This Weeks Frugal Living

It is getting to that time of the year when I start to think about Christmas. It said on the radio on Friday (24th October) that this was the day that most people start to think about Christmas shopping. For those who read my blog, they will know that I have already bought most of my Christmas presents by now and this week I started to look at those gifts that are food and drink related.
I leave these until later in the year as food will have a best before or use by date. 

I received a 20% off reduction code from Thorntons this week as they are one of my favourite chocolatiers I had to look at their website. There I found a hamper that was on offer which is still available here. It has been reduced from £57 down to £24.99 and with an extra 20% off I paid just £20 for it. I bought two and only paid £1 delivery (if you spent more than £30). This arrived within 3 days of ordering as they always have a quick delivery service. Once you have ordered from them and provided your email address you will get regular emails with offers or reduction codes.

I was delighted with the items when they arrived as the earliest best before date was end of February and the latest was May 2015. There was a really good selection for presents and stocking fillers ranging from medium and small boxes of Continental chocolates to boxes of Special Toffee which is one of my sister's favourites.

Sainsburys  recently sent me a months worth of extra points vouchers for the Nectar Card. I have posted details on making the most of rewards cards on a previous posting which you can read here. I made sure that I did my shopping at Sainsburys as I was getting 800 extra points each visit. Every time I shopped there they gave me a money off voucher for next time so I got £6 off a £60 shop and £7 off a £70 shop etc. I also won some addition points in a point.a give away promotion. I now have over £60 on my nectar card so I will do my fresh food shopping at Sainsburys at Christmas.

I started clearing out the freezers in readiness for stocking up for Christmas and we enjoyed a lovely joint of beef last weekend. I cooked a traditional roast dinner which lasted us for three days. I cooked fresh vegetables every day to go with the beef. I had managed to buy large family packs of prepared vegetables from Marks & Spencer during the week at the reduced price of 45p each.

Yesterday I took out a tub of what I thought was a home made casserole or soup but once it had defrosted I took another look to find it was stewed rhubarb & ginger! I had planned for us to eat this as an evening meal one night this week so I will have to have a rethink. I pondered what to do with the rhubarb as David does not like it, so I bought a large tub of yogurt and will have the two together with some granola at lunch time. I save jam jars but only the Bonne Maman ones as I adore their shape and red & white gingham lids. I will put the rhubarb, yoghurt & granola mix in one of these to take to work for lunch next week.

We visited the Cheshire carboot sale again this morning but found it was fairly slim pickings with mainly traders there rather than genuine car boosters. However, David managed to buy 8 LPs (now called vinyl) at 50p each, a Reebok jacket at £2 and some CDs at 50p each.

I found this great Jamie Oliver's America cook book which is as new for £2. David is a lover of American food so I am sure I will be trying out some of the recipes over the next few weeks. The seller gave me this cute Clarins bag with some samples for free.

I bought a mixture of DVDs for £1 each with one being a box set of 3 films for £1. This should keep us happy over the next few weeks when we cannot find anything we like to watch in the evenings.I found a Louis Vuitton style make-up bag for £1. It is black patent leather style and matches a bag I bought a couple of months ago.

Finally I bought this Homer Simpson vhip flask and cups set for £3. This is a little stocking filler for my brother in law for Christmas.

Saturday at Home

I love Saturday mornings and being an early riser the first couple of hours are my favourite. I have a couple of very large cups of tea, read my emails, read my favourite blogs and usually watch a carboot bought DVD.  I am always restless so cannot watch a film without doing something else, so it's usually sewing, reading or doing the ironing at the same time. This morning I woke very early at 4.37am (usually it is 5am) and although I tried to get back to sleep I couldn't so got up just before 5am.  

By 7am I had drunk my two cups of tea, tidied the kitchen a little, made the ratatouille I said I would in yesterday's post and started on the ironing. I like using my slow cookers for a lot of recipes as they are so easy to use and economical. I can also leave them switched on when I go out and not worry about them. I had bought courgettes and peppers yesterday so made a start on the ratatouille first thing.

Ratatouille
Courgettes
Peppers - I used yellow today

Red onions

Tomatoes - I used baby ones today
Mushrooms - because some needed using up
Garlic
Herbs
Seasoning

The original recipe asks for aubergines but I knew I did not have any of these. I am not a slave to recipes and use what I have to hand (within reason). I cut everything up into bite size chunks and put them into the slow cooker with half a pint (250 ml) of water and put the slow cooker on medium. Once it had cooked for about an hour I turned it down to the low setting and left it for about 5 hours. I divided this into portions, freezing some of it and using the rest for our evening meal. There is nothing better than home cooked fresh food and I love eating colourful meals. We are going to have steak with new potatoes and the ratatouille.

I have spent the rest of the day doing housework and catching up on chores. I change the bedding on our bed every week and usually every Friday or Saturday. I stripped the bed this morning, let the bed air with the bedroom windows open and then put crisp white bed linen back on the bed. I always spray the pillows and sheets with Avon Sleeptherapy pillow mist. This is £4.50 from Avon but I have got the last three bottles from the Cheshire car boot sale at 50p each time. The last time I bought it, it was in a gift set along with a bottle of bath gel and body lotion and was still 50p!! There is nothing better than getting into a freshly made bed when you have just got out of the bath. One of life's free delights.

Waitrose Reductions Glitch

I have shopped at Waitrose since they opened a small to medium sized store about half a mile away from where I live. They seem to have a reputation for being expensive but I find them more than reasonable when I buy their reduced items. They are even cheaper when their multibuy offers still apply to reduced items. I think these computerised reductions are called a glitch and I always make sure I buy any reduced items in the required numbers to get the multibuy glitches.

27th April 2015
I called at Waitrose last week and found that the glitch is no longer working on multi-buy products.

I called in at Waitrose yesterday after work and managed to find quite a few reduced fruit and vegetables items. There were some multibuy glitches included in my shop. It was good to see some fresh fairly healthy food reduced rather than cakes or pies etc. which can sometimes be the case.

The first buy was two packets of Rich & Creamy Coronation Chicken Salad with a yogurt and mint dressing. These should have been £3.49 each but had been reduced to 99p each. They had a sticker saying buy 2 for £6 on them. At the till 98p came off the bill meaning I paid £1 for both of them. Now a 50p lunch seems good to me. They were best before Monday but I had no problem with us eating them today only 12 hours out of date.

I also noticed some baby leeks. These had been reduced from £2 a pack to 75p. I found two packs reduced and noticed that they were 3 for 2 by the stickers on the packs. I went back to the vegetable racks to find a third pack which was not reduced but I knew I would get this free as it was 3 for 2. At the till £2 was taken off my bill so I paid £1.50 for all three packs. I will make leeks in cheese sauce tonight.

Looking at some of the other reduced items I decided that I would make roasted pepper and tomato soup as there were two packs of sweet Romano red and yellow peppers that were reduced from £2.99 a pack to 89p and a pack of ready chopped onions (4 onions) reduced from 99p to 39p. I knew that I had a couple of packs of tomatoes in the fridge that I had bought at the weekend which had been reduced from 69p to 29p a pack. I made this last night and the recipe is below.

There were a few packs of ready made fruit salads which are a lovely refreshing dessert to take to work. I often buy a mixture of these when they are reduced and mix them together. I put them in separate plastic tubs and store in the fridge. I find they usually last a couple of days pasts their sell by date and even longer if they do not contain too many soft fruits such as strawberries.  I found two packs of nectarine, melon and strawberry for 45p each reduced from £1.99 and a very large pack of classic fruit salad reduced to 89p from £3.99.  The two smaller packs were eaten today for lunch. The larger pack will last until tomorrow at the latest but I know I'll be okay to eat it then as it contains grapes, apples, oranges etc. and they tend to be okay for a day or too past their sell by date.

Finally I found a free range chicken reduced for on £9.63 to £3.97. Waitrose have standard chickens at 3 for £10 at the moment but the thought of having a free range one was tempting so I decided I would buy this to eat that night. A chicken normally does us about four meals. We ate the breast last night, the legs and thighs will do for a separate meal tomorrow night and the carcass will be boiled and stripped to make a stock for soup. I usually make enough soup for four people so this will be another two meals for the two of us.

Roasted Pepper and Tomato Soup

Red peppers or a mix of red, orange & yellow peppers
Onions
Tomatoes
Garlic
Stock
Salt
Pepper
Mixed herbs

Cut up the peppers into chunks and de-seed them. Put on a roasting tray along with tomatoes which have been quartered unless you are using baby tomatoes in which case put them onto the tray whole. Cover everything with a good glug of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper. Roast in a very hot oven until they look slightly charred. You can put the onion on the tray aswell if you have whole onions. These also need to be cut into chunks if you are going to do this. As I had ready-cut onions I missed out this step and put them straight into my slow cooker along with about a litre of water. I added about two teaspoons of my lazy frozen garlic from Waitrose.

I added two chicken stock cubes to the water as I had no ready prepared stock available. I put the slow cooker on the low setting and once the roasted peppers and tomatoes were done I emptied the contents into the slow cooker. I had a look at my dried herb rack and added about four pinches of dried mixed herbs and then I cooked this for about 5 hours and left to cool overnight. The next morning I used my hand held blender to blend the soup into a slightly smoother soup but not too much as a bit of texture is nice.

Mushroom Soup & Sunday Finds

I made the mushroom soup on Thursday and Friday evening in my Morphy Richards small slow cooker. I have two of these, a small one which is great for 4 people and a large one which can cook for about 8. Both of these were bought at the same car boot sale that we visit in Cheshire but were bought on separate days. I paid less than £5 for each of them. The small one was £4 and the large one £3.

Mushroom Soup
Two small red onions
8 large flat mushrooms
Chicken stock
Thyme
Chopped garlic
Salt & Pepper

On Thursday evening I made the chicken stock from the chicken carcass from the roast chicken we had on Tuesday. I simply placed the chicken along with the pan juices into the slow cooker and covered with water. I used the low setting on the slow cooker and cooked for about 8 hours. When it was cold I took the carcass out and stripped the remaining meat from it and put this in the stock.

To make the soup on Friday evening I cut up some red onions that I had in my pantry (bought reduced). I chopped up two packs of the mushrooms that I bought from Tesco on Thursday and put them all in with the stock. I keep Waitrose frozen chopped garlic in my freezer so added about two small teaspoons of this to the pot. I then cooked the soup on the medium setting for about 6 hours and added some dried thyme from my herb rack and added salt and pepper towards the end of the cooking time. I then used a hand held blender to blend into a thick soup. We ate half of the pot for Saturday lunch and it was delicious. The remainder was put into the fridge for later in the week.

Sunday Finds
We did well with the weather today and brought back a wide selection of finds from the car boot sale where it was sunny and pleasant to spend time out in the fresh air walking round the field where the car boot sale is held.

I was pleased to find two adorable snowflake design tea light holders each containing two jars of preserve. The burgundy one had two jars of pickle - caramelised onion chutney and spiced beetroot relish, and the ivory one had two jars of preserve - strawberry jam and orange marmalade. Both of these together cost £1. The best before date is July 2015 so nearly a year off and plenty time to eat them. I also bought a cute tin with toffees inside from the same family and this was just 50p - this will be a present for my niece and nephew when they come to visit next weekend. All of the food items were new and unopened and I guess were unwanted gifts.

I bought a brand new tagine slow cooker which has a small 1.5 litre capacity. It can also be used as a slow cooker, this is because it has two lids, a funnel shaped tagine lid and a flat lid. This was brand new in the box complete with instructions and just £2.50. From the same lady I bought a lovely Marks & Spencer Percy Pig  pot piggy bank complete with sweets for just 50p. This will be a little stocking filler for my nephew at Christmas. I also bought a small hard back book for him for 50p as another stocking filler.

I found a selection of toiletries and make up for myself ranging in price from 20p for the Nails ins nail varnish to 50p for a Boots No7 eye shadow to £2 for 2 bottles of Avon Advance Techniques hair conditioner & 1 fast dry nail varnish spray. There was also a brand new tube of hair removal cream - great for smooth summer legs for 20p. I bought a Body Shop Gift Set for £1 which contained 4 mini>items. I love Bonb Cosmetics bath bombs as they dissolve so easily in a warm bath, smell divine and leave your skin soft and silky after you have got out of the bath. I found a gift bag containing a bath bomb and a soap for 50p. My favourite 50p find was the retro style Vaseline lips tin holder as I have a number of the small tins which I can pop inside the holder and use for carrying round in my handbag.

I bought a selection of DVDs from 20p to 50p each and the full boxed set of the series Prime Suspect starring one of my favourite actors - Helen Mirren, for £4.  Plenty to watch over the next few weeks and when I get bored of them I pass them on to family or charity. 

I have always been a fan of the Royal Worcester Jamie Oliver mugs and have one already with "Bossy Boots" written on it. I found another today which has "Drama Queen" written on it so snapped this up for £3. My list goes on and on and if I were to include David's bargains then I would be writing a full book as today's post so in brief: Manola Blahnik shoe horn which was sold as part of the designer collection at Habitat £3, black leather Prada shoulder bag £2 (yes £2!!) in need of  a little spit & polish, French cotton scented candle in 1970s style stemmed glass £1, Samsonite holdall with pull handle & wheels( used once on a return trip from New York and looks like new) £5, Dualit two slot chrome toaster (gently used) £15 ....... there is more but too much to list. We had to go back to the car three times as we were unable to carry everything.

Panettone & Brandy Butter Pudding

Now is the time to buy panettone and brandy butter in the sales at the shops and supermarkets. Most are selling them half price even though they are not short dated. I make bread and butter pudding from them and freeze for later in the year. I usually make several in differing sized portions from single servings to give to my dad to a very large famly sized portion which will feed 6 to 8 people which I take with me on my weekends away with my sister and her family.

Simply slice the panettone and be generous with buttering it with the brandy butter. Arrange in layers in a dish of your choice and then pour over a ready made custard or one that you have made yourself from scratch (personally I never bother and use ready made). I then spinkle with sugar - vanilla sugar is lovely to use if you can get it, otherwise a soft brown sugar tastes equally as nice, othewise just plain sugar will do.

I then partially cook in the oven until almost done - still slightly soft in the middle and just starting to get a little crispy on the outside. Once cooked for approx 15/20 minutes, I leave to cool, cover in clingfilm and again cover just the top with tin foil. I put in the freezer and it will last for up to six months. Simply defrost and heat through in the oven. I remove the tin foil & clingfilm, replace the tin foil and initially cook for about 10 minutes with the tin foil on and then remove the foil for the last 5/10 minutes to make the top crunchy.

This makes a delicious, cheap and easy pudding which is great with cream, ice cream or more custard. I also make this at Easter when hot cross buns are in ready supply as a substitute for the panettone.

Christmas Leftovers

I was saddened to hear that so many people throw away the remains of their Christmas turkey after the big day even when there is still plenty of meat left on the bone. I have spent some time today shopping for fresh vegetables to make a turkey soup which I prepare every year. It usually tastes lovely and makes a great lunch for over the Christmas and New Year holidays. 

As a family we had a turkey crown this year but it did come on the bone, so I took off most of the meat and put this aside. I have then covered the turkey bone in water in a large pan, added some salt & black peppercorns and then slowly brought to a low simmer. Once it has simmered for about an hour, I have left it to cool down and then removed the bone, pulled the remaining meat off the bone and set this aside.

I have chopped up fresh celery, carrots, and onion and added this to the stock, brought this to a low simmer and then added left over vegetables and turkey from the two Christmas dinners that I had prepared for family on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. There were carrots, parsnips, chestnuts and the turkey meat that I set aside plus some remaining gravy added before I left to simmer for a final 20 minutes. I have then blended the whole soup with a hand blender and this has resulted in a thick hearty soup. The kitchen smelt lovely while this was cooking and I can't wait to have a bowl of this for lunch tomorrow with some fresh bread.

I hate any waste and find this to be an easy way of using any leftovers. I am a real bargain shopper when it comes to buying food. The problem that I have is that I find my cupboards and freezers starting to get overloaded with food that I have bought because I could not resist the offer in the supermarket. So, I am planning on using up the majority of this food over the next few months and will see how long it takes me to use up this food without having to do a large shop in the supermarkets.

I'll keep you posted !