How to be hard up and happy!
Don't let money dictate how happy you are! Have fun, live to the full but pay as little as possible to do so! Join me for tips, recipes and more. Create magic for your family for free!
Tuesday 20 December 2016
I'm not here anymore....
Tuesday 1 November 2016
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
Monday 31 October 2016
Ghoulish Games and Frightening Fancy Dress
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
Saturday 22 October 2016
Feed your family for 50p
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.
Tuesday 18 October 2016
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.
Saturday 15 October 2016
2 pies 1 Post. R.O.G.O.F Read One Get One Free.
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
Wednesday 5 October 2016
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
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