by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 18, 2013 | My Diary, Saving Money
A couple of small things today. First of all, we were working in Northfleet again today. There is a big Morrisons there and I popped in as I know they have big bags of lentils. So I got a huge 5kg bag of red lentils at 10p per 100g, which is half the cost I usually...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 16, 2013 | All Meal Plans, All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 3
I tried this experiment yesterday to see what it would be like, and if it would work for our budget. I thought of it because when I was a child, 10 or 11 maybe, we had our usual gargantuan Sunday lunch – piles of roasties, mountains of Yorkshires, millions of...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 13, 2013 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 3
Oh my goodness, this was SO good. Soft roasted vegetables, spicy paprika chorizo, smooth tomato sauce, crispy thin pizza base. Yum YUM This mixture made two 32cm pizzas, you could make both and have one the next day, or freeze one, ready made up to pop in the oven. 1...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 12, 2013 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 3
This is the second thing today, one of the chorizo stick thingies with chickpeas and tomato in a flatbread. It was gorgeous. Serves 2 2 flatbread, 4p 1 stick chorizo, Sainsbury, £1.29/4, 32p tin of chickpeas or equivalent of dried ones, soaked and cooked, Asda, a tin...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 12, 2013 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 11, Meal Plan 7, Sides
Two things today. Firstly, I did some wraps using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s recipe from River Cottage, Veg Every Day. Hugh’s recipe uses what he calls the Magic Bread Dough. Magic because you can use the same recipe to make Pizza, Flatbread, Pitta, Breadsticks and...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 10, 2013 | All Recipes, Other
This is something I tried yesterday. I had been playimg about in the kitchen, as I do, and I had the remains of a lemon that I had squeezed out. On impulse, with my hand on the way to the compost bucket, I paused and dropped it into the glass of water I had been...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 7, 2013 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches, Meal Plan 2
A pair of pancakes stuffed with sauted vegetables and bound together with creamy soft cheese – delicious. This filling is onion, carrots and peas in soft cheese, but is very variable. Depends what you have, you can use up lots of things. How to make these...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 6, 2013 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 2
Dinner this evening were these delicious little olive drop scones, accompanied by crispy fried onions and a carrot and raisin salad, that has a few raisins sprinkled in and spritzed with lemon juice. I created this recipe using what is available in Meal Plan 2 and...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 5, 2013 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 10, Meal Plan 2
A super simple filled pitta bread, filled with a mixture of grated carrot, lemon zest and juice and soft cheese. It is very tasty and would work without the lemon if you don’t have any, but it really does make a big difference to the flavour, especially the zest. What...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 27, 2013 | My Diary
I have been gritting my teeth over the last few days as Jamie Oliver’s new programme and book are launched. I like JO (even though his presentational style can be somewhat irritating) and have most of his books, his recipes work well and he shows people how to...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 26, 2013 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes
Well, the plum jam is LOVELY, although a tad sweet, so next batch, I’ll try using less sugar. If you have plums to use, this might be of interest. Some people can forage plums, but I’ve never been lucky enough to see a tree to forage from. For the five jars I made,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 24, 2013 | My Diary
I’ve been pottering this afternoon. Supposed to be doing a project outside but its been rain, rain and more rain today. So I decided to have a go at the mi-cuit plums. As I was Googling about them, to try and find out how you know they are ‘done’, I found more and...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 23, 2013 | My Diary
Another huge basket of plums today. This is the basket AFTER I gave my neighbour a big bag full of them. The trees that are cropping right now are called Opal. They are supposed to crop at the end of July/beg of Aug, but everything is 4-6 weeks late this year. This is...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 22, 2013 | All Recipes, Dinners
This was supper last night. Haven’t had stir fry for a while, and saw some bean sprouts in Sainsbury’s, so that’s what we had. If you like stir fries and have them fairly often, it is really worth getting a little bottle of sesame oil. You may even have some already....