Say Hello to Miss Slinky

Well, thanks to my bingeing I might have gained ½ lb this week, but I was also voted as this year’s Miss Slinky by the other members of my slimming club. The pic is of me with my sash and certificate, and I also got a lovely flowering plant. I always get very embarrassed about things like this but I’m absolutely chuffed to bits.

This is a pic of me 2 years ago at around 15 stone when I met Gary Hughes, the singer of a band I like called Ten.

And here is a pic of me from this time last year at my daughter’s graduation ceremony when she was awarded her Masters in Psychology at Canterbury Cathedral.

I’d been dieting for 5 months at that point and had already lost 2 stone but still looked huge. I’ve since lost another 1 stone 9.5 lbs, but it’s been much harder this past six months and I’ve been a bit up and down. The overall trend is still downwards, though, and I’m quite happy for the rest to come off slowly. I now have another stone and a couple of lbs to go to get down to healthy weight and BMI for my 5ft 4in height.

Statistics-wise I’ve lost 51.5lbs in weight, and 10 inches off my hips, 8 off my waist and 5 off my bust, and I’ve gone from a size 22 down to a 12-14 in around 17 months. I hope to get to my ultimate goal by my birthday in June 2014 which means it will have taken me 2 years to lose just over 5 stone.

Okay, enough of showing off and on to a few pictures of tonight’s dinner. 

I used a big sachet of cooked chicken in its own juice that I got from Approved Foods a while back.

I divided it between my 2 slow cookers, added reduced price frozen stew veg and a sachet of casserole mix (also AF) to one of them to make chicken stew with dumplings for tonight (dumplings courtesy of an AF catering pack mix). 

To the other cooker I added frozen mushrooms and peas, a chopped onion and garlic, a tin of condensed mushroom soup (from guess where), a splash of white wine, a spoonful of wholegrain mustard (from a big tub, once again from AF) and plenty of black pepper. This will be served either tomorrow of Thursday with free rice. 

Yes, FREE rice that I got from Tesco using coupons printed from the Metro online newspaper. I got 12 x 250gm sachets of Uncle Ben’s 2 minute Wholegrain rice that usually retail for around £1.79 but were on offer for £1. Even so I got £12 worth of rice for free. I’d never normally buy this rice paying that kind of money for 250g cooked rice that’s probably only about 100g raw weight, but it was FREE. I love me some free food.

Tomorrow I don’t have to be anywhere so I’m hoping to have a lazy day and maybe do a bit of crafting, before my busy day on Thursday with volunteering in the morning, a trip to the Job Centre when I get back to Dover at lunchtime and then straight to my computing class in the afternoon.

Shopping, Remembrance and Freezer Meals

Just a quick post to let everyone know I’m still in the land of the living. I’ve been in a weird headspace lately and not felt much like writing or sharing my thoughts. I get like that from time to time and retreat into myself for a while before I pick up again.

Anyway, we had a busy weekend with Xmas shopping on Saturday morning and a 70^th birthday party in the evening. I’m really making inroads into the Xmas preparations now, and have nearly all the food, and today DH finally got paid so I can get a lot more pressies bought. Not that I’m going mad with spending this year; we’ve really had to cut back but by careful shopping and combining offers I should be able to stick to a pretty tight budget.

Sunday we attended the Remembrance Day service at the war memorial next to Dover Town Hall. There was a good turn out and the weather was bright and sunny, although very cold. Afterwards we went for coffee, and then had a lazy afternoon. Dinner was a nut roast I had in the freezer. I made 3 roasts a while back when I sorted out my kitchen cupboard and found a load of wrinkled nuts and seeds. I use a recipe from a really old Cranks book that I’ve had for ages and made time and time again. I was going to do roast potatoes etc. with it, but ended up just doing some Ainsley Harriott roasted vegetable couscous that I got off Approved Food.

Because I was at my computing course for part of the day, today’s dinner was another pre-prepared one from the freezer; lamb mince and lentils which I heated in the slow cooker and made into a hotpot by arranging sliced potato on top. The lentils I get from France whenever anyone takes a daytrip, big tins of precooked brown ones for around one euro each. They’re lovely with lamb and bulk out what is now a very expensive meat.

Tomorrow’s my weigh in at Slimming World. I have no idea how I’ve done this week because I’ve had some very good days and some truly terrible ones. I’ve kept off the scales at home so I didn’t make myself any more depressed. I’ll settle for a pound or two on. And a stay-the-same would be amazing. We’ll have to see.

So much for a quick post. I’m too damned wordy to do short when it comes to writing. Hopefully I’ll have pictures to add to my next post.

Combining Coupons and Special Offers

Love this quote and it can so often be true, but not for me today as I'll explain later.

Lots of little things done today. Some of those little jobs that I keep saying ‘I must do such and such’ and then it promptly slips my mind.

I’ve done 2 loads of laundry; the first was the scrap cloths we use for wiping down the cats’ mats and inside their litter trays. These get stored in a bucket and then washed on 90 degrees to kill germs. Some of them are off cuts from towels and teacloths that got too ragged, and some are DD’s boyfriend’s holey towelling socks. The socks are great as you can stick your hand inside them which makes them very easy to use for cleaning.

After the cloths I put on a load of lights which was mostly made up of the boyfriend’s wearable socks, which for some reason he saves up until they’re spilling out of the basket. I also finally got around to taking down the kitchen net curtain which was looking decidedly grubby and added it to this load. I always put it straight back up once it comes out of the machine so it dries while hanging there.

I’ve vacuumed and cleared out the filter which always gets forgotten but makes such a difference to the cleaning power. I’ve also banged in a nail that that secures my indoor line above the boiler in the kitchen. The darn thing parted company with the wall and dumped a load of shirts I was airing on the floor, so brute force and a hammer has made sure it won’t happen again. That’s definitely a job I should have done sooner before it was later and I had to rescue all those shirts.

So...my bargains that I definitely did need at a price I couldn't resist. 

Another task was to finally get some Xmas food shopping done. I had a leaflet for Morrison’s through the door which included a £3 off a £20 shop coupon. Now, I rarely spend that much in one go in one place as I shop around so much, but they also had an offer of ½ price British chicken, which we prefer to turkey, and I also liked the look of their £7 gammon joints when I was last in there. We always have gammon, pickles and crusty rolls as our Christmas breakfast.

So off I went with my rucksack and a big reusable bag to the Morrison’s that is thankfully just a 5 minute walk away. I bought 2 chickens each weighing around 1.7kg for about £3 each, a gammon joint for £7, 2 x 750g boxes of Kellogg’s cornflakes @ £1.34 each, a packet of 16 rashers of smoked streaky bacon (to wrap around sausages) for £2, a packet of veggie sausages for £1 (DD2’s been veggie since she was 8 and her and her boyfriend are coming to us for Xmas breakfast), 15 Savers Yorkshire puds for 49p, 2 x large white toastie loaves @ 2 for £1, 4 shape yogurts for £1, 500g frozen minced lamb for £2.75 and a couple of other bits and pieces for a total of £25.13 which I only paid £22.13 for with the coupon. Plus the chickens would normally have been £6 each at full price, and the cornflakes at least double the price. So, all in all I was very pleased with my haul and I’ve now made some progress with my Christmas preparations. I still have chipolatas and veggie bacon to buy, but I’m making the bread rolls this year and also the desserts.

 

 Dinner tonight was a real mix of leftovers – the gammon, leek, pea and potato soup from the other day combined with some chicken curry (which had originally started life as a stew) plus additional curry powder for flavour. Sounds horrible but it was yummy served with spiced basmati rice (4 sachets for £1 from AF, and I used 2 sachets) and some cumin and chilli naan bread made from a packet mix I got ages ago in an AF £1 lucky box. 

 

I also made a raspberry trifle as DH loves his trifle. For the base I used some frozen sponge scraps I’d baked with the last of a huge packet from AF, some raspberries from the freezer that I’d bought for 19p in Morrison’s because they were going squishy, a sugar-free raspberry jelly (10 for £1 from AF), and custard made with powder (a huge 3kg bag from AF for – I think - £2.99), a little sugar and skimmed milk. 

I didn’t top it with cream as we use low fat squirty cream except on special occasions. 

 

 Another really cheap and filling meal that used up lots of oddments so nothing was wasted.

Tomorrow is my volunteering day and I have to leave the house just after 8am. I’m hoping that this week will be dry so I don’t get soaked simply walking to the bus stop.

Card Making Cats

Horrible weather again today, but I braved the rain to go to my Slimming World class. Another pound off…slow, but I’m getting there. That’s 3st 10lb lost now and I’m hoping to make it 4st by Christmas. Mind you, I was starving this afternoon and treated myself to a couple of wholemeal rolls that I had for lunch with low fat soft cheese and wafer thin ham, but then I chased that down with a cake from the baker up the road. I didn’t have breakfast, though, so hopefully not too much damage done. And I’ll be really good tomorrow. That’s the plan, anyway.

Anyway, before I went out I made a card to go with the bag to send to DS2’s girlfriend for her birthday. I stayed with the goth theme, and I'm quite pleased with it. I got it all packaged up and posted off this afternoon. 

 

Shadow, likes to help out when I’m crafting so he decided today to guard my box of card offcuts. He made himself comfortable by sitting in the lid so he could watch over it. 

I have to be careful when card making and sewing as the cats are so inquisitive they try and play with my paper cutter, rotary cutter and sewing machine. I have to watch out not to cut off little paws when they try to bat at the blades, or track the course of the machine needle.

No pictures of tonight’s dinner because it was just leftover meatloaf from the weekend served with oven chips and baked beans (Aldi crinkle cut chips- £1 and everyday baked beans – 25p).

I had a thoroughly lazy afternoon after so much running around for the past few days and looked through my vast collection of craft magazines for inspiration for a new project. I haven’t decided on one yet, but then I have Xmas cards to make so maybe I should concentrate on those first before I start something new.

But then again if something catches my eye…

Busy day. Lots done.

I started off at 7.30 am by working on the bag for DS2’s girlfriend’s birthday present. I need to get it sent off tomorrow as she lives in north Kent and her birthday’s on Friday. I’d cut all the pieces out last night and ironed the interfacing on to the main pieces and the straps, so today was all about sewing it together. I managed to get the straps, the main bag pieces and the lining all stitched before I had to go out.

Sadly, not having a dedicated sewing space where I can leave all my bits and pieces out for future use, and having to do my crafting on the dining table, I have to pack everything away each time I’ve finished or the kitties would have such fun playing with all my goodies while mum’s out. So, everything got put in my storage boxes and then I braved the rain, wind and cold to go to my local Pitman Training Centre to start my Learndirect computing course. I wasn’t looking forward to it as this was my third visit since completing the Employability course (which was great), and my 3^rd attempt at getting started on the course. No fault of mine, I hasten to add, but each time I’d gone there they’d had problems connecting to their server so I couldn’t get online to access the study materials.

And this time was no different. At least when I first arrived. Surprise, surprise the server was down yet again, so I decided I’d give it half an hour and if there was no sign of any improvement I’d come home and get on with more important work…more important than sitting around watching the staff fiddling about trying to get a connection, anyway. Half an hour later and finally there was some hope and, after a change to another machine, I finally got started. I used my own headphones as I prefer the in-ear bud ones and I made sure I used a lot of sanitising solution on my hands before touching the mouse and keyboard that had been used by I don’t know how many people before me. I’m not a clean freak or germophobe by any means (as the state of my house will attest) but in the season of coughs and colds I wasn’t taking any chances. So, then I was all ready…at last.

The system was maddeningly slow, each new page taking an age to load, and I’m not a very patient person, plus I found a lot of the material quite patronising, more suitable for kids than adults with its cartoony presentation, but that might just be me. It was also really boring as I found myself having to work on areas of using a computer that I’d already been doing for years…like sending an email and even how to switch the thing on. So, not impressed really, but I’ll stick with it because there’s a certificate to be had at the end of it, and then I can go on to the next stage and hopefully learn stuff that will be useful in an office situation and maybe I’ll stand a chance of finding some admin work.

I spent 3 hours working hard at the course, then back out into the cold, into Morrison's for a couple of Toastie loaves for the freezer (2 large sliced white loaves for £1) and finally home. As soon as I got in I put all the bits in my slow cooker for a leek, potato, pea and ham soup and got a crusty loaf of bread from the freezer to serve with it.

I had a bag of diced leek and potato in the freezer (reduced to 19p in Morrison’s), a couple of potatoes leftover from yesterday’s dinner (20p), 2 gammon steaks from Farm Foods (6 large ones for £4.50 or 2 packs for £8, so approx £1.50 for the 2), 4 oz pearl barley (probably around 20p can’t recall the cost as I got it ages ago from Approved Foods – its dated March 2011 but is still fine), couple of stock cubes from a bulk buy from AF  (approx 10p), and a small white crusty loaf (2 for £1 in Morrison’s so 50p for 1). Total cost approx £2.70 for 5 servings or 54p each.

I used to buy bacon hocks for a few pence, cook them in the slow cooker and strip all the meat off but now they're around £2 each the gammon steaks are a cheaper option and easier to prepare ( I just cut them up raw into pieces and add them in with everything else).

I have 3 gammon steaks left and will either use them to make a bacon roly poly or a couple of quiches later in the week.

Once dinner was on the go, I got back to finishing off the bag. This is the 5^th bag I’ve made since I took a 'get to know your sewing machine' course earlier this year. I've even made one as an order for someone at my DD2's work. I’m getting more proficient at the process so it doesn’t take quite so long and I feel more confident with each one I do. DS’s girlfriend loves her goth stuff so I hope she likes it. It’s fully lined and has an inside pocket and the straps are also made with 2 different fabrics. I bought the main fabric from Ebay (half a metre for about £6.50) but the lining material cost £4 for over a metre from a braderie in Deal earlier this year. I only used about a third of it so have loads left. I had no idea what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but like a lot of things if you hang onto something a use for it generally pops up sooner or later.

 

So, I’ve been busy, busy, busy for most of the day, even if I did spend 3 hours sitting on my backside in front of a computer screen at Pitman's. Tonight I might do a bit of knitting while watching TV. True Blood is on at 10pm, so vamps and knitting needles anyone?!

Hairy Bikers’ Great Sausage Casserole

Another horrible day weather wise. We did brave the rain and walked into town to go to the library and read the local papers, but it wasn’t a pleasant walk. To cheer ourselves up we went into Wetherspoons for coffee. Their ordinary filter coffee is £1.15 for a large mug, and before 2pm you can get as many refills as you like. We had 2 cups each, so £2.30 for 4 cups of coffee.

It was worth braving the weather, though, as I got an amazing deal for my two sons for Xmas. W H Smith just happened to have a Doctor Who book and a WWE (American Wrestling) book as part of their 2 for £10 offer. I had a Smith’s 20% off voucher that brought the cost down to £8 for the two, and I also had a £5 ‘Love your high street’ voucher that I earned for answering a doorstep survey some time ago. That reduced the cost right down to £3 for 2 books that retailed full price at around £15 each. I’m really pleased as, with the scarf I knitted for DD2, I finally feel I’m making a start on my Christmas preparations. This afternoon I’ve made lists of things still to buy for pressies and also what we’re having for Xmas breakfast and dinner, trying to incorporate items I already have in stock such as stuffing mixes, bread roll mix and vegetarian sausage mix. I’m hoping my sealed tin will cover the food items I have to buy plus maybe one of two people’s pressies.

Dinner tonight was hot, flavoursome and filling on such a dark, damp day. I made the Hairy Bikers’ Great Sausage Casserole but adapted it for the slow cooker.

You can find the recipe here –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/great_sausage_casserole_73010

but I also have their book.

As usual I changed it to make use of what I had in. I used 8 sausages (not 12) from the freezer (Aldi’s £1.09 pork sausages that I got at 30% off) cut into bite-sized pieces. Since I didn’t have any bacon, I put in a bit extra smoked paprika for flavour and doubled the amount of beans (kidney beans instead of butter beans). I added a few frozen, sliced mushrooms; I used light brown sugar since I didn’t have dark, and soy sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce. The wine was cheap plonk that a friend brought back from France and I added a chicken stock cube but not the extra liquid as there was plenty from the wine and tinned tomatoes (25p in a 4 for £1 deal in Morrison’s last week).  So…a totally different recipe, really, but based on the Hairy Bikers’ version and served with slow cooker baked potatoes. 

Most slow cooker meals I just throw everything in but to make this in the slow cooker you do need to brown the sausages first. I save on cooking time by cutting them up with my kitchen scissors before frying. I didn’t add any extra oil, just cooked the pieces until lightly browned. I then fried the onions in the tiny bit of fat from the sausages (these ones don’t shed much fat during cooking). I added all the other ingredients to the pan and heated through before transferring to the slow cooker and leaving on low for 6 hours. If using bacon that should also be chopped into pieces and browned.

Approx costing for 5 adults was about £3 (without bacon) for the casserole plus 10p per person for the potatoes, so around 70p per meal.

Finally a big welcome to my latest followers SFT and Rachel. Happy to have you reading and thanks for your comments.

Wet, wet, wet. Or, it's raining cats.

What a horrible day it’s been today. Weather wise I mean. Cold, wet and windy all day. I got wet just walking up the road to catch my bus to Deal for my volunteering stint this morning. Got wet again at the other end of the journey. And yet again when I was back in Dover keeping my appointment with my adviser at the Job Centre. With DH working at the moment we aren't receiving benefits but I sign on to keep my National Insurance contributions up to date now that I no longer receive child benefit for my youngest, and also for the help and advice they’ve given me in getting back into work after a nearly 30 year break. I’m still hopeful that someone will give me a chance even though I’ve been out of the job market for so long. I’m not really wanting full time work, just a couple of days a week to boost our household income and to keep me from going completely insane being cooped up in the house. I’m only 56 so have a few years useful life left in me yet.

No pictures of dinner tonight and I can’t really price it because it was just a chicken stew from the freezer made over into a curry and served with Thai Style rice from Approved Foods. I also threw in a couple of lots of leftover veg (peas, carrots, green beans) from the fridge to use it all up. It was really yummy for such a pot luck kind of meal. I try not to waste a thing if I can help it and bung all kinds of bits and pieces into stews and soups or mix them with savoury rice or make into a pasta bake to make another meal.

As they have probably been clicked more than my kids in the 2 years we’ve had them, here are some more pics of our British Shorthair kitties just chilling out…as usual.

Ilona on Life After Money shared tips for frugal pet ownership. Luckily our kitties aren't too fussy about their food and will eat pretty much what's put in front of them, which is where AF comes in handy again because when they have a good deal I stock up. As we live at the junction of 2 busy roads they are indoor kitties, having the run of our 3 storey, 4 bedroomed Victorian terrace as their territory, and plenty of attention from the 5 adults who live here. It does mean they have to have litter trays, of course, and they're fussier about their litter than about their food, preferring the wood pellet kind which we buy at 2 x 30 litre bags for £16 from a local pet store which lasts about a month. They recently had it on offer at 2 for £14 so we bought a couple extra bags that month. We'd have liked to buy more but the bags take up quite a lot of room. We have them insured with Animal Friends for about £5.50 each and I also pay £18.98 (for both of them) a month to our vet for a scheme that includes all their flea and worming treatments, plus two check ups a year, their annual injections, claw clipping if we wanted (we usually do that ourselves every 2 weeks), and 10% off any medical procedures or treatments. It's money well spent as their flea treatment alone would cost £180 a year and the check ups and injections another £70. Yes, it does all add up but we love them to bits and feel that if you keep pets you should look after them properly. Insurance means we won't have to worry about affording their treatment should they ever be ill or injured. I would say that including food, litter and insurances they cost about £60 a month or £15 a week for both of them (£7.50 each) which isn't a great deal really, but when I often make meals for us that are only between 50-75p per serving it can still be a chunk out of anyone's budget. So, I guess my point is that keeping a pet shouldn't be gone into lightly.

Hope that didn't come across as too preachy, but in a town where many people seem to consider the whole pavement is a dog loo and you can't walk more than a couple of yards between piles of muck I get quite passionate about people being responsible for their animals.

Tomorrow is forecast as another wet day so I might stay in and make a start on a bag I have to make as a birthday present. If I do I'll try and post pictures.

And lastly many thanks to the folks who are reading my ramblings and leaving me such lovely reviews.