Miss Thrifty

A slow cooker, I have discovered, is a gift from the Kitchen God. I’ve had mine since November and I’ve become ever so slightly obsessed with it.

Slow cookers have been popular in America (where they are also known as “crock pots”, after the Crock-Pot® brand) for ages. They used to be popular here, too – and from what I can gather, are gaining in popularity once again.

For the uninitiated, this is why slow cookers are great:

1. They save time. You pile your ingredients in the slow cooker before work, turn it on – and come home in the evening to a yummy stew, all cooked and ready to go.
2. They are easy to use. See above.
3. They save on washing up. Generally, washing up = one chopping board, one kitchen knife and a good wipe around the inside of the slow cooker.
4. They reduce food waste. No need to let those squooshy tomatoes or that stray courgette go to mush – chuck them in the pot.
5. (Drumroll) They save money! They don’t use as much energy as an oven or electric hob. I have been making frugal-but-fabulous dinners with cheap ingredients including root vegetables, tinned tomatoes (value range), dried pulses, herbs from the garden and lots of crusty bread.

Today is a case in point. We haven’t done our  January supermarket shop yet, partly because all the snow up here in North Yorkshire has made it difficult to get around and partly because, like most people, we are el skinto this month following the excesses of Christmas. So we’ve been making do with our dwindling food stocks. Open the fridge or the cupboard door and there isn’t much to look at but right now, bubbling away as I write, is a stew made from the following: (more…)

Life has been so busy recently. It’s good busy rather than bad busy – bustling, rather than overloaded – but I am finding that right now, what I really treasure is “me time”. On a Saturday morning I like to sink into my cosy leather armchair, red and orange leaves floating past the window, bathed in the soft autumn sun. And I like a nice mug of tea.

When it comes to tea, I’m an out-and-out snob. I don’t cut corners. Economy teabags cost next to nothing, but they taste horrible. In fact, when I am at home I don’t tend to use teabags. I don’t like my tea leaves ground into thin dust. Instead I have a longstanding crush on Waitrose large leaf tea. I’ll drop by there, just to pick up a box of Assam or Kenya. It’s £1.49 for 125g – the same price as the teabags. Oh, but large leaf tea tastes so much nicer! Leave it to brew for a few minutes, and it has far more strength and flavour.

So why don’t more people drink leaf tea? (more…)

Frugal Grandma spotted the Six Thrifty Uses For A Lemon post, and kindly forwarded a couple of tips of her own. They have a lemon+saucepan theme:

When you boil a Christmas pudding – or any pudding come to that – put a slice or two of lemon into the water. It will stop the saucepan turning black; in fact it will clean it!

If you have a discoloured saucepan, cook plums,  rhubarb or apples in it (always putting a slice of lemon in with the apples, for flavour).   These clean the saucepan beautifully.   I don’t know the effect on your insides when you eat the fruit, but I’m still alive and kicking.

F.G.    xx

You know, for the forthcoming Miss Thrifty blog revamp, I’m thinking of giving this septuagenarian superstar her own section; what do you think?

Image credit: audreyjm529.

One of the most popular posts on Miss Thrifty is the Make Do and Mend post, which features some of the choicest nuggest from the Ministry of Information’s wartime compendium of household tips. Those nice people at John Lewis have just published their updated take on this book. Sadly they haven’t sorted out their online PR and I can’t find a link to the book anywhere, but the Daily Mail ran a selection of its tips today.

Two of the ideas that caught my eye featured that most useful of fruits: the lemon. Lemons are what, 22 pence each? If you are like me, you will cut one into wedges for fish, or into slices for boozy drinks – but there will often be some left over. Leave it in the salad drawer or on the fridge shelf and it withers away. So here are some of my favourite ideas for leftover lemons: (more…)

Last month I found bags of grilled, frozen aubergine slices in the freezer section at Asda. £2.20 for 500g. Thought I’d give them a whirl. I do like aubergines, but they usually go at £1 a pop in fresh produce and I’m always in a race against time to cook and eat them before they go brown and soggy. Also, I hate fannying around with the salt and the muslin when I go to prepare them.

Sadly, after the frozen aubergines had been sitting in my deep freeze for a few weeks, I realised that I didn’t really know what to do with them.  They were featured as a Delia “Cheat” ingredient last year, but that was for a meaty moussaka – and I don’t eat meat. Also, I read a couple of Delia-themed reviews in which people claimed that the aubergine slices were dry and flavourless. Hmmm: maybe not such frugal food after all?

So I asked the nice ladies over at Cookware Essentials if they would help me out with a suitable (and frugal!) recipe. They duly obliged, with an aubergine, tomato and pasta dish. I tinkered with it some more, and I’m pleased with the result:

(more…)

I love to keep my supermarket bills low: £60 to £90 a month, for two people, all in. As I’ve mentioned before now, one of my most effective ploys is to do my frugal food shopping at the end of the day, in the hour before the store closes.

Here are seven reasons why, courtesy of the bakery section at Morrisons yesterday:

1. Steak and ale pie. Reduced to 9p (15 cents).

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Easy peasy! Keep cakes fresh for longer by bunging a large piece of fresh orange peel in the tin.

And if you don’t have any oranges to hand..? (more…)

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet – very sweet.

Lidl is shifting job lots of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs: a pack of six for just 99 pence!

If you buy these up I do recommend that you eke them out, tasty as they are; is it me, or do they seem to get sicklier every year?

Also, I recommend that you do not put a Creme Egg in your jeans pocket and then forget about it, which is what I did the other week. It’s a sticky end.

Image credit: Michael K N.

Frugal Grandma is back from her latest bargain sunshine holiday. I popped in for lunch at the weekend; I left with a cupboard’s worth of homemade jam (plum, raspberry, blackberry and apple, and orange and lemon marmalade) and a giant pot of geraniums. I am so spoiled!

FG was also kind enough to pass on another of her frugal recipes:

Make your own Marie Rose sauce for prawns (or shrimp). It’s so much tastier and cheaper than the bought variety.

If you use frozen prawns, make sure that they have been slowly defrosted or they lose their taste.

In a bowl, add  a generous dollop of mayonnaise or salad cream.

Then a good splosh of lemon juice.

Half a teaspoon of horseradish, for that extra kick.

Enough tomato sauce to colour the mixture.

A fair sized dash of cream.   (If this makes it too pale, add more tomato sauce)

Stir the prawns into the mixture some time before you are ready to eat, as they will improve for standing.

This sauce takes no more than two minutes to make – even for those of us who are knocking on 80.

Image credit: morbuto.

Fancy some cut-price Spanish food? The Daily Telegraph is running an offer for 50 per cent off food at tapas chain La Tasca. The offer runs until 19 April and covers a table of up to four diners.

The online version of the coupon is here. You can find your nearest La Tasca here.