Frugal Living Blog - Cooking Whatever is Growing.

If you are here for the animals, wildlife & nature project, Scottish hutting or our off-grid stopover site for campervans/motorhomes, see HERE for details. By way of update for our wildlife watchers and bird spotters, the first swallows have returned to the barn, there are bats out and about, the grasshopper warblers have returned and the badgers and pine martens are active most nights. 

This blog post is more to do with the origins of the name Frugaldom: Frugal living freedom. You are very welcome to read along if you would like to know more about frugality and money saving, plus you can join the Friends of Frugaldom or support the project HERE, or join us free in the Frugal Living Challenge within the forums section of moneysavingexpert.com website.

TODAY HAS BEEN FAIRLY FRUGAL AND PRODUCTIVE

After mucking out, watering and feeding all the animals, I had coffee with the friend who had been helping. She had made a fruit crumble so we ate that at lunchtime. The topic of food growing is a popular one here so we were planning where to plant different things. She pointed out that the nettles were already growing and I had spotted many dandelions flowering.

This afternoon, I picked a tubful of young nettle leaves, some garlic shoots (not cloves), lemon balm and some chives, plus a mugful of dandelions.

I often used chives in place of spring onions and they are perpetual / perenniall so create a colourful purple display in summer. The garlic is now also perennial after leaving bulbs in the ground to grow wild.

Chives and garlic are growing happily together in the herb garden and as you can see, so, too, are the strawberry runners and chives.

The rhubarb is at a stage that we can harvest stalks for crumbles, but the very mild, wet winter interspersed with sub zero temperatures and occasional high teens warm sunshine caused the plants to flower so those had all to be cut out as soon as spotted. You will see here that there are also strawberry plants evident. They get everywhere but I do lift some and pot them on to sell or swap at the main gate where we have the 'Trading Post'.

The rain stayed awake long enough to allow two buckets of weeds to be pulled out and some of the herb beds tidied. This one contains sweet cicely, one of my favourite herbs, great for chewing on, adding to stewed rhubarb or feeding to the ponies, who love it. It's said to be good for soothing throats during persistent coughs.

I picked some lemon balm while weeding and this got added to the other herbs picked.

We have never tried growing butter beans so this is something new for us. Friend brought them along today and we will decide where best to plant them over the next week.

Chopped herbs - nettles, chives, garlic shoots and a few leaves of lemon balm. I fried these for a few minutes in some butter and a splash of oil, seasoned with salt and pepper to have with spaghetti.

The resulting meal was very tasty and I can highly recommend it. I am not vegetarian but meat is so expensive that it does not feature strongly in our diet.

What did I do with the dandelions? I made some cookies. There was no flour at the hut so I used a pack of pancake mix and added the dandelion petals, some sultanas and some finely grated orange peel, then mixed it into cookie dough using butter and some warm water.  I 'baked' the cookies in the Omnia on top of the gas camping stove, as I'm currently at the hut,. completely off-grid. 

That has been my day so far: There is a campervan parked in the yard with the occupants keen to spot the badgers and pine martens tonight. The rain has returned with a vengeance but, thankfully, the wildlife cares not a jot about getting wet when there are peanuts, eggs and other tasty (appropriate) snacks available at the feeding stations.

How to make bread without bread flour

• #Frugal Living
• #Recipes
• #Money Saving
• #Food on a Budget
• #Money Challenges
• #How to...

 

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

Traditional Clootie Dumpling or Microwave Clootie Dumpling

The festive season is upon us and it's almost time to make the traditional Scottish clootie dumpling - but has anyone tried the super-fast, easy recipe for microwave dumpling?

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Traditional Scottish Clootie Dumpling

Every year, we have a family tradition of serving clootie dumpling as part of the Christmas day meal. This year will be no different, but dumpling making has already begun, because I need to cook at least three of them. Our recipe has been handed down 5 generations of the family. The first dumpling was made yesterday, by traditional methods. You can find the recipe for our traditional Scottish clootie dumpling on the Frugaldom blog.

Yesterday's dumpling was made for another family member, so I still need to make on for this household but these take at least 3 hours each to make, as I have only one large pan and no standard cooker, just the mini cooker with hot plates or the log-burning stove. But what happens when you make a dumpling? That dumplingy aroma wafts throughout the house and ignites the taste buds into a stat of wanton disregard for dieting, meal planning or even patience! So a quick search for speedy dumpling found this microwave clootie dumpling recipe.

I melted the sugar, margarine, spices and milk then simmered the sultanas in the mix for a few minutes but was in far too much of a rush to allow it to cool, so it got mixed with the plain flour, bicarbonate of soda and beaten egg. I used only half the amount quoted, as there are only two of us here until Tuesday and, unlike traditional clootie dumpling, I don't think this variety will freeze. The above is what it looked like when I poured it into a microwave-safe bowl, which had been lined with plastic food film. (Not too sure I like the plastic film, I will try without this next time.)

I cooked mine in the microwave on high for four and a half minutes and this was enough to bake it through. It turned out of the bowl without any problem and smelled like spicy dumpling.

Unlike traditional clootie dumpling, which gets boiled in a cloth for over three hours and then grilled or toasted to dry the sweet, leather-like skin, this variety contains eggs and has no skin, so the texture is more of a spongy soft fruit pudding, not the easiest thing to slice when serving. But it does smell really good and we do like our puddings in the household.

In true frugal living fashion, a hot pudding usually gets served with custard, so here is the finished dish. Overall, this version of clootie dumpling cost me approximately 40p to make (double up if making fullsize) and by the time you add on some custard you are looking at around 60p for something that easily provides for 6.

Tonight we cheated - instant packet custard made with boiling water and 'dumpling' made in under half an hour via the microwave... cheap and cheerful, frugal and festive, hot and tasty!

Let me know if you try this really frugal microwave clootie dumpling recipe. For my personal preference, I would use less spice next time but there will certainly be a next time. I wouldn't call it dumpling, as such, it being more of a spiced fruit pudding, but it certainly makes an excellent substitute for occasions when you simply don't have a spare 3 or 4 hours to hang around the kitchen.

Homemade Chocolate Truffles

Amidst ridiculous arguments raging online about container sizes and weights of certain chocolate brands, here is a really easy way to make your own frugal luxury chocolate truffles.

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Whisky cream liqueur truffles

My Frugal Recipe for Handmade Truffles

• 150g of chocolate
• 5 tablespoons of icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons of stewed & strained rosehip 'juice' (or any other liquid flavouring you fancy)
• A separate 100g of chocolate (only if you are dipping the truffles - I didn't, I just dusted them)
• 1/2 tablespoonful of icing sugar & 1/2 tablespoonful of cocoa powder combined (icing sugar on its own works well with undipped truffles)

Being a frugal household, I don't usually have any sort of luxury baking items in stock, so I tend to use supermarket's own brand, which usually comes in white, plain or milk. It now costs around 30p per 100g bar but their milk chocolate contains 28% milk solids, which is about double the "minimum cocoa solids' recorded on the likes of the commercial big brand chocolate boxes, over which the current argument rages.

Melt your chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. I just put the bowl of broken chocolate pieces into the steamer, as it seems to work as well as any other method - but cover the chocolate to prevent water dripping into it.

While your chocolate is melting, sift the icing sugar into a separate bowl and then slowly combine that with your chosen flavouring. In this case, I was using the juice from stewed, foraged rose hips. The icing mix changes from a deep mango colour to a shade more like condensed milk once it's mixed with the icing sugar.

As soon as your chocolate has melted into a smooth paste, slowly pour the icing sugar mix into the bowl, stirring and blending at the same time. Your mix will lighten a few shades, regardless of whether you have used milk or plain chocolate. You can now set this aside to cool. I cover mine with cling film and put it in the fridge as soon as I can. It doesn't take too long before the truffle mix is set, so it's a good idea to keep your hot water in the pan, ready to melt the next lot of chocolate if you are making several batches or plan on covering the truffles in a second coat of chocolate.

I left this lot to set in the fridge, overnight, then shaped them into 'logs' before pressing them down with a fork. If you love chocolate and don't mind a bit of a chocolatey mess, handmade truffles are the very thing for you to try.

Handmade rose hip chocolate truffles

The above recipe is exactly the same for any frugal chocolate truffles. You can use almost any flavour you choose, be it alcoholic or otherwise, and you can powder them with just icing sugar, just cocoa powder or with a combination of the two. If necessary, improvise - sprinkle them with whatever you have available.

For added luxury, you can dip the finished truffles in a second batch of chocolate before dusting them with cocoa or icing sugar. The following are made with dark chocolate then dipped in white before dusting with cocoa powder.

Handmade white and dark chocolate truffles

In case you missed any of the previous truffle recipes, just type in 'hand made truffles' to the search box that pops up in the top right hand corner of the main website at www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk

I am planning on making some apple and chilli chocolate truffles - flavouring provided from homegrown apples and homegrown chilli peppers - but I will wait until I have dark chocolate for those.

If all else fails, a cheap alternative is just to jump on the Quality Street bandwagon and grab some bargains while you can. With prices slashed as low as £6 for 2 tubs, you can always split them up into smaller lots or gift them along with homemade snowman soup.

This is not a sponsored post, this is the cheapest I could find these chocolate tubs 

Feel free to join us in the Frugal Forums, where money saving and good living go hand in hand on even the strictest of budgets.

Frugal Living Adventures

An update on progress at Frugaldom

• #Frugal Living
• #Money Saving
• #The Frugaldom Project
• #Household Budgets
• #Money Challenges
• #Frugal Entrepreneurs

What is frugal living? This is a question I am still being asked, as it still comes as something new to many. It is NOT self-imposed poverty or about trying to live like Tom and Barbara in 'The Good Life'. It's about balancing your life with your income in a safe and sustainable way. This is where my frugal living adventure has taken me so far...

Our online challenges run from 1st January through to 31st December every year. The first one began in 1999 but it wasn't until 2007 that the decision was made to take the main project fully online. We have the frugal blog, frugal shop, frugal forums, frugal entrepreneurs, our own chat room and now, to celebrate each and every one of these successes, we have our Frugaldom project and we have introduced frugal breaks to enable those on low incomes or with tight budgets the opportunity to get away from it all and have an affordable holiday.

That takes care of what I have been up t for the past 16 years but we are now nearing the end of our various 2015 money saving, money making and frugal living challenges and preparing to start all over again. If you would like to join us, please follow the link to the forums and register a free username then spend some time browsing. In the meantime, I am going to bring myself up to date with where I am at with the writing and blogging as that is, after all, why I set out to stretch the pennies in the first place. Writing doesn't often net you much of an income so frugal living allows for life on a tight budget while saving for all the other things you want out of life.

Out of interest, I attempted to bake a 25p loaf to find out if it is still possible to do so. The answer to this is yes - if you use nothing more than 375g of cheap bread flour, a teaspoon of the cheapest dried yeast and a pinch of salt. There's no oils, butters, milk or other additives in these loaves, they are basically flour and water with the raising agent added. Tastes OK to me!

My favourite handmade and homemade item of all time has to be my woolly blanket. I knitted two for this household and then knitted one for my youngest grand daughter, who received it as a Christmas gift last year. The blankets get knitted in strips, using up all the odd balls of wool you can find. Each strip gets knitted to the required length, depending on the intended use for the blanket, then the rows get sewn together to create the finished blanket. While doing last year's, I was able to take a little time an show eldest grand daughter how to knit. She now wants a blanket of her own, so I will eagerly encourage her to knit it herself. I love my knitted blanket! It has more than served its purpose, having been relocated to the caravan. But now I need another one for using at the house!

Everyone who knows me knows that I love filled doughnuts - usually jam, apple or custard. It became a bit of a standing joke a very long time ago, when one particular friend would seldom arrive without making a trip via what was then known as Dunkin' Doughnuts but then supermarkets began selling in earnest - mass produced doughnuts! It's a sad fact that we can now buy these for about 12p but for frugal lifers such as me - it is a very affordable luxury and one that's even better served up as a gift. So... I made it my rule quite some time ago that business meetings had to include doughnuts, preferably supplied by whoever is visiting me to talk business. That's how I discovered chocolate custard doughnuts! I hadn't even heard of them until last month! Thank you Mr L, who took the time to call me and rhyme off the supermarket selection from which to make my choice! Much appreciated!

Some people have fallen out with me over the past year owing to my decision to spend my own hard-earned cash in a local supermarket. I'm afraid to say that I don't care - if it costs less to buy the product than it does for me to make it, then it's a luxury best delivered by a local driver whose income depends on these very supermarkets. Without them and their ridiculously cheap basic foodstuffs, we of the frugal living ilk would seldom afford ourselves such indulgences.

November saw the final completion of the yard fencing. We still don't have a full bathroom or a cooker in the kitchen but we do have two paddocks or corrals and the barn yard fully fenced! My grand daughters absolutely love going out to Frugaldom for the day. We can pack a picnic, wrap up warm and they take great pleasure in investigating the latest developments. Now that the barn has been sectioned into several workable indoor stalls, the youngest is convinced that she can fill them all with little ponies! But she is equally excited by the prospect of planting trees, growing food, painting, crafting and organising yard sales at the Trading Post, which is what we call our bartering barn and its newly enclosed space.

The first snow of the year arrived but it didn't lie at Frugaldom. We have had wind, rain, hail, sleet and snow plus about four different storms that bring flood alerts to the area but only the hills have the snow lying - so far. If the trees are anything to go by, I would hazard a guess at a mild winter but we have already had several good frosts and freezing temperatures.

I don't often share family photos, almost never if truth be told, but this has to be one of my favourites. The girls had lifted the ice off the top of one of the water butts at the barn and were using it as a round window - holding it together to see if it would mend after it broke in two. It didn't mend but it did stay frozen for the next two days after this photo was taken.

Being on a caravan holiday park for part of the time means getting to know all the neighbours and those neighbours now know that leftovers needn't be binned - we can use anything and everything to save it from being wasted. This was the remains of an out of date bag of wholemeal flour that got made into a loaf for feeding to the birds. Having the oven on in the caravan means not needing the gas fire lit, so baking is an ideal way of killing two birds with one stone during cold weather - pardon the cruel pun! The girls like watching for the more unusual birds that they don't see in the garden at home, so they are easily tempted to sneak out to the bird table with leftovers whenever they are staying the weekend.

This is one of the Jays that has started frequenting the bird table since putting out the homemade bread. They are normally really shy birds that can be heard more often than seen, so it's great seeing them land so close. The woodpecker hasn't taken too kindly to having such noisy visitors, but there's always food enough for them all at the feeding station.

And now, to bring your right up to date with how things are going here, I have the fire lit, the solar fairly lights have been charging in the window in preparation for decorating the big Christmas tree at Frugaldom and the house is feeling quite toasty, despite the howling winds and sooty flecks wafting around the living room after a huge back draught sent a cloud of smoke down the chimney when someone opened the back door while I was kindling the fire.

With winter on its way and all the trees from the new trees planted, I can now rummage through my wool stash and get to work on the next multi-coloured, knitted blanket. I looked out my big size 7.5 needles, cast on 40 stitches and have already begun knitting the rows that will create the first strip of blanket. They call it 'stocking stitch' but to me it s nothing more than plain knitting with zero complications. Sat in my chair by the fireside with the cat sprawled asleep by the hearth is actually rather festive, so I will probably start thinking about retrieving the tree from the cupboard at the top of the stairs and get that decorated next weekend. Hopefully, I'll also hear back from John the apple man, letting me know when the Galloway Pippin apple trees will be delivered for planting.

For 2016, I plan to progress as usual with my various projects and challenges but have decided that the time has come to cut back on the hours spent working at earning a 'decent' living and more time spent working at making the most of what life has to offer - the wealth of friends, family, health and happiness. I'm also planning on getting back to regular blogging.

Posted by NYK Media as part of the Frugal Blog

How to Make Hot Spicy Apple Sauce

Latest frugal blog post from NYK Media in Frugaldom 

• #Frugal Living
• #Recipes
• #Foraging
• #Free Food
• #Food on a Budget

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

More Than Today: Crab Apples For Eating

Shared post from Lani K’s ‘More Than Today’ blog.

I found this lovely blog post while researching a bit more for ideas to use all the crab apples we have growing at the Frugaldom Project. If anyone would like to join us in our frugal corner of Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland for some crab apple picking, please get in contact as soon as possible.

Crab Apples For Eating

Naturally, I was curious about this.  There is such an abundance of these neglected tiny fruits.  I can't say that I blame people, what a pain in the keester to pick a bushel of marble-sized produce.  However, we pick cherries, and wild plums, and raspberries... really we don't want to bother with the lowly crab apple.

Still, they're generally ripe after the raspberries and before their larger and more noble relatives, the real apples.  There are a few inquisitive and determined souls out there like me that just may be enterprising enough to attempt a crab apple recipe.  I did this with rose hips last year and now it's a favorite!
I haven't tried any of these yet, but I'm excited to begin a new food journey.

Crab Apple Jam
yields 8-9 pints
4 cups apple pulp
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1-1/2 packages powdered pectin
8 cups sugar
Put apple pulp and lemon juice into a large, nonreactive pot.
Bring to a boil.
Add pectin.
Return to a boil.
Slowly add sugar and stir, bringing to a boil.
Boil for 1 minute, or until jam sheets off the spoon.
Pour into hot, sterilized jars.
Cover and process 5 minutes.

Pickled Crab Apples
yeilds 2 pints
1 2-inch cinnamon stick, broken
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1 1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1 cup cider vinegar
1 1/2 pound crab apples, stems on
Tie the spices into a cheesecloth bag.
Put into a nonreactive pot with:
sugar
water
vinegar
Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Remove the pot from heat and let syrup cool.
Pierce each crab apple through with a large needle, to keep from bursting.
Put them into the pan of cooled syrup and slowly bring to simmer.
Cook until tender and translucelt, about 15 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Let rest 12 to 18 hours.
With a slotted spoon, remove the crab apples from the syrup.
Pack into hot, strerilized pint jars leaving 1/4-inch head space.
Remove the spice bag.
Boil syrup.
Pour over fruit.
Seal jars.

Crab Apple Liqueur
From Recipe Secrets
4 quarts crabapples, washed, cored and quartered
4 cups sugar
3 cups vodka
Fill 1 (4-quart) mason jar with tight-fitting lid with prepared crabapples.
Add the 4 cups of sugar and three cups of vodka.
Store the jar on its side, turning once every day for 16 days to help the sugar to dissolve.
After 16 days, filter out the fruit bits and bottle.

Cedar Waxwing on the Crab Apple, Sandra Cointreau

Crab Apple Hot Pepper Jelly
From Recipe Secrets
2 lbs crabapples
1 1/2 cups water
red wine vinegar
3 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup sweet green bell peppers
1/3 cup hot peppers (mix and match hot peppers for color and preferred degree of heat)
In a Dutch oven, combine crabapples with water.
Cover and bring slowly to simmer.
Cook until crabapples are very soft.
Pour into a colander lined with a square of dampened cheesecloth and placed over a deep bowl.
Weight down with a saucer and heavy can.
Let stand until dripping stops.
Discard pulp.
Pour collected juice into a liquid measure.
Add enough vinegar to make 3 cups.
Combine in a saucepan with sugar.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Add peppers, then boil briskly for 8 to 10 minutes or until set.
Stir for 7 minutes to prevent floating peppers.
Pour jelly into hot, sterilized 8-ounce canning jars.
Seal with two-piece canning lids.
Let cool, then refrigerate.
For long-term unrefrigerated storage, process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes immediately after sealing jars.
NOTE: To test for set, remove pan from heat.
Dip a cold metal spoon into the liquid and hold well above the steam.
Turn spoon sideways and let liquid run off.
When it forms two drops that run together and drip from edge of spoon, jelling point has been reached.

Goldfinch in a Crab Apple Tree, Janet Zeh

Crabapple Schnapps
From Danish Schnapps recipes
Use freshly picked and fully ripe crabapples. They are fully ripe when the pits have become dark brown.
You can use almost any species - so start with your favourite one, then try some other species.
However, Siberian Crabapple (Malus baccata)and also Chinese Apple (Malas prunifolia) are two species that are highly recommended.
Direction:

• Wash 10-20 crabapples and cut them in halves. Leave the skin on.
• Put them in a clean glass jar with tight-fitting lid.
• Cover with clear, unflavoured vodka - 40% alcohol content (80 proof).
• Let steep for 8-10 weeks or more - in a dark place at room temperature, 18-20°C (64-68°F).
• Shake lightly and taste it from time to time.
• Strain and filter your infusion into a clean glass bottle or jar with tight-fitting lid.
• Store (age) for a couple of months in a dark place at room temperature before serving.

Note: If for some reason you are not satisfied with your infusion, there are ways to adjust both taste and flavours:

Too strong-flavoured: If your infusion is too strong-flavoured and overwhelming you can just dilute it with the same kind of spirit you used as base.
Allow to settle for a couple of days or more before serving. Taste it to find out.

Too weak-flavoured: If your infusion is too weak-flavoured you can enhance the flavours by adding a little, little bit of sugar.

True Danish flavoured schnapps should not contain more than 10-15 grams sugar per liter. But of course, you can add as much as you want to suit your own taste.
You can add the sugar directly, but because sugar is more soluble in water than in alcohol, it's usually better to make a simple sugar syrup...
...and add it to your infusion little by little.
Allow to settle for a couple of days. Taste it again, it might need some more.
Never use artificial sweeteners - NEVER! You will ruin the taste.
Remember to keep your schnapps bottle tightly closed and in a dark place before and between servings.

The Crab Apple Fairy, Cicily Mary Barker

Crabapple Butter
From Recipe Secrets
6 cups sieved crabapple pulp
Grated peel and juice of 1 orange
2 cups sugar, optional
1 tsp cinnamon, optional
½ tsp cloves, optional
¼ tsp nutmeg, optional
Combine pulp with orange peel and juice in a Dutch oven.
Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Reduce heat to medium and boil gently, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, until mixture thickens to desired consistency.
Stir in sugar and spices, if desired, and return mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.
Ladle into hot sterilized half-pint jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace.
Remove air bubbles with a narrow rubber spatula or plastic knife.
Add additional crabapple butter, if necessary, to maintain headspace.
Wipe jar rims thoroughly with a clean damp cloth.
Seal and process in a boiling water bath. Process for 15 minutes.
Crabapple butter may also be cooled and frozen for up to one year.
Yields 6 half-pint jars.

More Than Today: Crab Apples For Eating

I am sharing this lovely blog post for the benefit of everyone on the Frugal Forums who have found themselves in the fortunate position of having access to these tiny crab apples. If you live within easy reach of Frugaldom then please consider joining us on one of our crab apple picking days this month. If you live further afield, why not book a short break and join us for some holiday foraging? (See www.frugalbreaks.co.uk and ask about our frugalers’ discounts.)

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