Kitchen & Gardening

Woke up this morning and it was wet and miserable outside and on the menu plan we had cottage pie so I decided to get cooking early. I bought the mince from Sainsbs last week and I had a coupon to use that worked out at 20% off a £30 shop. The weight is 770g so far too much for one meal so I used some for the cottage pie and the rest for 6 individual meat and potato pies.

I have tried to do some costings too, not exact ones but just to give a rough idea. Mince (with discount) £2.67, Onions 15p 1kg potatoes 20p 4 carrots 30p Gravy powder 10p and for the pastry 700g flour 25p 200g Marg 50p and 150g Lard 23p, total cost £4.40.

Potatoes from Morrisons last week were 30p, what a bargain and they keep well too.

Pastry, I make this in my food mixer, just a normal shortcrust pastry, nothing fancy.

Brown the mince first with the onions and 2 carrots then add liquid and black pepper. Simmer until the carrots are cooked then add some gravy granules to thicken.

I took some of the mince out and put it in a dish for the cottage pie, then added some of the cooked potatoes to the rest and chopped them up for the pie filling.

I rolled out my pastry and used some small foil dishes, I had enough filling for 6 pies. Add a lid and brush with milk or egg. I baked them at 190*c for about 30mins or until golden brown.

I had enough pastry left over to make another 4 pie cases and lids, so these will be frozen for a later date. They freeze beautifully uncooked and are then ready for that bit of leftover stew or casserole to make a quick meal.

I added the mashed potato and carrot topping to the mince for the cottage pie, I will microwave this for tonight and serve with cauli and cabbage, with enough leftover for tomorrow night.

So here they are 10 lovely portions at a cost of 44p each plus the electricity. Deliciously cheap!!

This afternoon the sun came out even though it was a bit windy, so I nipped into the greenhouse to plant up some seeds.

I have Tomatoes, Cucumber, Courgettes, Red and Green Lettuce, Chillies, Red Pointy Peppers and Golden Bell Peppers. We also have cabbage seedlings and some Dianthus (flowers) in there too.

All in all a quite busy but productive day.

Thank you for looking xxx

Saturday night Pizza

Last night I was reading the lovely Frugal Queens blog and she had given step by step guide to making your own pizza's. Gosh it looked sooo delicious!! Its ages since I made a pizza so I decided I would make one for our tea when I got home from work. They are so easy and so much more tasty than the ones you can buy at the supermarket and far superior than the ones you pay a fortune to have delivered. I don't actually know how much mine cost but I bet its a fraction of the price of a bought one. In fact the ingredients below made 2, we had one for tea and the other we will have for lunch tomorrow.
I made the dough in the breadmaker and it took 45 mins, it says to roll it out and leave to prove for 20 mins, but like Froogs I didn't bother and it was still fine. The topping is a good squirt of Tomato Puree spread over the base with onions peppers sliced tomatoes sprinkled with herbs then topped with Aldi Salami (99p I used half pack for 2 pizza's) then grated cheese on top

Baked in the oven 190*c about 20 minutes. We had half each with some chopped salad.....gorgeous!!

The best bit is we can have it again for lunch tomorrow :-) Thank you Frugal Queen for reminding me how yummy they are x

Thank you for looking xx

Baking day

Discovered nothing left in the freezer for hubs to have with a cup of tea, so set about a bit of baking.
First we have Sultana Scones
You will need. 450g Self Raising Flour. 1 teaspoon Baking Powder. 175g Butter. 175g sugar. 2 beaten Eggs. Milk to mix to a soft dough and a handful of sultanas. Oven needs to be 200*c. Rub butter into flour and baking powder, add sugar and sultanas mix together gently with egg and enough milk to make a nice soft dough

I never use a rolling pin for scones, just pat it out to the right thickness gently (about an inch thick) I used a 2.5 inch cutter and it made 16 with a spare bit shaped and cooked for a tester :-) Brush the top with the residue egg left in the jug and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 200*c 15-20 mins until golden brown. Cool on a wire tray.

Next we have Choc Chip Muffins.

To make these you will need. 250g Plain Flour. 1 tablespoon Baking Powder (I use a measuring spoon) 1/2 teaspoon salt. 150g Sugar. 1 large egg beaten. 8fl oz Milk. 3fl oz Vegetable Oil. 100gm Choc Chips. You can add Blueberries instead if you like, they are gorgeous too. First you combine all your dry ingredients in a large bowl then combine the egg and the liquid in a jug. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon it is important to leave the mixture lumpy so DON'T beat it.

Divide mixture into 12 muffin cases, if you use bun cases you will make more but will be smaller and take a bit less cooking time

Bake 190*c 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

There we have 16 delicious Scones and 12 scrumptious Choc Chip Muffins.

Afternoon Tea.....anyone...

This is my new M&S teapot from Freecycle :-)

Thank you for looking, I hope you're not too hungry now. xxx

Shopping day

Thursday is usually our weekly shopping day with a trip to the market and Morrisons, but this week we have had a change. Hubby has to go to the dentist this afternoon for a tooth out..ouch! and really we didn't need that much, also Sainsbugs sent me 6 more lovely vouchers for £6 off a £30 shop. After checking in the fridge and freezer I wrote out a list, the Sainsbs shop came in at £30.16 less the voucher £24.16 most of the things I bought were on offer and the total should have been £48.79 . We made a really good saving there and got a few stock items. Next we called at LIDL and bought some salad stuff, potatoes onions Milk and spent another £9.13 so total spend for this week is £33.29.

Looking at the photo it looks quite a non frugal bag but if things get tighter we don't mind dropping a brand or in the case of the yogurts cutting them out altogether. I have plenty of veg and fruit in the fridge for next week and a big lump of cheese (BOGOF from last week). We tend to cut back on other things and stretch what we have so that we can have treats. The freezer is stuffed full just now so we wont starve even if we don't go shopping for a month! Unleaded fuel at Sainsbs was £1.29.9 per L.

Tonights tea will by homemade soup and rice pudding for hubs and a homemade ping ping for me. Just hoping that his mouth isn't too sore after the dentist.

Have a good day xx

Spring Gardening Time

The last couple of days have been absolutely glorious and at last it feels like spring has sprung. Time to get into the garden and sort out the veg plot ready for planting with some yummy vegetables and salad stuff.

This is one of the compost heaps it was overflowing yesterday and needing to be dug into the plot to enrich the soil and get rid of it so we can start again. It was back breaking work, especially when you aren't used to it. Philip was digging the trenches and I was filling them with compost. Boy was I glad when we had finished.

All raked over and ready for planting.

We emptied the green bin too, that was mostly waste compost from the greenhouse and the planters.

Even the greenhouse had a bit of a spring clean, the window catch was broken and the door had developed a square wheel!! So my handy hubby managed to fit an old window catch and opener to fix the window and put a new wheel on the door.....perfect!

Just need to get the seeds planted into trays and away we go.

The plum tree is loaded with blossom this year so I hope we get a bumper crop, not bad for a dead stick from Netto's a few years ago.

Today we have been cleaning the windows outside including the conservatory, I so hate doing windows, still at least we can see out now. Easy tea tonight of home cooked gammon and salad followed by fresh fruit, healthy too.

Thank you for looking xx

Tuesday Tweet

Tuesday, dull and cold!! Just the right day for a nice warming Chilli.

So in my slowcooker today I have onion, 500g extra lean minced steak (whoopsied from Sainsbugs) beans, tomatoes, chilli powder, lazy garlic , frozen peppers and frozen sliced mushrooms and 2 homegrown and frozen chilli peppers (mild) plus a stock cube a spoonful of sugar and a squirt of tomato puree. All ingredients from the freezer and storecupboard so no shopping required and nothing wasted. I always have peppers and mushrooms in the freezer they are so handy, no prep and no waste, the lazy garlic is great to have in the fridge too as it lasts for ages and doesn't start sprouting in the salad drawer.

It can sit quite happily simmering away all day, making it rich and delicious by teatime and low energy usage too. Served with basmati rice its a definate winner in this house, with enough to freeze for a later date.

Enjoy whatever you are having tonight xx

Sunday Chunterings

In contrast to yesterdays weather, today is cold dark wet and miserable :( So its time to put the oven on and do some cooking, I can't bare to put just one thing in the oven so have to think what we will eat for the next few days. A few weeks ago Sainsbugs had small Gammon joints on offer and while I had some vouchers to use we managed to stock up on meat (£4 off a £20 shop). As there is only the 2 of us this will last us a couple of meals and some for sandwiches. On offer this week in Mr M's were British potatoes and Onions so I have included these in my menu.

We both love root veg mash with Gammon, so a couple of small potatoes 2 carrots and a chunk of swede will be cooked together and mashed.

We will have this with cabbage and cauliflower. All cooked in my triple pans so just using 1 ring of the cooker. As cabbage doesn't take long to cook I will put cold water in the pan to boil first then add the cabbage when the other veg is nearly done.

For tomorrows tea we will have more sliced gammon and with that some sliced potato and onions cooked in chicken stock in the oven along side the gammon then reheated in the microwave. We will probably have peas with this.

The dish lookes huge but it isn't.

This is just the 2 potatoes and 2 onions sliced, I add 2 chicken stock cubes to a mug of boiling water and just pour over the top, cover with foil and put in the oven with the gammon.

We also had a bit of homemade bread going a bit dry so instead of masking it into breadcrumbs for stuffing we are having a bread and butter pudding, its absolutely ages since I made one of these. It will sit in the oven quite nicely cooking with the rest of the meal.

Right now for these yummy eggs... most of our vegetable scraps, peelings etc either go on the compost heap or I send them to my DILs for the chickens to peck on and they in turn provide us with such gorgeous free range eggs, complete with poo!! i do wash them first :) They are far superior than any you can buy, plus I know they were only laid yesterday.

So that completes my Sunday morning cooking session which will last us a couple of days. Now we are all washed up and its time for a nice latte and a blog session.

Happy Sunday xx

Bendy Veg Stew!!

Having just come back from 4 fabulous days down in Plymouth with my lovely son and his family, the fridge was a bit bare and the only things lurking in the veg drawer had gone a bit bendy. Not to be put off by this, cos I hate waste, I chopped everything up for a bit of a stew.


I added 2 Chicken Stock cubes and a teaspoon of Cajun spice mix and cooked until soft, then added the chopped up cooked chicken and a handful of frozen peas.

It tasted absolutely delish!!! Just the meal on a cold evening, plus my hubby loves one pot meals. One of my online friends said the way to keep a man is to keep him well fed and watered, I must be doing ok as we have been together for 40 years this year.

Dessert was stewed apple and pear from the freezer, the fruit came from my friends fruit trees last autumn, served with a packet of smart price custard (6p) lurvvvverly.....

All in all a delicious meal for next to no cost. I really must be more organised in the kitchen, just lately I have slipped back. I am usually a great believer in knowing today what you are eating tomorrow, it takes away that "what are we having for tea, its 4pm and whatever it is its still in the freezer " I'm sure you have all done that. We need to start cutting back on the shopping and start using up what we have in store, I think I still buy enough for a family and there is only me and hubby!! I have done a meal plan for all next week and made a proper shopping list, just buying what I need. Lets hope I can put it all into practice next week.

Thank you for looking xxx