A frosty Sunday morning here but a warm and sunny welcome to my new followers,
Foster mummy and Tasmanian Minimalist. Thank you for peeping into my life. Do say hi when you are passing by.
As you know, I don't like parting with my money to the gas company. Now I love the heating, I am a warm person, don't like the cold at all. However, what I don't like is the continual reports that the fat cats are getting mega money and bonuses while we, the little people are getting the urine extracted from us. (Posh version!)
That is why the heating is off, our house doesn't get much past 14-15. We have the log burner on at night and this heats the bottom of the house and drys the clothes. We both have fleecy PJ's and a hot water bottle for bed. It was all worth it when I looked at our online gas account and they have had to reduce our monthly direct debit again. Ha ha ha. They have estimated £44 a month for us. They will be lucky. I am determined to not pay them anything like that.
I have got off to a good start with the cooking from what we have in stock. Yesterday I cooked the pork belly strips in a Maggi so juicy BBQ bag that I got from AF. I had two, sad, sprouty spuds left in the bottom of the sack. I scraped the sprouty bits of and scrubbed them a bit. Cut them into wedges, 3 mins in the microwave, sprayed with fry light, a sprinkle of a bit of Nacho spice i had left over and put them in the oven with the BBQ pork. I delved into the freezer for the frozen veg I always have and under it I found, one organic steak and some braising beef. Result!
I decided I would do a bit of spicy rice as well so I put plain rice and the veg on to boil. Once boiled I always remove the rice and just leave the lid on tight. It cooks beautifully and much less energy use.
Sadly, my bread making has not gone so well. I had a bread mix packet for sunflower seed bread. Nothing to do except add warm water. No chance of messing that up. Or so I thought.............
I put the packet in first and then added the water. WRONG way round. Oh well, what could go wrong, it all gets mixed up. Three hours layer a marvellous smell permeated our kitchen. I rushed to the machine and pulled out what I can only describe as a paving slab.
I let it cool hoping that taste would compensate for ugliness and cut into it. It was damp and very solid. I wonder if it is because my kitchen is really cold as well?
I have cut it up to show you. There is still all the flour on the outside where it didn't mix in properly.
I was determined not to waste it so I put a slice in the toaster. I had to toast it three times to get it to crisp. It was quite nice though.
I will keep trying and I know some of you have kindly sent me your recipes so I will try them too.
We had a no spend day yesterday so that's great. I may have to go out for fruit and veg today to,last the week. The weather is rubbish and really cold. We are off on a mission to collect some free wood we have been offered but we have to chop it up to get it in the car first so that will warm us up.
You may recall, the poll I ran last week on the top of my blog? It asked the best way to save money with choices of , turn off the heating, go vegetarian, cook from scratch or make do and mend.
The outright winner with 60% of votes was............
COOKING FROM SCRATCH. Thank you for your votes.
Bread is obviously not my forte in the kitchen. I am good at other things though.
What's your signature dish? What do you make that's easy?
Have a peaceful Sunday. X
I am living on a pension (just), but there are two things I refuse to cut back on - heating and eating. These are my two 'treats' after 45 years of paying NI contributions!
ReplyDeleteI would rather cut back on things like petrol, new clothes, eating out and holidays. I only do one big shop in the car, the rest of the time I walk or use my bus-pass. I keep the heating on 68F (in old money) and if I feel cold, turn on an electric fire. I get my dual-fuel from the Co-op and - believe it or not - they have just reduced their price of electricity! :)
Cheers ..... B x
ps I do a lot of cooking in my Slo-cooker - very cheap to run. Lovely stews to warm the 'inner-man' in the Winter!
Good for you Bernard. We use our log burner but there are many people living on a pension, in what my mother calls, the Autumn of our days, that won't have the heating on. It makes me mad! They have worked all their lives and as you say, contributed to NI and taxes and they are freezing. The utilities are not allowed by law to cut anyone off. The only thing they can do it to apply for a warrant to fit a pay as you go meter but this is in extreme circumstances.
DeleteWe use the slow cooker too. In fact you have just reminded me to get the gammon in it! Thanks Bernard.
One thing I won't be and thats cold, I hate being cold, we have our heating set at 22*to 23* at the moment, morning and evening then just click the switch if we want it during the day. We pay £81 per month for dual fuel bill and are always a bit in credit, the bungalow is well insulated, floor walls loft and we have double glazing. We have constant hot water and never stint on showers or baths and we are comfortable with that. I really do feel for the older generation 60+ who are struggling with energy bills and are too frightened to switch things on for fear of the cost :-(
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the bread, I have made many loaves like that lol sometimes if the flour or yeast is old is won't work properly even if it's well within the sell by dates. You can always wizz up whats left for stuffings or breadcrumbs.
Our dinner tonight is some ready cooked cubed roast pork which I found in the depths of the garage freezer this morning, it says Christmas Pork on the bag!! it looks a bit dry on one end but a good soak in some onion and mushroom gravy will soon revive it. I think the veggies will be brocolli and cauli, dozy me forgot the carrots this week.
Hubby is filling the trailer up with free fence posts next week that are lying around at the flying club unwanted :-) will come in handy for the veg plot fencing.
Karen x
I can't stand being cold either.
ReplyDeleteWe have a tiny cottage, and heat it with a storage heater in the kitchen and our multi fuel burner. That's it. No central heating for us. But we still stay snug and warm.
We have used only free wood (we've been lucky to make a contact with a friend of a friend who supplies us with as many pallets as we want-we just have to cut them up.)
We bought £200 worth of coal 3 years ago and are about to run out. So that's about £66 per year and we only use coal if it's really cold for a treat.
Love how you are using up everything.
We have a long month ahead of us once we return from holiday. We'll have just £60 to spend for that time and I will be at home for most of the time so no free school dinners.
But you know me, I love a challenge!
Sft x
Sft, the funny thing it's the other way round for us....wood is the treat. We usually burn coal and when we can get wood it heats o much better.
DeleteSylvia
How funny Sylvia.
DeleteYou can't beat the beauty of a wood fire however.
Sft x
We have managed to get a load of free wood. We sometimes get coal and that keeps hot until the morning but just sort of simmers. The wood flames really dance, natures television.
DeleteI hate the cold and I live in a cold house, even if the heating is on it's still cold and the moment you turn the heating off the temp drops down so quickly. I do try to balance things out but... I used to make my own bread many moons just because Master T loved it. I even went as far as buying a bread maker which I thought made the worst bread ever, I ended up selling it. I don't make bread anymore. I hear people saying making bread is cheaper than buying it for some reason I don't see it. Am I missing something
ReplyDeleteI have a breadmaker and it was a bit hit and miss. I have been practising and made three loaves today. One to the birds, one was great, third I am waiting to cool now.
DeleteI have started again because I like the seedy bread and it was £1.60 the other day. I reckon my bread is at least a third of that. I like knowing that there are no preservatives in it as well.
Keep trying with the bread. Hope you'll try the recipe that I sent you. I've not had any fails with it. Hopefully this weather will be gone soon and we can all stop making those rich cats fatter !
ReplyDeleteI have made three loaves today. The bad, the good and the ugly!
DeleteI'm at home all day but never use any form of heating during the day time - I don't usually sit still long enough to feel the cold! We put it on for a couple of hours in the evening and that's it. We wrap up in layers, use fleece blankets over our laps or go to bed to keep warm. This house is much colder than our last one was, but it's older and has 10' high ceilings. We really couldn't afford to use the heating any more than we do as our income is low.
ReplyDeleteHi Scarlet,
DeleteThat's good going. We are contemplating an electric blanket. We have fleeces here as well and I wear fleecy suit and a dressing gown on top.
X
Loving the blog. I have a fool proof soda bread recipe .
ReplyDeleteIt's v easy to make
180 grams of white flour
180 grams of whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
Handful of porridge oats(optional)
Pinch of salt
One egg
1 teaspoon honey
500 ml buttermilk
Drizzle of oil
Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients pour into dry ingredients and mix
Grease a loaf pan Put in oven for 350 Fahrenheit for 50 mins to one
Hour. Until bottom sounds hollow allow to cool before cutting