I was planning to cook my Nutella Cookies or make some cupcakes with Nutella frosting or even make some lovely Nutella mousse but when I found some ready rolled puff pastry on offer at the . . . → Read More: Nutella Pasties….]]>

Today is World Nutella Day 2012 so it would be rude of me not to cook something using Nutella in honour of this special day….

I was planning to cook my Nutella Cookies or make some cupcakes with Nutella frosting or even make some lovely Nutella mousse but when I found some ready rolled puff pastry on offer at the shop, I thought I might have a go at making some Nutella Pasties.  Sounds weird I know, but actually they were really delicious and we’re definitely going to be having them again….

Nutella Pasties

Ready made, ready rolled puff pastry (you could make your own if you’re feeling that way inclined )
Nutella (or other similar chocolate spread)
A beaten egg
Brown sugar to sprinkle on top
Cinammon to sprinkle on top

Roll out the puff pastry or if it’s ready rolled just lay it out on your work surface.

Using a sharp knife, divide the pastry into strips about the same width as a pastie.

At one end put a big spoonful of Nutella, not too much though as you don’t want it to ooze out in the oven.

Fold the other end over the Nutella end and seal the edges by crimping with a fork.

Using a pastry brush, paint the tops of the pasties with the beaten egg and then sprinkle with the brown sugar and the cinnamon.

Place on a greased baking tray and bake at about 200 c for about 10 minutes.  You do need to keep an eye on them though as I made five and they all cooked in different times.

They are best warm but not straight from the oven as the Nutella is very hot *cough*

We love Nutella as a treat but just a word of warning – it’s not suitable for vegetarians.  I only found this out recently and I must admit I was a bit surprised so I thought I’d better let you know just in case….

Council Tax makes up a large part of your monthly expenditure so wouldn’t it be great if you could reduce the amount you pay, and even better if you could get a nice fat cheque at the same time?

Well, maybe you can.  Apparently up to 400,000 houses in the UK have been assigned to . . . → Read More: Are you paying too much Council Tax….]]>

Council Tax makes up a large part of your monthly expenditure so wouldn’t it be great if you could reduce the amount you pay, and even better if you could get a nice fat cheque at the same time?

Well, maybe you can.  Apparently up to 400,000 houses in the UK have been assigned to the wrong council tax band and it’s really easy to check if your house is one of them.  If it is, you could have your future Council Tax payments reduced and get a rebate for any past overpayments.

It’s basically due to the fact that when Council Tax was first introduced, the government needed every house in the country to be put into a valuation band and due to the sheer size of this job, a lot of properties were allocated a band based purely on someone driving past the house.  The valuation bands have never been reassessed since this time and there have been a lot of cases where homes in the same street have been assigned to different valuation bands.  When local councils have been challenged about this, the bands are being reassessed and in a lot of cases, have been reduced with back payments been made to the owners of the properties concerned.

You can check first of all what Council Tax band you and the rest of your neighbours are classified as by entering your postcode here if you’re in England or Wales or here if you live in Scotland.  If you find that you’re in a higher bracket than any of your neighbours (as long as they have a similar size house to yours) then you have a good case for asking for your band to be reassessed.

There’s a lot more information about how to go about doing this over on MoneySavingExpert and I’d strongly recommend having a good read if you do find that you’re paying more than your neighbours.  There’s a second test to do as well as a few words of warning about the possibility of your neighbours bands being increased to match yours rather than yours being decreased to match theirs (rare but it has happened to some).

It takes about thirty seconds to check your bands by doing the postcode checker above and this is by far the strongest indication of how good a case you have.

It’s worth a try, isn’t it?  ;-)

So . . . → Read More: Not so quick but very yummy Prawn and Pea Risotto….]]>

It’s not often Mr Frugal takes much of an interest in cooking or shopping (although he does do all the ironing) but when I picked him up from work a couple of nights ago, he had a big pack of raw King Prawns that he’d seen on the reduced bay on his way through the shop.

So instead of the planned ham and mushroom oven baked risotto, I thought I’d try to recreate a prawn and pea risotto that I’d tried a while ago at a friends house and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, so pleased that I thought I’d share….

Prawn and Pea Risotto

700ml vegetable stock
250g Arborio rice
1 chopped onion (or a biggish handful if you’re like me and buy it ready chopped for the freezer)
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
100 ml white wine (I’m sure it would be just as nice without this though)
75g  garden peas
250g cooked prawns (King prawns were lovely but the smaller ones would be just as nice)

1. In a little butter or olive oil, soften the onions in a large frying pan and then add the garlic.
2. Add the rice to the pan and stir it quickly for about 30 seconds.  Apparently, this makes it absorb the liquid quicker when you add it in the next step but be careful as it can stick really easily at this stage.
3. Pour enough stock (and a little wine if you’re using it) in to the pan to cover the rice and heat gently making sure you stir the rice constantly to stop it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
4. As the rice absorbs the liquid, add a little more and continue stirring.  Keep doing this until most of the liquid has been absorbed.  You might need to add more or less stock to the rice to get the lovely creamy texture of a risotto.
5. Just before it’s done, stir in the prawns and the peas and continue stirring until all of the liquid has been absorbed.

Also, I’ve been doing Slimming World for the last few weeks and I think this would be really easily adapted for an Extra Easy day – minus the butter and the wine.

I never bothered with a meal plan last week as I was feeling a bit bleugh (if that’s even a word), and as a result, without even looking at the receipts from last week’s food shopping I can tell you that we went way over our weekly budget.

As we didn’t have a meal plan to stick to, we . . . → Read More: Family Friendly Frugal Meals – Homemade Burgers….]]>

I never bothered with a meal plan last week as I was feeling a bit bleugh (if that’s even a word), and as a result, without even looking at the receipts from last week’s food shopping I can tell you that we went way over our weekly budget.

As we didn’t have a meal plan to stick to, we bought random things when we did our main shop and then got home and realised that the things we’d bought didn’t really make up a weeks worth of meals.  This meant that through the week we ended up making two extra trips to the shop for extra bits, both times buying more than what we went for.  So this week, I’m feeling more than a little disappointed with myself as I’ve been trying so hard to stick to our budget and I really felt like we were doing well with it and I could see the savings we were making each week beginning to add up.

I’m going to try and just forget about it now though and start fresh….

Monday – Macaroni Cheese I have a lovely gammon joint cooking at the moment in the slow cooker so I’ll add some of this in to the macaroni cheese as well for a bit of a change.  The gammon should hopefully stretch to a few days worth of meals as well as packed lunch sandwiches.

Tuesday – Sliced gammon, egg, chips and beans

Wednesday – Ham and mushroom oven baked risotto using up the last of the ham I would think.

Thursday – Sausage Casserole

Friday – Quesadillas

Saturday – Homemade burgers, see below as I’m after a bit of advice.

Sunday – Sunday Roast with chicken, roasties, veg and Yorkshire puds.

I’m not very adventurous when I make burgers, in fact for the kids’ burgers all I do is roll 4 portions of minced beef into balls, squash them into burger shapes and that’s it.

For more grown up burgers, I tend to add something like chilli or cajun spices but again, that’s it really.

To cook them, I usually just grill them and serve in buns with homemade wedges and salad.

I don’t want to add anything else to them to fill them out or make the meat stretch further as they’re delicious as they are and at around £3.00 – £3.50 for a medium sized pack of extra lean mince, I think it works out at good value for a meal for us all as it makes 8 burgers.

What I want to know is what other mince I can use to make burgers that won’t need anything adding to them?  I worry that some meats might dry out a little without egg or something to bind the mix and I think that’s why I stick to minced beef as I know that won’t happen.

I like the idea of minted lamb burgers or pork and apple burgers so I was hoping that you lovely people might be able to give me some ideas and to reassure me that if I try something different, it won’t end up as a pile of much in the oven

Over to you….

She’s nine now and I know I’m probably a little biased but she seems so much more grown up than a lot of her friends at school, even so, I was surprised when she asked me this morning . . . → Read More: The End of an Era….]]>

This morning was the morning that I realised that my little girl isn’t really a little girl anymore!

She’s nine now and I know I’m probably a little biased but she seems so much more grown up than a lot of her friends at school, even so, I was surprised when she asked me this morning if we could take all of her Princess posters down from her bedroom walls as she was too old for them now.

I wasn’t too surprised when she showed me what she wanted to put up in place of the Princess posters because she’s getting more into music and celebrities lately but I think her Dad might have a shock when he comes home from work to find all the Pink Princessy posters replaced by JLS, One Direction and a rather hot looking Justin Bieber (Is is wrong that I think that? ).

As if that wasn’t traumatic enough for me, she then announced that she also thought it was about time that she got rid of most of her teddies and dolls!  She decided to put them all in the garage and bagged them all up into a couple of black sacks but somewhere between starting this and putting the last teddy in, she decided that actually, she might like to keep them.  So she got them all back out again and we’ve compromised by tucking them all in around the top of her bed frame so she can still see them when she goes to sleep.

I don’t think I can cope with much more of this growing up lark – tell me it gets easier!

I know it’s highly unlikely but just in case, I have the perfect way for you to use it up (other than drinking it obviously )

Chocolate Baileys Cake

All you need do is a ready made flan case (a small one costs 42p from Asda so . . . → Read More: Chocolate Baileys Cake….]]>

Has anyone still got any Baileys left over from Christmas?

I know it’s highly unlikely but just in case, I have the perfect way for you to use it up (other than drinking it obviously )

Chocolate Baileys Cake

All you need do is a ready made flan case (a small one costs 42p from Asda so I’m guessing similar elsewhere), a packet of chocolate Angel Delight, a flake and your leftover Baileys.

• Make up the Angel Delight as normal but substitute some of the milk for Baileys, it’s up to you how much you use.
• Pour the Angel Delight mix into the flan case and put it in the fridge to set.
• Crumble your flake over the top and get ready to be wowed.

Being frugal is an important part of running a household.  Even if you lead a comfortable lifestyle and make enough money to live more extravagantly, there’s still plenty of value to living a more low-key, cost effective lifestyle.

To begin with, this enables you to continue to save your money for those times when you will actually . . . → Read More: Wondering what to do with your old mobile phones….]]>

Being frugal is an important part of running a household.  Even if you lead a comfortable lifestyle and make enough money to live more extravagantly, there’s still plenty of value to living a more low-key, cost effective lifestyle.

To begin with, this enables you to continue to save your money for those times when you will actually need it. Additionally, however, it can also help teach your children how to be financially responsible.  By cutting down on unnecessary luxuries (whether they be food, material, etc.), you can show your children that they don’t need anything extravagant to get by comfortably and live a happy life

Another way of being frugal is to do your part to lower burdens on society, which can be financial or even environmental in nature.  One example of this is to increase your recycling efforts – something everyone can do.  While recycling doesn’t necessarily earn or save you money, it does encourage the conservation of materials, which in turn helps to contribute to a healthier environment and lower expenses in manufacturing industries.

If this sounds appealing to you, then it may be a good idea to learn a bit more about what you can and cannot recycle, and just what benefits there are to recycling different materials.  For example, did you know that you can recycle and/or donate old, out-of-use mobile phones?  Providers like O2 now have clearly outlined recycling programs aimed at helping you understand the benefits of the responsible disposal of old electronics.

To begin with, your donated cell phone can be given to someone in a less fortunate area. It is very common, for example, for old mobile phones to be donated in third world countries, where many people don’t have access to phone providers. This not only provides somebody with a valuable gift, but can also cut back on production, and thus the consumption of materials and any time something can be reused, it negates the need for new production.

Additionally, if you choose to recycle your old mobile phones, you will be contributing to the conservation of materials that can be broken down and used for other purposes, as well as the safe disposal of hazardous materials.  The metals (gold, silver, palladium, etc.) and plastics in cell phones can be useful for a number of different functions and some of the harmful substances (arsenic, lead, etc.) can be dangerous if thrown out and left alone in the environment.

So, the next time you are considering how to do your part to help your household conserve wealth and materials, think about what you can do to step up your recycling efforts. Every family makes a difference, and there are numerous benefits that can come of your recycling old electronics.

Guest editorial provided by o2.co.uk

School Dinners seem to have got very expensive lately don’t they?

I think they’re currently £1.95 a day round here which works out to almost £10.00 a week and personally, I think that’s quite a lot to pay every day – especially when you consider I have two children.  One of whom is a very fussy eater . . . → Read More: Packed Lunch Moneysaving….]]>

School Dinners seem to have got very expensive lately don’t they?

I think they’re currently £1.95 a day round here which works out to almost £10.00 a week and personally, I think that’s quite a lot to pay every day – especially when you consider I have two children.  One of whom is a very fussy eater and the other doesn’t have a big appetite and usually rushes through her dinner as she’s rather be out in the playground.

We decided quite early on that we were going to do packed lunches rather than school dinners and we’ve gradually got the hang of what will and won’t be eaten along with learning how to cut the cost of the packed lunches and we’re absolute experts now so I thought I’d show you how we save on our packed lunches and hopefully, you’ll have some ideas to share with me….

I’ve based all prices around the current prices on the Tesco website as I find that’s the easiest website to get prices from and I wanted to show you how much everything was – you’ll be able to get similar whatever supermarket you shop at.

Juice

For juice we use double concentrated squash and make it up in a drinks bottle which works out to around 5p a drink (based on the Tesco double strength orange squash which is £1.50 for 1.5 litres).  All children in our school are encouraged to drink water throughout the day and they all have their own water bottle in class that the school fill every morning and wash out on a night.

The Savoury Bit

Sandwiches

I know I could get cheaper but I really like the Warburtons ready sliced buns for packed lunches so I buy a pack of 12 at a time and freeze them.  We get one out on the night when we make the next day’s lunches and make the sandwiches while the buns are still frozen.  They defrost in the fridge overnight and are taste lovely and fresh the next day.  They work out at 13p each, unless I manage to get some reduced at the end of the day.  We try to vary the fillings we use but even the most expensive one only works out to around 43p including the bun.  Our favourite fillings are:

• Cheese = about 30p (Tesco mature cheddar 250g for £1.85)
• Egg Mayo = 20p (Tesco Eggs are 15 for £1.45 but I can’t see if these are Free Range or not on the website, if they’re not I only buy Free Range eggs so it would cost slightly more).
• Chicken/Pork/Beef = No idea on price really as it’s usually a thinnish slice from the leftovers of Sunday Dinner.
• Ham = Usually from a ham joint we’ve cooked for lunches etc.  We usually buy a small value joint for around £3.00 to £4.00 so one slice probably costs about 30p.

Master Frugal isn’t really a sandwich person unless it’s just bread and butter so I make him cheesey pops which are really just cheese straws in disguise.

Cheesey Pop (AKA cheese straws but flat and round not long and thin )

I usually manage to get around 18 shapes out of this mixture and I use 3 shapes in one packed lunch which works out at 15p a day.

The Sweet Stuff

Our school are quite strict on what is allowed as far as sweet snacks are concerned – chocolate is a no-no although chocolate biscuit things like Kit Kats etc are allowed.  Considering a two fingered KitKat works out to around 21p these days, I prefer to make my own sweet snacks and freeze them in sandwich bags so we just have to take one out of the freezer the night before when we make the packed lunches and it’ll be ready for the next morning.

I use a simple victoria sponge mix to make what we call packed lunch cake:

Ingredients for Packed Lunch Cake

• 150g self raising flour = 6p (Tesco value flour 1.5kg for 52p)
• 150g sugar = 15p (Tate and Lyle Sugar 1kg for 99p)
• 150g softened butter / margarine = 23p (Stork Margarine 500g for £1.00)
• 3 eggs = 30p (Tesco Eggs 15 for £1.45, same as above, if they’re not free range I’d spend a bit more)
• Vanilla essence = 5p ish (I always have some in)
• Icing Sugar = 19p (Silver Spoon £1.89 for 1kg)

1. Beat together the margarine and the sugar.
2. Add in the 3 eggs and the vanilla essence and and beat until combined.
3. Fold in the flour.
4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking tin – I used a smaller square one today so my squares look quite chunky but you can use a larger one and make more delicate looking sponge fingers.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at around 200 c until your cake is looking golden on top – I’m not going to specify a time as it depends on the size of the cake tins you use and the thickness of the cake.  I start my time off at 15 mins and take it from there.
6. When the cake is completely cool, mix the icing sugar with some water and ice the top of the cake.  The icing sugar mix needs to be not to runny but not too stiff as you want it to spread easily but not run straight off the top.

I was in handbag heaven as I looked through their large selection handbags, there were way too many to choose from and I was . . . → Read More: Handbag Heaven….]]>

A few weeks ago Accessories Direct e mailed me and asked me if I wanted to choose a handbag from their range to try out and review.  Hmmmm can you guess what my answer was?

I was in handbag heaven as I looked through their large selection handbags, there were way too many to choose from and I was really torn between a few ( I take my handbag choosing very seriously) but in the end I chose this lovely Kate Benjamin bag.

It came last week and I loved it as soon as I unpacked it.  It’s really spacious inside and has a zip up pocket as well as a little pouch for my mobile phone which is handy because I always lose my phone in my bag!

I love the length of the handles as they’re just long enough that you can carry the bag over your shoulder but also, just short enough that you can carry it in your hand too.

I just love the overall look of the bag – the cream accents and the bow make it look really pretty.  I’ve used it every day for the last week and had at least two comments a day from work colleagues and friends about it.  I feel really stylish when I’m using it so it’s now my new favourite handbag.

You can find this Kate Benjamin Callie bag here at Accessories Direct.

I was provided with the handbag to review but the opinion and the handbag love is all mine.