Frugal Cooking

After a morning of ironing, my least favourite household chore it was time to decide what to cook for tea. I'd defrosted some mince the day before but hadn't used it so today it was going to be chilli for tea. To save a few more pennies and make the weekly food shop go further I've started to divide my 500g packs of mince in two before I freeze them so we now get two meals for the price of one. I made my normal chilli receipe but packed it out with veg, courgette and carrot.  It looked and tasted delicious. Enough for six portions.

I also had some coffee butter cream to use up so made some butterfly cakes.  When I ran out of the cream I just used icing sugar and sprinkles.

Next to be used up were some dates left from Christmas! The next one will soon be with us. I used my trusty old Dairy Cook book to find a recipe.  Sunshine Bars it was. Dates, cinnamon and a whole chopped up orange go into them but no sugar! I was a bit sceptical of no sugar so sprinkled a little demerara on top during cooking. Well I have to say that they did taste great. Lovely moist pieces of orange.  I served it warm with a little custard for our pudding. The dishes were empty so that's a good sign.

A Nice Stroll

Sunday we got up and drove to the Wrekin in Shropshire.  Took us about 45 mins to reach the top. What a great view from up there.  Would have been even better if the weather had been brighter. Don't think I would have wanted it much warmer, I sweat enough getting up there. 

I've Found Blogger

Well it's been quite some time since I posted.  Been doing other things, not much crafting, plenty of cooking though.  I've been trying to get our weekly food budget down. I've found some great recipes on the net and that's what has bought me back to blogger. @queen_frugal has been a great inspiration.  She really knows how to stretch the pennies. I also purchased a copy of Jack Monroe cook book, now that's what I call living on a budget.

Hopefully I'll remember to take photos and write a few posts to let you know how we are doing. Doing this post off my phone, how blogger has changed since I last used it!