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.
Oh I remember the smell of those Zip firelighters-euch! Your soup looks delicious and such a good meal for these cold days with the turkey chopped back into it. Think I might see if there’s enough in the fridge to make a pot of soup tomorrow! Catriona
ReplyDeleteIt's very filling especially if you have a good chunk of sourdough bread and butter with it! I love most soups (except minestrone - yuck!) as they're a cheap way to fill up and stay warm! :-) xxx
DeleteThose Zip firelighters do stink so very much.
ReplyDeleteThat soup looks so good.
God bless.
The smell lingered on my hands for ages! I had to rub some TCP on them to get rid of it!! The soup was really good, just perfect for this cold weather we have just now :-) xxx
DeleteSoups are also very economical, you can get a week's worth of lunches for very little expenditure. My favourite is carrot and lentil which just costs pennies to make a big pot.
ReplyDeleteLove carrot and lentil soup, it's one I do regularly. Sometimes I'll add a splash of something creamy to change it up a bit :-) xxx
DeleteI've made my own firelighters out of shredded paper wrapped in newspapers...they worked quite well, but at the moment we have enough small lightings...positively hate the smelly shop bought variety. x
ReplyDeleteWe use the leftovers wax from candles and lint from our drier. We save up our old egg cartons, add the drier lint and pour the hot wax into those holes and tear one off as a fire starter.
ReplyDeleteKJ
Great tip, thanks! I used some wee candles and newspaper to get it going this morning as we've got -6C here today!! :-) xxx
DeleteI use the same method, but with newspaper torn into strips, rather than lint.
DeleteI remember my mum tying newspaper into wee knots to start the fire when I was a child! Unfortunately people don't buy newspapers as much these days! I also remember the smell of zip firelighters, its awful! We used to have a soap shaped piece of stainless steel (you can use a spoon or any stainless steel) which you 'washed your hands with' after any particularly smelly jobs like onion cutting etc. It amazingly seemed to work. Might be worth a try if you find yourself in this position again!
ReplyDeleteWith regard to yesterdays post (toothache) I too am in that boat at the moment! I saw an emergency dentist the Friday before Christmas and he assured me it was just me grinding my teeth. However it is still a daily pain and I have a check up on Monday next week and I'm sorely tempted to get the tooth out, but I too would need a plate and I hate the thought of it. Old age sucks sometimes!!
It was my job to light the fire after school before my mum and dad got home from work. My sister refused because it was "too messy" plus I was just better at it (all the practice I guess!!) I managed to get it going today with some paper twists and wee candles but I had to nurse it for ages to get it going!!
DeleteMy dad once got a tooth pulled out without the numbing jag as he was in such pain he just begged them to do it asap. I shall be taking all the pain relief possible! And yep, this getting older sucks (sometimes!) :-) xxx
Oh yes, those firelighters smell awful don't they. We used to use them occasionally, Alan was not great at starting the log burner going without one ... it would seem I am the arsonist in the family!!
ReplyDeleteI used to make as many homemade fire-lighters as I could each year using gathered in pine cones sat in egg carton segments with some old melted candle-end wax poured over. Now they really got the fire started well and the room would smell lovely too.
I'm not even having them in the house!! Definitely need to get cracking on making my own :-) xxx
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