Frugal Friday...

Living frugally can be about far more than just money. Being frugal with your belongings for example - treating them carefully, with respect, and doing repairs when needed to prolong their lives. Being frugal with your time too - making good use of it in order to 'get stuff done' without it eating into what for many people is increasingly hard-won leisure time.

Last Saturday morning we had to have a windscreen repair done on MrEH's car. Frugal in itself as his insurance picks up the bill. Even more frugal for me as we negotiated a deal where I waited in for the windscreen man while MrEH went to rugby training - my payment for this selfless act :-) was that my Sunday morning swim was paid for. Bargain!

Having got a few small tidying, washing up, dishwasher-emptying type jobs done, I turned my attention to the kitchen. My weekly pre-shopping fridge check yesterday had yielded some courgettes that needed using, as well as some spankingly fresh ones donated by a good friend with a productive allotment. There was also lots of red peppers sitting there - while I wanted some for salads in the week, I knew I wouldn't use them all. The obvious answer was ratatouille - so when I shopped I had bought an extra couple of onions with this in mind.

Ratatouille is one of the most versatile vegetable dishes imaginable. It can be used as a side dish, ladled onto pizza as a chunky veg based topping, have mince added to be turned into "bolognese-ish sauce" and used in many other ways besides. It also freezes superbly, meaning it can be handy for those nights when you suddenly realise that veggies to accompany tea are limited to the last of a bag of frozen peas from the back of the freezer! My simplified versions runs thus:

Peel some onions, and cut into rough chunks. Pop into a large pan with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of decent salt, and cook until they have started to soften.

While that's going on, chop some peppers and some courgettes into rough chunks also. The amounts matter not a jot - although you may find it tastes more balanced with roughly double the quantity of each of the peppers and courgettes to onions.

Once the onions are softening, throw in the other veg. Cook the lot, stirring often, until everything has started to soften and the onions have begun to turn translucent, then add one tin of chopped tomatoes and a carton of passata.

(You're aiming for the liquid to just come to the top of the veg - it doesn't want to be drowning in it). The can of tomatoes help to add a little texture. Grind in plenty of black pepper, and add some fresh thyme, savoury or even parsley, and a pinch of sugar, and cook until it's all heated through.

Ladle out into plastic tubs and freeze. Ta da!

Robyn.

Experimenting...

We'll be at the Great British Beer Festival next week, which means another week with no blog posts other than (probably) a Frugal Friday one on....ummm....Friday. In theory I can post blog posts from my iPhone, via the BlogPress App, but in practise I've found before with this is that the software which compresses the photos down to "blog size" is somewhat brutal, and can lead to the pictures ending up looking a bit grotty. Not really want I want.
This started me thinking, though - what if I embed a photo.....like this one.....




...in BlogPress, and then go into the actual Blogger website to post it up. Does it do the same thing?

**edit** It works! Certainly far better than letting BlogPress deal with it, so that might mean you stand a chance of getting a "mid Beer festival" update. Or not. If you want to know what we're up to, then follow @BensBarGBBF on Twitter or look out for the #GGBF2013 hashtag being used.

A plea to speedway fans everywhere...

Speedway fans have received a timely reminder in the last 24 hours of the sheer danger of the sport we love. Of course we all know, deep down, that it's got it's dangers - 500cc bikes, with no brakes and only one gear, add into the mix riders sometimes taking one risk too many, and every now and again things can - and do - go wrong. It's inevitable. It doesn't stop us having a go at an underperforming rider - and nor should it, sometimes that "hard time" can be what's required to make a rider change his mindset and prove the doubters wrong. It should also be remembered that these guys are being paid to take these risks, and know what they are getting into. Sometimes that "having a go at" turns into something nastier though - I've heard a fan in the past stating that she wished a particular rider would "break his neck" on the basis that he'd had a hard - she perceived dirty - race with a favourite rider of hers. Sadly she almost got her wish - that rider she was essentially wishing dead was Lee Richardson - I blogged about him last year, shortly after he lost his life following a high-speed crash in Poland. Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes. She will have that one on her conscience for the rest of her days, I'm guessing. I wonder if she now wishes that she had set aside her grudge as fast as the favourite rider who was on the receiving end of the hard tactics from Rico almost certainly did.

Lee Richardson

Last night, at Scunthorpe, Berwick rider Ricky Ashworth was involved in a crash, a serious one. It lead to the abandonment of the meeting as both sets of paramedics in attendance at the track felt that his condition was serious enough that they should accompany him to hospital. This really doesn't happen all that often, and as a long term fan of the sport you know when you hear that sort of thing how serious the situation is likely to be. Within minutes there were comments all over Twitter using the hashtag "#PrayForRicky" - and within an hour or so a degree of speculation was creeping in too. Riders were tweeting too - although their comments were mostly on the lines of "hearing Ricky Ashworth's had a bad one, wishing him well" - carefully worded - if they were in that position they know what sort of thing they'd rather their friends and family read, I guess. By approximately 2 hours after Ashworth's crash, the usual "I'm hearing rumours that..." Type stuff had surfaced. Now it should be noted that there was no official statement until this morning, and that so far as I have seen, nothing was said by the family until his sister tweeted from Ashworth's own Twitter account - also this morning. Initially it sounds as though his sister was struggling to get information herself - she clearly wasn't at the track and it seems to be a distinct possibility that they may have initially heard about the crash and the aftermath via social media rather than via the correct channels.

Ricky Ashworth

We were victims of something similar ourselves a few years ago albeit in a far more minor level - a rider who we had known and been friendly with for several years had a serious crash abroad - the first we knew was when the news was "broken" on FaceBook - and what followed was a horrific few hours of trying to get information and find out just how bad it was. Just how unimaginably awful it must be if that person you're reading about is your son, brother, husband, can't even be comprehended.

Kim Jansson

Please speedway fans - remember. When it comes to an injured rider - if what you're about to tweet, FB or write on a forum starts with "I've heard a rumour that..." Then you REALLY shouldn't be posting it. Put yourself into the families shoes, and post a supportive message instead.

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

We're back to trying to keep our grocery spend down and rebuilding the credit in our Clubcard Plus account after our holiday. We're also trying to use up the accumulation of foodstuffs in our storecupboard, freezer and larder - which of course will help with the "keeping the spends down" thing too!

Before I went shopping for this week I thought about what we had available already, and also what we wanted to eat this week. With the hot weather we've been having we tend to eat a fair amount of salad - MrEH is a proper bloke though and doesn't consider a salad to be a meal if it's just leaves and similar so I have to box clever and tart it up a bit - a warm salad with some form of cheese, some bacon and some boiled new potatoes is a particular favourite. Chorizo is great for this sort of salad - you only need the tiniest bit to add masses of flavour and croutons of stale bread fried off in the fat that comes out of the chorizo are a fabulous addition too.

You often hear people complaining that it's too expensive to eat lots of fresh fruit and veg - that they "can't afford" to eat that sort of food. Really? Our shopping last week - having checked on what we needed before I went, and made a list - cost £10.53. This included milk for both of us (MrEH will go through his 4pint container in the week, while mine will last at least a fortnight), a lump of "feta style" cheese which serves as the "main ingredient" in 2 evening meal salads for both of us, lots of salad leaves and lettuce, a huge bag of red & yellow peppers, spring onions, plus bananas, apples and nectarines for after our lunches. There was also a punnet of mushrooms (reduced to 59p) and some onions in there too. We already had potatoes in the larder - when we were in Norfolk a couple of weeks ago we bought a dozen eggs and 5kg of potatoes from the campsite we stay on, they farm free range hens, and are the only remaining grower of the Norfolk Pink Potato and we paid just over £5 for what we bought.

The trick to eating fresh food economically is largely seasonality, and buying what is on offer also helps. We try so far as possible to buy British too - so sometimes pay a little more for things as a result, but that's our choice. Salads at the moment aren't including cucumber, as at this time of year it's perfectly possible to grow cucumbers in the UK, but our "regular" supermarket (yes, that one) are choosing to stock Dutch ones instead. You might remember that tomatoes are a bugbear of mine on this issue - we have an absolutely brilliant climate for them, and yet half the time all that's available in the supermarkets is those nasty little Dutch objects that looks like tomatoes but totally fail to either smell or more importantly taste like them. Search a bit though, and there are usually some British ones to be had. The same with Mushrooms - Sainsburys are excellent at sourcing UK grown for even their budget range, but only very recently have Tesco caught up with this. (Morrisons were ahead of this particular game years ago). The salad produce was mainly on "buy 2 for £1" deals, aples were bought loose rather than pre-packaged (nearly always cheaper), as were the bananas. Watch out for the bags of "Value" bananas - half the time you end up with more than you need, they're already very ripe, shortening their life, and the per kg price is often higher than loose ones too!

British budget mushrooms!

If you're struggling to afford fresh stuff, then choose frozen instead - most produce is now frozen so fast after being picked that it loses almost none of the nutrients. Tinned is - in my opinion - an absolute last resort - anyone telling you that it's "just as good" is I'm afraid to a degree at least hiding their head in the sand - at the very least produce for canning may have lost its vitamin C, and all to often most of its flavour as well. More often than not the water is is canned in also contains sugar & salt. If you're in any doubt, get someone to set up a blind taste test between fresh, frozen and tinned peas - I PROMISE you that you will have NO difficulty at all picking out the tinned ones! Whether they are cheaper at all is actually questionable too - the cheapest I can find is 20p a tin - and this gives a weight of 300g - but I guess that will be the undrained weight...I can't find the drained weight stated anywhere. A 1kg bag of frozen peas can be had for 99p, and I reckon you should get 12 portions from that. Realistically that tin of peas will only do 2 portions. Doing the maths suggests that actually, buying that bag of frozen peas will save you money! *(in the case of peas, nutritionists agree that frozen are actually better than fresh, unless those fresh peas have come from your very own veg patch, or have been picked less than 24 hours before cooking!)

Frugal Friday...

"So, what do you want for your birthday" my Mum and MrEH both asked a few weeks ago. Now I guess you know that the whole simple/frugal living thing is working when you struggle to think of a single tiny thing that you actually want?! Thankfully my family are pretty good about buying things that people need and will use, as presents - in the past our christmas & birthday lists have contained such everyday things as shampoo, makeup, footwear and even foodstuffs (vanilla extract proves particularly popular!) all of which are useful and far more worthwhile uses of money than something completely random that will never see the light of day after the person receiving it has thanked you politely.

There's been a big move in recent years towards the "charity gifts" market - fresh water for a family, seeds and agricultural tools, even livestock - all of these are wonderful BUT only work if they are from a charity that the person you're buying for actually supports - people have very strong ideas about charities and I know a good number of people whose choice is to exclusively support UK organisations. I'm venturing no opinion whether they are wrong or right, but I do know that it's their decision and the rest of us have no right to judge them on it. We've tried to move more towards thinking about the useful aspect of presents - I put together a box for MrEH with all manner of toiletries he uses in it - everything from razorblades and shaving oil to talcum powder and deodorant. Not only does this save him the hassle of having to buy those items himself, it frees up some of his disposable cash too through the year. He usually buys me camera memory cards which I go through at a fair rate, and things like makeup in brands that I love, but couldn't justify buying for myself. It's a win-win situation - you know you're buying something for the person that will be genuinely appreciated.

I decided to stick with the "things I need" approach to answer the question I was asked - the case that my clarinet came in when I bought it was in poor condition when I got it - a lot of the interior padding had deteriorated, and one of the catches had also failed, meaning that on a couple of occasion bits have started falling out as I picked it up. Likewise, my 8 year old and heavily used camera bag was starting to show serious signs of wear and tear, not helped by some "robust handling" from British Airways when we flew back from Orkney earlier in the year. Both of these things would have been purchases I would have struggled to afford or to justify for myself, but I was delighted to receive. My cherished Clarinet is now housed in a rather glam bright purple case, and my camera gear will shortly be transferring over to a new bag in fashionable black. The old camera bag will be heading MrEH's way - it's still got some life in it, and the zip pull on his existing one failed a few months ago making it difficult to open. His will head to the charity shop - although it no longer works for us, it may well help someone else out.

It's amazing how fast the thing of buying "useful" presents spreads - and remember, the most "everyday" stuff that's bought for you by others, the more of your own money you have free'd up for tea & cake!

Robyn

On the move again...

We saw this little chap on our final full day in the Hebrides this year - he's a juvenile Stonechat, cute eh? We always try to do something where we can just drink in the landscape around us on that final day, and it usually involves some sort of walk, and if possible a beach as well. All the things we love best about the fantastic Western Isles, crammed into a few short hours (before we head to the pub, naturally!) It's always a wrench as the holiday draws to a close, but oddly enough it's got less so as the years have gone on - we know now that we'll be returning - in fact next year's accommodation is already booked and a deposit paid!

We;re going to be having another "relocation" as by the time we came to book The Moorings (all of a few weeks after we got back this year!) someone else had already booked one of our chosen weeks. *sigh* So back to the drawing board of trying to find somewhere in an area we wanted to stay in, at a price we could afford. Most places with any amount of character are way above our price range, and a lot of the places that are within our budget aren't necessarily places we want to stay - we were set on being on North Uist for example - had we wanted to swap to one of the other islands our options would have increased significantly.  After a bit (well, ok, quite a LOT) of trawling through endless websites, and quite a few email enquiries, we found a lovely looking renovated traditional croft-house over on the west coast. It's only about three miles from the pub, which HAS to be an advantage, and is in an area we really love. (No, not ONLY because it's near the pub - tsk!). One of its major plus points is that it's walking distance from some stunning beaches - can't argue with that!

Robyn

Life...

...is still a bit up in the air round here. Dad's now had his bypass - just today in fact - and it seems that everything has gone well. He'll be in Intensive Care overnight, and they will be moving him to the high dependency unit tomorrow. I'll visit for a short while after work tomorrow - MrEH is coming along as well bless him as I'm somewhat nervous (for which, read "absolutely bloody terrified") of seeing my lovely Dad like that.

Tonight is the first night in nearly three weeks that we have come home from work - as normal - cooked dinner - as normal - eaten at a normal time, and just settled down for a quiet evening, and very welcome it is too. We're expecting that Dad will be in hospital for around another week - he's in the Regional Cardothoracic Centre now which is 25 miles away so quite a journey.

In other news we dashed up to Sheringham for the weekend to go to the North Norfolk Railway beer festival - camping on our usual favourite site with a couple of good friends. It's always a good few days - usually in spite of the weather (and this year was no exception!) and this year was further enhanced by meeting up with a few other pals unexpectedly too. We're hoping to sneak off again this weekend too - Suffolk this time to celebrate my birthday - I do like a nice birthday treat! (And Fish & Chips at Aldeburgh ticks that box nicely!) Will just be Friday evening through to Sunday - we'll be aiming to be back in time to see Dad on Sunday.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon - and I'll try to get back to slightly more regular blogging!

Robyn