Use this option to filter all the recipes and posts on Thrifty Lesley to select just the ones you want to see.

For example the Category of Dinners, with the Tag of Vegan and Nuts. This will show you all the posts that are dinners and that are vegan and use nuts. Or use just Category, or just Tag to select all Dinners, or all Vegan or all Nuts

How Supermarkets Get Us To Buy What We Don't Really Need

It is the job of supermarkets to get you to buy as much in their shop, rather then their competitors, as they can manage. It is our job, as customers, to be very clear about what we want, how much we can and can't afford. And perhaps, most importantly, to spend mindfully. It's absolutely fine to fritter and spend your way around town if you've decided that's what you are going to do today. Not so much if you can't afford to and it 'just happens'.

Chocolate Muffins. Quick, easy, great for packups and very cheap

These are beautiful! A soft and springy crumb, with little bits of crispy / chewiness from the cocoa nibs. Keep muffins in the freezer as they stale quickly. Good for popping into a packup, taking on picnics, or for after school. If you're feeling really decadent, give them a few seconds in the microwave to warm through and serve with cream, ice cream or custard.

Chicken liver parfait

Chicken liver parfait that's smooth unctuous and rich. Vary it around the amount of ingredients you have, it's very accommodating

How To Make Beeswax Wraps & A Sandwich Bag for mere pence

How to make reusable beeswax wraps and a sandwich bag, and for just pennies

Weekend Baguette Recipe

Would you like a foolproof baguette recipe? And no kneading either. Crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and with a lovely texture that's chewy and delicious.

Chicken with butternut squash and pesto tart

An easy and adaptable tart using puff pastry. Topped with pesto, butternut squash and chicken. Good cold the next day too as a packed lunch

How to poach a chicken and make it last the family a whole week

Why poach a chicken? Two main reasons. Poaching means that your chicken meat will be beautifully moist, much more so than a roasted one, and with little effort on your behalf. And secondly, much less fuel is used to cook it, and little heat is generated, relevant if you are doing this in a kitchen in the summer.

Free groceries from Marks and Spencer

The goodies I bought with Marks and Spencers vouchers

How to stretch a chicken to last the whole week

How to stretch a chicken to feed the family for the whole week with 7 different budget stretching chicken recipes

Chicken and Chorizo Casserole

A very tasty casserole that doesn't take very long to make. Freezes and reheats beautifully too.

Sweetcorn Soup

Ideal for lunches at home, or in a flask at work, this super easy sweetcorn soup recipe is nutritious, warming, filling and inexpensive.

The final update

A gallery of a final year, well lived

It's nearly Christmas!

Visitors of the canine and penguin variety!

This Weeks Catch Up

Going to see Nutcracker, the Towner and the Hospice

To Black Friday, or Not to Black Friday, that is the question

I can’t tell you how tired I am of hearing the words ‘Black Friday’! To me it says ‘buy something, buy something, buy something ……. Please, buy something, anything, please’. I have had endless emails all saying it’s Black Friday, spend some money with us.

Vegetarian Christmas

If you are on a tight budget, Christmas food can be very difficult, causing stress, and maybe even debt too. No need to get into debt, when with a bit of extra planning, you can enjoy a delicious vegetarian Christmas festive meal, without spending a fortune. If you don’t know where to start, or would like a few vegetarian christmas recipe ideas, have a look at this detailed, 2 person, 7 day Christmas dinner menu for the entire Christmas week.

Where We Are This Week

Where we are this week

A Hard Post To Write

A very difficult post to write

Sicilian Spaghetti Recipe with chicken, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins and almonds

A quick and simple chicken spaghetti recipe using Sicilian flavours, from the series How To Poach A Chicken. This series takes a medium chicken and makes family meals from it for 7 days.

Brown Rice Chicken Salad

This tasty salad is made using brown rice for fibre, that's been cooked in chicken stock, for extra flavour. Quick and easy to make, you don't need to put the oven on when its baking hot and you just want some dinner. Filling from the brown rice and those lovely vegetables, it's less than 400 calories too! Inexpensive too to help those purses and wallets. 

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