Frugal Dinner with "Jack" Pudding

I have had a busy day doing lots of little jobs, Michael has been painting away and ( I am ashamed to say) keeping the tea flowing. I did manage to sit down for 5 minutes and get a pile of the flower granny blocks crocheted. Well it felt like 5 minutes but really was nearly an hour.

I follow Frugal Queen and although I do not get the email detailing her " feed a family for £40" I wholeheartedly applaud what she is doing. Her  post yesterday talked about the media insistence that we should buy local, organic artisan produce and the fact that most of us can not afford to do so. I have to say that if I could afford it I wouldn't. I can buy a cabbage grown in a field minutes walk away for 40p on the market, 90p in a supermarket or I can buy an organic cabbage that has traveled a minimum of 50 miles for £1.20. no brainer.
I do buy RTC items but have a good look at them first, sometimes with veg it is false economy if the quality has deteriorated. I would rather buy frozen veg from Farm Foods.
I do grow veg, the ones that I love and are "how much" to buy. Sprouting Broccoli is as dear as fillet steak in some shops, I can stuff myself with 3 plants worth of growth for weeks. Leeks are a terrible price, I grow more each year, I am buying them now when on promotion. Salad leaves are very pricey, I sow seeds every 2 weeks into deep seed trays and cut them when 4" - 6" high, they regrow 3/4 times.

Anyway, today I cooked a very frugal dinner.

A small chicken breast sliced into strips and frozen, from a RTC chicken £2.00 cost 50p.

1/8th pack of frozen sliced peppers £1.00 cost 13p.

1/2 onion sliced cost 5p.

1 tbsp fajita spice, from large pack £1.00 cost minimal so I will call it 5p.

Pasta from AF rough cost 15p

Pasta sauce homemade estimated cost 10p.

I did not count oil for initial cooking as I used chicken fat saved from a roast and frozen in cubes.

Total cost 98p for 2 servings.

I had a very small cube of half price cheese that had dried out so grated that onto Michael,s dish.

Jack had a Rhubarb and Custard rice pudding recipe on her blog, I have Rhubarb in the garden, I have long grain rice 40p per Kilo, I have instant custard from AF, 50g of sugar I have no idea what the pudding cost, the milk was 50p RTC and there is enough for scones tomorrow, The custard came out of a tin 12p. I got enough for 4 generous servings so even ifthe cost was as high as £1 it is still 25p per serving.

I ought to have used a coloured dish, the rice was a very creamy  colour with a hint of pink from the rhubarb cooking liquid.

It was so good, I am serving the rest of the rice tomorrow with some mango from the freezer, from the 10p mangoes that I got from work last year.

Reasons to be grateful.

1. Another lovely warm day.

2. Lots of jobs knocked off the "to do" list.

3. Lots of painting done.

4. I cooked so Michael is washing up.

5. A stack of flower granny squares done.

Tomorrows dinner is a cheapy also, I have a pack of 4 100% beef burgers from the Co-op that were RTC 50p ages ago, I emptied the shelf and got them into the freezer. I am on a mission to eat the contents before I move so decided to have a meat fest. I will pan fry them and serve with fried onions, sauted mushrooms, out of the deep freeze from work last year and potatoes, either mashed or pan fried.

 I am off out tonight, just for a couple of hours, Neville has got his hands on some old western TV series on DVD and a few of us are congregating to watch a few. I will be the baby there by around 12 years, most of these were on the TV before I was born.
I have managed to ramble on and I am sure that I got side tracked and totally lost the thread, never mind, now you see what happens when I allow my mind to wander as it will.


     TTFN                                                           Pam