Day 18 of Extremely Frugal February - Cheesecake!

Day 18 of 28, Time for Frugal Cheesecake!

You all get the gist of the basic routine here in Frugaldom now, don't you?

 

It's mainly porridge for breakfast, pot of tea on the stove, homemade soup and bread for lunch and then dinner is usually based loosely around the premise of meat and two veg surrounded by something like pastry, pasta, rice, potatoes or herby dumplings (doughballs)! Tonight, it will be herby dumplings.

 

We enjoy dessert or pudding of some description almost every day and this normally includes a portion of fruit, hopefully home grown, depending on what's in season or in the freezer.

 

This meal combination takes care of the majority of the winter months and, us being in Scotland, chilly winter months far outweigh the hot summer months.

 

Today, my order from Approved Food* arrived. It costs me less to pay £5.25 delivery than it does to get into town for shopping, so that part of my budget has its own category, or column, within my spreadsheet so I can easily compare the year's delivery charges and transport or travel costs with what it used to cost to keep a car on the road. I am far better off without the car, even if I factor in the cost of hiring a car for a week during holidays! But I digress!

 

My order arrived and it had to be made up to a minimum of £15, so I added in 4 packs of cheesecake mix (£1) along with some other non-essentials to make it worth my while buying the ice cream mix, tinned mango and the 9kg of pasta! I could hardly believe my luck when I saw it listed at 99p for 3 kilos, as it's closer to that for 500g in our local store! I love pasta, it is almost as versatile as potatoes for bulking out the basics and all those carbohydrates help H make it through another day of log-splitting! :) But tonight isn't about pasta, it's about CHEESECAKE! :)

 

This is the first time I have tried packet cheesecake mix and it was so simple that I was quite amazed! Cheesecake is something that falls outside of the frugal budget of 'homemade' luxuries owing to the lack of access to the rather expensive ingredients, so 25p for a pack just seems awesome to me!

 

Defrosting home-grown blackcurrants for the cheesecake

As expected, I didn't use 'real' butter, I used the 25p/400g tinned margarine to melt into the biscuit base, so that added a whole 2.5p to the price.

Base made, 'creamy' top whipped

 The mix needed 300ml of milk - I used semi-skimmed - so that added 24p to the overall price. I could have used UHT to knock a couple of pennies off the cost and I'm sure even the cheap powdered milk may have worked, but today I am using 'real' milk, albeit semi-skimmed.
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Cheesecake taking shape!

 I don't have any tin foil pie trays left, so I'm using a round sponge tray lined with tin foil.

Making the fruit topping

The pack is for a plain cheesecake - vanilla flavoured - but my all time favourite is blackcurrant, so I defrosted some home grown ones and mixed these with a big spoonful of homemade blackcurrant jelly. I probably should add on the cost of that, as I need to buy sugar for making it, so I'll allow 5p, as a jar of jam or jelly costs very little to make when using free fruit.

Homemade blackcurrant cheesecake

This is how my cheesecake is looking now - it is in the fridge setting and will be sliced after dinner. It SHOULD serve 6, lasting us 3 days, but seriously folks, I reckon we'll demolish it over two days by scoffing a quarter pie each in one sitting! Total cost for making it - 57p

Edited in - Here's how it looked served and it WILL serve 6, so will last the Frugaldom household 3 days.

Cost per serving - 9.5p

 

 

NYK, Frugaldom

 

* My friend referral link

Day 13 of Extremely Frugal February - Chick Peas and Cheap Ice Ceam

Day 13 of 28 - A Touch of Summer!

How can I possibly think of summer when I get up in the morning to a house that's 6 degrees C, I ask myself? You'll soon see.

My roast beef-stretching project has gone on temporary hold by way of freezing what was left of the beef and cabbage to enable me to use up the rest of the potatoes, sprouts and turnip.

After the usual routine of porridge for breakfast, today's lunch was toasted cheese with pickle. (Cheese needs to be finely grated now to make it stretch further and bring it within the realms of frugaldom affordability.) As per last night's late post, I had soaked a pan of chick peas.

Today I boiled up the chick peas and then gave them a blast over the stove in a mixture of sesame oil, salt, pepper, mixed spice and chilli. This gave them an added snack-like appeal, so I set aside a cupful to mix in with tonight's dinner and the rest were left to cool, then bagged and popped into the freezer. These should be OK to use a handful at a time whenever I want or need them to bulk up a stew, casserole, stir dry or soup. I quite like eating them like peanuts!

What about dinner?

Leftover sprouts, potatoes and turnip all went into a big pan along with the small cup of the spicy chick peas. While the oven was heating, I diced and pan fried a breast of chicken with a clove of garlic, then threw in a handful of the frozen peppers. This all got added to the roasting tin, drizzled with oil and put into the oven until the potatoes were just beginning to roast. The plan had been to serve with a tomato-based sauce and rice, but I needed to use up the last of the boiled potatoes.

Now for the good part - a slither of summer amidst the winter storms. The mixed fruit I had defrosted overnight turned out to be a mix of stewed apples, rhubarb, raspberries and blackcurrants, so I set about turning it into something more than just ice cream for my Valentine's Day treat! Here's how it went.

A Little Taste of Summer

The ice cream mix is available right now on the Approved Food website at 6 packs for 99p. It uses only 150ml of milk and it works just fine with powdered, if that's all you have. Coincidentally, there's Marvel on offer and mango pulp, so I was sorely tempted to stock up for summer!

The ice cream mix whisks up like double cream and roughly doubles in volume. You simply tip it into a lidded contained and then stir in your favourite accompaniment.

My chosen accompaniment for this batch of frugal ice cream is a couple of tablespoons of my home-grown summer fruit sweetened with a spoonful of vanilla sugar. 

This is my ice cream mix all ready to go into the freezer. It's in a large plastic tub but you could use two smaller margarine tubs and make it as two different flavours.

Meanwhile, I still had all of this stewed fruit left, so you can guess what I did with it, cant you? When putting the ice cream mix into the freezer, I retrieved my bag of crumble mix...

... and made another big fruit crumble that serves 6, so it will last us 3 days. By the time I had made dinner and baked the crumble, the ice cream was frozen, so guess what we had for dessert tonight? :)

BILLY CAN to the rescue! I am so, so tempted to go and order a stock of that ice cream mix, as I'm down to my last 3 sachets... if I ordered the mango pulp I could easily save a small fortune and have the luxury of ice cream and sorbet here all summer! I'll pop a £20 note into the tin and sleep on it! (Sleep on the notion to spend, not the tin!) There really isn't anything I NEED at the moment, what with so much to be used to keep stock rotating, and I certainly don't want to end up with anything needing binned! Can I warrant a minimum £15 order? £20 note into the tin... Will I, won't I? Will I, won't I? Will I, won't I? Grocery budget already at £151.71 for the year to date, which is way over average because of the freezer order for new year. On the other hand, almost anyone could spent £15 over the period of the summer buying ice lollies and ice cream, whereas that amount could get me a whole load of ingredients and the opportunity to stock up on pasta at 99p for 3kg... I'll let you know tomorrow, whatever I decide.

NYK, Frugaldom.

Frugal Bytes - Baked Pudding from Leftovers

Post-Christmas Cooking Continues...

Thieves' Pudding

"What is it?" I hear you ask!

 

Under normal circumstances, I would call it Eve's Pudding or apple sponge, but we're still cooking in the post-Christmas era, so it's a little bit more than just Eve involved in this one! I think I'll call it Thieves' Pudding, as it's kind of a mixture between Stollen and apple sponge.

 

What did I have to use up to concoct this sweet delight?

 

Here goes for the recipe:

 

A tub of stewed apples, the last gleaned from the garden trees, even although the fruit looked past its best. It got cored, peeled, chopped, stewed and frozen anyway!

 

The final couple of spoons scraped from the big jar of Christmas cranberry sauce (with whole cranberries).

 

A small jar of mincemeat with some chopped nuts

 

A packet sponge mix

 

3 bantam eggs that Fonzie, Bernice and Mrs Splashy managed to lay over the past week.

 

All the fruit based 'stuff' got mixed together and put in the bottom of my lasagne dish and then covered in sponge mix. It took quite a long time to bake in the mini oven but it eventually cooked to produce enough pudding to last all week. It tastes delicious!

 

I may not be in any way, shape or form a chef, nor am I any form of domestic goddess, but adventurous in the kitchen, I most certainly am! :)

 

Never be afraid to mix and match, especially when it comes to puddings! If in doubt, it all tastes great under frugal custard!

 

NYK, Frugaldom

I Got Love-Bombed!

Festive Love Bombs and All That Stuff...

 

There's no other way of saying it, I got love-bombed last week! I'm still in shock, over-awed by what happened when someone detonated the love bomb. I was completely taken by surprise, totally unprepared and at the mercy of the postman and all he could carry to my mailbox!

 

During November, I set up the 2013 Frugaleur Challenge, launching it to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week. It allows us to establish the ground rules and get a head's start before 1st January 2013.

 

This year's challenge, as I explained in a previous post, has been grossly increased to a whopping great £50 start-up budget and a 13 month period to plan, start-up, develop and grow a micro-business from home.

 

We of the frugal living brigade need to earn our income somewhere and there just never seems to be enough of it to go around, hence the continual series of mini-challenges going on throughout the year. Priorities are things like paying off any debts, overpaying motgages, saving loose change in sealed pots, shopping via cashback sites and pursuing all manner of activities in order to succeed at decluttering, making do, reducing, reusing and recycling.  For some, it is still a case of trying to keep up with the rent and monthly bills! Becoming, and staying debt free is the ultimate goal. Anything more than that is an absolute bonus.

 

So, for 2013, McGonks are my thing! I now have a website, Facebook page, blog, an adoption centre for rehoming my furry little friends and, this weekend, the launch of Kindle subscriptions to their stories, available via Amazon both here in UK and in USA.

 

Back to the love bomb - I have been talking McGonks non-stop for nearly a month now, while I scour Frugaldom and send out search parties to family and friends, looking for all sorts of bits and pieces suitable for my latest project. There had to be some spending, it was unavoidable - especially when I make treasure trove finds on places like eBid!

 

Well! While I have been busy beavering away at putting together a unique secret santa gift and creating my McGonk empire, I have been inundated with gifts of all shapes and sizes, replenishing my diminished crafting stocks and ensuring that the McGonk project gets off the ground.  Fellow frugal and crafting bloggers, I salute you! In the true spirit of the love-bomb, I shall, of course, 'pay it forward' at every opportunity and in any way possible.

 

Now I would like to mention a Christmas Crafting Competition, again being hosted by our friends over at Moneysupermarket.com. This should appeal to even the youngest crafters, as it's a Christmas card making contest. I think the McGonks might be able to pull a few bits and pieces together in order for Thrift Cottage to submit an entry, don't you? Details can be found here.

 

It's been another busy day here, what with all the McGonk challenge preparations, but I'm glad to say that they now have their own 'Clan McGonk' blog. (Feel free to follow, subscribe, read and share.) This is where all their news and great adventures will be recorded in 2013, as I don't want to swamp the frugal living blog with cute, furry, frugal gonks.

 

Finally, today is the last day of the stirring of the pink champagne-style fizz! It smells delicious and is just starting to bubble and ferment. It's ready for filtering and bottling, so that is tomorrow's job. I'll drain off the liquid through the jelly bag and then pour it through a paper coffee filter, just to ensure all the 'bits' are out of it. The colour is very rich, much more like a sparkling red wine than a pink champagne. At 15p per bottle, it's frugal fruity fizz no matter what colour it becomes. I may even transfer the strained fruit to the big pan and boil what's left of it into a jar of festive, gourmet jelly! After that, there probably won't be much fruit left for the compost or the worms.

 

Frugaldom

www.frugaldom.com

 

Pink 'Champagne' Style Fizz of a VERY Frugal Variety.

Champagne, Perry or Bubbly - Frugal Pink for Me!

 

With such a busy start to the month, I thought it best to get the frugal 'champers' on the go so we had some ready in time for Christmas.

 

I've no rhubarb left (other than frozen, pre-stewed for pies), so I'm using a mixture of fruits, meaning my 'pink champagne' may turn out to be a slightly darker shade of pink, verging on something resembling sparkling 'Ribena'.

 

Never mind, as long as it goes with a pop, fizzes and tastes nice, that is all that matters. I know there'll be Vitamin C in it, but not too much by way of alcohol. It's being started off as we speak!

 

CHRISTMAS 2012 LAST MINUTE 'CHAMPERS'

About half a kilo of mixed fruit (Free)

About half a kilo of sugar (50p)

1 sliced lemon (20p)

Splash of cider vinegar (1p)

3 litres water

 

I tipped three cartons of frozen fruit into my bucket - one each of blueberries, raspberries and blackcurrants - but didn't bother weighing the quantities.

 

To this, I added about half a bag of sugar, then a sliced lemon. I'm not a stickler for waxed or unwaxed as it seems to make no difference at all, from my limited understanding. In fact, a recent report actually suggested that the standard waxed lemons provide better flavour, so no point wasting money trying to source unwaxed varieties. Hopefully the lemon tree will grow and begin producing fruit over the next year or two, that would be handy!

 

Next was the water. I boiled the first litre and poured that over the top of the fruit and sugar, then added the next two litres, unboiled. It's warm enough to dissolve the sugar quite quickly. About a tablespoonful of vinegar was added and I used what I had available - cider vinegar. (The hens like it in their water.)

 

Job done! It's all been covered and is now sitting in the livingroom in its little bucket, infusing with flavour and alreay turning a pretty shade of pink. It will be left to soak until the weekend, but I'll give it a stir each day between now and then.

 

Come the weekend, the liquid will be strained, fruit set aside for some sort of pie filling or sponge topping and the resulting juice filtered off into my clip top bottles. I have three of those, recycled, of course, plus there are a couple of screw cap glass bottles that can be used. If my estimates are correct, I reckon it will cost 15p per bottle, including the electricity needed to boil the kettle.

 

I realise that this won't be particularly strong in the alcohol stakes, but a fortnight is sufficient time for the sugars to start fermenting and it does seem to work with almost every type of berry, edible flower or fruit I have tried.

 

Have fun if you try this at home, but don't forget to check the bottles for any signs of over-fizz, s pink isn't the easiest colour to get out of anything that happens to be in the way.

 

Until later,

 

Frugaldom.

Frugal Fun, Freebies, Frugaleurs and Friends

Frugal Fun, Freebies, Frugaleurs and Friends

This past week has been interesting, as it has brought several visitors, freebies and frugal fun to the fore.

As some of you may know, social media is one of my passtimes, participating in various chats, discussions, challenges and promotions. It's frugal fun, mainly because its free! It's also where we're gathering togetger all the frugaleurs that we can, in an effort to show others that starting a small business needn't mean running it indefinitely as such. A Frugal entrepreneur loves their work and, although money isn't the first thing on their minds, it's an added benefit if it all comes together and reaps rich rewards.

Anyhow, my first lovely freebie of the week has been a copy of A Book About Innocent: Our Story and Some Things We've Learned. Along with this, I received £12 worth of Innocent Drinks vouchers, so I shall, at long last, be able to try the drinks for myself (assuming the local stores accept the vouchers).  Having been awarded the free copy, I asked that the founders of this very successful, multi-million pound empire each sign the book. It took a bit of time to get all three signatures but these guys obliged! How much more of a recommendation do you need for a company when its founders will take the time to show such a courtesy to little old me? I'll let you know what I think of the book (and the drinks) soon.

Meanwhile, I have received a sachet of freshly ground coffee from CafeDirect and am eager to try this out, just as soon as I can get at the box where the new coffee maker (a half price bargain from Aldi) is stored.

I've had a lovely week of catching up with friends, neighbours, fellow frugalers and local entrepreneurs, sampling their fine produce and enjoying the chit chat. Trading potential for 2013 is looking good, with more and more of these small businesses springing up in the area. Sarah at Creeside Charcuterie is eagerly awaiting the launch of her new website to further promote all her lovely homemade artisan foods. I sampled the 'Rustic Pork Terrine' and was suitably impressed. It was a rare luxury teat for us here in Thrift Cottage, I can tell you! Feel free to follow @CreesideLife if you have a Twitter account, then you'll know what's available, where and when Sarah's website goes live.

Not content with snacking on luxury pork terrine, I am now snacking on chilli jam... with everything! A fellow frugaleur who lives nearby has a passion for growing chilli peppers and is starting her own homebased enterprise making chilli jam - something I had never previously tried. I've now discovered that the chilli jam tastes great on hot toasted Aberdeen Butteries! And with oatcakes, cheese, pizza, chips, stir fry, fajitas... you get the picture. I think I have just found a frugal substitute for chutney, sweet chilli sauce, salsa and relish!

Now that the colder weather has arrived (having seen photos of the snow falling in Aberdeenshire) it is time to take a serious look at the cost of winter and what plans we are putting in place to combat the cold and beat the budget. Keeping warm has to be a priority and, with the price of gas and eletricity climbing again, the whole 'heating or eating' debate rears its ugly head for those of us trying to live on a tight budget while saving for rainy days and future security. What is your top priority? I think mine is currently to keep the log store full and the home fires burning, while hoping to have some sort of a kitchen in time to batch cook and bake the festive goodies. The one good thing about all these years of frugal living is that it has finally afforded to put a secure roof over our heads, we just need to keep warm, dry and fed now. (Beats having a bad landlord anyday!)

 

NYK Media (Frugaldom) has been running costcutting and moneysaving challenges since 1998, which means 2013 is the 15th anniversary! That has to mean something special... so let's start preparing for a great year of frugal living, frugal enterprise and the beginnings of bigger and better challenges.

 

Don't bin it, burn it or bury it if you can reduce, reuse or recycle it. Self-sustainability at home and in the workplace isn't just a pipedream, so lets make 2013 our best year ever. Join Frugaldom to share your highs and lows, hints, tips, news, views and reviews of frugal living, frugal working and life on a shoestring budget. See you in the Frugaldom forums.

 

Before ending, I'd like to pass on my congratulations to a fellow frugaler and blogger who has been part of our challenges for several years - here's to freedom from the mortgage, that gorgeous cottage is yours forever! CONGRATULATIONS AND WELL DONE TO MR & MRS SFT!

Playing 'Pass the Banana' with Friends and Neighbours.

Closing time at the supermarket seems to reveal a host of surprises. I'm not near any, but a friend lives close to one. She often gets fantastic end of trading day bargains for just a few pennies, so she's great at appearing with bashed fruit that can be used for stewing, jam making or marmalade making.  This is fresh produce that would get binned at the end of the night, so last minute shopping pays well, especially if you're into baking, stewing, winemaking or preserving.

I'm lucky to live within a community where sharing is par for the course. Many of us make the most of our GallowayLETS membership - part of the LETSLinkUK network - by swapping and trading our surplus.

Yesterday, this friend sent neighbour and I over some pretty black speckled bananas that had gone a bit soft and squidgy. I guess that's putting it mildly - I mean these looked vile after being in a bag overnight from Saturday! They turned to mush when attempting to peel them but, joy of of joys, they weren't dark chocolate coloured mush all the way through.

Let the banana breadmaking begin.

DRY INGREDIENTS
Cup of plain flour
Half a cup of sugar
Half a cup of sultanas
Pinch of salt
Pinch of icarbonate of soda
Pinch of baking powder

BEAT TOGETHER:
2 tablespoons melted margarine (or butter, if you're posh/rich/fussy)
Tablespoon of milk
Squirt of lemon juice
1 egg

Mix dry ingredients then combine everything before pouring into your loaf tin. Mine is baking in the breadmaker, so there'll be hot sliced fruit bread for having with coffee soon.

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