Comfort Blanket

More food for less

Picture by Meryl CA

A couple of weeks back I posted an article entitled "Feed your family for under a fiver", and listed 7  tasty, healthy recipes costing from as little as 75p a head. At the end of the post I wondered whether I could do it again with another 7 recipes ... well, here we are and here are another 7 recipes. I haven't sat down and costed these out penny for penny but my hunch is that these are in the same ballpark.

1. Vegetable stew and dumplings - great comfort food for the cold weather. There are endless variations on this theme, allowing you to cater for the competing likes and dislikes of the whole family. Turnips, parsnip and swedes can all be rotated through this recipe instead of or in addition to the carrots.
2. From a classic British winter dish, let's head for warmer climes and enjoy some ratatouille. Serve it up as it is or with rice or chunky bread. You could experiment with different herbs or spices to make a different dish out of this. Personally, being a curry-head, I'd add some curry paste or Indian spices, but then if I'm honest there probably isn't much I wouldn't add curry paste to.
3. How about mushroom stroganoff? I would think this is likely to be the most expensive meal in this list, but nice for a treat and a change of scenery.
4. Vegetarian shepherd's pie is a favourite at home too. And another very comforting dish in the cold winter months. Instead of the beans used in the recipe here I usually substitute either lentils (green or red) or soya mince. I also find bisto gravy makes a very good sauce, so if you are not a fan of tomatoes those can be replaced entirely.
5. On to leek and potato ... pie! Ok so I'm also a bit of a leek and potato nut but they are a good fred and ginger combo! The recipe that this links to includes cheese, and that can be left out if you prefer. Also, to make it cheaper you can make the pastry yourself - not as incredibly difficult as it might appear and quite relaxing.
6. Baked eggs is another very comforting dish to enjoy on a cold winter's evening in front of a roaring fire, and pretty quick and easy to do.
7. And I have to end on a curry - aubergine curry. Again there are lots of ways to ring the changes. I have quite a cavalier attitude to recipes like this. Amounts can be changed and ingredients substituted with ease. Personally I really love aubergine and mushrooms together.

So there you have it - another perfect 7. Another couple of these lists and we'll have a whole months worth of versatile, cheap and mostly very easy food. And they are meals packed full of goodness and vitamins. Get baking and let me know if you have any favourites for a future 7.

Your favourite Ladybird book

Which one was your favourite Ladybird book?

Each one was the right size for tiny hands and tiny laps, not too thick and not too heavy. Made of sturdy cardboard to withstand being dropped all the way down the stairs just after you'd nearly made it to the top. Each one was printed in a special clear font that would not distract from the job of learning to read, no extra loops or twiddles, no artistic fancies to take the mind away from the words themselves.

Children wearing t-bar sandals. Jane helps Mummy and Peter helps Daddy. The second book of British birds. The new words are always listed at the end of the book. Playing in the park and no big boys hogging the swings or pushing the roundabout round too fast. The grass is pre-1976 drought - its very green and even. Saying your prayers before bedtime. Peter looking guilty after he puts his hand on the wet paint. Doing PE in your vest and knickers. Cutting out with safety scissors. Smiling people everywhere - bus conductors, teachers, shopkeepers. What to look for in Winter. Daddy smoking a pipe and reading the paper.

It's a safe and secure world. All of life is met with the same indulgent smile by grown-ups with boundless patience and all the time in the world to help you build a go-kart or fly a kite. Rainy days are an opportunity to make something out of pieces of string and card, to learn to boil an egg or paint a delightful picture. But mostly the sun shines. It shines on holiday, it shines in the playground, it shines at the shops and down at the park.

And my favourite Ladybird book? Perhaps "Ned the Lonely Donkey" or "Beaky the Greedy Duck". Probably "The Wise Robin" with its enormous Christmas tree.

"All About You" - yippee I've found it!

A couple of weeks ago I posted an item that included a thought about my longwinded search for a suitably interesting and stimulating (and non-depressing) site to be the home page that appears when I open my web browser each day. Well, stone the crows and dang my flangle, it has appeared by magical synchronicity, subtle karma and joyous random luck. I was researching for another post I have in mind and stumbled over All About You. OK its early days - I only found it about an hour ago, but it looks near enough perfect. It is a site aimed at women and seems to be portal for a group of women's and lifestyle magazines. That might have you twitching a bit thinking hmm sounds like a big glorified advert, and while there is surely and without doubt advertising there, it looks to be a well composed site. There are sections on craft, food, home stuff and the countryside, lots of mini blogs within the site and it looks like there are new things appearing on a regular basis. So, time will tell and maybe the first ecstasy of this infatuation will tarnish but I feel pretty chipper right now. I'll keep you posted...

Christmas in the credit crunch

Picture by krisdecurtis

Christmas is going to be a financial strain for everyone this year, so how can we help ourselves to ease that strain? Well, there are no magic wands to wave or brilliant easy one-shot solutions out there (sorry!). The Christmas fairy can't sprinkle fairy dust, she'll only stay on top of your tree with her wand in the air and the odds of winning the lottery stay stubbornly at 14 million to one so don't pin any hopes on that one either. We have to resort to the small, the sensible or the obvious. 

Here are a few simple thoughts and possibilities:

• Talk to friends and relations now and agree that your best Christmas present to each other will be not to buy presents this year, or maybe agree an upper spending limit. You'll know your family well enough to know who is likely to take this well, but even with someone tricky don't be completely put off. You might be surprised how grateful they are. It's a real 2 for 1 deal - you save the money and hassle of choosing for them, and you save them the money and hassle too.
• Someone else may be up for an interesting challenge. How about best charity shop bargain for £10? A bit of imagination can spark something very different and refreshing to the usual offerings.
• Many people advocate hand made or crafted items, sewn or crimped by you. This can work well, but with a couple of caveats. 1, you really have to be good at making things otherwise there's no point even thinking of this - you're not going to become an expert in 5 weeks. And unless you can get your kids involved the rough edges might not look so sweet and cute. 2, unless you have all or most of the tools and materials to hand already this can end up being much more expensive.
• Do you build up loyalty card points and forget to spend them? Now's the time to crack out the card and buy one or two gifts 'for free'.
• Start planning for next year:
  • This can be a tough one. Either you buy bargains in the sales and then either forget about them altogether or remember you bought them but not where you stored them. Some people like to buy a gift a month. The difficulty is things can go out of fashion by the time Christmas comes round or the person buys the book/cd/scarf between you buying in the January sales and next Christmas.
  • Putting a small amount aside each month in a specific savings account (name it 'Christmas fund' - its a lot harder to spend it before its time), can at least ease some of the pain even if it won't cover the whole cost. And I know that this seems like the last thing you want to do if you are struggling to pay off this year still but even £10 a month will make £120, and that's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (well, ok most things are better than that but you know what I mean). Next year you might be in a position to put more aside ... and so on. 
  • If you don't have a loyalty card, think about getting one, at least for the store where you regularly buy your groceries. More caveats - only spend what you would spend anyway. Don't buy things you wouldn't just to build up points, that really isn't worth it. And don't fall prey to tempting offers to get 5,000 points - just look at what you can buy from them for 5,000 points and then it probably won't look quite such a steal.

If music be the food of ... comfort and joy?

Picture by Taras Kalapun

So far I haven't talked about music which is a strange omission and one I'm going to put right now. I listen to a lot of music and like a lot of people it is the background rhythm to a lot of my life.

I began to think of the music I would listen to, to help me feel happy or to just to express that feeling of overflowing with happiness. A sort of desert island discs of euphoria. I think at present my list might look like this:

• "I love to Boogie" by Marc Bolan
• "Something Stupid" by Frank Sinatra
• "Maple Leaf Rag" by Humphrey Littleton
• "Ca plane pour moi" Plastic Bertrand
• "Firestarter" by Prodigy
• "Dolly Suite" by Faure
• "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed
• "Silver Morning" by Brian Eno

Yeh, I know, I've chosen 8 instead of 7 but that's my prerogative. Certain of those tunes might change over time but its a good basic toe tapping selection. Now, I'm not saying those should be your choices. I'm sure you'll have plenty of alternatives that do the trick for you.

Then I hit the nostalgia button again, and thought back over the all tunes that I associate with times of particular happiness over the years. I'll just pick out a handful.

• When I was a child I used to get really bad stomache aches that would last most of the night and make me very sick. I used to tune my tiny orange and black radio into the only radio station that then broadcast through the night, which was radio 2, to try and distract myself a bit from the pain. Ok, so far you would be forgiven for wondering why on earth this could be associated with happiness. I would usually begin to feel better in the small hours of the morning and I could start to relax. There I would be at 3am, imagining I was the only person awake in the whole country and listening to the hokey music of radio 2. I can remember listening to "Jambalaya" by the Carpenters one night not long after I'd decided I was starting to get better and now it just symbolises for me that 'calm after the storm' moment.
• "Seasons in the Sun" listened to over and over again down a phone line! I can remember discovering "dial-a-disk" and the wonder of being able to call up your favourite song just by dialling a number (yes, over the telephone). It was a very old and inconvenient version of the ipod, only I think you only had the choice of about 3 songs (or was it just whatever was number 1? Hmm, can't recall that one).
• Sitting in the back of a car with some other teenagers, being driven to some or other Christian weekend, and hearing Pink Floyd for the first time and being blown away. This was a first class example of a moment when a song really spoke to me. The guy who owned the car had some big speakers which were the pride of his life and he decided we all needed to hear how great they were, so he chose Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Now you need to bear in mind that at the time I was painfully shy and it took something for me to open my mouth, especially to someone as obviously cool as this guy. But I needed to know what I had just heard so I had to ask him. The song was "Nobody Home" (not a happy song, a wretchedly depressing song in fact) and I was poked in the ribs by the line "I've got a strong urge to fly but I've got nowhere to fly to".

So there you have it, nostalgia, teenage angst and foot stomping. What more could you ask for?

Food nostalgia

 

Picture by kasiaflickr

I love food, and I like to wallow in a bit of nostalgia from time to time, and sometimes throwing the two things together creates an irresistable confection. Do you have happy memories of wonderful food or perfect times that are evoked by the smell of baking bread or maybe melting chocolate? This is similar to the moment recounted by Marcel Proust in  A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) and the memories invoked as he bites into the madeleine cake.

What do I remember? I remember Sunday lunchtimes at my grandmothers house and the thick, heavy smells of Sunday lunch - winter and summer just the same, no quarter given for heatwaves. What I recall most intensely is picking fresh mint from the garden and helping to chop it up and prepare the mint sauce for the lamb. The mouth watering tang of the vinegar as it hit the back of my throat and then slooshing yet more sugar in to counteract it. Quite how anyone else stomached eating it I'll never know now. Maybe I was the only one who ladled onto their plate.

I'll also never forget the many puddings my grandmother made to finish Sunday lunch (quite why we needed a huge pudding after the main course I don't know). She had a set repertoire which I can't recall her deviating from - there was something religious about the hallowed few dishes that were allowed, all others being somehow sinful. It included lemon meringue pie, queen of puddings and apple crumble. There were a few others that I can't call to mind any more but not enough for a cookbook. It was something else I often used to help her with, mixing in the flour and the eggs, whipping up egg whites and peeling apples. Best of all was scraping out the mixing bowl at the end until you were forced to hand back the bowl for fear of removing the glaze.

These days I am a vegetarian but I do have a particularly fond memory of a plate of steak and chips in France. My friend and I went on one of those cycling holidays in the middle of France and on the next to last day I woke up feeling like I was coming down with flu, all shivery and achy. I don't remember what I did all day but I do remember sitting in my bed in the early evening, with a glorious view of the wide sweep of the river down below, and the lady who kept the pensione bringing up a tray of food. Its simplicity made it totally perfect and I can still taste every last mouthful of the twig thin frites and the moist steak. Probably I was already shaking off whatever virus had tried to shoulder its way in but it did feel as if the food made cured me.

I remember too my first experience of a Chinese take away. I had a very sheltered upbringing, and especially so when it came to food. My mother had a boundless distrust of anything foreign and would not have even contemplated anything as obviously dangerous as a Chinese take away. In all probability she was quite right in those days, before health inspectors and all that safety legislation. I went round to my friends house, and her parents were much more libertarian when it came to such things, and they decided to get a take away. I dare say that gave me a moment of panic quickly followed by a feeling of bravado and daring. And so it came to pass that I experienced my very first sweet and sour pork balls. The memory is of a magical moment of new flavours, a whole unexplored territory opening up. I expect that in reality they were just lumpen grease balls but I loved them, and they were the first of many.

I've already made a whole post dedicated to hot chocolate, but I need to go there again. I have three particularly great memories of hot chocolate, all strongly linked with places and people of importance. The first was back in sixth form days and my best friend and I, feeling as sophisticated as you do when you are 17, used to meet up in Hawkins Wine bar and order ourselves a decadent Viennoise Chocolate with an alpine peak of whipped cream and sit in the window planning our future lives. I seem to recall they always involved red sports cars. Quite how we managed to wax so lyrical when the wine bar was situated overlooking a large roundabout next to the Queensway expressway, is an eternal testament to strong imaginations and a grammar school education.

Two other fabulous hot chocolate memories are firstly on a Cornish beach,with the sun going down and what I recall to be little more than a hut that conjured up the most devine hot chocolate. Mix that with a perfect view of the sunset on the surf ... I'm back there now. The final one is the record for the most solid hot chocolate, hot chocolate so strong and thick it can hold up a teaspoon standing vertically without support from the edges of the cup. I have heard other tales of such solid liquid, but this was in Bardonecchia in Italy and the combination of white snow and skiers makes the last piece of this memory jigsaw.

This blog is one month old

One month old and still sweet and cuddly, aaah! No time for cakes or sentimentality though, its down to business and a bit of a stock take. Where are we, why am I here, what's happening? Before we get too deeply involved in our own navels, what I would like to do is think through the reasons I started the blog and consider whether it is heading in the right direction.

The blog began for a few reasons. First of all (and this is a bit sideways) I was having trouble finding a website I could use as my home page when I logged on. Obvioulsy it's not that there aren't plenty out there but I wanted something that changes regularly to keep my interest but also something that is not overwhelmingly depressing. I had the BBC news site for a long time but the relentless lists of murders, fatal car accidents and other assorted misery really wasn't making me feel too perky. I tried the google desktop, and although that was pretty good things kept clashing and crashing and it messed up too much stuff so I had to give it up. I tried Amazon as I love books but that only led to buying more books and one of my bookcases collapsing. I tried various art galleries but they tend to stay pretty much the same for weeks and weeks, so I quickly tired of them.

Then the credit crunch began to bite and as our own purse strings tightened like a mini noose I found I needed more moments of escape. I wanted to forget from time to time about the bad stuff and all those gloomy cobwebby corners, and I wanted to find some reminders of the best and the lovely. And so, although it still brings me no nearer to the web home page I am still finding so elusive (suggestions please), the Comfort Blanket began to be woven.

What have we done so far? Well, there's been a lot about saving money in various small ways - more about that than I anticipated. There's been quite a lot of food to keep us going, and a smattering of tv and film, and other assorted ephemera. Is the balance right? Is it too much of a smorgasbord? Should it be more focussed? I have researched a bit about what works for blogs and what you should aim for. Even that is confusing. While some say you should be very clearly concentrating on one thing there are some very successful blogs that cover many more things, under one banner (or blanket) than this blog does. I have wondered whether it would make sense to split the blog in two so there is a half that is very clearly about being frugal, saving money and surviving the downturn and another that is about happy things. I am not sure. What do you think? Does it work like this? Is it the variety that keeps it interesting?

Quick tip - take a survey, get paid for your opinions

Right up front - this will not make you rich quick. Correction - this will not make you rich, period. However ... it could earn you a few extra pounds, just some pocket money and you will get put into various cash prize draws and all for simply giving forth with your opinion on all sorts of subjects. Why turn your back on free money? Survey sites need to have a regular reliable group of people 'on tap' to enable their clients to get valuable customer feedback and so they will pay you real money to take part in surveys. And while some of the surveys are quite mundane others are pretty interesting. 

I have been on the following two panels for several months now. I haven't had any extra email spam or marketing phonecalls and nothing untoward has happened as a result of being on these panels. You have to give them a certain amount of information about yourself when you first register, so they can direct the appropriate surveys to you. That is the one part that really takes the time, but once it is done that's it, all of the surveys are pretty quick to complete. And you do get the option to not answer questions where you are not happy to disclose the information. So I feel happy to suggest them to you. Obvioulsy at the end of the day you need to make up your own mind but my experience over a number of months has been positive.

The two panels are:

YouGov UK

Pure Profile

Feed your family for under a fiver - easy peasy lemon squeezy!

 

Picture by wordridden

Become a vegetarian and you'll find it pretty simple to manage this day after day, week after week. End of post. What's next? Yes, OK, I can already hear the howls of protest echoing from one end of Blogland to the other. What is this heresy? You knew there had to be a subplot somewhere and here it is, she wants to convert us all to sandal wearing hippies munching on carrot sticks. Actually nope, no way, doesn't sound too appealing. But let's allow everyone to get all the traditional abuse off your chests:

"I don't want to eat nut roast every day - how boring"

"What, you mean eat grass and cardboard with a bit of sawdust every morning?"

"Nothing but beans and lentils - no thanks"

"I couldn't give my husband a meal without meat in it - he'd complain"

Right feeling a bit better now? Good. I'm just saying, just giving you the facts here, so don't go complaining that you didn't know when you've finished eating all your money, and the only thing you are left with is those wrinkly carrot sticks. So how about I tell you how it stacks up and then it's entirely up to you? Take it or leave it, mix and match, pick and choose. Here's 7 dishes giving you variety and interest and plenty of scope to adapt and change the flavours and ring the changes as much as you like.

1. Leek and potato soup with crusty bread I reckon about £1 per head.
2. Stir fry vegetables with noodles - depending on the vegetables you choose and the sauce or spices, from £1 to £1.50 per head
3. Frittata - seems to be about £1.20 per head, but that's using more expensive eggs and only buying 6 at a time so it could be made for even less.
4. Lentil dhal - packed with flavour and goodness for 75p a head!
5. Chilli - one of my favourites from 80p to £1.20 per head, and another very easy one to throw together.
6. Pizza - the cost depends on whether you make your own dough or buy ready made pizza bases, but from £1.25 per head up to £2 per head
7. Baked potatoes and roasted vegetables - about 80p each and once its in the oven there's very little for you to do except kick back and enjoy a glass of chilled wine

So there you go, not a nut roast in sight, cheap as chips but much better for you and you take a tour of world cuisine on the way round. There's more flavour and choice there than you could shake a courgette at. Before I lead you off to the page with the recipes, I did a bit of a search around to see how other people were doing this. Don't get me wrong there are some great ideas out there and yes there's plenty you can find to satisfy your need for meat. But after finding a few different blogs it struck me that to in order to achieve this level of economy as a meat eater (big generalisation coming here) you pretty much have to rely on buying a big chicken and doing various things with it until you are left with soup or curry by the end of the week. I freely admit to being biased (that's the joy of having a blog!) but that sounded a lot more limited than the selection above. So, could I do it again with another 7 different recipes and still make it a) as cheap and b) as varied? I'm not sure to be honest. Why don't I agree to giving it another go in two or three weeks time? In the mean time, bon appetit!

Here are the recipes.

Quick tip - Ebay and Fat Fingers

Do you like searching Ebay for bargains? Do you want to know a way of getting an even better bargain sometimes? Try out Fat Fingers. It relies on people's typos and spelling mistakes to find you a hidden bargain. Yes, many people post their auctions with some truly horrendous spelling mistakes. Other people just don't go back to look and check that no letters have been transposed or omitted, and you can make the most of that. Search through Fat Fingers and you will find auctions that no-one else is bidding on because the usual ebay search is failing to pick it up! More goodies for 99p! Go get 'em cowboy! Give it a quick try now: