Big mistake!

 

I went to Tesco yesterday to 'spend' my £13 vouchers on meat.  They had very little meat in the reduced section, lots of ready meals though!  I got a yellow sticker turkey drumstick and 2 x 400g packs of diced beef (£4.19 each, full price sadly!) as I've been craving some hearty stews.  I was very tempted by some diced venison but it was £6.50 for just 250g so I stuck with the beef!

I didn't get a huge amount of meat off the drumstick but I did get a huge pot of delicious stock.  So I made a huge pot of turkey and rice soup with home grown leeks.  I added all the meat (cut in cubes) so the soup is fairly substantial! 😋

Proper 'sticks to your ribs' soup!! 😂 At least 8 or 9 good portions still left in that big soup pot!

The beef has been simmering away in the Crockpot all afternoon with carrot, onion and some of the turnip I got at the community food shop.  A good splash of Worcestershire sauce and some Tamari are the only other ingredients except for water.  It smells amazing already! 😋

As for the big mistake?  I spent £5.95 of my precious supermarket budget on some Zip firelighters (60 in the pack) to light the woodburner.  It's been years since I bought any as I've been using the natural ones from Letko.  I thought the Zip ones would be a lot cheaper for me to use.  They work out at 9.9p each.  But they absolutely stink!  My hands were stinky and it took several washes to get rid of the smell!!!  When I read the label I saw that they contain kerosine!  I can't have that around with a dog that will eat anything!!  She's prone to grabbing something and running away with it, trying to chew and swallow it before I can get to her!  So I'm rehoming them and I've ordered more of the natural firelighters that work out at 10.8p each.  That extra penny is worth the peace of mind that Luna won't eat anything nasty.

I'm adding the woodburner costs (logs, matches, firestarters, chimney sweep) to my annual energy costs.  I haven't done that before.  I usually just count it as part of my monthly spending so it will be interesting to see how it averages out over a year.

Doubling down on no/low spending!

 

Unfortunately despite doing really well, Luna didn't get signed off by the vet school as her liver enzymes are still a bit high.  She's to take a liver support supplement for the next month and they'll do more blood tests.  So a bit more expense!  And I finally heard back from my pet insurance who said they can't pay out as the 'condition' was diagnosed within the first 14 days of the policy starting.  So puppies are insured from when they're born until they leave the breeder.  Then there's this 2 week/14 days window where they're not, even though you pay for the policy to start from the day you get them.  And you can only start a policy from the time of legal ownership, no earlier to cover that 2 week gap.  I'm not surprised they've not paid out (bunch of crooks!!!) but I am annoyed.  It's a heck of a lot of money to come out my savings so I'm doubling down on the no/low spending.

Frankly I'm not spending money on anything but the barest of bare essentials.  I'm eating out of the freezer and storecupboard for the next few months and looking at every single thing I eat and drink!!  I need to get creative!

I'd drunk all my Rocks blackcurrant squash.  It's my absolute favourite but at £3.50ish a bottle it's very much a luxury.  And I discovered when I looked closely at the label it only has 740ml.  Not even the standard 750ml of most other squashes!  Shrinkflation again!!

So I've decided to make my own cordials. The worst that's in them is sugar!  (BTW I looked at the ingredients on a Ribena label!!! 😦)  I had loads of dried elderberries in the store cupboard so made around 1 litre of  Elderberry, ginger and lime cordial.  (I had some frozen lime juice and chopped ginger in the freezer.)  It's blooming delicious!! 😋 And very dark as you can see in the photo, that's a clear glass bottle!   I have some ideas for other fruit cordials/squash so I can use up more of the fruit in the freezer and create drinks without additives and artificial sweeteners.  Since giving up my diet Coke habit I've been looking for drinks that are less processed.  Obviously I could just drink more water 🙄 but I do struggle with that.

I finally had enough ripe Roma tomatoes in the freezer (I've been adding them as they ripen on the window sill) so I cooked them.  Just tomatoes, nothing else added.  I've got a very disappointing 3 freezer tubs worth (each around 350g) which isn't even the equivalent of 3 tins of chopped tomatoes.  They taste good but nothing special.  I can buy a tin of basics tomatoes for 35p.  Hardly seems worth the effort and asking a favour of my plot neighbours to water the polytunnel when I wasn't able to get to the plot.

I harvested my chillies.  I let some ripen fully and left some green.  Neither have any heat.  Zero chilli flavour.  My green fingers have deserted me this year I think!

But my DIL is developing hers!  I've even got her saving seeds for next year!!  Sunflower and poppy seeds drying off on the window sill 🌻

And she's becoming an expert on finding yellow stickers!  Note how it says Too Good to Waste instead of reduced!!  She just happened to be in Waitrose at the right time and got around £65 worth of meat and fish for £22!!!!  She gifted me the above lamb mince 😊 Down from £6.55 to an amazing £2.59.  It's already cooked with grated carrots, courgettes (home grown) and onion (home grown!) and in the freezer. She also got a large fillet of wild Alaskan sockeye salmon down from £15 to £5.  We cut it into 4 decent portions and she gifted one to me!  It's also in the freezer 😋

I did get one of my important jobs ticked off my list ✅ I got my chimney swept!  It cost me £100.  I had the woodburner installed 6 years ago and the chimney hasn't been swept since 😳  So it's now all ready to be used when the weather turns colder (garage has a decent store of wood and heat logs bought in the sale) and I can also tell prospective buyers next year that it's been done and leave them the certificate!

Poorly puppy

 

Luna is still a poorly puppy.  After her meds finished last week she got a UTI so we had a weekend of drama which included an overnight stay in the vet hospital where she needed IV fluids.  We're stuck in the cycle of her having an immature immune system so she's picking up all the nasties.  And because she's been poorly the vet can't give her the vaccines against the nasties!!  It's all been rather stressful and we're not quite out of danger yet.  She's on yet more antibiotics so fingers crossed they work to get her stable enough for the vaccines.

I managed to visit the allotment for a few hours.  My polytunnel was a riot with blackfly so I picked all the tomatoes and pulled up all the plants.  The green tomatoes should ripen on my windowsill.  I've left a few cucumber plants and nasturtiums that were ok so we'll see if they produce any more.  

I brought home my chilli plant so I could watch it ripen here in case I don't get back to the plot often enough.  This one is Apache.  Apparently they are mild when green but rather hot when red!!  I might pick and use a green one to gauge the heat level.

As expected the weeds were having a field day so I cleared the path and entrance at my gate.  Rabbits and pigeons have eaten my carrots, pumpkins and my recently planted purple sprouting broccoli.  My fault as I didn't net them!! They've not touched my onions or potatoes though!  And I picked some of my thornless brambles (blackberries) to add to the freezer fruit collection!

Since I'm still confined to the kitchen areas with Luna (laminate floors clean easier!) I've been cooking.  I pulled these lamb steaks out the freezer and did a basic slow cooker stew.

Red onions were from the plot and the potatoes (Pink Fir Apple) were from pots in the back garden.  It was delicious and did 2 full meals 😋

I've got a sourdough starter on the go using organic white flour.  I've been using the 'discard' to make sourdough pancakes.  They're delicious with jam and I've had no issues with the gluten content (so far!) I've cut out all processed foods and now eat my big meal of the day at lunch time.  This seems to be helping my digestive system as I really haven't had any 'issues' for weeks now.  My trousers are a bit looser so I think I'm starting to shift some weight.  I'm still reading Ultra Processed People to keep me motivated!  I need to be fit and healthy to get the most out of retirement!! 😊

A normal weekend at last!

 

For the first time in ages I've had a lovely normal pottering relaxed kind of weekend! 😁  I've done as much as I can with the flat, it's over to the estate agent now.  So I spent my weekend pottering about and doing some batch cooking.  My favourite way to relax and get organised for the week ahead.  I took my home grown tomatoes out of the freezer and made tomato sauce.  I used some rosemary and thyme from my back garden too.  It was lovely!

I used some of the sauce to make a veggie lasagne.  My DIL and I had a portion each and I put 4 more in the freezer.  I also froze the rest of the tomato sauce.

I made a huge Crockpot full of beef stew.  My son and I had a generous portion each and the rest will go in the freezer too.

I sliced up some lemons for the freezer.  I always snap up the unwaxed ones when they're reduced or on offer.   Good for making a hot honey and lemon drink when you feel poorly.  And for a G&T!! 🍸

I strained the fire cider mixture I started HERE and mixed in half a jar of raw honey to each jar of liquid.  It really packs a punch!! 

My DIL made banana bread to use up some over ripe bananas.  She used GF flour so I could have some and it was delicious! 😋

And my car key fobs needed new batteries.  So I searched good old YouTube for instructions and did it myself 💪

A very satisfying productive 'normal' weekend!  😊 Shame I've got to go to work tomorrow! 😂

Stop being fussy!

 

I'm sure many of you here watch or know about Frugal Queen in France on YouTube.  She regularly posts about living a frugal life in France but she's been around blogland a long time as well.  One of her videos last week really hit a nerve with me.  This one HERE called Get Ready for Rationing.  She never pulls any punches but this one was a cracker!!

She talks about the cost of inflation and the shortages of certain foods being available in supermarkets.  And her first point was Stop Being Fussy!  I didn't think I was but actually I've been justifying to myself that certain brands are worth paying extra for because I like them better.  When I realised that my regular jar of coffee has jumped from £5 to £7, I had a look at the own label coffee.  I got 2 larger jars for less than my usual jar 😲  No idea what it tastes like but I need to learn to stop being fussy!  In a similar vein I got a tin of own label baked beans to try as well.  Beans are beans, right? 🤞

Sugar was 75p for a kilo so I got 2 more bags to add to my store cupboard.   I'll be needing it to turn my currants and rhubarb into something tasty.  As much as I love fruits like pineapple, mangoes, grapes and melons, they are luxury items that I can't grow here.  I can grow strawberries, gooseberries, currants, rhubarb and maybe apples.  Oh and blueberries!  3 out of my 4 bushes are covered in flowers/berries already!  So I'm using what I can grow at home/on the plot and I'm not going to be fussy!!

Eating from the garden

 

Tonight's evening meal was really simple but absolutely delicious!!  Casablanca potatoes from the allotment; eggs from the girls in my garden; kale, broad beans and yellow courgettes from my neighbour's garden gently sautéed with garlic from the allotment.  

Raspberries from my garden, sweet and juicy 😋

All picked today, grown organically and very few food miles 😊