Just like to wish....

My hubby and all the other fantastic daddies out there a very Happy Fathers day

Hope you all have a lovely day and get spoilt lots by your babies :) x

Elderflower Cordial

Its that time of year again where the elderflower trees are in full bloom and the smell on a warm day is delightful,.

I do love Elderflower cordial although I have never made my own before, I have always been happy with the odd bottle I purchased from Sainsburys.
 
There are tons of bushes along a local canal path where we walk the dog every night so it would have been rude of me to just walk by and ignore the flowers which were screaming at me to collect them, which I did last Sunday and I'm so glad I did has the shop bought stuff is not a patch on the home made stuff!

Here is the recipe I followed.

30 Elderflower heads
3 pints boiling water
900g Caster sugar
50g citric acid
2 unwaxed oranges (sliced)
2 unwaxed lemons (sliced)

1, Gently rinse the elderflowers to remove any dirt/bugs

2, Pour boiling water over the sugar in a very large mixing bowl, stir well and leave to cool  (I used a large food grade bucket with lid)

3, Add Citric acid, the Orange & Lemon slices, and then the flowers

4, Leave in  a cool place for 24hrs, stirring occasionally

5, Strain through some muslin & transfer to sterilised bottles.

                                             The above recipe made me  two x 1litre bottles.

I am tinkering with the idea of doing Elderflower Gin for Christmas... Will let you know if I decide to or not :) x

Just...

Checking in to say hello... Cannot believe it has been sooooo long since I last posted....Time really does fly!

Not alot has been happening in our house... Apart from Chicken pox for the 2nd time this year, the odd virus and scarlet fever! and that is all since I last blogged.. God knows what the rest of the year has in store for us.
Anyway... 

I  Had a lovely Easter made even better by Jack  winning first prize in the bonnet competition with this beauty! ...

The day prior to the Easter bonnet parade I suddenly remember about the comp and I so knew Jack would have been so upset had he been the only one who's parents had totally forgot and he had no bonnet to enter ! ......So I put my thinking cap on and came up with the creme egg idea!  Cannot believe I came up with such a fantastic idea and to be honest I really do not know how I managed to pull it off! as on the instructions on the Plaster of paris bandage said that it will need 24hrs drying time before painting... The hat had 5hrs if that! Jack of course was over the moon with his creme egg bonnet - even more so when he WON! .. The pressure is on for next year now cos its soooo going to have to be bigger and better!


Oooooh and we have some new additions ...

Yes our very own Honey making bee's ... Hubby collected them on Monday.. All 30.000 of them.
Really looking forward to updating the blog with our progress ... Hopefully will soon have a cupboard full of our very own honey.

Latest buys and revamps.........x

I absolutely adore all the shabby Chic look, I have been meaning to have a go at revamping some old bits of furniture for a while but never spotted any pine furniture that was within my price range (That was until I spotted this beauty for sale on one of the sale sites on Facebook)

For £20 I thought it was a bargain... so off I trotted to collect and nip into homebase on the way for some Farrow & Ball paint and a sander.

Within a few hours it went from that to...

This

Then there was this... I paid £6 for it from the red cross charity shop...

Which turned into this..

Then there was this... an absolute bargain @ £30 I nearly tied my legs in knots rushing out to go pick it up from Dover,,,,

Which after hours & hours of sanding and painting turned into this....Must admit I'm chuffed with the results

                                                   
Whilst in my local homeware store the other day I spotted some Dolly pegs! well I just had to get myself a pack of those...So when I got home out came my paintbrushes and they went from being plain and boring into these....

Sooooo blooming well cute!! cannot wait for the weather to warm up so I can use them :D x

Mushroom soup....

Is what I made for tea tonight,
Its been sooooo cold all day I really needed a nice warm bowl of something to warm me up abit
I did plan to make it yesterday but never had time (Not enough hours in the day at the mo!)
Anyway ...finally got around to making it today & thought I would share the recipe.

Ingredients:

400g Mushrooms
1 Onion
1tbsp Butter/Margarine
pinch dried basil (Optional)
450ml Vegetable stock
450ml Milk
1tbsp Plain flour
Salt & Pepper

 Chop mushrooms and onion thinly

 Melt butter in a heavy based saucepan & add onion, fry for 1-2 mins stirring frequently

Add chopped mushrooms, stir and put lid on to allow them to sweat for 5mins stirring occasionally

Whilst the mushrooms are sweating mix a Veg stock cube with 450ml boiling water

 Stir the flour into the mushrooms and cook for 1min
 

Add the stock, stir and then add the Milk add salt, pepper & Basil, bring to the boil                                

Leave to simmer for 10 mins

 Allow the soup to cool slightly then pour into blender and blitz till smooth.

                                                           
Serve with a warm roll... x

Its been a while.. x

Hellloooo ..

Cannot believe how long it has been since I last posted on here...How time flies!
Not alot has been happening in our Household.. We had a terrible festive period due to us all coming down with the flu 3 days before Xmas day!! Sooo glad I didn't go mad with buying food as it would have been wasted as we just weren't eating Jack has been of school all last week due to Chicken pox!! So not really managed to get a great deal done I was hoping to sort all the loft out (New year and good clean out and all that...) but NO.. Never mind at least his on the mend and should be going back to school next week
Hubby has decided to get in to the world of Bee keeping ... Which means.. Honey on tap!.. Oooh I'm soooo excited! hopefully he should be able to make a few pennies out of it too!
I'm still trying hard to save money as and when I can although with prices rising etc it is very difficult BUT in a funny kind of way I am enjoying it! I love bargain hunting in the reduced aisle of the supermarket every night because I cannot afford full price.. I nipped into Tesco yesterday afternoon and picked up a few bargains  and today was the challenge to see how many meals I could get out of the yellow labelled goodies......Thought I would share a few pictures...

So this along with a few fridge items that needed to be used up was what I had to work with.

Thought I would start on the Tomato's first, chopped in half, added some pepper, garlic & a drizzle of Olive oil, then these were ready to roast.

30min later... Mmmmm the smell was divine!

All blitzed up and made into a pasta sauce ready to be potted up and froze

Then I turned my attention to the chopped pork, Hubby loves stew so thought I would treat him :)

Meat, veg & stock all added now time to switch it on.

                               Celeriac gratin, made with 1 celeriac  a300ml tub of cream &150ml milk

                                            Very naughty but Ooooh sooo nice ;)

            Next was cooked pork I had in the fridge from Wednesday's tea, ideal Mid-week curry

                                 Waiting to go in the oven to be slow cooked and thickened up

                 Next I used half the pack of Beef, some mushroom and beef stock and made the filling for a pie.

                            All ready for its yummy shortcrust blanket to be made and put on.

                                                           Celeriac & Celery soup

I also made a Beef Casserole and a pork, mushroom and cider pie... sorry about no pictures.. Totally forgot!

                                                                             

Taaaaaaaaaaa Darrrrrrrr

Pretty damn chuffed with myself as I managed to make 

1 pork & Mushroom pie

1 Beef and mushroom pie

1pork & Veg stew (2 dinners)

a Celeriac gratin (2 dinners)

1 Pork & Mushroom curry

1 Celeriac & celery soup (1 dinner & 1 lunch)

1 beef casserole

1 tub of tomato pasta sauce

And

 a portion of Mashed swede to go with tomorrows dinner...all for under £4

Still got some Mushrooms left in the fridge so tomorrow I shall be doing a Mushroom soup

So after that mammoth cooking session the meals have all been added to my already fully stocked freezer 

From Tuesday Next week I have set myself a target of £10 to live on for the week this will be used for buying fresh fruit, veg, bread and milk, so I will be relying on my freezer to feed us for the next couple of weeks.

Its soooo cold tonight we have decided to camp out in the living room, it saves putting the heating on to warm the top of the house up.. so going to get my Jim jams on and snuggle up with my darling hubby...  :0) x

                            

Been a while......

Soooo...Thought I would give a quick update on things
Due to illness and other things going on in my life I kinda lost my way but now I'm back!
I went Tesco last night and bought a few bits from the reduced section, along with a few items I had already had in I decided to set myself a challenge!
I wanted to see exactly how many dishes I could make out of the items below..! 

 Got the witches cauldrons from Tesco for 1p .... that is Jacks sweeties took care of for the next few weeks

Dish no1 is...... beefs stew with dumplings, made using one beef steak, carrots, parsnips, swede onion, half a leek, wine and stock... This cost me next to nothing to make & I just got enough out of it for 2 meals for us, so one for tonight and one for the freezer

Pic took just as I put the dumplings in.

Next is a beef and mushroom curry

Again this cost me next to nothing to make & its a quick tea for myself & hubby next week

I bought a pack of 4 value pizzas for £1.45 normally I would make my own but I thought they were a bargain and with abit of jazzing up they would be great for quick meals for Jack.
So I added some Black pepper salami (which was reduced to 45p), mushroom & cheese,

Already to be wrapped and frozen.


Leek, cheese & potato pie.
Again cost next to nothing and ideal for myself & hubby to have with a slice of quiche and salad for tomorrow nights tea

2 x cheese & onion quiches, 1 for the fridge and 1 for the freezer, as you can see by the colour I just got them out of the oven in time!

Then using the rest of the leeks I decided to make a leek & potato soup

Also made 2 x Apple and blackberry crumbles for the freezer

Just waiting for the crumble topping to go on....

Then I blanched half of the Brocolli, Parsnips, swede cabbage and chopped the mushrooms and got them all ready for the freezer.

I also used up some old bread by making a bread pudding.
Just got to blanch some carrot, the rest of the Brocolli for the freezer, will do this tomorrow.


So after spending most of today in the kitchen slaving, I am going to treat myself to a nice hot bath... I really do think I deserve it! x