Some DaysThings Just All Go Wrong!

Egg-ceptionally Busy March!

Some days, no matter how hard you try to do a good job, things just go wrong, anyway. I've had a few of those days recently, so I'm just going to resort to making it to the end of March without too many calamities and not counting my proverbial chickens before the eggs hatch.

Speaking of eggs, we now have two ducks a hen and two bantams laying, so I have begun swaps and trades with neighbours again - a lovely lemon drizzle cake handed in this afternoon!
 

Apologies for the lack of posts over the weekend but I'm squeezing in 14+ hours a day in an attempt to fit in work, household, family crises and the complete overhaul of the web site, along with building us some brand new forums - Now You Know. They aren't quite completed yet, but they are open for use, so grab your username before someone else does and I'll 'see' you in the daily chat thread.

Pancakes galore!

With all the eggs we are now getting, it has been a case of quickly using these to make speedy meals grabbed in between hours of hectic work. (I'm not even thinking about the 2013/14 tax return yet!) So, it's been eggs for lunch in some way, shape or form. Pancakes made with sultanas and cinnamon, served with sugar and lemon... again!

Good grief! What is it?

In a huge rush to make a loaf, this is what I got in return! The above is supposed to be a beautiful, freshly baked loaf that would be ready for breakfast after I got up early and decided to try the fastbake setting! I'm guessing that's a no-no for the cheap bread mix I got a few weeks ago. But gear not! This mangled mass got chopped and turned into croutons after we salvaged the middle slices. The crunchier bits got chopped and added into the chickens' breakfast!

Doughball!

 

 My next calamity came when I put the day's mince on to warm and forgot to make the dumplings! I did a quick search and saw mention of a speedy microwave version... it didn't work very well! I think I 'rubberised' them! Well! I was so annoyed that I dropped them into the mince and let them soak themselves soggy in extra gravy... then served them up with cabbage and carrots for dinner anyway! There were 6 but I am ashamed to say that the two leftover were simply inedible and went into the fire to burn for a couple of hours!

Lunchtime today was toasted pitta breads filled with scrambled eggs and hot dog sausages, 'garnished' with tomato ketchup! But guess what? I over crisped the pittas!

Pasta twirls added to mince & carrots

The leftover mince from the doughball disaster should have been made into a pie but I ran out of time again... phone rang at 7.45pm and that reminded me to look at the time and realise I hadn't made dinner! So tonight's gourmet choice was pasta mixed through the leftover mince and carrots.

Seeking solace after all my culinary woes, I did a cupboard rummage and discovered a tiny tin of longlife sterilised double cream, which gave me the incentive to whip up some ice cream from one of the cheap instant mixes. I needed some frugal luxury, so that's what I made... extreme luxury ice cream!

Whipped double cream, milk and cocoa

 The ice cream mix needs half a pint of milk, so I made it up with skimmed UHT and then whisked in a heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder.

Microwave-defrosted a bowl of garden raspberries

 I still have plenty of berries in the freezer, all picked last summer from the garden, so I quickly defrosted a bowlful, sweetened them and then mashed them.

Adding sweetened, stewed raspberries to the chocolate mix

 Adding the mashed raspberries to the chocolate ice cream mix - had to sample the rasps to cheer myself up a bit - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Mixed and ready for freezing

All mixed and ready for the freezer. That was almost 9pm and it's now almost half past midnight, but guess what I am doing, other than finishing off a very rushed blog post? I'm about to tuck into this absolutely amazing ice cream and don't care what anyone things about that! :)

Raspberry and chocolate ice cream

Apologies for any silly mistakes in this post; I am hitting 'post' without previewing or proofreading it... my ice cream is melting!

The Frugaldom Courgette Cake Challenge

Chocolate Cake with Courgette & Raspberries

We've been baking cakes with courgettes here in Frugaldom for several years now, so this year is nothing new - except several more of you have asked about how to make the courgette cakes.

 

This is a great time of year for making the most of your surplus fruit and vegetables, even if it does mean baking them into cakes of what one may normally consider odd combinations.

 

Believe me when I tell you that the combination of chocolate, courgette and raspberry is delicious.

 

Rule number 1 - Never be afraid to experiment with recipes if you are content to eat the end results, regardless of how they turn out after cooking.

 

Various recipes exist, but I use the following, based on Shaz's original recipe, adapted to suit what I have available in my baking cupboard and garden:

 

Original Recipe Ingredients

 

250g grated courgette
2 eggs
125ml vegetable oil
150g sugar
200g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
Handful of lightly crushed pistachios (optional)
Half a teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder

 

My Ingredients Today

 

125g grated courgette (from garden)

125g raspberries (from garden)
1 duck egg (from garden birds)

2 quail eggs (from garden birds)
60ml vegetable oil

65ml melted margarine (25p per tin from Approved Food*)
150g sugar
200g flour (Gluten free bread flour with sunflower and sesame seeds from Approved Food*)
25g cocoa powder 

Handful of raisins (optional) 

Half a teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder

 

Method

 

Beat the eggs, sugar and oil/margarine together, add the dry ingredients, then the grated courgettes, raspberries and sultanas, stir well.

 

Grease and/or line 2 x 2lb loaf tins or 1 x 10inch round cake tin.

 

Split the mix into the two tins if using the loaf tins, otherwise bake it all in the larger tin.

 

Bake at gas 4 / 180deg C for about 45 minutes, or until golden and a skewer comes out clean.

 

Leave to cool before slicing.

 

If you decide to try making courgette cakes, don't forget to photograph them and share your results with our frugal baking challengers in the forum that can be found here.

 

Owing to the fact that I had no self-raising flour and chose to use the gluten free bread flour, my loaves didn't rise as well as they may have. Having now cooled, I have sliced the first one, three of us have had a sample - it is extremely tasty and has a moist, sponge-like texture. The top photo shows a close up of the finished, sliced cake.

 

In a word, 'yummy'!

 

 

This is my entry into the Frugaldom Courgette Cake Challenge. I hope you all enjoy taking part this year.

 

Off for a coffee,

NYK in Frugaldom

 

 

* Friend referral links

Easy to Make, Low Fat, Raspberry Ice Cream

Today's Flavour of the Day is Raspberry

 

 

It's August, we've had plenty of sunshine and the raspberries out in the garden are ripening by the day, so we're picking them as quickly as we can, using what we can and freezing the surplus. This year seems to be a good year for berries.

As you know and as I am constantly reminding everyone, we are living in our rural idyll without a car and there are no buses, so treats and delicacies concerning anything frozen need to be home made - can't exactly cycle 8 miles for a tub of ice cream when the sun is beating down.

Anyhow, I also mentioned that I'd been given a little battery-operated ice cream maker that originally came from an Avon catalogue (batteries not included), so this is my first attempt at making ice cream in it.

Previous ice cream challenges have involved making and using a home made ice cream maker from coffee tins, hand making the ice cream just by stirring it in the tub periodically, making it and allowing it to freeze without stirring it and now this - a battery operated kitchen gadget. If you don't have one of these, don't worry, it's easy to improvise by simply stirring the ice cream every 10 minutes or so while it's freezing.

 

INGREDIENTS



250g raspberries

150g sugar

250ml skimmed milk

 

METHOD

 

1. Mash the fruit into a jug or bowl. To help things along a bit, I blitzed my raspberries in the microwave for two minutes to slightly stew them and then mashed them with a wooden spoon.

2. Add the sugar and then pour in the milk. Mix this all together until the sugar has dissolved. At this point, I used a stick blender and whizzed the mix smooth.

 

3. Pour the mix into your chosen container or ice cream maker.

 

 

4. Place in your freezer and wait. If you are using a machine, it will probably auto stir throughout the freezing process. If you are freezing in an ordinary tub, take it out and stir the contents every 10 minutes to ensure even thawing and minimum ice crystals.

 

That's it! Home made, low fat ice cream for you to enjoy.

How to Make Frugal Fruit Fizz

Simple, Delicious and Ever so Slightly Alcoholic

It's the time of year when we find fruit and berries aplenty. The orchard fruits may not quite be ready for harvesting but many of us have accumulated a glut of rhubarb, raspberries, currants and even strawberries so we need to preserve what we can for the winter months.

My poor gooseberry bushes succumbed to the nasty little Sawfly caterpillars, so the berries I did have were added to blackcurrants to make jam. All of the above can be used to make jam and jelly but it's nice to bottle up something with a bit of fizz for the festive season.

 

WHAT WE NEED

• A clean bucket
• 1kg berries or fruit
• 1kg sugar
• Lemon (or lemon juice)
• Small cup of vinegar
• 5 litres of water
• Suitable bottles - screw top fizzy drinks bottles work fine

Sterilise the bucket as best you can - I rinse everything with boiling water before using it. Rinse the fruit and place all of it in the bucket along with the lemon (washed and sliced, not peeled) or lemon juice, sugar and vinegar.

I prefer to boil my water before adding it, but many people don't bother doing this. Pour the water over the fruit and stir until all of the sugar has dissolved. You'll find that most of the fruit floats but it doesn't take long for the colour to begin flowing. This one looks a rich red, as it's made up of rhubarb, blackcurrants and raspberries.

My bucket of choice this year is one that came with a resealable lid and originally contained 50 seed/fat balls for the wild birds. (These are also ideal for holding laundry 'gloop'.)

Cover your bucket with a tea towel or similar to protect the contents from flies, dust etc and then sit it aside for a few days to infuse. I give mine a stir each morning. The resulting liquid can be bottled from as early as day three.

 

Sterilise your bottles as you would jam jars, I like to rinse mine out with boiling water then dry them in the oven - a job best done after having finished cooking dinner so you don't need to go to the expense of heating the oven specially.

Again I use the boiling water method to clean a large jug, sieve and funnel, then decant the fruit mix from the bucket through the sieve and into the jug. From here, it gets poured into the bottles via the funnel lined with a coffee filter, before sealing the bottles. These should then be sat somewhere cool and safe, where the process of natural fermentation can work its magic.

 

Your fizz should be good to drink after as little as ten days but it keeps much longer, in my experience, as we have only just finished last year's batch. You do need to keep releasing excess pressure from bottles if you want to ferment this to a more potent alcoholic beverage and please do remember that it is mildly alcoholic and not a soft drink for children, despite how the final product tastes.

 

This time around, I am reusing my recycled clip-top bottles, of which I now have five, and screw top fizzy drinks bottles for any surplus.

 

You can also make this drink using elderflowers, red clover, honeysuckle blossom or virtually any other fruit or edible flowers, just adapt the amounts accordingly. For example, only use about a dozen strongly scented elderflower heads or quarter of a bucket of red clover heads. (I have never actually weighed flowers when using them.)

You can also use a mixture of elderflower and red clover or any combination of mixed fruit and flowers you prefer. Having tried several different combination, There still hasn't been one that wasn't agreeable - they all tasted lovely, especially chilled and shared with friends.

 

I shall update this post as my champagne-style fizz gets fizzing.

 

Frugaldom.

We Love Frugal Food! From 5p Soup to Mixed Fruit Crumble

It's Time for the Game to Begin!

Tomato and Pheasant Make a Good Game Soup

 

This is a homemade soup I first blogged about in 2011, so you may already have a similar recipe. However, it's getting to 'that' time of year again, so I thought I would make myself a big pot of this over the weekend; there's a pheasant in the freezer needing used up before the new game season is upon us. This also gives me the chance to compare prices between now and 2011.

 

I normally slow cook meat so all of the juices remain in the crock pot. Any oil, fat or grease can be skimmed off once it's cold. Everything remaining goes back into the slow cooker along with any leftover vegetables you may need to use up rather than send them to the compost or wormery. I like to simmer my stock on a low heat for a few hours overnight, so it's best to use a timer.

Rinse a 500g pack of broth mix and a cupful of butter beans, then you can also leave them soaking in cold water overnight. I notice that the broth mix has increased in price to 75p/500g but there are still offers around where you can stock up at £1 per kilo.
 

In the morning, the stock gets strained and then returned to the slow cooker, along with a couple of diced onions and carrots, the broth mix, butter beans and a tin of chopped tomatoes or equivalent - passata, home grown tomatoes or tomato paste. This time, I am using 100% tomato paste!

This is the 4.5kg tin of tomato paste I bought from Approved Food for just £1.99! It also works well as a base for turning the end slices of homemade bread into frugal, speedy pizzas and for making up the likes of Bolognese, lasagne or chilli. It can even be used to make tomato ketchup.

Season your soup with salt and pepper then leave to simmer until all the beans, peas, lentils and barley are tender. That's it, that's the frugal game soup of the day and it works equally well using a shin of beef, although this would add to your costs, as there's no main meal beforehand from a shin of beef.

• The pheasant cost me nothing, as I had traded other home produce for it, so any stock from leftovers is an extra bonus after having the roast dinner.
• Broth mix and pulses are always bought on special offer, when it's best to stock up on them for the winter months. I reckon they cost me no more than 50p in total. Butter beans, however can be swapped for something else, as these have gone over £3 per kilo. I'll be using a tin of kidney beans added in the later stages of cooking.
• Store's basic passata costing 23p in 2011 is now 29p, but you only need half a carton so you can use the other half for frugal pizzas.
• Onions, carrots and potatoes would normally be home-grown, but if you need to buy them then they'll probably cost less than 50p in total for what you'll use

At a rough estimate, 4.5 litres of soup will cost around £2.00 including the cooking time if you are buying all the ingredients, or around £1 if you are using home grown and bulk bought bargains. 

 

Regardless of how you choose to source your ingredients, 20 portions of soup for £2.00 makes for a fairly frugal and nutritious meal. 10p per portion can be halved to 5p if you are of the frugal living ilk. This soup freezes well and makes for ideal soup and pudding lunches.

 

Speaking of pudding, the blackcurrants are still going strong and I am still using up rhubarb, so I stewed these two together today and turned one lot into crumble and the rest went into the freezer.

 

Quite a bit of sugar gad to be added to this, so it will be much more frugal to stew once the apples are ready for picking - they add some natural sweetness to the mix.

 

Raspberries are growing in abundance now, so I have several tubs of those already frozen and we are gathering about 250g per day from the bushes in the garden. These are being frozen as they get picked, apart from the ones that get eaten as a cold dessert or else lightly stewed into sauce for having over ice cream.

 

It has definitely been a foody sort of a day today! 

 

The cooked mince with tomatoes got made into four lots of double-portion lasagnes. These will go into the freezer later tonight and they'll do for speedy meals or else for H having when I'm away on my next jaunt. More on that soon.

 

Finally, I may or may not have already mentioned that I have acquired a small ice-cream maker, so this is going to be experimented with over the weekend. I'm not sure where doing work on the bedroom makeover is going to fit into the equation but for now it's fairly presentable, so no need to worry about that. I want to make ice cream!

 

The results of the #BudgetBucketList blogging competition got announced this afternoon and, although Frugaldom didn't feature in the final line up, it was lovely reading the winner's blog post and her plans for how to spend the £2,000.00 she won. You can read the winning blog here.

 

The bucket list has spurred me on to complete my next affordable item this year, so I am now planning my trip and will, hopefully, walk across the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge before my next birthday. After that, I'm on my way to the big 50!

 

Still debt free and living this good life, so never give up on your dreams. Most things are achievable on a smaller budget than many would believe possible.

 

Frugaldom