I'm not here anymore....

Thanks to Metro.co.uk for featuring my story I really appreciate the attention being brought to the blog. I see a lot of you are being directed here when my website is infact  www.hardupandhappy.co.uk where if you subscribe there you will be kept up to date with the latest recipes, tips and more! Also I've got a channel on youtube if you want to subscribe. I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! Please don't miss out as I will be closing the blogspot soon. Thanks for reading. P.S Here's my latest vlog just for you.

Autumn

When the wind makes the leaves dance

As they fall their last chance to shine

Flying, floating, swirling past the branches descending

Their last journey seemingly never-ending

On the way down a graceful flutter

Heading slowly for the ground

A reminder letting go is beautiful and not sorrowful

The tree doesn’t weep for the leaves it has shed

Instead it stands bare for a while, respectful and ready

For the time will come to grow again.

Amy Kelly

Ghoulish Games and Frightening Fancy Dress

I hope you have enjoyed my Halloween installments and you are all planning on throwing a party this year. As promised, here is my last post about dressing up and playing games at your party without spending a great deal of money. You really don't need to spend loads on fancy props and outfits to look the part  at your spooky get together. Now is the time to make use of clothes that don't fit anymore, have holes in or even old fancy dress outfits that can be made spooky. Neve, my daughter, had a part in the play at school as a clown and I had to buy an outfit for her to wear- once. Being thrifty this really bugged me-until Halloween of course! The clown outfit came in handy again and she became a scary clown. I know it's not the best of examples, considering the stupid craze surrounding clowns at the moment, but almost any non-Halloween related fancy dress costume can come in handy. I have used old dressing up outfits to cut up and make new ones from. With a bit of imagination and effort you will look better than a shop bought outfit. 

My eldest daughter Olivia is 15 now and she still loves to get dressed up. We used an old onesie to make her into a doll. With back-combed pig-tails, a teddy bear and a great tutorial on Youtube we made her up quite creepy. Again don't spend silly amounts of money on face paint and accessories, the pound shops sell kits, or even talc, red lipstick and an eyeliner would do the trick.

The best thing is, we all get involved and create a buzz of excitement for the kids and that costs nothing to do. 

I'm the biggest kid at heart and love making it special for the children. We play lots of spooky games together too. I do invest in the cheapest toilet roll I can find so we can play 'Make a Mummy' where the children grab an adult and a toilet roll, the first one to completely cover their 'Mummy' in toilet roll wins.

 My niece Lexi having loads of fun.

My mummified husband. The main thing is everyone has loads of fun and everyone must join in. The next game we play is 'Pin the Heart on the Skeleton'. As the name suggests you cut out a paper heart and try to pin it to the correct place on a skeleton- we bought this from the pound shop- whilst blindfolded. Closest wins, you could use different organs for different children, if you wanted to test the older ones knowledge a bit, pin the kidney or liver?

Another thing we do is take any old party game and rename it. Musical bumps becomes musical zombies, pass the parcel could be pass the brain- whoever it stops on 'dies' (is out) or musical statues is musical mummies where you stand with your arms out instead of 'freezing'. 

None of these cost anything so there is no reason you can't have fun, so get the house decorated, plan your food and have fun

                            

Feed your family for 50p

What if I told you, you could feed a family of 6 this hearty meal for just 50p per person? It's true, last night we had sausage and pepper casserole, with herby dumplings and carrot and swede mash. It was filling, delicious and best of all cost £3 for the ingredients! I'm trying to get my weekly shopping as low as I can, but still cook home-made, nutritious, meals. In this week's shop that was just over £42 -for everything not just food- I bought the ingredients for the casserole, that was to feed 6 of us. It was delicious, made from scratch and everybody was left full and satisfied.

Pack of 8 sausages each sausage chopped into chunks of 3- 85p 

Red pepper sliced - 25p  (Part of a 3 pack)

Half a box of mushrooms chopped - 43p

500ml Carton passata - 35p

2 Large red onions - 13p 

300ml Beef stock - (2 cubes and water) 6p 

(optional for flavour - 200 ml Red wine - 78p )

For the dumplings:

300g Self-raising flour - 9p

100ml water

herbs -6p

Full swede cubed - 45p

Bag of carrots chopped - 29p

Place all casserole ingredients in a large pan on a high heat and cook for 15 minutes

Add a tbsp flour and stir in stock, passata and red wine if you are using. Simmer for 10 minutes and transfer to an oven proof casserole dish and put into a pre-heated oven at 200 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Place the carrots and swede into a pan of boiling water and cook until soft and mashable, roughly half an hour to an hour.

For the dumplings, mix the herbs in with the flour, add the water gradually and stir with your fingers

until everything comes together in a big ball.

Half the mixture then again and again and roll into balls. After the Casserole has had 45 minutes- an hour, pop the balls onto the liquid and cook for a further 30 minutes. Mash the carrot and swede with a knob of butter and freshly ground pepper and serve.

Zombie Brains

I tend to cook a chilli for Halloween, so everyone has something decent to eat before all the junk. I dress it up as 'Zombie Brains' giving it a spooky name helps with getting them to eat it. You can  put almost anything you want in this. If you have anything spare- I had a corn cob left over from our veggie burgers, I sliced the corn off and threw that in, or substitute the kidney beans for baked beans, you could even use a different coloured pepper if you don't have a red one. If you want to make it go further serve with rice, chips or jacket potatoes. 

500g minced beef

Red pepper diced

Onion sliced

Tin chopped tomatoes

Tin kidney beans

Tsp cumin

Tsp chilli powder

Tsp paprika

Tsp garlic powder

300ml beef stock (oxo and water)

Fry the mince in a pan on high and when cooked drain off the fat

In another pan with some oil add the pepper and onion and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes with the cumin, chilli and paprika

When the onion and pepper are soft add the drained mince, tin of tomato, beef stock and give a good stir

Add kidney beans and leave to simmer for at least 20 minutes and serve.

2 pies 1 Post. R.O.G.O.F Read One Get One Free.

After my successful shop last week at Aldi, I was very busy in the kitchen. We managed to spend £39 to feed three adults, a teenager and two children for a full week. It takes a bit of time and effort to save money on your food bill, which can be seen as a negative thing that would put people off. What if I told you that it would create more family time and give you a sense of accomplishment, on top of saving you pounds? We make meal planning a family get together, where we all decide and argue about the following week's meals. It's great, there are usually strops and tears, but we manage to devise a plan and we wouldn't be us if we didn't bicker our way through everything. Involving the children in the process of menu planning and cooking, is giving them valuable life skills that they will use forever, I would say there is nothing more beneficial you could teach them. After we plan the week's meals, I can make a list of the ingredients needed, then shop for them, you MUST stick to your list, do not get tempted to buy things other than what's on there, another reason for the bickering as hubby tends to wander off the beaten track, I just remind him how much money we're saving and he soon comes back. Shopping this way will save you loads of money and the more meals you cook from scratch,  will give you a massive sense of achievement. Get the children involved at every opportunity, even if it's them passing you the ingredients, they love to help and it also encourages them to try new things and eat their meals. We have had two very different pies in the last two weeks that I wanted to share with you.

Firstly my Chicken, Bacon and Sweetcorn Pie:

3 or 4 chicken breasts

4 rashers cheapest smoked back bacon

100g frozen sweetcorn

Pack puff pastry

2 tsp dried thyme

100ml cream

Tbsp plain flour

1 pint chicken stock

In a frying pan on medium-high cook the chicken and bacon adding the thyme

Stir in the flour and gradually add the chicken stock a bit at a time until all the flour is dissolved

Add the sweetcorn and let it bubble for 5 minutes

Finally stir in the cream and transfer to an oven proof pie dish

Top with the puff pastry and cook at 180 for 35 minutes

The next 'pie' is so simple, you could let an older child make it with very little help.

Cowboy Pie:

3 tins of baked beans

2 tins of corned beef

5-6 potatoes

Milk and butter (for mashing)

Grated cheese (for topping)

Roughly chop the corned beef into chunks and put in a deep oven proof dish

Add the beans

Peel, chop and boil the potatoes for 25 minutes until soft

Mash with a splash of milk and a nob of butter until smooth

Spoon onto the beans and corned beef filling

Lightly scrape a fork over the surface and add some cheese

Bake at 180 for 30 minutes

Why should we donate to the food banks?

I find it really sad that we live in an age, that makes the Jetson's (remember them?) almost seem a reality. With hi-tech gadgets coming out of our ears and the ability to produce enough food to feed a galaxy, yet we have millions of people starving. I'm not even talking about the poor Ethiopian's, who with all the millions of pounds of aid that have been raised over the years, really should be sorted now don't you think? Is there just me finds that odd, since I was at school, in fact for as long as I can remember, we have been fund-raising to help 'feed the world', yet all that seems to have happened is more people are going hungry?

Talking of school, remember the Harvest festivals? The morning your mum would be frantically searching through the fridge, for any vegetables you hadn't used, that didn't resemble an old shoe. Pulling the emergency rations tins for the zombie apocalypse out of the back of the cupboard.

You would get to school and the hall would have magically transformed into some kind of Willy Wonka land-if Willy Wonka did vegetables. There was always a fancy bread loaf, that looked like someone had sculpted it into wheat. Amazing colours everywhere, fresh fruit and vegetables harvested from the land and not tipped out of a tin. I digress, it makes me sad to hear, that instead of us helping the dear elderly folk that live local to us, with all this fresh fruit and veg, we are now being asked to take tinned and dried goods for the food banks. We are now helping people just like us. Not elderly people that could use a boost, but people like you and me with families. How is this happening? How are people not affording to feed their families, when I have just done a weekly shop for £39 for 6 of us?

Are people really that skint? Are they uneducated in how to budget or cook? I really would love to know the answer and I am going to make it my mission to find out. By the way our first tea time recipe was good old bangers and mash. Easy, cheap and filling. 

Peel and chop potatoes into equal sized chunks boil for 20-25 minutes until soft

While they are boiling grill your sausages until they are cooked-I like mine overdone

With some scissors snip the outer leaves of a savoy cabbage very finely and the same with 4 spring onions

5 minutes before the potatoes are ready place peas in a steamer basket above the potatoes to save electric

In a frying pan with a generous nob of butter or oil and lots of pepper fry the cabbage and spring onion

Drain the potatoes when soft and add a splash of milk and  nob of butter to the pan and mash

Stir in the cabbage and spring onion mix and serve topped with sausages, gravy and peas.

Just How Many Kids Has She Got Now?...

There seems to be a growing trend at the moment with 'mummy and daddy' bloggers and I suppose I'm included in that title. I think it's great that mum's and dad's everywhere have a chance to vent to the world how hard, rewarding and bloody frustrating it is at times to be a parent. Most of all, l I think it's great that there is so much 'real' advice out there now for parents. When I had Olivia, a.k.a 'The Teenager', there was no 'Unmumsy mum' to tell me it was normal to feel shit, when I had just done the most amazing thing in the world, by pushing a human out of my vagina- when phrased this way is there any wonder you feel shit? No Man vs Baby to make me laugh, with the truthful but oh so funny accounts of parenthood. In fact the closest thing to a 'blogger' was good old Emma- she still writes that diary you know, she must have had hundreds of children by now! For those of you that don't know, Emma's Diary was written for mums-to-be and would be given to them by the midwife. It has of course, progressed into a great website, full of useful information and has been on the go for many years. That said, nothing quite beats hearing advice from the horses mouth, the real, normal, average Joe. There are blogs that relate to all types of parents, single, working, hard up- shameless plug- and I think it's great that parents everywhere have all this real information readily available. I suppose the question is do you use it? Have you felt anything other than sheer joy when you gave birth? Have you felt so guilty because you've missed their school play because of work? Have you been so skint you didn't know how your money was going to make it to the end of the day let alone the week? Has it helped any of these problems, knowing you weren't alone in feeling this way? I would love to hear your views on how bloggers have helped you- and no it doesn't have to be mine.

The Hungry Holidays

There are mixed feelings all round now the children have gone back to school. The parents that are struggling to let go of their first born now they are at big school- it gets easier trust me. Then there are the parents relieved, they no longer have to feed their children constantly throughout the day- since when did one school lunch need replacing with a second breakfast, brunch, lunch AND an afternoon snack? Seriously though, I do know many parents struggle during the holidays with the extra cost of feeding their children, but it really doesn't have to cost a fortune. I set this blog up for that very reason as I myself have been there. With a bag of porridge costing as little as 39p for 500g, there is no reason a child shouldn't have a nice filling breakfast. Also there are plenty of recipes on my blog that don't cost a lot to make. As much as I might not agree with the factory farming of chickens, I can't deny that it won't be a godsend to many families that you can pick a chicken up for under £3, giving you the means to make not just one, but quite a few meals for your family. I sincerely hope since starting this blog I have managed to help a few people.

I genuinely appreciate the positive feedback and comments, that I have helped you decide what's for tea, or learn how to cook some nice treats, but to help those that really are struggling to make their money go further is my main goal. This is why I am delighted that in the 10 months since the blog was just an idea of mine, I can proudly say it is taking off. My aim was to reach as many families as possible and with the help of various platforms, giving me the chance to spread the How to Be Hard up and Happy word that has become reality. I'm even more excited to announce a big talk with the Festival of Thrift organiser Stella Hall on Saturday 17th September 2016 in Redcar. I would love to meet as many of you as possible so I will also be available on the People's Encyclopedia to share my secrets. So come along and make the most of a free day out. I will be the one looking harassed, surrounded by children, some mine, some not, most probably bickering...It's what we do. Please come say hi we don't bite-except Chase- well I did name him after a cartoon dog....

Slow Cooked Ox-Tail Stew

I'm always on the look out for reduced or cheap items to make recipes for my blog. I have to say that, although these items were reduced, I certainly would not describe them as cheap. I have always wanted to use ox-tails to cook with, but having seen the price of them I've never bothered, I found some reduced in Sainsbury's and decided to give them a go. The finished dish was delicious served up with fresh green broccoli and new potatoes. The stew was everything I knew it would be, rich, thick and very tasty. All this aside would I buy it again? Probably not as the amount of cooking this cut needed meant not only was the meat expensive but the cooking of it was costly too. Having said that, if you fancy a treat and can afford it I would recommend giving it a whirl.

 Ox-tail 1kg

6 carrots chopped

3 red onions chopped

Small bottle red wine

Dried thyme tsp

Splash of Worcester sauce 

2 Heaped tbsp flour

Salt and Pepper

Small carton of passata

300ml beef stock

Tbsp oil

Add salt and pepper to the flour and coat the ox-tails in it.

In a very hot pan with some oil brown each side of the ox-tails.

After they are all browned place them in a large casserole dish and keep to one side.

 In the same frying pan on a medium heat with the fat from the ox-tails add the chopped carrots and onions and thyme and fry until soft, about 15-25 minutes.

Add the full bottle of red wine and a splash of Worcester sauce to the pan and stir.

Transfer to the casserole dish with the ox-tails add the beef stock passata and give it all another stir before putting into the oven at 180 for 2 and a half hours.

After 2 and a half hours give it all another stir turn the ox-tails over and return for a further 1-2 hours until the meat falls away from the bone.

It's quite normal to see an oily surface you can either skim it off now or leave it in the fridge over night to cool and scrape off the next day.

Shred the meat off the bones and make sure that all the bones are removed (No matter how much they have annoyed you this summer you really don't want to choke your family!)

When you have removed all the bones and added the shredded meat back to the dish, you can either keep it up to four days in the fridge until cooking again, or serve up with vegetables and potatoes immediately. 

Life Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

Are you sick of reading horrible stories in the news? Have you had enough of hearing about negative things that happen? Fed up with seeing nasty images or videos on-line? If the answer is yes, then maybe you need some rose-tinted glasses. My dad always jokes to me that I wear them all the time. I can help you get yours! Okay, I understand it’s easy sitting here in the sunshine with the birds tweeting to see things from a happier perspective, but that’s not always the case. In present times where we are having such doom and gloom rained down on us by the media how can we avoid it? There’s a well-known saying I love and it’s that a ship can’t sink unless it lets the water in. We have to let the negativity in before it can affect us. I’m not saying turn your back on things you wish to change because they are negative, because helping the cause that concerns you will help you feel accomplished and therefore make you happier. I find having a good clear out on social media sites helps, we all have those friends who moan about their lives when in reality their biggest problem is what to do for tea. Cutting out toxic people is a big step forward, people that make you unhappy or hold you back in any way are best out of your life. Refrain from commenting or reacting to horrible videos on-line, as all this does is pass it on like a disease, spreading around the internet for everyone else to see. Life’s much better when you focus on the positives, and believe you me I’ve had a lot of negativity to block out, however I have managed to focus on the good and life is rosy.

Simply Corned-beef Hash

This a versatile dish you can use at just about any mealtime. Serve with beans for a hearty brunch, on it's own as a filling lunch or topped with an oozy, poached egg for supper. It is definitely a dish to help you out if the purse has decided to go on a diet! My dad argues with me that this is not true corned beef hash as it isn't mashed potato and corned beef mixed together, I get the feeling it's like the 'panhag' and everyone has their own take on it. This is mine. 

Tin of corned beef roughly chopped

2 large potatoes cubed

200g black pudding chopped

Large onion sliced

Splash of Worcester sauce 

In a frying pan on a medium heat with some oil fry the onions.

In another pan boil the cubed potato pieces for roughly 5 minutes or until soft.

Put the black pudding and corned beef into the pan with the onion and fry off while the potato cooks add a dash of Worcester sauce.

Drain the potatoes add to the frying pan and cook while your beans heat up or you poach an egg.

Serve and enjoy.

Pasta Cheat

During the hellish ordeal that is weekend shopping, I came up with my next dish. As I sat in Frankie and Benny's watching the rush of people enter, eat and leave the restaurant, I wondered how many of us actually wanted to be there. Who was there by choice, or because it's the weekend thing to do or actually felt they just had to be there. I don't mean just eating out, but shopping. I really hate it, pushing through crowds of people all racing around trying to complete their missions. Sitting in queues of traffic getting angrier and angrier waiting to get to our destination as quickly as we can so we can get home again. I still can't get my head around the fact that people do this for pleasure. Give me the woods or the beach and I'm in heaven. That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, we had a lovely family day out and it's all about compromise and doing things that everybody enjoys. Watching my youngest two children's faces light up because they are getting treated to a dessert and a balloon, they really are that easily pleased, is a lovely thing even if it isn't my cup of tea. Considering I got my inspiration for this next dish while I was there it wasn't all bad. So here's my recipe for bacon and mushroom tagliatelle. Combat the 'carb coma' by serving with a large fresh salad instead of garlic bread like I did!

Bacon (I used Asda smartprice smoked back bacon for £1.20 312gm)

250g mushrooms (mine were 25p from the Spar bargain!)

Tin of cream of chicken/= or mushroom soup

2 tsp dried thyme 

2 tsp garlic powder

400g tagliatelle

Finely grated cheddar to sprinkle on top

Slice the mushrooms and bacon

On a high heat fry them for 15 minutes or until golden

Add the thyme

Cover the tagliatelle with boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes

Heat the soup

Drain the cooked pasta, add the soup, bacon and mushrooms and serve with a sprinkle of cheese on top. 

Lettuce Pray For Tomatoes

If the words lettuce and tomato strike the fear of God into you, then you might be like my husband and class yourself as a 'salad dodger'. I will give you two of the simplest methods of throwing together a quick, delicious and dare I say healthy meal, that do indeed involve the normally sneered at couple of salad items. It's been a long time since we had a takeaway in our house other than fish and chips-well you have to take advantage of the amenities on your doorstep, right?-The one thing we do love,especially the teenager, is a char-grilled chicken kebab with all the trimmings. She's going through that phase, where a delicious and nutritious meal means a pot noodle. The lower half of her face is sponsored by Walkers and Cadbury, as she can be seen most days with one of their products hanging out of her mouth. So imagine the sheer look of joy on her face when I presented her with a chicken kebab, okay she grunted something and didn't look suicidal, for a second there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes. So if you want to trick your family into eating something healthy here are a couple of ways, just make sure to hide the lettuce and tomatoes in the salad drawer under the chocolate....

B.L.T 

I love a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich but mine has to be on seeded bread. I love Aldi's seeded loaf it goes perfectly with this!

2 slices of bread

2 slices streaky bacon 

Sliced tomato

Shredded iceburg lettuce

Mayonnaise

Grill the bacon until crispy

Spread the bread generously with mayonnaise

Line the bottom slice with lettuce and tomato

Top with the bacon and the top slice of bread

Eat it somewhere where nobody can look at you, like my son does, with those eyes that say feed me please mummy I'm starving-even though he's had a five course breakfast, still has half a banana hanging out of his face and chocolate round his mouth!

Chicken kebab

Chicken cubed

Pitta bread

Lettuce shredded

Tomato thickly sliced

Pickled cabbage

Chilli sauce

Garlic sauce

On a really high heat in a griddle pan, barbecue or grill cook the chicken until almost blackened on the outside

Heat up the pitta bread and slice open

Plate up the salad and sauces

Fill the pitta with chicken and serve. I also managed to get extra healthy points serving it with corn cobs.

Betty's Bakewell Tart

Everyone in the world needs a Betty. If you could bottle her spirit it would be the best tonic in the world! I'm talking about my friend Betty Wilson. When trying to think of how to describe what she does I'm at a loss to find the words. Yes, she used to do tarot readings, yes, she speaks with spirit and yes over the years of her life she has helped many people dead and alive but to me she is so much more than a clairvoyant, medium or psychic. She has been a rock, a guide and a guardian angel! My life has had many ups and downs and I've often felt very different to everyone I meet, that was up untiI I met Betty. She gave me a reading years ago and it was full of lovely things that were coming my way, low and behold it all turned out to be true. I'm happily married now with 3 children and 2 step-children. Thanks to the wisdom, guidance and a general shoulder to cry on that Betty offered over the last few years, I truly believe I have grown more as a person than I had in my life before she was in it. I do things now, that I wouldn't have dared or even imagined I could do, all because she tells me I can. She has been such a rock to me and never asks anything in return, as all she tells me is she gets all the happiness from seeing how I grow. The one thing she loves is a bakewell tart and I promised her I would make her one, it's the least I can do. She is a true friend, a real life angel and my guiding star so Betty's tart is my tribute to her.

For the pastry:

200g plain flour

100g unsalted cold cubed butter

100g icing sugar

30ml milk

Place all the ingredients in a bowl.

Run your hands under the cold tap for a minute as this helps with the rubbing process.

When you have dried your hands rub the butter into the flour until there are no lumps left and the mixture resembles crumbs.

At this point pour in the milk and stir with a blunt knife for roughly a couple of minutes until the dough forms a ball.

Knead the dough on a floured surface and make a smooth ball.

Clingfilm and pop into the freezer while you make the filling.

For the filling:

100g unsalted softened butter

100g sugar

100g ground almonds

Tsp almond essence

2 egg yolk

2 tbsp jam mixed until runny

Flaked almonds to top.

Beat the butter until it is soft and add the sugar.

Mix until fluffy and add the ground almonds, almond essence and egg yolks and combine.

Roll out your firm pastry ball until nice and thin.            

                                       

Carefully draping the pastry over your rolling pin place your dish underneath and trim the edges.

Spread your runny jam over the base.

Spoon in your filling and spread evenly and preheat the oven to 200.

As I had enough pastry left I rolled a long rectangle and cut out some lengths to make a lattice topping for the tart. Before assembling the top sprinkle on the flaked almonds.

Bake for 15 minutes at 200 then turn the oven down to 150 for a further 10-15 minutes.

Dust with icing sugar, serve with a fresh cup of coffee and say a little thank you to Betty Wilson for this fine treat!