Keeping an eye on things and reducing waste...

Hi everyone

This morning I have been looking at my food stores and removing anything looking past it's best. In the past I haven't done this and ended up throwing away a lot of food from the fridge, especially salad and veg or fresh cream. 

These apples were looking a bit soft and yellow, so I peeled, cored and chopped them (with Daisy's help...her eating knife not a sharp one) and put them on to simmer. Daisy will love stewed apple and custard later (a lot of the retro puddings I have been making contain double cream which I cannot buy lactose free) and I can make apple crumble for the freezer too. 

The cores and peelings will be enjoyed by our chickens.

The bits and bobs I took out of the fridge will be used up at lunchtime and go into our tea.

A little time taken to save money by not wasting it!

How much food do you end up throwing away...or is nothing wasted?

Thanks for reading,

Mandy x

Tinned potatoes

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I needed to use up some bacon that was open. I fried it while poaching eggs and warming beans in the microwave. I was going to cook hash browns to go with it, but that meant putting the oven on just for them (not economical for our electric bill), so I opened a tin of potatoes, sliced them and fried them in fat I had saved from cooking sausages another day.

You're probably thinking...so what! That's not very interesting...but...we actually don't like tinned potatoes! I bought them back in the summer, thinking I would try them in a potato salad, but never did! I think the flavour from the sausage fat helped, but they were actually quite nice.

The point of this blog post...I bought something but it had been sat in the cupboard for months uneaten.

...I used it up!

...I saved on my electric bill.

...we had potatoes to go with our sort of fry-up

...I know now not to waste my money on things we probably won't eat just because they're cheap.

Potatoes are quite expensive, but I will stick to what I know works for us (or we go without).

Have you ever bought something just because it was cheap???

Thanks for reading,

Mandy xxx

Two bun recipes...

Hi everyone!

I did manage to make the buns yesterday, but didn't have time to post the recipes. Here they are:

Jam Buns

1 cup self-raising flour

pinch of salt

2 dsp marg (dessert spoons)

2 dsp caster sugar

2 tbsp milk

little jam

little milk for brushing over

1. rub the marg into the flour and salt
2. mix in sugar and milk
3. mould in hands into 6 balls and pop on a greased baking tray
4. make a hole in the top of each bun with your thumb
5. fill the hole with jam
6. brush the buns over with milk
7. bake for 10 mins at 200oC
8. leave to cool

All-in-one Buns

2oz marg

1oz caster sugar

1 egg

2oz self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp water

glace cherries/dried fruit/chocolate chips

12 cake cases

1. put all ingredients into a mixer (could do it with a mixing bowl and wooden spoon) and whisk until combined
2. Add either 2oz chopped glace cherries, 2oz dried fruit or 2oz chocolate chips and mix in
3. put into cake cases and bake for 10 mins at 190oC
4. cool

These recipes are great for children to make too.

I have a fan oven so they both took exactly 10 mins to cook. I made the cherry and the choc chips buns and will make the fruit ones another day. I needed to use up some cherries. I have stored them in an airtight tin. 

Yesterday I went through my fridges and took out any dodgy looking veg. I have peeled and chopped up swede, parsnips and carrots and put into stew packs ready for my next slowcooker casserole. I wouldn't be able to use them up fast enough this week. On Sunday, I will shop at Asda for fresh foods and obviously Daisy-May's baby things. I am doing well, using up what I have and hopefully cutting my shopping bill - reducing waste too!

I had several lemons in the fridge which I wanted to turn into puddings and cakes. I haven't had the time and rather than let them go bad, I sliced up the large lemons and open froze them. The smaller value lemons were squeezed and the juice frozen too.

I am really keeping on top of my food waste now. Any peelings go to the chickens and anything they can't have is recycled in our compost bins or in the brown bins we have to recycle all food waste with the bin collections.

Probably no blogging over the weekend - Charlotte and I are selling at a carboot sale tomorrow (Grampy is looking after Daisy all by himself!) Sunday will be shopping and family time. Have a good weekend!

Mandy x