, cumin and garlic granules to have as a little treat.

They were not pretty to look at after half an hour in the oven ... oh, but they tasted like heaven.  The splodges on the top are one of the squeezed out garlic cloves that I roasted with the other vegetables.

And of course these days it is almost compulsory to fill every gap in the oven if you are putting it on for half an hour, and the carrot tray filled the last gap nicely.  😊

Once cooled the container of vegetables went into the fridge for use all through this week.   They were smelling glorious with seven of the eight roasted garlic cloves squeezed in and stirred through.

I have been setting myself a little side-challenge which I nicknamed Stretching Food to see how much use I can get from various things with just a little extra thought.  Up to now I have done 1 tin of peaches, 2 tins of salmon and this week it is going to be the turn of my roasted vegetables.  

The first meal was using a handful of them on half of the pizza dough to have that nice easy tea that I promised myself.  I have to say that I'm not impressed with the ready made pizza dough, I would have been better using that sheet of ready rolled puff pastry that I bought last week, but I had forgotten all about that.  

 I will use the other half of the pizza dough in a different way I think  

How would you use it?

Sue xx

Food, Shelves, Picture, Instagram and YouTube

I'm slowly working my way through cupboard things now as well as the last of the original freezer stash and it feels good that slowly, very slowly, things are actually starting to go down and space is beginning to appear.

It's not a job that I intend to rush though, and the first things that are being used up are the out of date ones, of which this pack of cereal is one.  I decanted it into a jar because that way I can see it glaring at me from the wire shelves over the small drawer unit and it makes me want to work my way through it slightly quicker.

You wouldn't think this entire box of cereal would fit into one Kilner jar would you ... but it did!!

I cut the label off the front of the box so I would remember what the flakes actually were, and then the cardboard went into the recycling bin and the inner wrapper was wiped down and put into the drawer to use as sandwich wrappers or 'easy leave' ... or as I saw on Nancy Birtwistle's Instagram the other day you can use it when you are rolling out pastry.

Now the jar has re-joined the others on the wires shelves and hopefully will be emptied bit by bit over the coming couple of weeks.  Oh, and taking this photo reminded me that a while ago someone asked me about the grey framed picture in my hallway.

Here's a close up just for you.

It's some of the original artwork and notes from Jack Monroe's 'Cooking on a Bootstrap' from when she launched the Kickstarter edition ahead of the later one.  I do have one of her photos (of parsnips) framed somewhere but the glass was cracked in the house move.  I do need to get that sorted!!

Meanwhile here's a tiny bit of Weekend Watching for you all.

https://youtu.be/sGI2mz7Gr1A

First, how's about a bit of Frugal Stu.  

I only discovered him recently when he did a collaboration video with Jane, Frugal Queen in France.  He's just a really down to earth guy sharing his tips and tricks from a single bloke's perspective.  It's nice to hear such a good Northern accent on YouTube, and his channel is already growing from strength to strength.

And for a bit of a laugh.  😃

https://youtu.be/kEPfM3jSoBw

I hope you're all having a great weekend.

Sue xx