Batch Cooking

 

I try to find recipes that I like in order to batch cook and freeze. This saves me so much time and money, especially when I am in work full-time. I go back in full-time next week so I am trying to get prepared ready for the onslaught that September brings to teaching. It has also provided me with an opportunity to use up odds and ends in the fridge. I still have plenty to use up but I am determined not to waste the food we have. Some is being used for snacking- for example Teengirl has just came down and asked for the corn on the cob we needed to use, she has sat quite happily munching on that. I had a left over bit of chicken from last night's tea as my lunch with some of the wilting salad. 

My freezer is now stocked with 21 ready meals. I will use these either as quick after work dinners, or lunches. I shall be adding to these as the week progresses. So far I have made;

Lentil curry- there are 9 portions of this leftover in the freezer.

Lentil bolognese- I have 8 pots of this in the freezer.

Veggie chilli- I have 4 portions of this in the freezer.

I also found some mushrooms languishing at the back of the fridge so I made creamy mushroom turnovers- I have eaten 2 of these and have a further 2 in the freezer for a quick lunch at some point.

I love that I have so much prepped already. I have planned out my menu for the week, and will prepare next week's menu over the weekend. 

This was created with the food I needed to use in mind, so the fish fingers and chicken wraps are served with salads to use up the lettuces etc in the fridge.

The pesto will use up the bargain packet of fresh basil I got in the supermarket at the end of the day- recued to 5p! I bought 3, 2 went in the freezer for later in the term as I recently discovered how quick and easy it is to make your own pesto. I had been buying the free-from jars for around £1.50 a pot. I can make it for pennies!

What are your favourite batch cook meals? Bonus points if they are meat-free/ use store cupboard foods. We aren't veggie (see the plan above!) but I am reducing our meat consumption in an effort to save on food costs. Post your favourite meals below.

Dining Room Update

Ok so I have lived in this house for 5 years and have never been able to decide what to do with the dining room. It always looks dark, cluttered and uninviting. 

Then a fortnight ago I came across this awesome wallpaper, I absolutely loved it.

I found it on Ebay, thought perfect I'll put the paper in the recess next to the chimney breast, paint the chimney breast and the other 3 walls. It'll look fab. I ordered two rolls, and had £5 off voucher for ebay so cost £18. Perfect. I thought I have some white paint in the shed so I'll get started whilst I wait for delivery.

Pulled the wallpaper that was on the chimney breast off ready to paint and was left with this:

1 very untidy, needs a replaster chimney breast. Definitely not a quick paint with white emulsion job. I don't have the skills or the money to fix this, especially as this is a rented home and I plan on moving in a couple of years as I aim to buy my own home. (long term plan, details coming soon!)

This means a change of plan- I'll just wallpaper across all of the area you can see in the picture above.

I forgot to take before pictures of this room, that's how much I disliked it! In the alcove on the left of this picture is where I had my freezer (kitchen is too tiny to fit a fridge/freezer in it. The alcove on the right is where I put my dining table and 6 chairs. The opposite corner to where the freezer is, so behind me and to the left where I stood to take this picture is where I had the fridge/ freezer, then the opposite corner to the table, so on my right and behind me when I took this picture is the bookcase and my desk. There never seemed to be enough room and it was not a comfortable space to use. So the whole room ended up a dumping ground.

Whilst I was painting I came up with a cunning plan to fix this. 

All the walls that were not papered were painted white to allow for the room to appear brighter, the wallpaper has potential to make it look dark so I wanted to balance this out.

This si the finished room:

I absolutely love it. I have spent all my time in here/ the garden since I finished it. I smile everytime I walk in. I love how I have laid the space out and it feels less cluttered. I haven't taken any of our stuff out, it's just better organised.

It's not the easiest room to photograph, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how much better it looks.

I did have to buy a third roll of wallpaper, as I was one drop short after having to paper the chimney breast as well as the alcoves.

Total costs:

Wallpaper- 3 rolls= £30

Gloss for woodwork- tin £8- I used half so £4

White emulsion- I used half a of a huge tub which cost £12 so £6

Wallpaper paste £1.

I have used all of our own furniture and didn't buy anything new. I have the light fitting from a previous room decorating.

Total cost for project: £41.00

I'm very happy with that as it has given us a fantastic looking room that we are all now using properly.

They keep on growing, growing, growing

Why can't the children play ball by not growing so that I can save more money! LOL every parents wish I am sure.

Today Stephanie and I spent an hour or so sorting through her wardrobe and drawers as she has grown again. Look at all this that no longer fits;

Once I had folded it all tidily it filled two of the very large sports direct bags for life that you get. I am hoping some of it will sell and have started to list it on the facebook selling sites. If they don't go then I will take it down to cash for clothes. the few pounds I make on it all will be put towards a summer treat for us all. Hiding in there are a couple of coats, a couple of jackets, numerous dresses and t-shirts. Would you believe despite removing this lot from her room there is still a whole wardrobe full of clothes in there. Also we have a few bits packed in suitcases as she is due to go away with Brownies this weekend so that case got packed earlier. Also still have the suitcase packed from last weekend when we were meant to go to my sister's. We are hoping to go in the next couple of weeks instead so I haven't unpacked yet. Not unpacking has also highlighted that we all have far too many clothes. I am on a shopping ban!!

It's been another dry and windy day here so I have some washing to sort and iron so best go and get on with it...

A birthday present.

It was my niece's birthday on Sunday. She asked me if I could make her a quilt as her present. She wanted it to have purple, flowers and fairies on it.
I got busy collecting fabrics and looking at ones I already have in the house to see what I could do. I decided I wanted to be a little playful and created random blocks of fabric for this quilt. My niece is very playful and I feel this suits her personality.
Here are some of the blocks I made;

I didn't get any of the fairy fabric! I could only find one little fat quarter of fairy fabric so I hope that she doesn't mind that.

Once all of the blocks were stitched together Stephanie helped me to lay them out into a design she was happy with;

Then it was all stitched together;

I just need to buy the backing material (I had to forget something didn't I!) Then I can get it all stitched together. Oh did I mention the time constraints- I am travelling up North to deliver this on Saturday. I am working until Thursday so no time pressure at all. LOL

Now I need to think of things I can make as Christening presents. I have three nieces/nephews being Crhistened over the August bank holiday so I need to get on with this. I have a new born baby boy, a 6 month old baby girl and a 7 year old girl to make for. Ideas on a  postcard!

And SQUEEEEZZZZZZEEEEEE

What everyone has been talking about at the moment is the new budget released by our glorious government.

I was talking with friends the other day and said I feared that this would hit my little family hard when it was made public.
Today Elaine over at mortgagefreeinthree posted a budget calculator link, I had a quick moment to fill in the details. I didn't want to but the sooner I face up to it the quicker I can deal with the outcomes. So a few taps and clicks and I am going to be £1456 a year worse off, so that comes to around £30 a week, Fabulous! I knew it wouldn't be good news.  So as Elaine says 'Bog Girl Pants' need pulling up high (a little warmth perhaps through the winter!)

I need to get into the frugal mindset even more now as there just isn't any 'play cash' now. Just living expenses to only just cover, expect to see a whole load more No Spend Days marked off over here

How does the budget affect you? What will you need to change to survive it?

Something sweet

I really fancy sweet things this weekend. I occasionally get days like this. Hence the cake yesterday. Which Dylan made and is very tasty. I'll definitely make eggless cakes more. Just need to find the recipe off of him.


Then today I still fancied something sweet after having a little slice of cake. I looked in the fridge and there is 3/4 of the watermelon Stephanie asked for the other day. I don't fancy it by itself so I made a drink with some of it;

Water melon lemonade. It was very nice, possibly a little too sweet. I will definitely use less sugar next time. 

This is the recipe I used;

• 1.2kg (2½ lb) cubed, seeded watermelon
• 150g (5 oz) fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
• 120ml (8 fl oz) fresh lemon juice
• 200g (7 oz) caster sugar
• 475ml (16 fl oz) water 

As it serves 8 I divided all of the ingredients by 8 to get a rough quantity. I had a tiny over the whole glass shown above. It is very refreshing. I confess I didn't bother to seed the watermelon just chopped and threw it into the blender. I also changed fresh lemon juice to the bottled lemon juice I already had open in the fridge. It was really refreshing. I will have to make it when Stephanie is home she might like that one.

I have added a new page to the blog to help me to be more accountable for my lack of restraint when spending. There are so many changes happening to my income at the moment (and not in a good way!) I am treading a very fine line to stay on top of everything. Hopefully by putting it there in black and white it will help me to have more self control!

I could offer tonnes of excuses why I am not having the restraint needed but the most honest one is I am tired and I don't want to. However, due to things beyond my control things have to change as a result so do I!

This week has been hot! This has meant that for the first time since Dylan installed it, our water butt ran dry!


Not great when it the garden is going crazy, veggies are really doing well. We have been eating lettuce, peas, spinach and strawberries daily for about a fortnight. There is promise of plenty to come from all of the other plant beds too. So the water butt has been well used. I ended up using the outdoor tap to water the plants on Thursday as I just could not get anymore water out of the butt. I definitely need to save and get a second one installed. Then last night we had a very noisy storm. I wasn't impressed about 2am when the thunder woke me and then the rain absolutely hammered down for ages. It went on so long that I did fall back asleep whilst it was still going on. When I went out to the garden this morning though I realised a very BIG bonus to such a busy storm. The water butt is half full again, So I could water the plants using it again.

I have been saving water as much as I can recently, really taking a conscious effort not to waste a drop. When I run the tap to wash up I catch all of the cold water in the bowl first this is taken straight out and waters the tomatoes growing on the patio area. When I wash the lettuce and other vegetables before making our food the water is left in the bowl so that I can tip it straight out into the patio area plants.

As our income has been reduced further, and promise of further cuts are eminent we are cutting back wehrever possible. Today I fancied cake, but we have no eggs so I thought never mind won't hurt me to go without. I didn't voice my thoughts, no need.

A couple of hours later Dylan came to me and said can I make cake mum? No eggs son sorry. He goes back up to his room, less than five minutes later he came back down. "I have found an eggless cake recipe, can I try it?" So he is out in the kitchen. It smells good so far.

I guess where there is a will there's a way! That's my boy :-)

Outdoor play

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I really enjoy being outdoors and I try to encourage my children outside with me as much as possible.
Stephanie has been complaining of a sore throat this week, I thought it's just a bit of a cold told her to get on with it (evil mother!). On Wednesday night she cried a little as it was sore, so I gave her calpol and put her to bed thinking that she would be ok by morning. Then about 3 in the morning she came in and woke me, she had a sore throat and it was hurting her to drink and stopping her sleeping. In she climbs with me for a cuddle which miraculously made it all better and she slept until morning. I resolved to having Thrusday off of work to get her a doc's appointment. One quick peek in her mouth by a doctor and she has puss-y tonsils aka contagious tonsillitis. So pop to the chemist for antibiotics and phoned work- I needed Friday off as well as she isn't allowed to return to school until 24 hours after antibiotics are started.

I have resolved to doing some work which I am able to do from home (it's report season don'tcha know!) I have also interspersed this with some gardening. My garden shed roof leaked last time we had a thunder storm so yesterday I started to cut back the plant which is growing across it so that I can see what is going on. It's a tough job- the plant grows from my neighbours side and is v. large,

This is almost half the shed roof cleared. We are do flash flooding tonight so ideally I wanted to get the plant down and see an easy fix. no such luck! I cannot reach to clear half the plant. I will need to get a ladder and see what I can do tomorrow and hope the rain isn't as bad as forecast. Although, it has already started and is so far showing no sign of letting up!

Whilst I was clearng the plant Stephanie was eyeing up a set of bamboo canes I had, mum do you think we could make me a camp? The plant I was clearing looked perfect, it was long, thin and bendy. So we set up the canes and began weaving.

You can see at the bottom where the plant is weaved in and out. We ran out of long suitable bits to finish weaving. That didn't stop them, soon there were blankets finishing the job, blankets on the ground and cushions galore in there with a book and some teddies too. 

Watching this got me thinking, we had wanted to buy a hammock on payday, but i've had to put two new tyres on the car, and have had some other news which means my tiny income is slashed some more. So we are saving money even more importantly now. I remembered some fabric the children's nan gave me to make curtains for the house. I have to confess it's not to my taste for this so it has been sat in the cupboard while I think of a use. Today I found that use;

The poorly girl loves it! It is even strong enough to take my weight. All I used was a couple of metres of fabric and two skipping ropes.

Stephanie was feeling much better by this afternoon, in case you haven't guessed. She has kept me very busy so I haven't had a chance to do much more work so I will be having a few late nights to catch up, But what a lovely afternoon we have had. I'm just glad that she is feeling better.

Slip and a leap

I felt that the last month I have slipped off the non spending band wagon. I have bought a lot of things, although needed I have spent more than I budgeted for. The children have need new clothes/ footwear. I needed new shoes when mine got a leak! With the weather as it has been leaky shoes are not an option!

So this week money has been eekkky. I have had just £0.50 sat in the bank. I had £4.00 in my purse, now that is down to 50p. Stephanie had a non uniform day at school in the week costing £1.00, then the tooth fairy visited last night cost £1.00. Today I took my sister for her wedding dress fitting cost £1.50 for parking. So I have been creative with cooking/meals. It has been good for me as I haven't been able to do what I normally do when tired on a Friday and pop to asda for a pizza. I had to make it using ingredients already in the house. So I have done ok. I will be ok as I have money due in Monday and Tuesday this week. Phew! Not much but enough to cover what I need. I have booked Stephanie on a dance course on Monday which will cost £15.00. The rest of the week we won't need to spend as we have memberships etc we can use. I will need to top the car up it is almost on empty. However, we will just do more local things we can walk to as far as possible. Monday the children have th dentist and from their to Stephanie's dance class, we can't walk to these as they are a couple of towns away and we just won't have time between the 2. I need to collect Stephanie from her dad's tomorrow as his car is broken so he can't drop off as he normally would. Apart from that we will be local all week until Sunday. I have booked us a day out through groupon the day out is half the cost it normally would be and Stephanie has been asking to go for over a year. Its costing me £15.00 for the day instead of £30 thanks to the vouchers. we may pop to the zoo one day as well if the gale force winds die down soon. I don't mind going out in the cold/ wet but I do object to being blown away!


The good news is the money situation means that I have got my total no spend days this year to 25! which I am fantastically pleased with.
The freezer is emptying nicely (needs defrosting) as we are eating up what we have.




Oh and my iron broke today, so I can't do the ironing :-)

Learning to sew.

Stephanie has really got interested in sewing and cooking recently. Fabulous news as they are hobbies I enjoy and we can do together.
Last week I made her book week costume, she is going to be Hermione from Harry Potter. I made the robe, but Stephanie decided she would need a satchel bag and she wanted to make it herself. Here she is making it;

We started last Sunday and finished it today. I helped Stephanie with drawing out the pattern pieces and then on how to sew them together. However she has done the bulk of the work herself.

 

 

The finished product.

The name Hermione sewn on.

Some wizarding iron on patches.

A very proud little lady with her new bag.

 

We didn't buy anything to make the bag, it is made completely with items from my stash. The pink fabric is left over from a dressing up outfit I made, we used an old pair of Dylan's jeans in the middle of 2 layers of the pink to add some 'stiffness' to the bag. The handle is made from an old shirt.

The patches were even stashed away. I bought them in a sale something like 50p for the lot when Stephanie was a baby. The intention was to make something with Dylan using them, but he didn't want to use them.

 

So a bag made by Stephanie and not a penny spent- perfect project!!

 

 

home making, a Hogwarts school uniform tutorial

This weekend I have spent money on items we needed but i have also saved money by making things for myself. The first thing I did was to bottle the fruit vodka I made last year. there is 1 bottle of blackberry vodka the others are damson vodka. It is very strong, I couldn't resist a little taste as I bottled it. It is very strong though I will need lots of lemonade in mine.

One of the full bottles is destined to be a present for my dad's birthday in April, it was my dad who first introduced me to fruit vodkas.

The next thing i have done is make Stephanie's book week costume. She came home fro school on Friday very excited that she can dress a sher favourite charcter. At the moment she is loving Harry Potter, oh who am I trying to kid- she has been into Harry Potter for the last year in  a BIG way. SO she came home can you get me a Hermione costume please mum. Well i looked on amazon- £20! So I decided to make our own. Here is what a did;

I laid Stephanie on a black bed sheet (cheaper than the material in the fabric shop. I drew around her. I then realised I could make less work for myself if I folded the fabric in half. The fold becomes the shoulders, so less seams and no faffing with a neck line!

 Then I folded the template in half to make sure it is symetrical. Also keep it to cut up the front of the costume to make the front opening

This is the cloak before sewing. Sew both sides and along the sleeves.

Once sewn it looks like this. Print off the Harry Potter crest required. As Stephanie is wanting to be Hermione I printed the Gryffindor crest. Laminate to add strength.

Stitch around the outside of the crest to hold it securely in place.

There you have a Hogwarts witching/ wizardry robe for £5.00. If you happen to have an old black bed sheet or other suitable fabric then you could cut the cost even more!

I think Stephanie's face says it all.

This weeks update

Stephanie has a nasty hacking cough at the moment, which means we haven't slept well this week. I have been so tired that I have not stuck well to our no spend days. I gave in on Thursday and bought myself a bag of crisps and fizzy drink when my colleague went to the shop. Friday I bought a Chinese (whoops!)
I have been better over the weekend. I went to the shop on Saturday and bought a small box of washing powder as I had completely run out and I couldn't get to the supermarket until today as I had my sister's children for her yesterday.

Having my sister's 3 was lovely. How quickly you forget how much can be done with a tiny baby. It's the first time I have had the baby. it was lovely but exhausting. By the end o the day we were getting used to eachothers ways! LOL

Today we did our bigger monthly shop for toiletries as well as food. I spent a whopping £58.54, minus some vouchers i had to use up so i paid £57.24. We all needed new footwear today so an extra £41.00. Then filled the car  £44.42.

This afternoon Stephanie asked to make herself a new bag. So here she is getting started;

RIP faithful friend!

Today we went to a country park with my sister and her family. We organised lunch between us based on the foods we both had. Part of the bargain was that I brought a flask of hot chocolate! There is a café on site which my sister and her family would normally have used. I think I have converted them to bringing their own and saving around £7 per outing in hot drinks.

We did discover that one of my old faithful's is past its best. The hot chocolate in here was only just warm today, which suited everybody else but fussy hot drink person that I am I like mine just out of the kettle.

This one has worn out, I have had my flasks for around 7 years they have done a great job of warming us up, especially after a day like this;

Yep that's just a little of the mud we all got covered in. We are not bothered by the time of year, with adequate clothing there is no such thing as too cold in our family. I'm so pleased I have converted my sister to this way of thinking too as the children love to be out and running around.

 

I still have one 1 litre flask left and my tiny flask which holds enough soup for Stephanie and me (Dylan doesn't eat soup). So I'm not in a hurry for a replacement yet. But I'm thinking if one has gone will the others be long?

 

 

I also popped to the supermarket today for food and fuel. I needed to put the full budgeted £30 in today- I went slightly over at £30.02 silly nozzles! however my grocery shop was under the £20.00 budget so that accounted for the extra 2p! LOL My groceries came to £14.49  I had a 38p voucher so cost me £14.11 add the 2p for fuel totals £14.13. Our trip out cost £2 in parking, but I found 70p as we walked so really only £1.30. take this out of the left over grocery budget and that is £4.59 left over. this is transferred to the squirrel account for our emergency fund. Which means I am now 14% of the way towards the £500 target.

Keeping Warm

A topic on so many peoples minds this year, the energy company price hike has only made it worse for so many people who were already struggling.




I held off putting on my heating until a week ago and even now it only goes on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening just to lift the chill. I have a very modern energy efficient boiler and still struggle to pay the costs of using the heating so I know there are going to be far too many people without this luxury in so much trouble this year especially as the winter is supposed to be the coldest in nearly 50 years. Let's hope they get that as wrong as when they tell us we are going to have a record breaking summer!

The central heating is our only source of warmth so I try to 'catch' as much of the heat as I can when I do switch it on. I only have it set to heat the rooms to 19C as this is warm enough when wearing a jumper/layers. We wear layers, vests, t shirts, jumpers. Socks and slippers. In the evening when we wear pj's I put the summer weight ones underneath the flannelette winter ones I love to wear, and a dressing gown. Stephanie swears by her onesies. Dylan is always cold- mostly because he refuses to wear lots of layers- he is coming round slowly and instead of moaning about the cold last night went and got the fleecy blanket off his bed to snuggle under while we watched a film.

The other thing I find helps is to move! As tempting as it is to sit and shiver under a blanket and think if I move I'll get cold. I find getting up and doing a job warms me up. So I have started to spread out the housework rather than doing it all in one hit. I get up and do the dishes- the warm water helps. Then I might sit and do a sedentary job. Then I'll fold the washing, then another sedentary paperwork job before hovering and so on. This really helped yesterday, Stephanie is off school with a stomach bug, we are not usually home during the day so don't notice the house get cold but it did yesterday. Stephanie was fine as she was hot due to the bug! I was trying to do some paperwork from home and found that interspersing housework with paperwork meant the cold didn't get tp me too much. Also helped I guess that I kept my night time layers on! Lazy moo's we stayed in our pj's all day, well we weren't gong anywhere and were having no visitors why make washing!

It did get very chilly overnight last night I dreamt that we woke up to a huge bank of snow, and Dylan came to tell me this morning that he was cold. He will learn and accept he needs to wear long sleeved pj's before the winter is over. It was still chilly this morning when we got up even with the hour of heating on. So I got busy- I washed all of the condensation off of the windows, I sorted the washing, I have done the ironing, washed up and hovered downstairs. I am toasty warm now. So shall do some paperwork. When I start to feel cold I shall head upstairs to clean to warm myself back up.


The other thing I find difficult is drying my washing, in the kitchen, the warmest room in the house, it can take 2-3 days to dry a load of washing. I was given a new ( to me) 5ft upright freezer last week an have found the heat that come from the back of it is perfect for drying washing. It has taken 1-2 days now to dry washing if I put the clothes horse next to the freezer.

How far can you...

Stretch out one of these;




I am very impressed with one my mother in law bought for us. It was a medium chicken she found in the reduced section of the supermarket. It cost her £3.00, I think.

So far we have had 5 dinners for the three of us, and one lunch. The meat is now all gone but I still have 2 large jars of stock made from the bones in the fridge. so that has been less than 20p a meal each from this one bird.

I have been paying attention to our portion sizes again. I was weighing meticulously a few months back but I have been lazy- which results in over cooking. So I have used the love food hate waste portion calculator this evening. I found that even using this I had too much food for te 3 of us. I weighed out the suggested pasta for 1 adult and 2 children. Knowing that while Dylan is able to eat as much as an adult Stephanie doesn't eat very much. Even so we still have a large portion of pasta left which Dylan is taking for lunch tomorrow. So I will try the portions for 3 children next time and see how we get on with that.

This week is set to be very low cost for me meal wise- we have had the chicken which cost me nothing for the last 5 days, tomorrow we have a very large pizza which we will share with garlic bread, both of which arrived from the same source as the chicken.
For lunches Dylan has been taking chicken sandwich, made from reduced priced bread so has been 25p for the loaf we have used this week. Stephanie has been taking houmous and vegetable dips, the vegetables were bought for 50p the houmous £1. I have been having a pot of soup which cost me 19p it will be the last and 4th meal from it for me tomorrow. There has been a little cost in vegetables with each meal, the pasta and potatoes but this were bought in bulk so minimal cost.


How far have you managed to stretch your budget this week?

winteryifying the house.

As we have all heard the energy companies are putting their prices up -AGAIN!
I have enough trouble paying for our heating as it is and always try not to put the heating on until November and turn it off as close to March as I can. To help reduce the time our heating is on for I have upgraded all of our curtains to lined curtains earlier in the year. Today I have put a curtain up in front of our drafty front door.

A small change but I am hoping it will make a big difference to us. I am also getting better at closing doors around the house, I hate closing the doors as it makes me feel closed in which I hate. But slowly I am getting myself trained at this as it does make a big difference to keeping a room warm.

Do you have any other tips for saving money on the heating bill that could help me and others?