Frugal Living and Home Cooking

I have allocated a total budget of £1,200 to cover ALL foodstuffs, cleaning & laundry products and toiletries for the entire year (2009). By improving housekeeping skills, managing storecupboards and cooking most things from scratch, whilst batch cooking and not wasting anything that can be used, we are staying ahead of inflation. By growing fruit & veg, foraging, bartering, LETS trading and keeping hens, I have now set a new annual budegt for 2010 of £900 for all foodstuffs. Recipes & other links can be found HERE

Must haves in my kitchen cupboard - flour (various), sugar, eggs (from our own hens), margarine, salt, suet, vinegar, yeast, bicarbonate, porridge oats, milk powder, tinned tomatoes, lentils, split peas, broth mix, pasta & rice. Everything else can be bought when it's on best offer and stored accordingly, but these listed items are ones that I certainly don't want to run out of at any time. They help make the most of anything that needs to be used up in a meal and are the mainstay of my limited cooking skills. I also use soapnuts for laundry and make my own liquid wash. It costs about 50p to make 5 litres. Don't forget to price compare before going shopping. Supermarkets can offer different offers at different times. You can check here.

11/01/09 - Turkey & veg pies made from a Christmas leftover turkey drumstick . I got a pot of soup, sandwiches, a curry for 3 and 2 large pies out of one drumstick. Pastry costs pennies to make.	11/01/09 - Easy quiche - it's only a pastry case with scrambled eggs, cheese, ham and a small onion. I got a pot of soup, 2 large pies and a cheese & ham pasta bake out of one smoked ham hough.
14/01/09 - Huge favourite in this house - fruit crumble. Got fruit to use up? Stew it, then put it in an ovenproof dish. Mix up crumble from 100g flour, 50g margarine or butter and 50g sugar. Just crumble it between your fingers. I add a sprinkle of cinnamon and an extra sprinkle of sugar before putting it in the oven at 190c for 20 mins.	Quick and easy - equal amounts of flour, margarine and oats mixed into dough with melted margaine and a couple spoonfuls water. You can add dried fruit, chocolate chips, crushed nuts or whatever you like, pop them into oven for about 10-15 mins depending on thickness prefered, extra cookie dough can be refrigerated for later use.
Got some fruit needing used up? I had a large bag of mandarins bought for 50p, so chopped up a dozen of them, added some lemon juice and a bag of sugar then boiled the lot for 20 mins. Overall cost, including electricity, about £1.45 for 4 jars.	Homegrown vegetables from 2008, hoping to grow enough from the new garden in 2009 to last us through to 2010 but we're a long way short of that at the moment, having just started from scratch at seed planting stage.
10/04/09 - We now have 2 hens laying eggs: Mrs Black lays the brown eggs, Mrs Brown lays the tinted eggs.	We are already harvesting a plentiful supply of salad leaves several times per week. The above is the box planted outside at the end of November 2008.
12/04/09 - First batch of baking using our free range eggs. The yokes are so yellow that they colour the sponges almost as though dyed.	First batch of homemade lemon curd made from the free range eggs 08/05/09, second batch 28/05/09
25/05/09 - Rhubarb & Ginger crumble, quick and easy to make, freezes well, always a favourite. Any fruit does for this to use it up.	27/05/09 - 5 hens laying, so loads of eggs mean homemade meringues to use up the egg whites when making lemon curd with the yokes.
28/05/09 - Homemade Parlies made with treacle	28/05/09 - Homemade Parlies made with syrup
27/06/09 - Trying elderflower fritters was on my 'to do' list so, today, I did. I used sweetened batter and had them desert style.	27/06/09 Elderflower fritters. The remains of the batter has extra flowers added for making elderflower pancakes.
01/08/09 - Homemade tagliatelle made from our freerange eggs.	Pickled, home grown beetroot is one of my favourites, so easy to make.
Pink meringues from spare egg whites & a tiny drop of beetroot juice, perhaps?	Foraged fruit jelly - blackberries picked from the hedgerows. Also did rasp & bramble jam.
Coconut macaroons - ideal for using up egg whites after lemon curd making.	Soup of the day - throughout autumn, winter & spring, we're never without homemade soup
When boiling anything for soup stock ALWAYS strain it to make sure all bones are removed The above is what came out of one turkey drumstick	As well as a large pot of soup, a turkey drumstick also provides you with a full pound weight of cooked meat for sandwiches, pies, curry, stir fry etc
When making pastry for pies, the trimmings are usually enough to make a small jam tart or case.	Thick winter veg curry with what was available from the garden in November, including leeks & turnip.
Experimenting with bread recipes, ciabatta style loaf done in the breadmaker.	Bottom left, the first blue egg from the freeranging lavender araucana hen.
Even late on in the year, you can find a meal in your garden. This is from November	New year's day dinner included homemade clootie dumpling and the elderflower 'champagne'.
4 tbsp sugar creamed with 2 tbsp margarine, beat in a duck egg and 2 heaped tbsp SR flour then fold in another 2 heaped tbsp SR flour. Grease a bowl, add 2 good tbsp syrup, pour cake mix over top and microwave on full power for 7 minutes (700w microwave). Turn out onto plate and serve immediately	Homemade bread works out cheaper than store bought and contains no additives or preservatives. Using supermarket strong bread flour, (currently 68p) it works out at around 40p per loaf including cooking time in the breadmaker. To reduce price even further, dilute 3 parts strong bread flour to 1 part ordinary plain flour.
03/02/10 Using up freezer food - I had a couple of beefburgers to use, so chopped & fried them.	Beat whites of 3 duck eggs, fold in yokes and a tablespoon of flour, season with salt & pepper
Pour the souffle omlette mix over the chopped burgers (or sausages)	When almost cooked through, slide under the grill to finish and then serve. This one fed 3 no problem
Making the most of the pheasants by making game & veg pie. Used all the pastry for decoration.	Spicy bean pate to use up cooked kidney beans - blitzed with onion, garlic, olive oil, paprika & chilli.
Aspic jelly - roast the chicken (or other meat) on a wire rack and catch the juices in the roasting tin for seperating the fat from the jelly (aspic). Save these for other uses.	A serving of chicken is about 85g, a 2.3kg fresh chicken should produce a kilo of meat and the stripped carcase will boil down into stock for about 3 litres of soup.