This weeks organic box delivery

A huge bag of spinach, broccoli, carrots, spuds, 2 large onions, 5 oranges, 5 apples, 3 bananas and 6 organic free range eggs - total £12.85

The spinach was a nice suprise as I was expecting green kale as advertised online, now I can have a go at making that spinach, potato and chickpea curry. Everything else looks great and will keep well in the green lakeland stay fresh bags until I can use it up.

I am only getting a delivery every fortnight now and with all the produce from the garden am coping well. The freezers are full and it may be a while before I will find that I need to top up supplies.

The last 2 days have been no spend days so the total is now - NSD 8/15

Really easy cheesy biscuits

I made a batch of these cheesy biscuits today and Mr C is already polishing them off pretty darn fast so I may have to make some more! I used a mix of 3oz cheddar and 1oz parmesan cheese as that was what needed to be used up but 4oz of just cheddar would be good. I managed to get 16 biscuits out of the following recipe:-

Easy Cheesy Biscuits

4oz/120g grated cheese
4oz/120g plain flour
4oz/120g butter or margarine
Cayenne pepper (go easy on this just a little pinch to begin with unless you like hot and spicy, you could leave it out or add italian herbs or black pepper instead.)

Mix together in a bowl all the ingredients until the dough is smooth, this may take a while using a spoon, using your clean hands to bring the mixture together works well.

Roll out on a floured board and cut into shapes.

Cook on a greased and floured baking sheet in a hot oven, I set mine at 180C, until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack.

This is based on the recipe for cheese fingers from Elizabeth Wests "Kitchen in the hills" cookbook, one of my favourites.

Charity shop haul

Just thought that I should show you the result of Saturdays charity shop expedition. The lace jacket (to cover up the tops of my arms where age has definately taken it's toll, when I wear a sleeveless dress) it cost me £4 at the Help the Aged charity shop and I love it. The video "Miracle on 34th Street" a Christmas favourite 49p and the Mary Jane Staples paperbacks £1 each also from Help the Aged. The football books are a present for my son and cost £5 from our RSPCA charity shop. The purse and Tenko club paperback £1 from our Hospice shop. The butterfly coasters, which look great in the conservatory £1 and the candlestick £1 which will join the rest of my Christmas candlestick collection were found in the Cancer Research charity shop.



I found this amazing clock in the first shop for £3 and on getting it home we discovered that it plays various bird songs on each hour. This could get annoying later but we could take the batteries for the birdsongs out if that happens, in the meantime it is fun watching Penny trying to figure out where the noise is coming from! Even Mr C agreed that it looks good high up on the conservatory wall.


Total spend £19.49 - I put 10% of housekeeping and pocket money by into a charity shop fund so out of this month's £35, having already paid out on dd's to 2 local charities we support, I have £7.51 left to spend. Last month I had £27 left so will roll it all together (£34.51) and hope to get some bits for Christmas hampers next time.

New beginnings!

As you can see I have been playing around with the layout, there were too many dots before my eyes with the old one! I am liking this one quite a lot! What do you think?

Talking of new beginnings, I am having to re-think a lot around here as in just two weeks time our daughter will be moving back in for a while! We need to de-clutter fast and thankfully I have a friend who works for a local charity and can take any useful clutter off my hands for a useful cause.

Next on the list is a new menu plan/shopping list to include 1 extra adult for main meals and packed lunches. Don't laugh but I hope to do this at no extra cost simply by better planning and a whole lot less waste. Fingers crossed I can achieve the impossible! We were eating far too much anyway and both need to lose some weight so who knows it might just work.

This is also my first term back at home again and I must try not to become a recluse. I love to read and would be quite happy at home with my books but will endeavour to get out on a regular basis (symptoms allowing) and have offered to take on the organisation of a book swap group with some friends, meeting once a month - 2 books each to swap and maybe a meal deal/pub lunch out while we are at it if the price is good.

Oh and the builders are back so I have preserved the view that will soon be gone and popped it at the top of the blog!

Let me Outta here!

Sorry about the photo quality (a lot better now though, thank you emmani!) I couldn't resist this little pleading cutie, she hates being shut in away from us all (Cockapoos are very socable), it doesn't happen much just when we are trying to get the grass cut!

I have been feeling much the same recently, after a regular flow of lovely visitors, which I have really enjoyed, I've been exhausted, cfs raised it's unwelcome head again and I had to take a break and rest up, very boring! I have managed to read some of my favourite blogs but been too tired to post much.

Today I am getting out!!! I am off to meet one of my friends to explore a few of our charity shops. We will be concentrating on just one road which has about 6 charity shops and a couple of coffee shops (for pacing ourselves) so fingers crossed I find something from my list (yes I have a list for charity shops as well! :) or any useful bargain or treasure really.

I did manage to phone my mobile phone company in order to cancel my contract, once it ran out next month, as it was costing far too much for my low usage, I was ready to go to pay as you go but the lovely chap has given me a new contract costing only £5 a month which is saving me £35 a month! Really pleased with that, it pays to negotiate even if it wasn't quite what I intended! So now with cancelling the gym (£50), cancelling 2 organic food box deliveries a month (£25.70) and re-negotiating my mobile contract (£35) I am only about £20 worse off without my wages! I am probably saving that much on fuel as I am not using my car for work! Yay! Result!

During my week away from it all I had another 3 No spend days, would have been more but I had to ask Mr C to go on a few errands for me and it was his birthday this week. So NSD 6/15

My favourite walk back to the past

This is one of my favourite views, pretty ordinary to some I guess but look again, you could be back in the past, no signs of modern times like telegraph poles, lamp posts or traffic. For me to walk our dog here is a brief escape from the stress of living in this day and age and Penny loves it too! :) Sadly we do need the car to get there as it is off the beaten track and away from bus routes and no way could I cycle, but we don't go often and it is worth it for refreshing our own batteries.

We have more visitors this weekend but, thanks to a timely reminder from Sharon J at Finding Simplicity - thank you Sharon! had some savings put by to cover most of the expense thank goodness! We are having fish and chips tonight made by our local landlord with the most amazing home made beer batter! One day I must ask for the recipe. I have cookies to make to fill any hungry gaps over the next couple of days and a couple of loaves to go in the breadmaker.

Yesterday was the first day of a new term and a strange one for me as I no longer work at the school! I kept busy though with paperwork and made more chutney! It was also a no spend day so - NSD 3/15

An afternoon in the kitchen

An unexpected gift of plums meant a spell in the kitchen making some of my Aunty Beryls recipe for chutney! It took a while to thicken up, in fact I started this yesterday and had to stop when i got too tired and start again today! but when it did thicken it was lovely and I got 4 and a half jars of something very like mango chutney. One jar will go to the donor of course along with some courgettes the rest will be in the preserve cupboard ready for Christmas.




Next to the chutney is a banana and choc chip loaf and some muffins, which got a bit overdone in the oven but were still nice to eat, some of which are destined for the freezer and packed lunches. It is a very easy recipe to make and will make 2 small loaves or 12 large muffins.

Here's the recipe:-


Banana Bread
(great for using up those over ripe bananas)

3 very ripe bananas (almost walking) or use defrosted frozen bananas!
pinch of salt
6oz melted butter
1 teaspoon bicarb of soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
6 oz caster sugar
1 egg
9 - 10 oz plain flour
An optional extra is a handful of choc chips which is yummy

Smash bananas (food processor is great for this recipe). Add remaining ingredients, mix together. Pour into 2 greased or paper lined 1lb loaf tins or 1 lined 2lb tin or muffin cases. Bake in moderate oven (180C/350F/Gas mark 4) for 45 minutes. If making muffins 15 mins should do. Freezes well and is lovely sliced, toasted & dripping with melted butter.

While this was baking I managed to prep and freeze more runner beans and tomatoes.

Today was another no spend day - NSD 2/15
Dinner today was mainly using up leftovers - left over soya mince chilli made into a shepherds pie with leftover courgette and tomato bake.