Meal Plan

Hi everyone

My shopping gets delivered today so we start a new meal plan...

Ploughmans...cheddar cheese, crusty bread, pickled onions, nice crisps, pickle, a small salad, pork pie and an apple.

Stew and dumplings...in the slow cooker.

Roast chicken...with roasties, stuffing, cabbage, carrots, green beans, broccoli and gravy.

Jacket potatoes...with cheese, beans and corn on the cob.

Sausages...with macaroni cheese and peas.

Home made quiche...with home made chips, peas and salad.

Pork chops...with mash, carrots, cabbage and gravy.

We will eat these in the order that suits us. I pay attention to what's going out of date to use up first and try to eat food as fresh as possible. 

I try to get a good balance of meat and non-meat days and potatoes/pasta/rice. 

We will have a pudding each day but it is normally something light. If we have a light tea like salad, then we may have a bigger pudding. I'm really craving chocolate pudding and chocolate custard at the moment! I love the autumn when the slow cooker comes out more often and there is more gravy dinners and custard puddings :)

My thoughts have already turned to planning for the autumn months...I've started to pick up warmer clothes for Daisy at the car boot sale for pennies. 

I really am getting back to my thrifty ways...my Hoover broke last week and my dishwasher broke this week :(

I have been sweeping floors and washing up...it's a pain but I'm getting used to it. We will buy another Hoover but I may well do without the dishwasher. I desperately need to cut back on our electricity consumption and I have a feeling the dishwasher may use a lot!

Mandy x

Baking biscuits and using what we've got

Hi everyone

Daisy asked to bake biscuits this afternoon so we made a very simple recipe from her comic. These turned out to be the best biscuits we've ever made! 

Daisy loves icing and decorating. The bunny biscuits were her choice :)

Some of Daisy's finished biscuits...we love baking!

I thought I'd share this easy retro pudding we had yesterday...

Raspberry Angel Delight and tinned peaches! It was lovely. I'm using up some of the bits and bobs in my cupboards as they're getting full again and I'm trying to keep a sensible store cupboard, not an overflowing one! 

I've been useless in remembering to photograph my dinners before eating them! 

I had some veg that needed using up and I always try to use what's in the fridge before my shopping arrives on a Thursday. I chopped some peppers, red onions and spring onions, added a few sprays of oil ready to roast. I later added these to boiled rice. I bought some ribs when they were on offer and marinaded them...

This marinade was different to my usual one. I experimented with what I had in the cupboard and it gave the meat a lovely flavour. 

Sorry we ate it before I remembered to take a photo!

Mandy x

Meal ideas

Hi everyone

If you've followed me for a while you'll know that I have a huge recipe collection. I have decluttered my recipe books but still have a few. Most of my collection is handwritten or magazine cuttings from over the years. Apart from recipes we may refer to, most of us have family favourites that don't require a recipe. I have loads of jottings of meal ideas and on Pinterest and in my head. Sometimes I fall into the same old, same old meals and this makes cooking tea a chore. 

I have this pretty little notebook that I haven't found a use for until now. This will be my meal ideas book. I hope to create a reference book with a huge bank of meal ideas to inspire my meal planning. I will include hot and cold dinners as well as puddings. This gives me the opportunity to keep things simple but to have different meals without searching for recipes. 

I'm not a naturally organised person, so hopefully this will put all my ideas in one place. 

I will be meal planning for next week later today as I do my online shop on Tuesday evenings. I will have a list and I will stick to it!

I will be on the lookout for cheap but nutritious meals, so feel free to share your family favourites in the comments! It would be lovely to recipe share :)

Mandy x

Going back in time!

Hi everyone!

I thought I'd share my thoughts with you of how I love going back in time.

I have shown a keen interest in history since primary school when we studied the Victorians and World War Two. All of the books I read whether fiction or non-fiction are set in the past. I absolutely love living history programmes and record so many just in case I have time to sit and watch them! As I've got older, I have developed a huge interest in all things 1970s. I was born in 1971 so do remember a lot of that decade, although I was a teenager in the 1980s so there are loads of memories there too. My taste in home decor and household items is definitely 70s now...I'm actually embracing the brown and orange floral prints which I used to hate! Here's a few little purchases I've made over the past few months at the boot sale...

I suppose it's a bit of a hobby searching for bits and pieces and I never spend very much! I would love a vintage/retro house and will start with the kitchen. 

We actually eat very much like I did in my childhood. The 1970s are known for the processed food available, but I think a lot of families didn't eat the typical freezer to oven meals. A lot of women were still at home looking after the children (or only part time) and had time to cook from scratch. We had the odd thing like Angel Delight, but generally my diet was home cooked and full of fresh vegetables etc. this got me thinking and although I have lost weight by following a diet, I'm not happy with the amount of processed food. My tummy has not been happy either :(

My snack cupboard is full, so are the tins and packets cupboard...this is not how I want to eat or spend my husbands hard earned cash!! Don't even get me started on processed cheese! Low fat or not. 

So I am trying something different. I will go back traditional, with the added awareness of where I am clearly greedy. I will share photos of my meals to keep me on track too. 

So my blog writing is refreshed after my break and I'm inspired again. I will be taking a new direction but it is definitely thrifty.

I hope you will join me :)

Mandy xx

I'm going to try harder...

Hi to anyone still out there!

Sorry I've been away so long, but I am going to try harder :)

We now have a gorgeous and very precious grandson and Daisy is a big sister! 

I feel ready to blog again now.

In other news...I am trying to lose weight and be more healthy. This has not been a thrifty experience so far so I'm really looking at ways to lose weight without the shopping bill going through the roof! If there's any interest, I will share my thrifty meals and recipes with you. 

I hope you will join me as I get back into the swing of things...

Mandy xx

Daily struggles and next meal plan

Life is full of stress and worry at the moment :(

Health is so important and sometimes taken for granted. 

Hopefully I will be able to make a happy announcement on here soon!

I've just meal planned for next week and thought I'd share that with you...I'm keeping it simple because we have a lot going on at the moment.

In no particular order...

Chilli, rice and French stick

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Pasta bake with spinach

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Egg, cheese and ham salad, new potatoes and bread and butter

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Roast chicken salad and coleslaw with new potatoes and bread and butter

          ••••••••••••••••••••

Sausage, mash and cauliflower cheese

          ••••••••••••••••••••

Roast pork, roasties, stuffing, carrots, greens, broccoli and gravy

          ••••••••••••••••••••

Jacket potato, cheese and beans

          ••••••••••••••••••••

I'm trying to eat a lot of protein at the moment to aid my healing muscles. The egg cheese and ham salad is not really extravagant because we have a little of each. Daisy's not a fan of salad either. I love eating salad this time of year! 

If anyone has any different salad combinations, I'd love you to share them in the comments x

Thanks for being patient with me...I really hope to be back to my usual self very soon.

Mandy xx

Easy Peasy Lasagne

I love eating lasagne but I'm not keen on making it! Yesterday we had lasagne for tea but I took an easier route so I could get on with other things. 

I browned some mince and a chopped onion...I added a handful of chopped mushrooms, a few dashes of Worcester sauce and let it cook for 5mins...I then sprinkled in a low salt beef oxo cube and a little boiling water...next I added a tbsp of tomato purée and a carton of passata... I left this to simmer while I prepared the cheese sauce...  

I made a roux by melting butter, adding flour and slowly adding milk while stirring to get the right consistency (I used a carton of cream with milk because I didn't have much milk)...I took it off the heat and added a good handful of grated cheese...time to assemble...I used fresh pasta sheets...I layered mince mix---lasagne sheet---mince mix---lasagne sheet---cheese sauce---grated cheese---sprinkle of parsley. I baked them at 150oC for 1 hr to slow cook the mince.

This is Daisy's lactose free one before going in the oven...

She assembled most of this herself!

This is one of ours...

I meant to take a photo of them out of the oven but forgot!

It was good!

Mandy xx