Checkout Chuckle

Sorry for being absent for so long but life has been getting in the way in a BIG way.  I can't explain in a public blog but we have had bereavements, one of which shocked me to the core.  I am still devastated  but need to get back to normality....

I have just read Ilona's fantastic Black Friday blog post (Mean Queen) and agree with every word she says.  I too ignore Black Friday, which has somehow turned into a whole week of 'bargains' which I neither want, need nor can afford.  I am deleting Black Friday emails unread so that I am not tempted, any flyers through the letterbox go straight into recycling.  I only intend to buy carefully planned Christmas gifts.  So far I am well within my budget and, in the main, have finished my gift shopping.  All that remains is to stock the fridge and freezer so that we are not caught out by any really bad weather.  We will have some Christmas treats too.

On a different note (sorry about the pun!) I hate the new polymer notes, do you? When I did the 'big shop' at Mr M's on Monday I handed over what I thought was £40 only to be handed back £10 as two notes had stuck together.  I thanked the checkout assistant profusely for her honesty just as she handed me a till-printed coupon for a free eye test at Specsavers!! 'Nuff said!  We both rolled about laughing....

Take care everyone and stay warm x

Slow Cooker Bread Test

Marlene, from Simple Living blog mentioned having made bread in the slow cooker.  As my normal efforts are pretty dire I thought I would have a go.  I used 500g flour and for the first 5 minutes kneaded the dough in the big mixer.  A further 5 minutes by hand, then popped in the slow cooker lined with baking parchment (and on the high setting).....

After 45 minutes it had risen dramatically....

After 2 hours it looked like this...

I turned it over as the base was getting crisp and I wanted to brown the top a bit. A further 20 minutes and it was ready....
It was surprisingly tasty with soup, a bit crumbly but delicious and it made lovely toast served with a bit of real butter the next day.  Not a bit was wasted so I'll definitely try it again, maybe made with oil instead of butter and with a little bit less sugar.

Whilst the bread was cooking I found a ready rolled sheet of puff pastry which needed using up so I made pizza slice with a base of chilli tomato puree, onion, green pepper, tomatoes, feta and a sprinkling of reduced herbs. This was my half .....

The remainder of the pastry made f''Eccles cakes (fake Eccles :) for OH's munchy attacks....

Have a lovely day everyone x

The Best Laid Plans....

Thank you all for the good wishes yesterday.  It seems that many good women are born in November or under the strong sign of Scorpio :)

Well, yesterday didn't turn out to be the happy day we planned.  It was Son-in-Law's 50th birthday on the day too (which was why we were planning on having a lovely meal together) but he had a phone call to say that his father, who was in hospital, had taken a turn for the worse.  He passed away at 7.55am just before the family got there, so birthday celebrations were the last thing on SIL's mind.  I felt very restless and fidgety so OH took us off for a drive in the car.  We pushed SIL's cards through the door and stopped in the village for a pot of tea and a teacake on the way back.
Later on I had a text to say that the birthday meal was still on as the family needed to eat anyway but on arrival at the restaurant we discovered that the kitchen had no gas so couldn't prepare any food! For goodness sake what a day.  DD quickly rang around to find a nearby pub which had a table free and we did eventually eat together albeit a bit more sombrely than we had intended.  I didn't even fancy a glass of wine, I just had some water.  Now that's a novelty!!

I don't envy DD & family the next couple of weeks.  There's a heck of a lot of sorting out to do and already 'Big Sis' is being bossy, martyred and demanding all the sympathy....sigh....

End of BST

Since the clocks went back an hour at the end of British Summer Time, the nights are coming earlier and the mornings are colder and misty.  We had a bit of frost yesterday morning and the fog was quite thick at 8pm last night whilst driving home.  Winter is on it's way!  Janice from Jan's Jabber blog was expecting their first snowfall in Alberta Canada.  I love to see the first snowfall but get fed up quite quickly if I have to venture out in it.  I need to make sure the cupboards are full of useful stuff to make quick meals from...just in case....

Do you like snow? Or is it a pain in the butt?

Stay warm and have a lovely day wherever you happen to be x

Another Milestone & A Bargain

Crikey... November 1st.... another new month and a step closer to Christmas.  For me it's a special day because....

I have stopped counting the years (whispers 68 of them!) and I'm just counting the joys instead. I've received some wonderful cards and OH is treating me to a meal out tonight with DD and her family and tomorrow night I'll be seeing my lovely brother & his wife too.  We have eaten home prepared meals from the freezer on Monday & Tuesday so no real cooking until Friday.  Now that's what I call a birthday treat!!

We popped out to buy fuel yesterday and whilst at Sainsbugs I used some of my Nectar points on wine for Christmas.  They had an offer on of 25% off 6 bottles, which I was happy to take advantage of :) so, by using £22.50 worth of points, 6 bottles cost me the princely sum of 82p  They will not be drunk before Christmas and one or two might be given as gifts, repeat....they will NOT be drunk before Christmas, they will NOT be drunk before Christmas :)

Have a lovely day everyone and thanks so much for popping in x

Matters of Nectar and Bugs

Isn't it strange how you can go for months without feeling at all off colour then it's one thing after another, after another? OH picked up a nasty cold virus which he has very kindly passed onto me. Now he's back to being boing-y and energetic (well as much as a 67 year old can be) and I feel like death warmed up.  I felt it coming on, on Saturday evening when I developed a stingy feeling in my throat.  I was the emergency help, due to take GS to his football match on Sunday morning so I had to hide my feelings of lethargy and stand for 2 hours on the cold and windy pitch.  I expected to feel like cr*p but the match was exciting (and I don't really like football!) GS played brilliantly and his team won 5-0 so I quite enjoyed it.  I simply don't get all this shouting and yelling instructions and with a sore throat it was as much as I could do to hold a conversation, but it was very enjoyable.  I just hope I haven't passed my cold onto GS or anyone else :/

On matters of Christmas shopping....

A couple of weeks ago Sainsbugs had a Nectar points giveaway so I went to their service station to put my £10 worth of fuel in my car and look what I got....

I was amazed and delighted to win 5000 points worth a whopping £25!!  I popped into the store to buy a few items and to scan my winning points voucher and got another 200 points worth £1!

This made over £55 worth in total....

 

 

I have since spent £12.50 of my points on two lovely small gifts to take off my Christmas list, so effectively another 2 FREE gifts although I can't say what they are as someone might read my blog and it will spoil the surprise.  I still have £43 left and I will spend them carefully.....

 

 

Back on the subject of teabags, I bought some Mr M's every day tea and when I counted the teabags (yes, I know I lead a very sad life) there were exactly....40 !!! Hooray!!

Well my headache is subsiding a little, my cough is rattling but No sore throat, thank goodness.  It's time for PJ 's and Autumnwatch on the telly. 

Have a lovely evening and thanks everso for popping in x

I'm Excited!

I'm excited! I want to shout out loud.....

I have my first Christmas Presents!

Boots have begun to stock their shelves with Christmas stuff and I just happened to see some suitable gifts when I popped in with DD for something else.  I got 2 lovely gifts for women and one for a man which had a potential total cost of £18.50  By using my points and Boots' 3 for 2 offer I got them for FREE and I still have over £1 worth of points left on my card...result!

On Sunday morning I put the kettle on to boil for my first cuppa of the day, opened a new box of teabags and idly counted them one by one into my airtight jar....37...38...box empty! WHAT?? A box of 40 teabags contains only 38?  I tipped them out and tried again.  Still only 38. They are the cheapest Sainsbugs Fairly Traded teabags but I still felt cheated so I sent off a very polite email to Sainsbugs to query this.  By Monday I had received a very nice email to say they will be looking into this issue and that they will credit me with 400 Nectar points (worth £2) by way of compensation. I just checked and they are already in my account. Thank you! In all my 46 years of wedded bliss I have never before thought to count the teabags in a pack.  Have I been missing out all these years? Do some packs contain more?  Is it a hit and miss issue? Has anyone else ever checked theirs? Or am I completely nuts?  Answers on a postcard please ;)

Regarding Nectar points, I checked at the weekend and I have points worth £25.87 so far....

Add to this my free 400 points and I have £27.87 towards more gifts (jumps up and down in excitement! )  Today I received another email newsletter to say that from Friday to Sunday this week Nectar card holders will receive free prize draw points if they spend £10 or more and swipe their card.  It's well worth doing because the top prize is 5000 points worth £25 and you will get at least 200.  Go people! ;)

By the way, OH loved the sausage casserole.  He said it tasted slightly sweet but absolutely delicious.  It didn't need any extra liquid and served him 2 enormous portions.  If I had been a bit quicker I could have stretched it to 3 and frozen one of them.  Never mind I'll know for next time ....

Thanks everso for popping in.  Stay safe x

It's October! Foodie Post

Thank you all so much for your comments on my last 2 posts. It seems that many of you can't help but notice the price hikes in the shops either and I can't see things stabilising in the foreseeable future.  A lot of belt tightening to come, I think....

Today is October 1st and the good news is that my food spends have stayed just within budget this month (12p left)
I have checked my store cupboard and freezer and still have the makings of:

Evening
Sausage casserole (slow cooker),
HM veg curry (I have never made one from scratch before so it will be a bit hit and miss!)
Quorn fajita wraps.
A few frozen prawns which OH can have smothered in Marie Rose sauce on a baked potato
 so potentially 5 evening meals if the sausage casserole serves OH twice.

Lunches
 Leek & potato soup (twice)
Cheese on toast
Baked potato with baked beans
Sandwiches (egg perhaps)

My tasks this morning have been prepping sausage casserole for OH tonight......

 

 

2 sliced onions and 6 browned sausages (cut into chunks when brown)

 

 I only had 2 carrots left....

A jar of sauce 86p (I haven't bought this before so I hope it will be ok)

 

 



All put into the slow cooker to work it's magic. It should give hubby 2 good portions.  It might need more liquid but I'll see how it goes as it cooks.  As you know, slow cookers tend to create steam which adds to the liquid level anyway.  I'll let you know how it tastes in another post....

 



There were just 2 leeks left so soup is now bubbling away for my lunch and there should be plenty left for tomorrow....

 



 

Monday is' big shop' day so I need to get fresh salad stuff, veggies, fruit, some fish and not much else I hope :/
October needs to be a frugal month too. If I can spend as little as possible at the beginning of the month I might be able to keep some cash in reserve towards Christmas food.

Have a lovely day everyone and thanks so much for popping in x