Today's Bargains and Aunt Polly's Pie

Welcome to my new follower, Sammie Skint. Love the name.

I did manage to get out today between torrential rain showers and did nearly 6000 steps. I paid a vet's bill and went into town to return a library book. 

On the way back home I popped into my local shops to look for bargains and bought a 4 pack of Baking Potatoes from Asda for 50p, and this huge 5kg (approx 11 lb) sack of onions from FarmFoods for just £1. 

I didn't actually need onions as I have a few in my veg basket but I couldn't resist such a bargain. They are lovely big onions too; so often when you buy bargain onions they are tiny little things and hard to skin. If any start to go soft before I can use them all I will prepare them for the freezer so they won't be wasted.

Talking of not wasting anything, I think I've probably talked about Aunt Polly's Pie before. It's a great way of using up Christmas leftovers. Actually it's not really a pie as such, with bacon rashers being used on the top and bottom instead of pastry. I made it today to use up the leftovers from yesterday's roast. 

The recipe comes from a cook book I've had for years (as you can see from the lovely brown tape holding it together), and I adjust it to make use of whatever I have left over. 

Basically, you line an ovenproof dish with bacon rashers (I used 2/3 of a 99p pack of Aldi Smoked Value Rashers), then put in a layer of leftover stuffing, top it with chopped up pieces of leftover meat/chicken, top with another layer of stuffing, moisten the lot with about 75 ml gravy, then top with more bacon rashers. The original recipe uses raw sausagemeat instead of the top layer of stuffing, but since my stuffing was made with sausagemeat and I had lots of it remaining, I used that instead. 

 

I covered the dish with foil and baked at gas 5 for 45 minutes, removing the foil for the last 15 mins. On the top shelf of the oven I reheated the remaining roast potatoes and parsnips, and served the whole lot with baked beans. Delicious, and one of my youngest son's favourite meals.

I had 3 rashers of bacon remaining and those will go into a Macaroni Cheese for tomorrow.

It's slimming club tomorrow. I've had a mixed week; very good from Tuesday until Thursday, not so good on Friday (chips from the chip shop on the way to DS's gig), not too bad on Saturday, ate far too much yesterday, and so-so today. I'll settle for a 'stay-the-same', but fear I might have gained a bit.

My knitting is coming on a nicely; I think I might have done about a third of the length required to go all around the blanket edge. Because it's so easy to pick up and put down I keep doing a couple of rows here and there throughout the day, with longer spells when I get to sit down in front of the TV.  I'm dreading sewing it onto the blanket, sewing up is my least favourite part of knitting anyway and this will involve a lot of sewing. 

That's all for now. Anyone else pick up any bargains today? See you soon, love Helen xx