Aldi again

Just a heads up that there will be a coupon in the Daily Mirror tomorrow (Thursday26 Feb) for £5 off a spend of £40 in Aldi - plus a range of coupons for either 50% or 30% off a range of products.

I've got my list of things that I have been saving to buy in Aldi when we had another voucher : )

I also had an email from Sainsburys today that said if we spend £30 there by Wednesday 4 March then we will get a voucher for 10p off a litre of petrol.  We had a journey of 200 miles last weekend and another of the same length to make this weekend so if we can fill up after the travelling, then that fuel voucher will be very useful indeed.

Bargain hunting

I've been bargain hunting quite a lot recently.  Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't but this week, I've done well. 

My son has recently had notice that he is being made redundant and with three kids and a mortgage, I've been bringing them bags of goodies when I've found them.  I want to help but not to be patronising.  Anyway, they wouldn't like it if I spent lots of money on things for them. If I bring them a bag of yellow stickered goodies, then I'm just sharing the spoils and it has probably cost me £1 to fill a carrier bag.  It means that they have a little bit saved from the housekeeping that week to put away for what may be lean times ahead.  They are the ones with the baby on special milk at £11 for a little tin.  The baby is taking to solid food like a duck to water so that helps a bit too and the baby's big sister has just come out of nappies so that is also a help : )

This week I popped into Asda when I was passing and got 6 boxes of eggs (free range!!) for a total of 95p.  The eggs had been dropped and overwrapped in plastic so that they would not drip everywhere.  I felt the boxes carefully for solid feeling eggs and chose my boxes carefully. The 6 boxes yielded 22 whole eggs plus two that were very slightly dented but not cracked right through the shell. That is roughly 4p per egg!  Yes, I know that I have hens but the laying has not quite picked up for the spring yet (mainly middle aged hens) and I needed to buy eggs because I had promised to bake some cake for church.  And when I popped into the mini Tesco near me to get some milk, they had reduced the large loaves of bread to 8p : ) It would cost me far more than that to make them, so I had one for us and three for my son's family.  That means a nice lunch of scrambled egg on toast for under 10p per person, ignoring gas costs. That is definitely a winner for our budgets : )

Edited this afternoon:
Just been out to collect the eggs and give the hens some mixed corn. The laying is just about starting to pick up for spring but not reliably and those who are going to lay again (some are too old ever to lay again) are laying funny sized eggs.  Last week there was one egg that weighed about 10g.  Today, poor old Star went the other direction and laid an egg that weighed in at exactly 100g grams.  A medium egg weighs about 60g and that is what she usually lays...

Pancakes

I'm sitting at the keyboard trying to type by reaching past a quietly purring cat on my lap.  Not very easy as she is moving her head so I can't see the keys very well. Any typos are entirely due to said cat : )

We had a lovely evening out last night.  The BB (Boys' Brigade but we have girls too) had their pancake night last night and invited the church to come as both a fundraiser and a bit of fun. They had made over 120 pancakes to share among about of us and there were lots of sweet fillings.  My grandchildren were there and predictably, they chose chocolate sauce.  Just as predictably, I had sugar and lemon - my absolute favourite sweet filling - and my husband had honey.

It is half term this coming week  so our three children and their families have rented a house in Skipton together.  I hope the weather is kind to them and that they can get out and around lots.  We are left behind  for cat sitting duty.  We'll be able to go away later on when they can be on animal sitting duty for us. That is a treat I can hold up in front of me and look forward to.

My house has too much Stuff.  I've been reading lots of blogs that say this and I looked around my house and agreed that I need to lose lots of Stuff too.  I made myself a promise at the beginning of January that I would lose 1000 items during 2015.  So far I've lost about 80 items, most of them small.  So I'm a bit behind.  I've just passed on a box of Lego to my son for my grandson.  So can I count the individual pieces...?

February already and soup time

Here we are into February already.  I don't understand it but I am utterly convinced that time speeds up as you get older.  Remember when days seemed to stretch into forever when you were under ten?

I've been making soup for our lunches for several weeks now. Along with a 10p yellow stickered loaf from Tesco when they happen : ) it makes a cheap, filling and nourishing lunch. And it is easy too.  Cook once and zap portions in the microwave until it is finished.  However, it has taken a while to convince my husband.  I'm hoping that I have succeeded now!  I think that last week's pea and ham (made with the leftovers from the meal we served at church and eaten with an 8p! loaf) did help convince him because he really enjoyed it. He requested a cheese sandwich for today but we'll have soup again tomorrow.

One of my favourite soups is lentil, carrot and tomato.  A tin of tomatoes, a handful of lentils, 2 or 3 large carrots and the obligatory onion, potato and good shake of mixed herbs.  Maybe a bit of garlic if I have any in and cooked in stock made with a couple of stock cubes.  Lovely!  Thick and warming.

If one of my soups (usually the random leftover vegetable ones) turns out to be a bit bland, then we eat them with a good sprinkle of dried Italian cheese.  We usually bought that from Aldi but they seem to have stopped stocking it.  I spoke to the deputy manager at Aldi last week who does the ordering and she said that they don't have it any more.  Sainsburys do but they've changed the packaging and they now sell it in 80g small tubs for £1.  That is quite expensive per kilo but a tub really does last a long time - in fact it probably lasts several months.

If the soup turns out thinner, then I make Jamaican dumplings. I got the recipe out of a borrowed Friends of the Earth mini cookbook about 20 years or so ago. I'm not so keen on dumplings with suet in and these don't use any. Instead, these use 1 tablespoon of flour with one teaspoon of baking powder. Mix together with a pinch of herbs of your choice and enough cold water to make a dough - about the same consistency as scone dough. Drop teaspoonfuls into the soup and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes. This produces wonderfully light and fluffy dumplings which my husband loves. When I first read the recipe, I didn't think it would work because I thought I would be able to taste the baking powder but decided to give it a go. I am glad I did! That quantity of flour is plenty for dumplings for two people.