Asides

Tikka Masala lentils and steamed millet.

Today was much quieter in our kitchen.

We added some Hoi Sin sauce to the last of the dumpling stuffing from yesterday and opened another packet of won ton wrappers. 10 Dumplings were eaten for lunch and another 20 were added to the freezer stash.

We had a few wrappers left in the packet, so I decided to make lentils for dinner tonight and try a bit of dal in a dumpling later on.

2015-07-06 19.47.21So I made Italian Lentils – but with less Italian and more Indian. After I added the bacon to the pot at the beginning, I then added a couple of teaspoons of Tikka Masala paste from the pantry and fried it off for a few minutes before continuing on as normal.

Tikka Masala lentils.

Tikka Masala lentils.

The Boy followed his nose into the kitchen fairly soon after that. I added a small can of corn kernels, just because…

Tikka Masala lentils and steamed millet.

Tikka Masala lentils and steamed millet.

Then I served them up with the leftover millet from last night. It wasn’t too bad, considering the minimal effort expended!

I also decanted the first batch of Kombucha and started a new one. I’m still rather unsure about it all, so shan’t be blogging anything on it until I think I might know what I’m doing.

Tomorrow bread will be made and I’m off now to figure out which cookies will be baked. I have the first half of a damnable driving assessment tomorrow -*expletive deleted* – which is going to cost me a small fortune. I have a feeling some comfort eating may find itself in progress after some comfort baking tomorrow afternoon.

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Grandmother Sayers's Chocolate Fudge Pudding.

Today was quite a productive one in the Budget Bounty kitchen.

Sugar scrub.

Sugar scrub.

I started the day by poaching the Pork Belly for dinner tonight and then making myself some sugar body scrub to get me through the mid-winter itchy skin that’s driving me up the wall.

My fruit bowl right now.

My fruit bowl right now.

A friend has given me masses of winter fruit, so I am now all citrused up and thought I should take advantage of it.

 

Some Lemon Butter was therefore made.

Lemon butter

Lemon butter

This was followed quickly by popping the empty lemon shells into a large jar and covering them in plain old household vinegar.

Future cleaning products.

Future cleaning products.

In a few weeks the lemon oils will have suffused the vinegar with their wonderful scent. The vinegar will then be diluted 50:50 with water and used to clean just about everything.

Then I finally made my pork dumplings and they turned out really well! The only down side was that I ran out of wrappers before I ran out of filling.

Home-made pork dumplings.

Home-made pork dumplings.

However, even that has a plus to it. I’m thinking the filling could use some spicing up and may add some ground cumin or coriander and possibly even some sauces to the remainder.

In the meantime, we had a tasty lunch and now have some morsels in our freezer for future feasts.

I managed to have a bit of a sit-down (lunch, donchaknow) and then got dinner underway.

Dinner tonight.

Dinner tonight.

We had a lovely piece of pork belly with a sticky Asian sauce, served with steamed millet, bok choy and baked butternut pumpkin (squash). Doesn’t it look good?

While that was cooking, I mixed up my Grandmother’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding – including some zest from an orange in that fruit bowl I showed you earlier.

Grandmother Sayers's Chocolate Fudge Pudding.

Grandmother Sayers’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding.

It worked wonderfully. The orange really made a difference, cutting the richness beautifully. I’ll post the recipe soon, I think. My only regret is that we didn’t have any vanilla ice-cream to serve with it (the freezer is full of things that aren’t ‘sometimes foods’ right now.)

So now I am in need of a good night’s sleep. No idea why.

I’ve noticed that the biscuit barrel is nearly empty, so some cookies or biscuits will be made in the next day or so. I quite enjoy the time beforehand, when I get to trawl through my recipe books and pins looking for something special to make. One batch usually lasts The Boy a fortnight (two weeks), so I don’t bake all that often and it’s my chance to make him something special. Because I’m a softy.

Goodnight All.

 

 

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There is a plague upon this household. I fear the Man Flu will kill us all. Including the cats.

However, we shall die well fed.

Last night The Boy took it upon himself to purchase the household a BBQ chook (American translation: Rotisserie Chicken) from the supermarket as I lay coughing upon my sick bed.

We made a quick pasta dish with it and some of the frozen vegies with which our freezer is well-stocked.

30 seconds in the sandwich press later...

30 seconds in the sandwich press later…

This evening, I made myself some chicken quesadillas and he finished the last of the mini chilli con carne cornbread cobbler thingies in the fridge.

Chilli and Cornbread pies

Chilli and Cornbread pies

Hopefully, tomorrow the worst of this viral nastiness will have passed and I will feel up to cooking something new. I have plans to make the pork dumplings that I bought the gow gee wrappers for (this fortnight’s ‘fun thing’ in the shopping).

Also, given the Antarctic-like weather that is upon us, I’d like to make my grandmother’s self-saucing chocolate pudding. The last time I tried it was incredibly rich and I thought it might be better with some orange zest added to it.

I have an orange. And a zester.

But right now I need some Vicks VapoRub and a tight pair of socks.

Hasta mañana.

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Resuming normal transmission.

Sorry folks, last night I had a bad turn with my sugars and went into a hypo with my diabetes. It left me very much on the exhausted side – so I didn’t post.

I’ll try to make up for that a little here.

Firstly, this is the chilli we had the night before last. It was scrummy.

Chilli con Carne

Chilli con Carne

Last night we had this rather tasty lentil and barley casserole, which was just the trick given the bitterly cold day.

Barley and Lentil Casserole

Barley and Lentil Casserole

This takes only minutes to get on the go and ticks all sorts of nutritional boxes. We worked out that it cost about $1.50 for the entire pot, or 50 cents a serve.

Also, I remembered that I had that handful of Tuscan kale in the refrigerator, so I added it at the end for a touch of colour and a spark of flavour.

Tonight I made a Cornbread Cobbler topping and divided the leftover chilli into individual oven dishes to make Chilli and Cornbread pies.

Chilli and Cornbread pies

Chilli and Cornbread pies

I overestimated the topping a bit, so we decided to split one between us. The other will either be frozen or had for lunch.

I have my book group tomorrow night, so we will be ‘shopping the fridge’ and there won’t be a diary note.

See you soon.

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Today was a run-around-like-a-mad-thing kind of day.

I realised that I was supposed to attend a seminar on bee-keeping with The Ballarat Permaculture Guild, exactly half an hour before it was due to start – and exactly 20 minutes before I was showered and dressed, coincidentally…

I then ran off (before that had completely finished) to a friend’s party plan party to not buy anything because I want a house to put the stuff in first…*deep breath*

I had just said I was going to pop some chilli con carne in the slow cooker before I left for the party (while sitting in my dressing gown at the breakfast table) when the reminder for the bee thing popped up on all my devices. I had thought it had been cancelled due to lack of interest.

So that didn’t get done. Neither did the green grocery shopping – tomoz peeps, promise.

I had thought I’d just do the chilli on the stove when I got home, but The Boy had ducked out to meet friends and there was no need for a family meal.

So I finished the Apple Crumble for my dinner.

I regret nothing.

Bread had been made in my absence.

Tomorrow shall be slowcook-the-chilli-while-washing-all-the-linen-Sunday.

Meanwhile the bee seminar was FABULOUS! I can see a small hive being maintained at the new house – when, and if, we get one.

And now I am going to bed. For some unknown reason, I am exhausted.

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Fruit of the Forest Muffins.

Hello, my lovelies.

I’m having a few issues with my eyes at the moment, so this shall be short and sweet.

Today I learned we were to have a visitor at some time during a 4 hour window, so I made muffins for when they finally arrived. I’d discovered a few bags of tiny (ridiculously small) amounts of frozen berries when I was doing my freezer stock take the other day. A quarter cup of raspberries in a bag, for example. So, I mixed them all together and dubbed them Fruits of the Forest.

Waste not, want not.

Waste not, want not.

Then I added a scant handful of dark choc chips and turned them into muffins. It used the last of the buttermilk I’d bought for The Boy’s work muffins the other day.

Fruit of the Forest Muffins.

Fruit of the Forest Muffins.

It took about 10 mins and a few of my pantry staples to have something yummy for my guest. Win.

I didn’t know when they would be leaving, so I rescued a bag of my Asian Flavoured Beef from the freezer too and popped it in the smallest crockpot. That’s ready now and I’ll be serving it with the leftover rice from last night’s curry adventure. Another win.

I hope to do my green grocer shopping tomorrow, and will probably be listing this fortnight’s haul on the post after next. All while wondering if everyone wants me to keep doing this?

Please let me know!

Happy eating.

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Pumpkin and Prawn Thai Curry

Okay, we’re getting to the end of this experiment and I’ve had exactly one person tell me to keep going with it. So this might be the end of it, unless I hear from others.

Anyway, this evening I finished the Cottage Pie that had been lurking in the refrigerator from the weekend.

Cottage Pie

Cottage Pie

I also made a special dinner for The Boy. There has been half a bag of frozen prawns lurking in the freezer for some time now. He loves them (he cooked them up on the bbq) I thought they were truly awful. The smell was too much for me – and I love prawns. It was so very sad.

Anyway, I thought I’d do him a dish with a few of his favourite things in… So, he had a Thai green curry (check!) with pumpkin (check!), bok choy (check!) and prawns (and CHECK!).

Pumpkin and Prawn Thai Curry

Pumpkin and Prawn Thai Curry

It all went rather swimmingly except for a brief interlude when I was interrupted by an important call and it started to catch. I thought I might have to bin it, but fought back the tears (his special meal! OMG! Nooooo!) and transferred it to a separate pan and carried on.

He seemed to really enjoy it, including the sweat he broke in the middle of winter in Ballarat…

So, I used the last of the pumpkin from the shop and cleared a little space in the freezer by using the prawns. The leftovers of the jasmine rice that I cooked to accompany it are now in the refrigerator for future use. Shopping for fresh vegetables tomorrow.

He is awaiting the after effects of the curry…

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Well, today the pizza was made.

Fast food without a phone call

Fast food without a phone call.

I rolled out the pizza dough that I had in the refrigerator, spread it with some of that red capsicum pesto from the fridge door and scattered it with some grated mozzarella cheese. Then I chopped up the rest of the BBQ chicken from the freezer, the last red capsicum from the crisper was also diced and strewn and then I chopped up some black olives and added those as well.

All that took maybe 10 minutes to do while the oven heated up. The pizza was added to the oven and 20 minutes later we were eating it.

My step-father and I had it for lunch and the leftovers are to be The Boy’s dinner. I have a pub quiz tonight and my team has a food voucher to spend.

I’ve started doing my shopping for the next fortnight.

Re-restocking the larder

Re-restocking the larder

This series of posts since my last shop seems to have been quite popular …*waves hello to all my new followers both here and on Facebook.* I’m actually quite overwhelmed by the response to tell the truth.

The question is, should I continue doing them or is everyone bored silly? Would you prefer a weekly digest instead of a daily update?

Please let me know. Unless you actually tell me then I have no way of knowing what you would like to see.

So, comment here or on the Budget Bounty Facebook page. While you’re at it, tell me what else you want to read about and I’ll see what I can do.

TTFN

 

 

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Bean Burrito mix

Today I made some Hidden Treasure Muffins for The Boy to take to an afternoon tea tomorrow. He hasn’t eaten all of them himself yet – but he’s working on it!

A veritable treasure trove.

A veritable treasure trove.

Dinner tonight was made by The Boy (yay!) He put together his Bean Burrito mix and we ate it with some wraps from the fridge.

Years ago, when he was at Uni in another state and not looking after himself at all, I texted him instructions for making this dish. The idea being that he would at least have one meal a week that would feed his brain. Little did I know that he simply quadrupled it and ate the same thing every night, for months!

The Boy's Beans

The Boy’s Beans

We always refer to it as his Burrito beans. It takes about 15 mins, tops, and costs $4 for two. No jokes.

I’ll post the recipe up soon. I promise. Probably in the next day or so…

In other news, today more bread was made. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already, but we enrich ours by adding a few spoonfuls of ground, golden flaxseed to every loaf. Omega 3s donchaknow!

I also tidied up the freezer and realised there’s some things in there that really should just be used. I’ve got a collection of frozen bananas, for example. So, sometime in the next few days, I think the frozen banana, soft serve ice cream will be made (and probably eaten).

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Pasta a la Sharon

Today we had Loaded Hot Potato Chips for lunch, because it’s still extremely cold here and the visiting Telstra contractor kept leaving all the doors open. *grumble*

It also finished the packet, so I’ll pop those on the list.

I made a new batch of the Instant Hot Chocolate mix for The Boy. I’m told I’ve nailed the mix of spices. However, we are reaching the end of the powdered milk, so that has also been added to the list.

While I was in the kitchen, I decided to mix together a pizza base for my step-father’s visit on Wednesday. I’ve still some BBQ chicken meat frozen and that would work well on a pizza. I decided to add some mixed Italian Herbs to the flour before adding the wet ingredients. This should add a boost of flavour and the aroma will be magnificent.

Pizza in the making

Pizza in the making

I made enough for two bases – one is currently in the refrigerator and the other is in the freezer (natch). Let me know if you guys would like me to do a post on making pizza bases.

Dinner tonight was going to be risotto, but I didn’t have enough Arborio rice. So I did a pasta dish instead, mixing up the rest of the fresh vegies in the fridge with some chorizo, penne and pesto. It was yummy, if I do say so myself.

This was dinner in the Budget Bounty household.

This was dinner in the Budget Bounty household.

And I do.

I’ve started thinking about the shopping later this week. I don’t think I can fit anything more in the freezer without it exploding. I’ve also still got most of the frozen vegies I bought last time, so I shan’t need to get any more of those.

I think it shall be a fresh vegetable and pantry dry-good shop this time around.

ttfn

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