How to make bread without bread flour

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Now You Know how to make bread without any bread flour!

I got through January spending less than £30 on groceries for the household but ran out of bread and bread flour. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, so let's get inventive.

 

Running out of bread and bread flour is normally unheard of in this household but it can happen to the best of us, especially when trying to empty cupboards and stick to a grocery challenge budget of £1 per person per day, so I spent less than half my allocated budget just cooking from what is already here.
As long as you have ordinary flour, eggs and milk then you can make pancakes.
If you have just the flour and milk, you can make flour tortillas.
Better still, as long as you have yeast and good old-fashioned, all purpose, plain flour then you can make your own budget bread.

BARGAIN ALERT

Brown Bread and Roll Mix only £1 for 3.5kg*

Here's how to make bread without bread flour

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (approx.)
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp oil
• 4 cups plain flour

I added a scoop of wheatgerm to mine, so it needed another spoonful of water, then made the loaf in my breadmaker. You do not need a breadmaking machine, this recipe will work equally well by hand in the usual way - knead the dough well for 5 minutes, rest/prove for an hour, knead for another 5 minutes, rest/prove for another hour, then shape and bake as normal, either in a lightly greased loaf tin or on a tray.

 

I was quite sceptical about whether or not this loaf would rise, as I have never learned the actual differences between each of the various flour types other than the obvious differences between grain types like wheat and corn but as you can see, the loaf rose as it normally would had I been using proper bread flour.

 

The load was baked as normal white bread on the 1.5lb setting and this did it perfectly. The loaf turned out the tin without a problem and sounded hollow when tapped on the bottom. It got wrapped in a clean, cotton tea towel until it cooled enough to slice. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the first time I have baked bread with plain flour, as I do tend to dilute bread flour with plain flour to save money when handbaking or if the bread mixes aren't available on offer, but this was the first time I had tried baking a full loaf in the breadmaker without having any strong bread flour in the recipe.

 

Once cooled, the load sliced as any other bread would slice - so we had to sample it with some homemade blackcurrant and bramble jam. It tasted delicious!

From now on, I will not be paying extra for strong bread flour - I'll sit back and wait for the bargains to appear and, in the meantime, keep a better stock of cheap, all purpose plain flour, which currently costs 45p per 1.5kg bag from most big supermarkets. I have, however, managed to order 3 x 3.5kg of cheap bread and roll mix from Approved Food to replenish stock and I'll add on an extra couple of bags of plain flour next time I get the chance of it. I'm guessing that I'll can dilute the bread mix in similar fashion as long as I add an extra sprinkle of dried yeast.

You can add herbs, spices, garlic, sultanas, seeds, grains, nuts or whatever else takes your fancy - play about with it to find what you like best and don't forget to share your results and photos with fellow followers of frugal living in Frugaldom's forums.

* My affiliated link

Frugal Living for Newcomers

By NYK in Frugaldom

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A daily dose of frugal living to help our new members cope with the trials and tribulations of living on an ever tightening budget. Don't spend rainy day money unless it really is essential - stop, take stock and prioritise your spending now.

20 servings of home soup for around £2.00
December is one of the most expensive months of the year if, like many others, you leave Christmas shopping until the last minute and then discover you have overspent on the food budget throughout the year, leaving yourself potentially skint over the festive period. Worse still, you may find an increase in visitors, unexpected presents 'needing' to be bought and family or friends expecting to be fed and entertained during the holidays. My number one tip is MAKE SOUP!
Soup can be made from almost anything and costs just a couple of pounds to make sufficient for up to 20 servings. I store mine in recycled margarine cartons, which hold two portions, or in the plastic screw cap jars, which can hold 3 servings. The plastic screw cap tubs cost about 65p each and come filled with instant hot chocolate powder! Bonus! (Never bin anything that has reuse potential.)
EASY TO MAKE HAM AND LENTIL SOUP

• 1 pack cooking bacon (currently around 65p from supermarkets)
• 500g lentils
• 4 chopped carrots
• 2 chopped onions

Simmer the meat in water to make the stock- I do mine in the slow cooker for at least 3 hours and this also contributes to the overall heating of the kitchen - and then strain the meat and fat from the water. Separate the meat from the fat (if you are health conscious) and set it aside while making the soup. You can either add this later or use it in other meals, like ham and pasta bake, carbonara, pie or even eat it on sandwiches.
Add in the lentils and chopped vegetables then simmer until ready - add more water as required.
Once cooked, season to suit your own taste. You can add in the leftover bacon to turn the soup into a luxury, meaty broth that can be served as a meal on its own, probably followed by pudding, if you are anything like us here in Frugaldom, but when the budget is really stretched, I recommend using the bacon for something like pie-making so you get another meal out of it.
SUDDEN LOSS OF INCOME
Thankfully, this has not happened to me this month but it happens to people all the time - pay offs, lay offs, redundancies, illness, accidents and even, in tragic cases, sudden death. There are any number of reasons for a sudden change in circumstances and we cannot always be prepared for them. So how can we best cope?
First, no amount of panicking, shouting, tears or tantrums will instantly resolve the problem and despite being a very difficult fact to absorb, we have to remain level headed for the sake of our own sanity and those around us.
STOP - TAKE STOCK - PRIORITISE
Tough choices can mean tough love! I'm focussing on income here, so for the purposes of being prepared, frugal living means maintaining a basic supply of essential foodstuffs, like salt, flour, pulses, dried and tinned goods suitable for emergencies and budgeting to run the household on less than what you normally average. I'm not talking about extreme preparedness, only a basic common sense approach to avoiding empty cupboards when we most need them to be full and paying the bills without bankrupting ourselves, while still setting aside something for the future. THIS 'SOMETHING' DOES NOT NEED TO BE MONEY!

MAKE LISTS
I did a quick freezer inventory while the soup was cooking and listed every item this lifesaving ice box contains. In saying that, it is only lifesaving while there is electrical power, so I prefer not to cook any meats before freezing them just in case they defrost and need to be cooked before refreezing. Ready cooked meals are done on a surplus to immediate requirement basis, so a batch of Bolognese sauce or lasagne would be OK, along with the frozen stewed fruit that gets used up over the winter months after the growing season has ended. Soup is always available and gets replenished as soon as the last tub gets used. I have several recipes and posts about homemade soup, feel free to read those, save them or share them.
During my inventory, I discovered enough food to last us the remainder of the year, excluding Christmas dinner. I could manage a celebratory dinner on what's here but have family visiting who expect a bit of tradition, so we're preparing the meal between us.
List your overheads and prioritise your necessary spending - rent or mortgage, council tax, essential utilities all need to be paid. Review contracts, if you have any, to find out which can be cancelled. As a general rule, frugal living means saying no to all contracts, so things like mobile telephones, satellite television and subscriptions of any description are an absolute no-no! Many don't realise the damage these can do while there's money flowing in, it's only when the contractually agreed payments get missed and start accruing debt at an alarming rate that we suddenly realise the hidden dangers. No more contracts - get rid of them as soon as possible and learn to live without whatever luxury it is they were providing.

CHEAP, HOME-BASED HOBBIES
This is my knitting project that I started yesterday. It will eventually become a multi-coloured, multi-textured, warm, woolly blanket made from all the odd balls of wool that others often discard at the ends of their own projects. Both the blue and brown mottled wool are from unravelled home knits made by others. I am not a knitter but these plain (or garter) stitch strips are a dawdle to knit, even for the most inexperienced of us. This and the fact that there are fewer squares to sew together at the end of it make it a much less arduous and almost therapeutic task. Relax and unwind your yarn this winter.
ENTERTAINING KIDS
My own kids are now grown, one has kids of her own, so my kids are grand kids. Children of all ages demand to be entertained, amused, fed, bathed, clothed and pampered - so do some adults, come to think of it! Money does none of these things - people do! A child can have just as much, if not more, fun playing outside with those responsible for their welfare and, contrary to belief, getting dirty isn't a life-threatening situation. As long as you have the time to spend with children doing simple, cost-free activities, children will be happy. If it's cold indoors because you can't afford heating on all day, wrap them up warm, get them out into the fresh air and then wrap them in home-knitted blankets until the house warms up a bit.
Many of us still don't have double glazing, insulation or central heating and nor can many afford to burn electricity in the absence of gas. Coal costs a small fortune and log drying can be next to impossible during the prolonged wet weather we endure here, but making the smallest room in your home acceptably warm shouldn't be impossible, even if it means converting your living room into a bed-sit come dining come games room. It makes family time seem fun all the time. If you're a telly addict, get headphones rather than bark orders to shut up at everyone else in the room who has no interest in what's on at the time. Sorted!
Published by NYK Media (AKA Frugaldom) as part of the Frugal Living blog

The Process of Frugalisation - part 2

Part of Frugalblog.co.uk

• #Frugal Living
• #Money Saving
• #Foraging
• #Household Budgets
• #Food on a Budget
• #Money Challenges

How to become frugal and follow an extremely frugal lifestyle is something I am often asked - how it all started, why I do it and what keeps me pursuing such a lifestyle when I no longer seem to need to do so? Keep pecking away at those debts or adding to the savings, as the freedom to be frugal is well worth it. (Part 1 can be found here.)

Sorry this second part was delayed but I don't exactly work regular hours in a regular place of employment. I'm home based, self employed and slowly developing my frugal kingdom, so it's starting to take me out and about a bit more while preparing for a slight change of direction. Or perhaps it is better said that I'm preparing to add another business venture to my existing writing and publishing work, as I have no intentions of giving that up any time soon.

First of all, I began this lifestyle because I had to - in the grand scale of things, my entire life changed almost overnight and … Read more here

How to Make Hot Spicy Apple Sauce

Latest frugal blog post from NYK Media in Frugaldom 

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How to Make Hot Spicy Apple Sauce

Autumn sunshine, showers, wind and windfalls! Yes, frugal friends, it's that time of year again in our corner of Scotland - the time of apples, brambles, berries, chilli peppers and tomatoes! We don't have a heated greenhouse or polytunnel and winters can be long with summers short, but it shouldn't stop us eating seasonal produce.

The trees at both Frugaldom and Thrift Cottage are laden with apples, so these are being picked and shared with whoever wants them. At the moment, I'm processing about a bucket of apples each week, mostly stewing the fruit for freezing to use over the coming months as puddings and accompaniments. Apple crumble spiced with cinnamon is a hot favourite here and costs less to make than apple sponge. Indeed, crumble is just like crumbly sponge mix without the eggs, so it's ideal at this time of year when the hens and ducks slow down or stop  laying!

Having already stewed down the garden plums with raspberries and apples to turn into jam, I saved some of the juice to turn into jelly, so that was another few jars into the store cupboard. The addition of some lemon and the pectin from the apples ensures a good set.

HOW TO MAKE HOT, SPICY APPLE SAUCE

After stewing apples, there's no point in wasting what's left over, so into the pot go all the peels, cores, lemon skins (I was given lemons by a neighbour to make her some lemon curd), two chopped chilli peppers and some cinnamon, just to spice things up a bit. Some people call this jam-making from leftovers 'compost jam' or jelly, if dripping it through the strainer, but this time I am making a sauce that can be used as a spread or a meal accompaniment. There's less waste in making sauce and what does get leftover can be composted.

Having boiled down all the cores and peels, I press the softened 'pulp' through a sieve to create what looks like a runny apple sauce, then I stirred in approximately 500g sugar per 500ml of fruit pulp. A rapid, brief rolling boil (about 5 minutes) thickens it up without turning the mix into jam and then it can be decanted into warm, sterilised jars. I got 3 jars from my peels and cores this time and the sauce has a lovely hot kick to it that will be ideal either on hot toast or served alongside pork.

Next time, I'll add some cloves to the mix before boiling it - you can easily experiment to discover which flavours you prefer. It's also fair to say that while cooking is going on, I don't need to turn on any heaters as the kitchen heat is sufficient. Better still is if I make the sauce over the logburner while it's stoked with foraged wood from Frugaldom - we have plenty of that lying about and are forever offering others the chance to collect some.

This being Scotland, we aren't known for our prolonged hot weather and summer sunshine, so without an artificially heated greenhouse or polytunnel, the chances of growing a huge, perfect crop of anything that needs heat are somewhat limited. As usual, my tomatoes in the makeshift plastic greenhouse have grown in proliferation but are having to be picked green and ripened on the windowsills. The chilli pepper plants have survived their stint  outside on the caravan decking but these will be brought in very soon to try and over-winter them for another year. Not being a great fan of chutneys - they aren't frugal in the least when you can buy pickle for next to nothing - I prefer to use my tomatoes and chillies for making sauces, either chilli, Bolognese or curry. I find these much more versatile than having jars of chutney that few around me ever eat.

That's been my past week here in Frugaldom - jam, jelly and crumble making. Today I have another batch of apples, more chilli peppers, tomatoes and a tub of blackberries to process so I'm thinking it's going to be chilli for dinner followed by an apple and blackberry crumble. It's probably just as well that the weather has taken another turn for the better to allow me out to work off all these extra calories!

If anyone would like to join us in Frugaldom to sample this lifestyle, please get in contact. There are still plenty of blackberries, crab apples and rosehips ripe for picking so you could make it a fun foraging trip and take advantage of our Frugal Breaks, specially while the heated swimming pool is still open on the site nearby. Contact me before booking and I'll provide a special 'Friends of Frugaldom' discount to make sure your impromptu break is affordable! :)

Scottish Multimedia | How to Make Hot Spicy Apple Sauce

Moneysaving Mayhem

May has been a busy money-saving month of mayhem, so far, but we have managed to complete the barn painting and have another corral, or small paddock, fenced, planted the last of this year's trees, sown seeds and I set up a makeshift wild bird feeding station outside the caravan, where the resident woodpecker is now visiting several times each day. That's my frugal entertainment. Life on site in a mobile home is great!

I'm going to begin this latest post with a quote from John Irving that definitely reflects the mood of the day. The photo is one I took of the nearby loch when it was perfectly calm and reflective. I think some of my long-standing friends and family are wondering if I have taken up permanent residence in the mobile home, now known as my micro-ranch. Yes, it's a far cry from a sandstone cottage, but it most definitely has everything I need and greatly increases the time I can spend working on the Frugaldom Project whenever the weather permits. The field is a mere half mile from here. What isn't there to like? I have luxuries here that aren't available at the house, such as Sky TV, an indoor heated swimming pool, golf, fishing, site shop, various free to attend social activities and all are included within the annual site rental fees that equate to about £40 per week, including WiFi, water and TV. (Swimming, fishing and golf are included in that price.)

The site is not a year-round residential site, but I can spend 11 months of the year here, leaving February as the month for catching up elsewhere, visiting friends and family or getting jobs done elsewhere. With the spare room and living room bed settee here, I can have friends and family to stay anytime, providing a frugal holiday option for many and also less travelling for those coming to help out at Frugaldom. The site has facilities for campervans, tourers and tents as well as renting out chalets, but I think the majority of the caravans may be privately owned holiday homes. To be absolutely honest, I haven't a clue why we didn't look at this option instead of renting an assortment of houses over a 10-year period while saving to buy! It could have saved thousands of pounds! I think I've spent more money moving house over the past 15 years than it costs to buy a decent ex-rental or secondhand mobile home on this site! I'm not being paid to say this, but if I could find frugalers to buy the two plots and 'vans next to me, we could have a great little frugal community going here - I could even provide allotment-style gardens at Frugaldom for food growing.

Right now, I have a hand wash drying outdoors, pegged to the airer, and a tray of raspberry muffins baking in the oven, alongside quiche. It's taking time to accustom myself to a full size gas oven after using the microwave and mini oven for so long, but I've managed not to burn anything beyond use. There's also the fact that the cooker doubles as heating in the open plan layout of the caravan. I'm a few items short in the kitchen department, but am managing fine without having to buy anything else. My total spends have amounted to £4 for a plastic wash basin and a cheap frying pan. My latest frugal visitor was able to provide me with …

Continued here

Scottish Multimedia | How to Heat a Caravan

 

It's been just over two weeks since moving into the Frugaldom home-from-home 'ranch' and true to fashion, the good ole Scottish weather has thrown everything at us, from heat wave to snow storms; it has been an interesting learning curve trying to maintain a good balanced temperature in a caravan, that's for sure.

The caravan is a static sited on the holiday park next to Frugaldom. As it will be home for most of the year, getting to grips with heating it (and cooling it) will take time. Again, this is something we have saved for, so site fees are paid in advance and it's up to us to budget the running costs for gas and electricity. We've also chosen to invest in having wooden decking built and they managed to almost complete this while the weather was in a transitional stage between heat wave and yesterday afternoon's snowy blizzard! The morning started out at -3C and white with frost, followed by glorious sunshine and then things went rapidly downhill after that.

Today, the weather has been awful, ranging from bitterly cold to driving rain, sleet and hailstones bouncing. Staying indoors seemed like a good idea, so I cranked up the gas fire for a while and wrapped up in about 5 layers of clothing. The caravan has one small panel heater with towel rail in the shower room, eco-warm air skirting heaters (350w) in the bedrooms and a gas fire in the main living area, so I have added an extra layer over the mattress plus an electric blanket and my hand-knitted blanket over the top of the duvet on the bed.I also have fleece pyjamas, bed socks and a fleecy sleeved blanket. It isn't a glamorous site to behold but it allows me to switch off the bedroom heater through the night and switch it back on when I waken. The 450w thermostatic oil-filled radiator is left on in the main living area on a low setting and the bathroom panel heater is on overnight. Curtains need to be shut before dark to help retain some heat and then they get opened first thing, as the sun rises and hits the windows. So far, so good. I plan on getting a curtain hung up to separate the living area and kitchen, just to cut down on the open plan expanse at nights.

I have been reading the electricity meter as I would normally do at the house, so I can easily keep tabs on how much is being used and set aside the necessary funds for the bi-annual bill. I haven't been here long enough to estimate weekly averages.

Cooking is with a standard size cooker running off gas cylinders, so I have no idea how long these will last. They also run the living room fire and heat the water on demand via boiler - same goes for the shower. I have my slow cooker and my breadmaker and both have been in full use.

Today I made a loaf of bread, baked a tray of oat and sultana cookies while cooking dinner in the oven and used up some bacon that son legt when he was visiting for the weekend. (The bacon bits got added to carrot and lentil soup.)

I haven't spent anything on kitting out the caravan, so I am cooking with my camping equipment for now. I'll get one of those supermarket £3 frying pans next week, along with a £1 plastic basin for the sink. Other than that, I think I can manage with what I have.

Not much outside work got done today, but I did go a walk out to the field just to check on the latest plantings - a rosemary hedge, two strawberry beds and a small copse of oak trees.

View of the Frugaldom barn with the snow-peaked Galloway Hills in the background. As you can see, we still haven't managed to get the back of the barn painted but we have two sides done now.

I got caught in one light flurry of hail that moved over quickly in the direction of the hills but despite how grey everything is, you can see hints of green… read more HERE

Frugal Living, Frugal Working

 

After an abysmal start to the day the sun eventually broke through the clouds by around noon and then it shone the rest of the day. In fact, it was jackets off, sleeves up and sun cream needed by mid-afternoon and then a slow walk home, taking photos along the way.

This is a quick photo blog of how yesterday went. I had a meeting on site at lunchtime, so I was pleased the rain had stopped by then. Corral 2 has been properly measured and all the remaining blackcurrant cuttings have been planted among the edible hedging. I think I planted 110, possibly more, blackcurrant cuttings among the sloes, elders, raspberries and blackberries.

It's quite difficult to see all the new trees and fruit bushes but you can just make out the plastic spirals - the edible hedge has now been planted around two sides of the barn. Left of this photo is the Buddleia, which will need cutting right back at the end of this year.

Does this count as biomass, I wonder? Since having the corral properly fenced, the logs have all had to be moved again so we really do need to look at getting them cut up and used in other ways - likewise with the pile of branches and twigs behind them. We've been using that as kindling for the camp stove but it could take a while to use it up at that rate.

The temporary path leading to what will be the willow walk is still in place and now needs to be kept under control until such times as it can be properly developed. Judging by the tracks, the deer seem to like it.

I dragged a few bits of log from the pile and have started marking out a flower bed in the wild garden. There is so much to do and I know exactly what I want at the end of it all but it has to fit with the lie of the land as it was when we bought it, so this fits nicely into the plan.

The area behind corral 1 is where the first of the vegetable beds will be going. It's quite well drained but will take a lot of work to get the beds built and filled, then they all need protected from the wildlife. We don't want the deer or the rabbits grazing on anything. While clearing bits of ground yesterday…

Read full post at Frugal Living, Frugal Working

Life on the Cheap in a Small Space

Cheap and cheerful living in small spaces is what many aspire to, which is quite amazing considering what's available to buy nowadays. But for frugal living, we want fun and affordable homes, like tiny houses, cabins or even caravans, camper vans or tents. Well, tomorrow is a big day for me, as I downsize to frugal summer quarters.

As the above sign clearly says, it's only a small drive to paradise, or in our case a walk or a cycle, so bring your bikes or walking boots as well as your gloves and welly boots if you are planning a trip to help out on the 'range' that is now known as Frugaldom.

This will be basecamp for the foreseeable future! It's a good bit smaller than Thrift Cottage and under 385sq feet, so I am hoping that it will prove to be a comfortable and affordable choice, not withstanding the additional benefits of it being so handy for Frugaldom. It basically means falling out of bed and walking to work in the great outdoors. Hopefully, there will be a deck built before this month ends.

This is the view of what lies between here and there (Frugaldom) with the little patch of grass in front of the wall ear-marked to become a micro kitchen herb garden. I may even enter the site competition for best garden plot in 2015!

This is the view from the door, looking in the direction of one of the three lochs after which the site is named. From tomorrow, this is Frugaldom home-from-home. Don't worry, there's still plenty of space for Frugaldom friends and relatives visiting and I should be able to pick up the site WiFi, so I can keep you all up to date with progress and arrange your visits. Apart from that, you should be able to get me on my mobile. (Retro, I'll text you as soon as I get there to check.)

Finally, here is the main garden and work space - from the opposite side of the river and all around the big garden shed, which is actually a rather large barn. (The corrals, new woodlands, quarry and orchard are all beyond the barn.)

As you can see, my outdoor space far, far exceeds my indoor space but this is yet another aspect of the kind of frugality many have when aiming for money saving, lifetime goals. The cost of living in a mobile home can make it a very attractive prospect, even if you choose to pay extra for the luxury of having it on a fully serviced plot with access to on site facilities, but these are all things I'll be blogging about just as soon as I get everything organised.

Moving this close to Frugaldom is one more step closer to fulfilling the dream of creating a woodland wilderness, living off the land and communing with nature. These things can easily be entwined with small space living and modern luxuries. Now to make it all affordable and learn the ropes of cooking with gas. It's a great big adventure ready to happen and I have slashed my budget accordingly.

All going to plan, I should be able to update tomorrow, when I'll be starting a brand new food store, meal planning, scheduling and getting to grips with the cost of mobile home living. I'm thinking of it as an extended vacation!

Join www.frugalforums.co.uk for all the updates and I'll see you in Frugaldom soon.

Scottish Multimedia | Life on the Cheap in a Smaller Space

Cheap Meals from Eggs and Leftovers

Continuing with my challenge to slash the weekly grocery bill to an average £5 per person, I decided to adapt a very simple recipe for potato cakes. It's very similar to making fish cakes, except I didn't have leftover potatoes and fish, I had leftover potatoes and the bacon bits from making a pot of ham and lentil soup.

I had considered making a ham quiche, as the ducks are laying eggs every day and these need to be used. Despite giving many to friends & neighbours, we still have more than enough for the household. Adding potatoes to pastry, however, seemed a bit too starchy and stodgy; I do want to fit into a swimsuit at some time during this summer, especially when there's an indoor heated pool within walking distance of the new home-from-home at Frugaldom! But I digress...

With the potatoes, I'd cooked enough to do two meals then ended up making a Bolognese sauce and lasagne with the extra mince. I had also made a big pan of ham and lentil soup in the slow cooker, so had the cooked bacon bits still to use. (Some were added to cheese and ham pasta, but that still left quite a bit, so I'd to freeze the remainder of the bacon until needed.)

INGREDIENTS

• Boiled potatoes - chopped/mashed
• Cooked bacon bits - chopped
• Onion - diced
• Salt & pepper
• Self-raising flour
• Eggs

I had about a mugful of chopped potatoes and the same in bacon bits, so I added a large serving spoonful of flour and 2 duck eggs, then mixed it all together. (If it looks too sloppy, add more flour, too dry, add a little water or even another egg, if you need to use them up quickly.)

The mix doesn't look all that appetising at this stage but these taste great once cooked as cakes. You could add any type of meat or vegetable leftovers; I have tried tuna and sweetcorn, corned beef and beans, cheese, onion and ham, mixed vegetables (no meat) and mince with carrots and onion. Frugal brunch cakes are a meal in themselves, depending on what's added. Otherwise, they are simply potato cakes.

Once mixed, scoop out a heaped tablespoonful per cake and place in a hot frying pan. I'm using vegetable oil but this is through choice and availability. I'd normally use this or lard for frying savoury foods. The cakes should sizzle as soon as you put them in the hot pan.

Press each of the brunch cakes down to begin forming a flat, burger-like shape, so they cook evenly. Once they cook on the bottom, you can turn them to flatten them more.

These are quite large brunch cakes I'm making because we are big eaters in this household! Once the cakes are flattened out to about 1cm thick, the four of them fill my frying pan.

Turn them again to ensure they are properly cooked all the way through. They don't take too long if you are using pre-cooked leftovers - only the time it takes to cook the eggs and flour. You could even use leftover pancake mix for this, if you make your pancakes unsweetened. I did have some pancake mix leftover yesterday, but I used it as the base for my white sauce when making the lasagne.

Because I just roughly chopped my boiled-in-their-skins potatoes, these were a bit like hash browns without batter. In all honesty, you could do a full English cooked breakfast of potatoes, bacon, eggs, onions, tomato, mushrooms and beans etc. all mixed together and fried as brunch burgers! Frugal food is fun, filling, nutritious and, on some occasions, fattening, especially if you over-indulge and then don't follow a frugal fitness plan. Zero food waste does not mean eat everything in site all at the same time.

We chose to have our brunch cakes on their own, hot with traditional brown sauce, but they will go equally well with other things like extra vegetables and/or salad once the garden is into full summer production. They are also ideal for campfire cooking, so get that cast iron skillet seasoned and ready for use in true Frugaldom style. Failing that, a camping pan on a BBQ may suffice.

These are very filling and very tasty, adapted from a very east to follow recipe for basic potato cakes, found on the Back Roads Living website. I got 8 cakes from my mix, so ha;f is now back in the bridge and will be used tomorrow at lunchtime.

Join us in the frugal forums to discuss this and other cheap and cheerful ways of slashing your grocery budget and freeing up more of your cash for more fun in the sun this summer!

NYK in Frugaldom

Cheap Meals from Leftovers

Frugal Pie Making

Life on the 'feed me for a fiver' challenge is interesting, especially when you look closely at fitting in the recommended minimum 5-a-day fruit and vegetables, discounting potatoes, while trying to make affordable, wholesome meals from scratch. That's why we love pies!

The kitchen is one of the easiest places to start money saving, especially if your budget is tight or if you are taking part in our 'feed me for a fiver' challenge in the forums. Your kitchen, regardless of size, shape or design, is also the hub of most frugal homes. In many cases, it is also the gateway to your frugal kingdom - the kitchen garden. Even at this time of year, here in Scotland, we can find some winter greens by way of leeks and kale. It is like finding free food and everything counts when it comes to feeding the household and zero waste. I'm told some places already have wild garlic appearing but I haven't seen any signs of it here yet, just rain, hail, sleet and more high winds. Anyhow, let's get back to pie-making.

Pies are the frugalers' best friends during lean times, especially when made for specific meals. I prefer to use self-raising flour for most things, so this is what gets used for my pastry, along with cheap lard and margarine. Lard is about one third the price of margarine while margarine is about a third less than the cheapest butter, so I tend to do a 2 parts lard to 1 part margarine for pastry making. It makes for a very short and tasty crust on any type of pie and I think it tastes much nicer with that little bit extra lift from self-raising flour. It also helps that SR flour is still only 45p per 1.5kg pack from supermarkets.

The pie above was made from a single chicken breast fillet weighing about 100g. I chopped the garden leeks and added 2 portions of frozen mixed vegetables (77p per kilo) to a frying pan and stir fried the finely chopped chicken with the veg for a few minutes before adding instant gravy and pouring it all into the pie dish to be baked in the mini oven for half an hour. Served with kale, shredded cabbage and an onion, again all cooked in the frying pan on the hot plate, this pie is sufficient to feed four adults without a problem.

Blackcurrants! These are so easy to grow once you get the bushes established and they just keep on reproducing! Every year, I cut back the bushes and stick the prunings into pots or buckets until I can plant them into the ground and every year, more blackcurrant bushes grow! These are now being introduced to the Frugaldom Project as part of our edible hedgerow, as they are such prolific fruiting bushes. Most are of the Ben Connan type, so are quite winter hardy and produce large berries. Blackcurrants are packed with vitamin C and have plenty of pectin, so make ideal jams and jellies, but we are now sampling them as fruit portions for breakfast, served with the porridge, and in pies, ice cream, cheesecake and yoghurt. They need to be soaked in sugar overnight to make them less tart and for today's blackcurrant pie, I used vanilla sugar. (My vanilla sugar is homemade, I just keep topping up my sealed jar containing 2 vanilla pods and they keep doing their job.)

This is the pie ready to go into the mini oven - painted with milk, sprinkled with sugar and the pastry trim made into a little decoration for the centre. I baked it for 35 minutes at 200C, but it should be noted that the top element of my mini oven has blown, so only the bottom one is heating it, meaning everything is taking a bit longer.

Freshly baked blackcurrant pie, just out the mini-oven. It really does smell delicious! As usual, I was impatient to cut into the pie - it just looked too tempting, so I cut a slice while still hot and ran some of the juices into the bowl.

This will be served with custard after tonight's dinner. I'm tempted to cook an early dinner just to get at the frugal pudding quicker! As the pie cools, the juice will set a little but we prefer our fruit pies hot and juicy, served with either homemade ice cream or ordinary pouring custard.

This pie can be made using any fruit or berries you have available, just sweeten them to your own taste. I've left another serving of the blackcurrants in the fridge for having with tomorrow's porridge.

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Frugal Pie Making

Puff Pastry Pizza

Reducing the food budget to £5.00 per person per week for all meals may seem challenging to some but for others, it's a bit of a game where we try to use up everything so we are wasting nothing. Puff pastry pizza seems like a great idea to me, but does it work?

I had half a block of puff pastry defrosted after making a pie at the start of the week - it is National Pie Week this week, did you know that? Anyhow, I had defrosted the pastry, therefore I couldn't refreeze it, so I decided to try making a flaky bake, puff pastry pizza. Rake out the rolling pin and let pastry flattening begin! I rolled it into a circle large enough to fit into my pizza tray.

I have a tube of double concentrate tomato paste with chilli, so I diluted a half cupful and spread that on as the tomato base. Next up, some of the bacon bits retrieved from making this week's pan of soup (bacon & lentil), as these all get removed from the stock before I add the vegetables and pulses.

The cooking bacon costs 80p per 500g pack from supermarkets, it makes a full pan of stock for soup and at least 2 meals for two of us after that, so it's a fabulous bargain to have as back-up in your freezer.

Meanwhile, I diced an onion, chopped a tomato and added a portion each of mixed peppers and sliced mushrooms with seasoning and herbs to quickly fry these for faster cooking.

A bit of added luxury for any frugal budget has to be some mozzarella cheese! At only 46p per pack from supermarkets, a half pack is sufficient for a large pizza. (This is a 30cm/12" diameter pizza tray.) You can pretty much add any leftovers to a pizza but I have never, until now, tried making one from leftover puff pastry. Wish me luck!

The quickly fried vegetables got poured over the top - onions, mixed peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes - but anything goes when it's pizza, especially if you are adding more cheese.

I used supermarket's own smart price cheddar to top my pizza tonight, so here's hoping the mini oven can cope with baking all this lot into something tasty!

I needn't have worried. The puff pastry pizza worked out a real treat when baked at 200C for about 25 minutes. However, I can't recommend this temperature or time, as my mini oven is now running on just the lower element, so keep an eye on your pizza if baking in a conventional oven. This one will do us for two meals, so guess what's for dinner tomorrow night? I'll probably follow that with more of the raspberries set in jelly, too, as I'm now trying to use up all the garden-grown berries I have stashed in my freezer.

Don't get me wrong, if you are one of these people fortunate enough to have access to coupons and live within walking distance of a supermarket, chances are you will be able to buy discounted pizzas cheaper than us rural dwelling frugalites can make them, but we know exactly what's in our pizzas, they are made to our specifications and appreciated for what they are - open top pies that can be adorned with all sorts of leftovers. No easy access to shops is one of the things that townies often overlook when trying to state the obvious about money-saving in the kitchen. From here, our nearest supermarket is 20+ miles away and we don't have a car, but recently, we have been blessed with a trial delivery service by Asda, so their vans have suddenly become a very familiar site on our back roads and farm lanes.

Join us in www.frugalforums.co.uk to keep up to date with the £5 per person per week for all meals challenge.

Puff Pastry Pizza