Kitchen Capers

I noticed that the bread in the breadbin was looking a bit past it so I did what I would normally do and whizz it up in the food processor to make breadcrumbs.  I would usually freeze that for a later date but this morning I had plenty of time on my hands so I carried on and made stuffing balls, once they were cool I bagged them up in 2s and popped them into a box in the freezer.  I have some Pork steaks to use up during November so the stuffing balls will be a tasty addition to those meals. Much nicer than Auntie B's and so much cheaper.

 Next up we have some lovely golden syrupy Flapjack, I usually cut this into 16 but I have been thinking about making a tray to sell at the coffee morning on Saturday and it needed to be in bigger pieces so this was a trial, I'm thinking about charging 30p a square (3x3).  We love Flapjack, its so easy to make and very cheap, we kid ourselves its good for you as its made with oats lol

 Lastly we have some of the delicious organic beetroot I was given last week, I have just about run out of jars so I'm having to do it in small batches.  I have used my usual recipe for the sweet and spicy vinegar and this will be ready to eat in 2 weeks, but it will go to the back of the store as we have plenty and I like to keep them in order.

Our meal tonight was a quick and simple affair, I opened one of the packs of Cooking Bacon to find it was all lovely rashers, about 30p worth was fried in a tiny bit of oil, I popped 2 largish potatoes into the combi oven for 25 minutes and heated a can of baked beans, the total cost was just under £1. We were both stuffed and happy. A very pleasant end to a relaxing but productive Wednesday.

I hope you had a good day too.

November Budget

Thank goodness October is just about over and we have had pay day,its been a horrible month and money has just leached away!!  We have run out of quite a lot of items so it was time for what we call an Orange Shop ..... a top up of Sainsbury's Basics range!  We have tried other supermarkets products but like these better.

 We spent a total of £40.05 and this included 4 Youngs fish fillets, 2 Cheesecakes and a bag of Oven Chips. hubby had whisked them away to the freezer before I had chance to include them in this photo.

I did buy apples in Sainsbury's then picked these up at the local market for £6.20.  We have a large bag of Onions and Potatoes plus half a sack of beetroot in the garage from my daughter in laws friend :-) love a freebie.   We just need to buy toilet rolls and a few things from the butchers for the month and then fresh stuff and milk weekly.

Even though I have massively overspent during October I am still well under budget for the whole year and that makes me feel very happy.

On the upside we have changed our House and Buildings Insurance this week and have saved £119 :-)

Take care

Knitting for Charity 2

Here is the link to the pattern I used for my Preemie Beanie Hats very easy to make.  I used double knitting baby wool and sizes 10 + 8 (old money) needles with 50 stitches.

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Really Easy Beanie

The Beanie Hats for the older children I have been making for the Shoebox Appeal is a similar pattern to the above

Using Double Knitting and size 8 (4mm) needles
Cast on 90 stitches
Stocking stitch for 19-20 cm

Shape top

(K7 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row 80sts

Next and every alternate row PURL

(K6 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row 70sts

(K5  K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row  60sts

(K4 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row  50 sts

(K3 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row  40sts

(K2 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row  30sts

(K1 K2 tog) repeat to the end of the row  20sts

K2 tog  repeat to the end of the row  10sts


Cut off yarn leaving about 25cm length, thread through the remaining 10 stitches, pull it up and fasten off.

Sew up the seam.

I take no credit whatsoever for this pattern  it was given to me in good faith for knitting for Charity and not monetary gain.   Please respect this, but have fun and enjoy your knitting, remember you are helping someone in need.  Thank you x 

Enjoy your weekend

Knitting for Charity

A few weeks ago I joined a ladies friday afternoon group in the next village called Thimbles, they are involved in quite a few charities and make items to help them, mostly they are ongoing and some are one offs.

These beanie hats are to go into the shoeboxes and the deadline is next month so I need to get a move on, I want to make 6 altogether, I know they will be really appreciated by the lucky children who recieve them and its gratifying to know they will keep someone a little warmer this winter.

 We also have an ongoing project for knitting premature baby hats so I have been clicking away with my needles and have managed to make 53 so far, the baby unit at the hospital are quite desperate for these so its my intention to keep on making them.  They are so easy to do and only take an hour, again they will be appreciated by a parent of a tiny baby.

They are so tiny and just fit into the palm of my hand.

My friend and myself are having a bit of a craft stall at our December Coffee morning so we have been quietly making things to sell, even though I havent been blogging much lately the house has been a hive of activity with lots of crafting being done.

Do you make things for charity and if so what kind of things do you do?

Take Care

Electricity Bills

This is a copy of my online electricity bill from August - September and I'm sure its far more complicated than it needs to be.

Click to enlarge

A couple of weeks ago we were asked by British Gas to increase our direct debit by £5 to £37 per month for our electricity so there wouldn't be a shortfall at the end of the year, I did this straight away, but it prompted me to check on our useage and try to set up the OWL meter in the kitchen with the correct tariff.  What a nightmare that proved to be!!  We thought it would be simple, just check our online bill to find the cost of a unit and thats that..... wrong!   We even called Customer Service who were less than helpful, and couldn't even understand what we wanted to know and she didn't know pounds from pence! In the end and after a couple of Paracetamol we managed to work it out ourselves. The tariff we are on is called Clear and Simple!! so it goes like this...

Because we once had Economy 7 we have 2 meter readings, we enter both readings online and they are added together to give the total units we have used that month.

Its a 2 tier tariff which means the first 720 kw hrs Annually are charged at 20.016p this roughly equates to the first 2 units each day (its not monthly as the bill is worked out on how many days between readings, anything from 28-31days) with subsequent units charged at 12.138p

We read our own meter and submit the figures online to our account, where we also get our online bill, for doing this we get nectar points,  There is also a discount for having duel fuel (Gas +Electricity) and another discount for paying by Direct Debit.

In the end we settled on setting the OWL meter to 13p per unit and reading the outside meter on a Monday and roughly working out the amount we have used for that week.  It was one of those things you wished you had never started!!

Does anyone else have this kind of tariff and can you understand how much you are paying per unit?

I would welcome your comments.

Pastry and a quiet Monday morning

I was at a bit of a loose end this morning, with the washing done and the house tidied and hubby gone to the flying club to meet his friend I decided to make a few pastry cases for the freezer.  I'm down to the last one and will use that for a pie next week.  I like to have a few of these in the freezer so I can make a pie or quiche at short notice or if we have leftovers that need to be stretched into another meal.

 I started off with 700gm Plain flour with 200gm Margarine 150gm Lard and a teaspoon of salt

 I used my Kenwood Chef and turned the whole lot into a breadcrumb mixture then added enough cold water to make the pastry.

 As you can see it made a nice big lump.  I used 3x 6" foils and 4 individual foils lined them with the pastry and cut out lids.  I like having a few of the individual ones, if there is a ladle of stew leftover it makes a great filling.  Sometimes I might have a lid leftover if I have made a quiche but that just gets added to the next batch.  They dont take very long to defrost, by the time you have your filling to hand and switched on the oven they are almost ready to use.

 The lids have been inter leaved with baking parchment before going into a bag to stop them sticking together, I will open freeze everything then pack it into a big plastic box in the freezer to keep them from being damaged, they are quite fragile when frozen.

After rolling these out I only had a little bit of pastry trimming left, so the birds got a treat, it didn't hang around very long on the garden!

 Lunch time and I found a carton of soup leftover from last month while rummaging in the freezer, after about 10 minutes in the microwave it was piping hot.  No bread today as I'm having a piece of flapjack instead

 The soup had pearl barley in so it was quite a substantial lunch.

 The green bits are Courgettes.... its been courgettes in everything this summer, we have had loads of them and the last plant is still producing some healthy specimens.

I think these 2 will get chopped up and frozen for another day!!

Later in the day I did the ironing and made a couple of gift boxes for Christmas, I like to fill them with chocolates and I have seen on the tv tonight an advert for 2 tins of Roses etc for £7 at Morrisons and the Pork joints are half price there this week so we can pick those up on Thursday.

I think it will be another quiet day tomorrow but my friend might call round for coffee and a natter so that could easily take care of 4 hours lol

Thank you for popping by

Pear Chutney

Pear Chutney.

1500gm  Pears peeled and chopped

750gm Onions peeled and chopped  

2 Red Peppers  peeled and chopped

500gm Tomatoes skinned and chopped

500gm Brown Sugar

1tablespoon Salt

4 cloves Garlic crushed

1+1/2pint  Cider Vinegar

1 teaspoon Allspice

1 teaspoon Ground Corriander

3/4 teaspoon Mustard Seeds

 As with all chutney making the time consuming job is peeling and chopping all the ingredients.  I divided mine between 2 pans because I dont have a huge preserving pan.  I gently simmered the veggies and pears until they were soft and not too liquidy then added the sugar vinegar and spices, cooked until pulpy and chutney like, about 3 hours from start to finish.

 Chutney is very forgiving if you dont have the correct ingredients, I used lazy garlic (4 teaspoons) and wholegrain mustard instead of the seeds, I didn't have any cider vinegar either so used a mix of red and white wine with a splash of malt.

 It merrily bubbled away stinking the house out even with all the windows and doors open and the fan on full pelt!!

 The end result is 4 assorted jars of luciousness, sweet tangy and very very tasty, this is certainly my favourite chutney.

I used Conference Pears and cut them fairly chunky so they kept a bit of shape, I like to be able to tell whats in it!!

Everything is rosy in the Chelmarsh household and the getting ready for winter jobs are slowly being ticked off the list, we had a big spend of the budget on Thursday with lots of half price meat bought for next month so I need to pull back a bit and be careful for the rest of the month.

Thank you for popping by

Take care