They're all grown up now!

Hi everyone,

Yesterday my youngest daughter turned 18!

So now I don't have any 'children' left... they are all adults. That makes me feel old... but the youngest also produced our first grandchild, so I really am old!!!

The birthday girl visited us (and her baby) for about half an hour before heading back to her friends. We quickly passed her cards and presents, lit and blew out birthday cake candles, sang 'Happy Birthday' and ate a slice of chocolate cake. Not a 'normal' kind of birthday, very rushed, but it's what makes her happy... we are far too boring for her :((

Sorry, no frugal recipe today. I've got a huge amount of housework to do (after a busy weekend), so I'll try harder tomorrow.

Hope the weather's better where you are (it's pouring with rain here).

Mandy x

Frugal tea-time... Sausage and Bean Casserole

Hi everyone,

Last night we had sausage and bean casserole for tea:

Sausage and Bean Casserole

6 sausages (chopped into 3 pieces)

2x tins of baked beans

1tbsp worcester sauce

2tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tbsp bbq sauce

1tbsp black treacle

black pepper

1. Put sausages in casserole dish.
2. Combine beans with the remaining ingredients and pour over sausages.
3. Cover with foil and bake for 1hr at 180oC.
4. Check on the casserole every 20mins and stir.
5. I served it with mini jacket potatoes (new potatoes baked in the oven).

This makes a nice change from bangers and mash. It was plenty for three adults so would serve four. There isn't much sausage in there, but we are cutting down on our meat intake and the extra tin of beans makes up for it. One tin may be enough, but they could cook dry and start to stick to the dish while cooking.

I'm not normally on my laptop at the weekend, so I'll be back with another frugal recipe on Tuesday (my daughter is 18 on Monday, so I'll be a bit busy!)

Sorry about the lack of photos - I can't upload from my computer now :(

Thanks for reading,

Mandy x



Frugal tea-time... homemade fish pie

Hi everyone,

I've decided to write about my frugal meals and cooking. I don't seem to be getting many page views now, or comments, or followers :(

I suppose my posts are too boring and I talk about my life with Daisy too much for a thrifty blog, but this is me right now!

I am trying to move away from baby jars for Daisy, so have to put more thought into what we are having for tea each day. I need to be able to adapt it to suit a lactose intolerant 8 month old.

Last night we had fish pie. I always think a pie should have a pastry lid, but with fish? No thanks... I had this as child (made with tuna) and it made me feel sick! My fish pie has a potato lid. I thought I would share my recipe (if anyone out there is interested).

Fish Pie

pack of 4 frozen pollack blocks

pack of instant parsley sauce

frozen peas

half a small tub single cream

small bag of potatoes

knob of butter

black pepper

sprinkle of parsley

1. Poach fish in water for 15 mins from frozen (that's what it said on the packet).
2. Meanwhile, peel, chop and boil spuds.
3. Remove fish from pan and flake into serving dish.
4. Boil kettle and make up parsley sauce mix. Add to fish with most of the cream.
5. Cook peas and add to fish.
6. Drain and mash spuds with butter and remaining cream. Season.
7. Pile on top of fish and spread with a fork. Sprinkle on parsley.
8. Pop in the oven for 20 mins at 200 oC.

You could add grated cheese to the mash, but I didn't and it was lovely! This was a cheap and easy meal which made plenty for three adults and the baba.

I hope someone will take an interest!!!

Mandy x

Thrifty reading

Hi everyone,

Just lately I've got back into reading in the evening. Daisy has a story and bottle, then in her cot by 7.30. I then sit on my bed and read while she sleeps. She will wake for a late feed and gets frightened if she can't see one of us, so I stay with her.

I have to have a book that I can get straight into, or I will lose interest fast. One set of books that I love are the Nella Last diaries. I read them all before, but decided to revisit them for an easy read that I could dip in and out of. I finished the first book last night and started the second. I whizz through these books as I'm interested!

So why are these thrifty?

I bought all three books second hand and paid very little for them and I'm reading them again. I have a massive pile of fiction books that I've had for years. They haven't been read before because I haven't made the time to read. This pile of books is thrifty reading because I don't need to buy any books for a long time now and it is free entertainment.

When I have read a book, if I really enjoyed it - I will keep it to read again at a later date and if it wasn't anything special - I will sell it on in at a carboot sale or donate it to a charity shop.

I'm looking forward to the next book this evening...

Mandy x

Finding the time to blog in May...

I thought I'd better make time to blog before May is over!

I'm always busy (like everyone else is), but May seems to be flying by. Daisy is teething with teeth numbers 5 and 6 and struggling with them this time. 1-4 just popped out of her gums with no fuss, but she is suffering at the moment and needs lots of cuddles and something hard to bite!

We've seen the Health Visitor and Daisy is growing! She weighs 15lb 3oz and still under the 9th centile (which is small), but consistent, so everything is fine, thank God. Weaning is progressing and she had her first taste of scrambled egg for tea yesterday. She wasn't sure about the texture, so next time I will serve it with some blitzed tomatoes to make it more exciting for her. She now has weetabix for breakfast too. We are managing more and more family food and she will have an adjusted version with no salty gravy or dairy. She loves her soya yogurt and cream and has even got soya vanilla ice-cream!

We've been to a couple of carboot sales (will blog about all my purchases later) and we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. I've managed to get on top of the housework now and have an ever growing pile of things, stuff to get rid of. Most of these will be taken to a carboot (when I've got time) as I haven't bothered ebaying for a while. Having less stuff around the house has made it easier to clean, so when I do buy something, I think about it more - I don't want to fill the house up again! My daughter sold at a carboot this month, so I have four more things to add to my declutter challenge:

46.   green jacket

47.   book

48.   top

49.   child's book

There is still a lot of work to be done here and I'm waiting for a charity bag to come through the door, hopefully from the air ambulance because they take everything including bric-a-brac.

I've been keeping up with my home cooking a lot better (which is good news for Daisy), using my meat stash in the chest freezer. This is what I've used so far:

• chicken - curry and Chinese (none left)
• mince - spag bol x 3, cottage pie and lasagne (5 left)
• sausages - with new potatoes, bangers and mash and a fry up (none left)
• pork - not used yet (2 left)
• beef - casserole (3 left)
• lamb - not used yet (2 left)
• bacon - fry up, quiche, pasta, sandwiches x 3 (2 left)

Other meals have been meat-free or made using meat that was already in the freezer and not part of my challenge. So far, I have made 16 meals from my meat stash and there are plenty more to come.

An area where I felt I was failing was my cake tins. I love having them full and on display (they are Emma Bridgewater hearts), but lately they've been tucked away in the cupboard. On Sunday Grampy took Daisy for a walk in her pram around the village and I managed to bake (I love it) some cakes. I made chocolate chip brownies, chocolate chip cookies, oat cookies, a victoria sandwich and two dozen fairy cakes. We have lacked in the homemade cake variety so much, that we have already made quite a dent in them! They are taken in packed lunches and I have some with my lunch. We also had chocolate brownies and ice-cream for pudding on Sunday.

That's it for now, hopefully be back soon...???

Mandy x

Two challenges...How many meals can I make from this amount of meat???...And weaning Daisy-May

Hi everyone,

On Saturday, my lovely husband went to the butchers in town and bought quite a lot of meat. We have two butchers in our village, but these are really expensive (probably worth it for the quality and service) and we cannot afford their prices now. This is what he came home with:

• 3 chicken breasts
• 5lb minced beef
• 15 sausages
• 1lb diced pork
• 2lb diced braising steak
• 4 lamb pieces (for casseroles)
• 45 rashers of back bacon

I divided these all up (into the freezer) to try to get as many meal opportunities as possible from them. The chicken will make 2 meals, mince - 10, sausages - 3, diced pork - 2, diced beef - 4, lamb - 2, and the bacon - 8. There are 3 adults to feed. In recent times, we would have eaten a chicken breast each but now we will eat half because I will stretch it in a curry or something. I only use half a pound of mince or diced meat for casseroles per meal now. I split the bacon so it could be either used for a fry-up or in a recipe. I have got lots of cheap and filling recipes that use very little bacon.

So far, we have eaten half a pound of mince - we had spag bol for tea last night and there was plenty. This meat will last over a month, but my challenge is to see just how many meals I can get from it. We have been eating far too much meat and I want to introduce more non- meat days. We are greedy and have too much on our plates! I intend to concentrate on filling the plate with vegetables or salad and reducing our meat intake.

Another issue is Daisy-May, she isn't keen on lumps or a thicker puree yet. I have been relying on jars too much lately because I have been ill and just too tired. This is not ideal for her health and development or our pocket!!! She needs protein and we want her to eat our meals. I have bought some baby stock cubes because oxo is way too salty for her, so now I can give her our meals just cooked without the little bits I add for flavour. I have made her spag bol before and it tasted bland, but not to Daisy, because she hasn't experienced all the flavours that are bad for us that I have! I read an interesting book last night, written by Gina Ford. It came free in a pregnancy magazine last year. I feel clearer now about why Daisy was waking up in the night for feeds (twice a night). The last 3 nights she has slept from 10.30 to 6.30 and that is fine by me! We had started to give her a protein tea and baby cereal for supper at about 8pm. Last night she fell asleep with her bottle at 7.30 after her bath and only had half a milk feed at 10.00. She did stir at 2am but went back to sleep with her lullaby. After reading this book, I'm convinced that she hasn't had enough filling food throughout the day until now. The book suggests a protein lunch and carbohydrate tea, so we will be carrying on with our new routine - it works!

Daisy-May is lactose intolerant (as was her mummy) so feeding her is a challenge in itself! She has wysoy milk but will only tolerate 4oz at a time, even though she is 7 months old! She was premature and apparently this is ok for her as she still has a little tummy. According to her milk powder tin, she weighs the same as a 4 month old, no surprise as she is wearing 3-6 month clothing and still some 0-3. She is our 'dinky Daisy' but she is growing and developing and very happy! She just needs to be fed all day.

Another challenge faced by me has been the laundry. The good drying weather (it's so windy here today) has meant that I am up-to-date with the washing, but created the hugest ironing pile! Yesterday I tackled it but in bits because obviously Daisy doesn't want to watch grandma iron all day. I may finish it later???

I'll be back soon...

Mandy x

Finding things in the freezer I forgot I had...

Hi everyone,

Just lately I haven't found time to bake.

I have even bought cake from the supermarket!

This IS NOT good money saving!!!

Yesterday I went to my freezer to get a loaf out and came back with a coffee sponge and fruit cake. I batch baked some time ago (probably put photos on my blog) and these items had been buried under frozen veg. I was so happy to provide my husband and daughter with cake for their packed lunches.

You see I had thought ahead if things got too hectic to bake - I'm just so tired that I totally forgot I had been organised!

A lesson has been learned here - keep the freezer organised (which I normally do) by putting the new shopping away properly instead of piling it on top of what's already there.

I wonder what else I will find lurking at the bottom of my chest freezer???

Is your freezer perfectly organised so you can put your hand to whatever you need?

Mandy x