Use It Up an Eat It Up! Thrifty Snippet!!

Is it raining with you? 'tis a bit miserable here!

We went to the carboot sale today but I'm afraid I haven't anything exciting to show you, any goodies were a bit thin on the ground, and rather too expensive for me. Still - can't expect Treasures every week!

So I thought I would share a Thrifty Snippet or two with you.

Well really it was just a case of 'what on earth can I make for tea' when I knew I ought really to go shopping - although I couldn't face a busy supermarket today. I hate shopping at the best of times - and Hubby P was busy playing - oops sorry - - familiarising himself with his new sanding machine, a noisy power-tool thing-y, so shopping was out of the question.

Very little fresh veg left in the fridge, and some rather 'sprout-y' potatoes that needed eating up.

So - that's healthy/low fat oven chips made from the potatoes (chunky chipped, par boiled and roasted in the oven with brushed on olive oil).

What to do with the end of the cucumber?(now don't be rude)

I chopped a goodly amount for our salad - only Richard and I had oven chips and salad, Hubby P statin 'a Man can have too much green stuff' so he chose something else - more manly!

Now when I was a girl - 'in the Good old Days' - maybe? In my Grandmothers kitchen, and ours/my Mothers, during the summer there was always a dish (in my Grandmothers - I can 'see' it clearly, it was a huge cut glass dish) of cucumber and onion in vinegar - its a lovely pickle to have with just about anything, I eat it by the ton.

Its very simple - just use oddments of cucumber (skin cut off and chopped) and onion and put them in a dish/jar (I use a sealed jar - it can make the kitchen smell a bit pickle-y otherwise), pour some vinegar to cover them and I add a bit of sugar, give it a stir.

I keep adding to the jar whenever I have an odd bit of cucumber left, or bit of onion - or I just make more because I love it - especially on cheese sandwiches!
Eventually of course you have to start afresh with new vinegar - the vinegar will get cloudy.

Next out of the fridge was the last of the carrots, a cabbage and I always have a few onions - so coleslaw it is then.

Grate the carrot, finely -ish chop the cabbage and onion, and mix with a bit of Mayo.

Now Richard was hovering around in the kitchen (asking why I was taking pic's of his tea? -
I suppose it is strange behaviour!) - anyway I asked him to pass me the mayo from the fridge and he said that he preferred my coleslaw when I make it with half mayo and half salad cream. Well - things being in the desperate state they are - shopping wise, I said we didn't have any salad cream unless - we had any in the Saddam Cupboard.

Now the Saddam cupboard goes back a long way - when the children were little and the News was full of the threat from Saddam Hussein, and any conflict with him may lead to shortages - so I had a cupboard where I kept extra tins of food - extra emergency rations.

I suppose I was brought up (living in the 'wilderness' - no easy access to shops etc) with full cupboards, not fancy expensive food - just basic staples.

So the Saddam cupboard is still a feature - and the name stuck, its not a huge cupboard, but it holds all the necessary to get us by.

But as you can see - no salad cream! - Bad Mother!

So we had Coleslaw made with just mayo - and very nice it was too.
(pleanty left - we didn't eat the whole dish full)

Plenty of lettuce - did I mention I have a greenhouse?!!!

Today a friend kindly gave me some homegrown new potatoes (they do look rather good - tomorrows tea?) and some Garlic - rather small but all the same very garlic-y, and very welcome.

I decided to make some Garlic oil with it - I have quite a bit of garlic in the fridge, we don't eat it at every meal, so the garlic oil would utilise the fresh garlic - preserve it I suppose.

I made a lot of this oil when I grew garlic myself, a couple of years ago - I shall grow it again next year - did I mention I now have a greenhouse?!!!

Simply peel the garlic cloves and pop in a clean jar, pour some olive oil over them (or whatever oil you use to cook with) - in a day or so the oil will be flavoured by the garlic and you can use it to cook with. You can also of course use the cloves themselves, just fish them out of the oil, give them a chop up and add to your stir fry or whatever.

As you use the garlic oil from the jar top it up with fresh olive oil - lots of garlic-y power in those little cloves.

Its just one way of using up the garlic - I don't know about you but the ones I buy soon seem to sprout - give the oil a try, scrummy used when frying mushrooms - well, that's if you like garlic of course!

Sorry if its been a bit of a 'same-y - cooking-y' post, just thought it would be a bit different - Richard says 'hope you enjoy pictures of His Tea!' I think he thinks we are all mad!!!!

xxx That's all for now xxx Take Care xxx