A great, tasty recipe that uses up leftover cauliflower. Great for getting kids to eat vegetables, too.

Ingredients

• half a cooked cauliflower
• 285ml milk
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 veg oxo
• herbs – thyme or parsley
• knob of butter
• 2 rounded teaspoons cornflour, mixed with a tablespoon of milk
• 125g grated cheddar (optional)

Roughly mashed cauliflower

Fully cooked sauce

Mixing the sauce and pasta

The finished meal

Don’t use fabric softener on your towels and tea-towels. Not only will you save money, but the towels will dry you or your crockery better.

Fabric softeners coat fabrics with a thin layer of chemicals. These chemicals have lubricating and electrical conductive properties.

The conductive property is important for preventing a buildup of static electricity.  If you live in a dry climate or experience dry winters, using fabric softeners will make a noticeable difference in the static buildup and cling that your clothes have. However, towels and tea towels are either cotton or linen, and don’t hold a static charge.

The lubrication property helps make the fabric stain resistant by repelling liquids, which is great for clothing and most other laundry. Unfortunately, this is bad for towels since you want towels to absorb water from your hands, body and anything else you’re drying with a towel.

It’s getting a bit frightening at the shops these days, isn’t it? Not so long ago, I could buy a can of corned beef for around a pound, in two supermarkets I checked this week, the price was £2.49! A small can of red salmon was £3.99. They try and tell us that inflation is running at 4.5%, but these sorts of rises are skies above that.

There’s all kinds of reasons the inflation rate is understated – one is to include items where the price is dropping – usually technology.

The second is a practice called ‘hedonics’ where prices are weighted according to the value or pleasure we get from a purchase. I’ll explain. If you bought a £400 laptop five years ago, compared to a similar purchase now, the older laptop would be slower, have less storage etc. So the economists say we are getting more value/pleasure from the newer purchase, therefore the price is actually reduced for the purposes of calculating inflation. Yes, it’s a con – you’re still paying £400.

Another aspect of hedonics is to substitute items. Lets take a nice piece of rump steak. Because the price goes up, less people buy the steak, instead buying (for instance) mince to make shepherds pie. Those slippery economists, just call it ‘beef’ and because people are now spending less (even though they are buying different cuts of beef), will say that the price has either dropped or stayed the same, so the huge price rises in rump steak are not reflected in the inflation rate.

Tricksy little economists.

Ingredients for four servings

• Bits of left over roast chicken
• contents of the roasting pan
• 1 large onion
• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 mugful soup broth mix (pearl barley, peas, split peas, red lentils)
• generous handful of frozen peas
• half a packet of instant mash
• garden herbs (I used bay leaf, thyme and rosemary)
• salt & pepper to taste

Left over roast chicken

Cut the meat into bite-size pieces

Chicken in bite-sized pieces and separate bones and skin

Assorted items for the stock

Put all the bits in with the chicken bones, adding more water if necessary. Leave everything to simmer for an hour.

At the end of the hour, strain the stock into a large bowl, then return it to the saucepan. Rinse the gubbins through to extract more of the flavour, then dispose of the remains. Add the rinsed soup mix to the stock and bring back to simmering point. Half an hour later, add the chopped onion and potato.

Chopped onion & potato

Simmer for another half hour, stirring occasionally, then add the frozen peas and chicken pieces and simmer for another five minutes.

Add the instant mash, a small amount each time and stirring after each addition. Don’t worry if it goes a bit lumpy, it will smooth out as you stir and it thickens.

Adding instant mash

Now taste and add salt and pepper as required.

Serve in bowls with crusty bread. Enjoy!

Finished stew

“Preparing for hard times” – I’ve mentioned this phrase of few times in this blog, but what does it mean and why? It means exactly what it says, and as for why – all the signs are pointing towards some very hard times indeed. Anyone who does the food shopping will have noticed that prices are mostly rising, or pack sizes are shrinking. A basket that once cost £30 now costs upwards of £40, so canny shopping becomes more and more necessary, unless you married someone very rich.

What if times get even harder? What if the fuel tanker drivers go on strike? What if wheat rust spreads even further? Cotton, sugar, coffee, onions and many other basic items have increased massively on the futures markets. The future of citrus fruit crops in Florida is under threat from an incurable bacteria. To get all Biblical, there are “wars and rumours of wars” (Matthew 24:6). If the US dollar falls, the whole world will be in disarray.

Perhaps now is the time to step up that storage.

There are many sites which give advice about hard-core preparation, and I’ll be reviewing some of them over the next few weeks.

Tins of Branston Baked Beans are available at Asda at £1 for a 4-pack. I bought several packs for my food storage – see Credit Crunchy Food Storage.

No, not the film! Camping is becoming more and more popular, mostly due to dwindling family finances, and many people are discovering that sitting in a field is more interesting that sitting in an airport! Joking aside, it can be a cheap holiday, although if you go mad and buy top of the range equipment, it can also be an expensive one.

Campsites range from giant affairs full of serried ranks of caravans and tents, with every available facility imaginable, to a small field on a farm with very few facilities, and all points inbetween. Where you go depends on your personal tastes and family makeup, but speaking personally, I hate the giant sites, although if you have a family of teenagers used to hotel compounds abroad, I can see that you might be short of choices.

We’ve been campers for many years and have used ridge tents, pop-up tents, frame tents, trailer tents, caravans and motorcaravans. At the moment we have a motorcaravan, and I’ve just set up a blog to detail our ramblings in Bertha the Bedouin. You can find it at http://www.bedouin-trails.co.uk/

You have to admit, a bathroom full of “Value” or “Smart Price” products can look a bit miserable. Although these products work well, it’s just not the same. Here’s a trick I’ve been using for years. I like the liquid soap, it means the bathroom keeps cleaner, when I come in from gardening, I can press the plunger without getting muck on a bar of soap BUT it’s very expensive, particularly in comparison to bar soap. However, look at this comparison:

This costs £1.48 for 300ml (Ocado, Tesco 02/08/09)

Whereas this bottle cost a mere 5.4p!

That’s a humongous difference in price! And why? How? Because Asda Smart Price Bath Foam costs 18p for a litre AND those soap dispensers are very easy to refill, that’s how. Here’s a photo of my Smart Price stuff so you can see how boring it looks.

So, what’s it like? It’s quite thick, covers your hands easily and foams up nicely with being over the top. It leaves your hands feeling clean and non-sticky, with a pleasant, clean perfume. If I was working in marketing, I’d probably call it “Ocean Spray” except that would make people think of cranberries, which is probably why I don’t have a career in marketing. Anyway, it’s a nice unisex smell.

You need to buy your first expensive bottle to start with, but you can often find these on offer for £1 (Poundland etc), then it’s refills all the way. I’ve been using the one in the photo about 8 months now, they seem to be quite robust. In between, I’ve used Morrison’s Value Shampoo at 26p/litre, and an unbranded shower gel from Lidl that they were selling for 10p for 250ml, but is now 19p. Both worked very well, but the Asda deal works out the cheapest.

I buy four one litre bottles of the Smart Price stuff at a time, not because we use a lot of soap, but as part of my preparations for hard times – see my Credit Crunchy post. 72p is hardly bank-breaking expenditure. It’s not much work, uses less plastic, and if you have small children, it’s not the end of the world if they use the whole bottle in one go trying to bath a favourite toy. If you’ve got a snooty mother-in-law, it keeps her off your back, too!

I know the jar sauces are quick and easy, but most of them (except for the Seeds of Change varieties) taste less than inspiring, and for what you get, are very expensive. Basically, you get some tomato of unknown origin, onion, a smidgen of garlic and a few herbs all bulked out with water, vinegar (or lemon juice in the more expensive ones), sugar and cornflour. For example, Ocado has Dolmio Bolognese sauce 750ml for £2.39 per jar.

Here’s my recipe (and it’s not that difficult!)

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1cm of garlic puree (or more, to taste)
• 2 teaspoons Oregano
• 1 vegetable Oxo
• 1 beef Oxo
• tablespoon tomato puree (about a third of a 100g tube)
• oil for frying (preferably olive oil)

Using a large saucepan, fry the onion in the oil until soft and semi-transparent. Add the garlic puree (the best brand is Gourmet Garden). Add the tin of tomatoes, then fill the tin with water and add that to the saucepan. Add the oregano, stir, then add the crumbled Oxo cubes. Leave to simmer for 30 mins, then add a tablespoon of tomato puree. Check the taste and add salt and pepper if you need it.

If you’re using it the same day, add the minced beef at the same time as the onion and fry the two together, otherwise, fry the minced beef separately, then add to the sauce and cook for a further 15 minutes.

If you’re using TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein, made from soya beans), just add a handful to the sauce, add a little extra water, then cook for as long as it states on the TVP instructions.

Cook your spaghetti, dish onto plates, then cover the centre with sauce. Grate cheese on top (Cheddar is best) and then pop under the grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese is melted. Perfect!

Here’s the costs:

• Onion: 18p
• Tinned tomatoes: 35p
• Garlic puree: 5p
• Oxo cubes: 11p
• Oregano: 12p
• Tomato puree: 13p
• Olive oil: 26p

All adding up to a grand total of £1 – less than half the cost of Dolmio, a much better taste, more nutritious and a third more sauce – you can serve up to six people with this recipe. There’s less recycling – no glass jar to hang around for up to a fortnight!

The photo is a completed Spaghetti Bolognese I made today, before it was demolished by the hungry hordes. I know I’m no food stylist, this is real food eaten by real people, not marketing hype.

Variations:

• When refilling the tomato can, use half-and-half water and red wine.
• Add chilli powder to taste and use bacon bits instead of minced beef to make the sauce for Pasta Amatriciana.
• For less calories, used minced turkey or chicken.
• Run the sauce through a blender, then add strips of cooked ham, tongue and mushroom to make a sauce for Spaghetti Milanese.

Do you remember when you were a kid and had a piggy-bank? You put your pennies in it and eventually you had enough for that doll or model plane you really wanted.

If you’ve had trouble saving now, and all your money is going on food and bills, you need to get back to that sort of saving. It’s no good saying that you’ll do something when you have a few quid spare – it’ll never happen!

This sort of saving is not going to provide for the future, but it will enable you to buy an occasional treat, extras at Christmas or holiday money.

First of all you need a container. It’s no good going for a child’s piggy bank, they’re just not big enough. I use a large plastic tub with a lid (it had popcorn in it originally) and I cut a slot in the lid, and a big label saying “Slush Fund”.

At the end of each day, each member of the family opens their purse and puts all coins in the bucket. Men, you empty your pockets of all that nasty loose change that makes holes in the fabric. Get the kids to join in and put their coppers in the bucket, unless they have their own slush fund, er…piggy bank. If times are really hard, keep back the pound coins.

That’s all there is to it! It gives you a fund for emergencies, treats and holidays. When you want to raid it, get coin bags from the bank, count it out, bag it up and change it (at your own bank or they’ll charge you). Don’t use one of those coin machines, they take a commission.

Finally, hold this thought in your mind: if the government decides to devalue the currency big time (Zimbabwe-style as opposed to the constant erosion we get now) and make £50 equal to £5 (and prices to match), then it’s only the notes and money in the bank which suddenly becomes a tenth of their face value – coins will effectively increase in buying power ten-fold. That’s because it’s too expensive to recall coins and re-issue – it’s cheaper for the government to allow the coins to retain their former face value. That means your slush fund could increase in value ten-fold overnight.