Frugal Food: Crunchy Granola

Starting again!  I am full of admiration for those who blog regularly, some even daily.  It's not that I don't think of or photograph things to blog about.  I can compose away in my head but I just don't seem to get round to actually sitting down to put those thoughts into readable words!  Mind you, procrastination is my middle name...........

Which is why I am now typing about my summer breakfasts in October! Dear oh dear.  

That photo is of a bowl of crunchy granola, served with yoghurt and strawberries, and eaten on holiday, looking out over the sea on a beautifully sunny August morning.  The recipe is from Lighten Up by Jill Dupleix.  She is one of my favourite cookery book authors as her recipes are always simple to follow, never have a long list of ingredients and always, always taste delicious.  

I have the gall to label this one under 'Frugal Food' as I made it using up all sorts of odds and ends of nuts and seeds from my pantry and, padded out with yog and fruit, it seemed to last forever!  Below, I have reproduced the original recipe for you to tweak and make your own.  

Seeing those strawberries is taking me back to another summer holiday memory - strawberries grown in Mevagissey, Cornwall.  We are talking real, proper, red, ripe strawberries, that actually taste of strawberry and the smell............. ohhh, they are worth buying for the smell alone! Clotted cream optional!

Crunchy Granola

Makes 10 or more servings

400g porridge oats
3 tbsp sunflower seeds
3 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp linseed
100g almonds
100g walnuts or brazil nuts
100g dried shredded coconut
pinch of salt
4 tbsp honey or maple syrup
3 tbsp olive oil or hempseed oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
100g dried cranberries
100g dried sultanas

Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Heat the oven to 150ºC/Gas 2.

Toss the oats, seeds, nuts, coconut and salt together in a large bowl.

Warm the honey, olive oil, cinnamon and nutmeg in a pan, stirring, until just melted.

Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients, tossing well.

Spread evenly on the trays.

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, shuffling everything around once or twice to prevent sticking.

Remove from the oven and cool.  

Add the dried fruits.

Store in an airtight container for up to a month.

London For Free: Somerset House and the Courtauld Gallery

This has to be one of my favourite places to visit in London.  

Somerset House has played numerous roles over the years, in fact my first visit in the '80s was to get a copy of my birth certificate!  Now it is known as the host to London Fashion Week and the place to come ice skating at Christmas. 

What's free?  Well, for a start, many of the exhibitions held in the various gallery spaces.  One I just have to see opened yesterday, the work of Erwin Blumenfeld but there's also one at the moment of contemporary rugs, photos of the churches built by Hawksmoor and the National Art and Design Saturday Club Summer Show opens on Sunday.  

I visit Somerset House for its exhibitions but the buildings themselves are just as big a draw; they are gorgeous.  Free guided tours are held every Thursday and Saturday.  

One corner of the courtyard houses the Courtauld Gallery.  If you visit only one art gallery when in London, visit this one.  It is fairly small so not as overpowering as a visit to the National Gallery, for example.  The collection spans from the fourteenth century to the twentieth, with a mighty fine selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.  The art is a joy to behold but so are the architectural details in the rooms they are displayed in.  

Yellow Irises, Pablo Picasso

Entry is not free but the top price is, by London admission prices, a reasonable £6.  On Mondays, including bank holidays, entry is half price.  I managed to visit for free as I current hold an Art Pass. I visited the Becoming Picasso exhibition, which closes this Monday.  One way it would have also been possible to skip the admission fee was to have gone along to one of the Picasso Lates dressed as a 1901 Parisian!

Have you paid a visit?  Can you recommend any places to visit in London that won't break the bank?

Frugal Food: Apple Crumble Makes You Rumble

Actually, this is a rhubarb and apple to be precise so extra rumbly.....!

We used to get copious amounts of rhubarb in our garden when I was a kid.  I didn't enjoy eating it AT ALL then but loved using the big leaves as a hat.  Now my tastebuds are more uhhmm mature shall we say, I am quite happy to eat it but the cost is prohibitive.  It tends to only come in pricey packs at the supermarket.  Waitrose was doing a half price offer of £1.50 for 400g but I got a couple of almost-out-of-date packs reduced to 99p each.  

Eating some stewed, dolloped on porridge, is ideal for me but my little girl was not so keen (surprise, surprise!).  

I sliced up a cooking apple, spread it over the top of some stewed rhubarb, made a batch of crumble topping, cooked it for 30 minutes at 190º, poured over some plain yoghurt and voila!  

Gone in 60 seconds!

Basic Crumble Topping

120g plain flour

90g butter, cold, diced into small chunks

6tbsp sugar

Rub the butter into the flour, using just your fingertips so as not to melt the butter, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. 

You could also add some porridge oats in for some more fibre.  

Any other suggestions?

Upcyled Shirt

Upcyling, as they call it these days, 'making good use' as the Wombles would say or 'you can't throw that away, it might come in' as my dad would say.  

Just like I did when I was a child, my little girl wears one of her dad's old work shirts to protect her clothes when she is busy painting and pasting. 

Worn back-to-front, with the sleeves rolled up and the tail brushing her ankles.  

Hopefully it will be used for many more years. 

Family and Friends Railcard

See all those zeros?!  A pleasure to behold!  

I love taking my little girl out-and-about to explore and experience new things.  Going by car, now that filling up the petrol tank is getting ridiculously expensive, is now a luxury.  The bus is always an option but I much prefer the train.  

I found out about the £28 Family and Friends Railcard  which would cut the cost of the fare by a third for me and 60% for my daughter.  Not bad - but could I cut the cost of the card too?!  

I ended up exchanging £14 of Tesco clubcard vouchers for a one year pass.  Here's the link but I see it has risen to £15 now.   The Daily Mail is currently running an offer for a free two month pass. 

We have used our pass once so far and made a £7 saving.  No doubt we will make better use of it during the school holidays.  I've been meaning to go the Turner gallery in Margate or perhaps a day trip to Brighton or a day out in London or Bath or York .......................

Where would you go? 

Frugal Food: Pork and Butternut Squash Casserole

This dish is a great in the colder months, which seems to mean all year round here!   It is quick to make, fairly cheap to make, only has a handful of ingredients and absolutely never fails to satisfy.   I dish it up with a dollop of mashed potato.

The cut of pork I use is shoulder, a good one for slower cooking.  It used to be one of the cheaper cuts but, with the way food prices are going here, its purchase still needs to be thought about.  We are eating more meat-free meals and most of the meat I do buy has a reduced sticker on it and gets put straight into the freezer for another day.  Having said that, I reckon this casserole is worth every penny!  Only about half a butternut squash is used, leaving plenty for another meal.

It's a Waitrose recipe, btw.

Pork and Butternut Squash Casserole - serves 4

2 tbsp oil

500g pork diced shoulder

1 onion, chopped

200g butternut squash, diced 

1 large carrot, sliced

500ml stock (I do half veg, half chicken)

  

Preheat oven to 180ºC, gas mark 4.

Heat 1tbsp oil in a large flameproof casserole dish.

Add the pork and fry for 5 minutes to brown and seal.  

Remove the pork and set aside.

Add a further tbsp of oil to the pan and fry the onion, butternut and carrot for 5 minutes.

Gradually pour in the stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes, uncovered.

Remove the dish from the heat, add the pork and season to taste.

Cover and put in the oven for 35 minutes or until tender. 

Let me know what you think! 

Car Boot Season

The car boot season is upon us once again - although with another wet summer being forecast, it may well grind to a halt very soon!

When we moved into our new home, I made a determined effort to to thin out our belongings as we just seemed to have too much 'stuff'.  Picking up 'bargains' at the car boot sales and in the charity shops was partly to blame.  Now I only go into charity shops to drop things off, with no browsing allowed, so when I went to the boot sale I made sure I bought only things that would be of use.  

My little girl can spend hours playing with Hama beads.  I found the mother lode on one stall!  For £6 I got a pile of the plastic shape boards, eleventy billion beads AND a brand new, unopened, safari theme box.  The safari set, which would retail for about £15, has been squirreled away in my box of gifts for birthdays and Christmas. 

I also bought for £1.50 the Paddington CD and a book with CD.  These have been put aside until our long car journey in the summer.  You can't have too much Paddington!  

Have you been to a boot sale yet this year?  Find any bargains?

Frugal Food: Easy Cheesy Muffin Scone

My little girl has to take a morning snack to school each day.  One of the things I send her in with are these little buns, a cross between a muffin and a scone, the recipe for which I found in the Co-op's free magazine.  

They are easy to make, can be flavoured with anything lurking in the fridge and freeze well too.  I usually make mine with bacon, tomato and cheese and I keep a supply in the freezer so that I know I always have something to hand if the fruit bowl is empty.  

All a bit different to my school days.  I just got sent in with some coppers to buy a bag of pickled onion flavour Outer Spacers from the school tuck shop!

Easy Cheesy Muffin Scones

Butter or oil for geasing

7 sun-dried or cherry tomatoes, chopped small

250g SR flour

80g grated cheese

200ml natural yogurt

sprinkle of herbs

1 large egg

3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 190ºC / Gas 5

Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin with butter or oil

Put the flour into a bowl, add tomatoes, cheese and herbs

Put the yogurt into a jug, add the egg and oil, and stir.

Add the yogurt mixture to the flour and mix

Spoon into muffin tins (try to do it more evenly than me!) and bake for 20-25 minutes or until light golden.

With Extra Strawberry

This is another attempt to squeeze out every last drop! I had  a couple of jars of strawberry jam in the cupboard with barely enough left to put on a slice of toast but too much to just discard.  I was making a blancmange for my little girl's pudding so put some of the milk in to the jam jar, swooshed it around to wash all the sticky remains off the side of the glass and added the now pink milk to the saucepan.  Awww, yum, I'll be doing that again.  The pudding, pips and all, was delicious - or rather all that extra sugar was! 

The Beach In Winter

Swimming in the seas around Britain is not for the faint hearted, even in the height of summer and certainly not on a chilly January day. Instead, there was kite flying.

Some castle building.

Ball kicking.

and bubble blowing.  Perhaps we'll source some wetsuits before our next visit!

Too much stuff

I knew before we moved house that we had too much stuff.  Now that it all has to be allocated a new home, I've absolutely had it confirmed!  

Charity shops are partly to blame for my over-consumption, particularly on baby and child things.  Take videos for example.  We must be one of the last households that still uses a video!  Not for taping, just for viewing.  Charity shops tend to price kids' videos between 20p and 50p so I have ended up buying quite a few........!  My daughter from a very early age would decide which she wanted to watch, then delight in operating the video buttons herself.  A good lesson in independence, cause and effect etc!

We pruned our collection (do we really need twelve Kipper the Dog videos?!) and sent them back to a charity shop for some other equally old-fashioned family to enjoy.  

These past few weeks I have visited the charity shops only to drop stuff off, with no browsing allowed so that I don't come home with more.  I am doing well but the car boot season starts soon..................!

Is there anything that you have bought too much of because of the cheap-as-chips price?

Rubber Gloves

rig

I am forever ruining a pair of washing-up gloves by spearing the left hand one with a knife or fork prong.  I usually throw the ruined one away and keep the spare, hoping that next time I will jab the right hand of the new set and end up with a pair.  But no, I've just amassed a small mountain of right handed gloves!

Then I saw my friend had turned one left glove inside-out so that it fitted the right and now had a usable pair.  Why didn't I think of that?!?

Frugal Food: Cheese and Lentil Loaf

When I was an impressionable teenager I became a vegetarian after watching a tv programme about factory farming.  Fourteen years later, I was a backpacking vegetarian who was very hungry after travelling in Central America.  Walking past a bakery in New Zealand, I spotted a delicious looking bun in the window.  I asked at the counter if that was bacon on the top of the bun.  'Yes' they said.  'I'll have one' I said.  And so ended my strictly vegetarian years! New Zealand turned me!

I did hang on to some of my vegetarian cookbooks though and Vegetarian Kitchen by Sarah Brown is still a firm favourite.  Her cheese and lentil loaf recipe is fabulous.  Easy to put together, very tasty and can be eaten hot or cold.  It's a good way to use up any old ends of cheese lurking in the fridge.  I usually eat it with a green salad and sliced tomatoes, sprinkled with salt and pepper to draw out their flavour.  Perhaps new potatoes too.  It's also good in a sandwich next day.  

Cheese and Lentil Loaf

175g red lentils

350ml water

110g cheddar cheese, grated

1 onion, finely chopped

tsp dried parsley

½ tsp cayenne pepper

little lemon juice

1 large egg

3 tbsp single cream or milk

Preheat oven to gas mark 5, 375ºF, 190ºC

Rinse lentils then cook in a tightly covered pan with the water for 10-15 minutes.  Check after 10 minutes to see if more water is needed.  The mixture should cook to a stiff puree.

Remove from the heat and add the cheese, onion, parsley, cayenne pepper and lemon juice.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg, stir in the cream or milk and then pour the mixture over the lentils.  

Grease a 1lb loaf tin, press in the lentil mixture and bake for 45 - 50 minutes until the top is golden brown and the mixture is firm to the touch.

Leave to cook for ten minutes in the tin before turning out. 

Pancake Day

We should eat pancakes more often!  They were scrumptious, easy to prepare and cook and very cheap to make.  Entertaining for the cook too as I got to yelp with glee at each perfect pancake toss!

I mixed up the batter in the morning and, remembering my mum's tip for making yorkshire pudding, left the mixture to rest under a tea-towel until it was needed.  By evening it was thick and ready to go.

Our savoury pancake was filled with ham and gruyere cheese, while the sweet was just some milk cooking chocolate, melted in the microwave then poured over. Delicious.

250g plain flour

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

500ml milk

Butter for frying

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.  

Make a crater in the middle and add the eggs.  

Pour in half the milk, then whisk, adding the flour from the edges a little at a time.  Add the rest of the milk and keep going until the lumps are gone.

Add a knob of butter to a hot frying pan.  Add a ladle of batter mixture only once the butter is sizzling.  Rotate the pan to get the mixture to cover the base evenly.  

After about a minute of cooking, loosen the edges of the pancake, give the pan a shake to check it is not sticking, then flip it in the air whilst whooping with glee. 

Cook the other side then serve.

Start again!

Well!  Long time no blog!  We are now in our new house, I'm up to my eyes in 'stuff'  that needs sorting and the budgeting is going well so far.  Of course, now that we are in the property, we realise it needs rather more doing to it than we anticipated so the pennies will need to be pinched even more to cover those costs.  

Now, someone who is working to tight budget should not be buying flowers but these beautiful daffs were medicinal!  This house gets less natural light than our last home and at this time of year, the natural is pretty grey and grim at the best of times.  Daffodils are such cheerful flowers, announcing that Spring is on its way, so at £1 a bunch, I had to have some.  Worth every penny.

Today is Shrove Tuesday so there will be pancakes for dinner.  For Lent I will be giving up alcohol and taking up daily blogging.  If I get some comments coming in, well it will be as good as a glass of cold pinot!