Wednesday 31 October 2012

Use it Up .... Make it Do .. and Thrifty Gifted Goodies..


Hello there ....
hope you are all well .... having a good week..
... and hope you and yours are safe if you are accross the pond.
 

All is well here ... well ... it is now ....
Don't let the peaceful homely photo above fool you ....

Things were very different this time last week ...

We had a 'Chicken Licken' incident!  



Yes ... indeed ... I thought 'the sky was falling in' ... well ... at least the soot and rubbish from the old chimney was falling in.
As you can see I sent Hubby P up the chimney to investigate .... and fix it ... luckily he's a very good 'fixer'.

He got very dirty!



I won't bore you with the details ... but top and tail of the story ... £40 for a bit of specialised boarding that goes around the top/flue of the woodburner... a lot of swearing ...and one very mucky Hubby P.

So its nice to get back to normal ... as you can imagine everything and everywhere was dusty and dirty so we painted the sitting room whist we were at it ... and the bedroom ...



Normal being of course... squeezing as much as I can out of as little as I can.
Just look at these lovely peaches .... past their best for selling but good enough for me ...
a gift from Colin the veg .. for me to 'use up'.


And very nice they were too ... in a big rustic fruit crumble with a dollop of custard.

Use it Up ...
Well .. I had a rummage around in the fridge ... and pulled out some mashed potato .. well .. mash and the remains of the veg we had for dinner the last night ... still good wholesome stuff.
  

I gave it a good old mash up and added a bit of marg and a sprinkle of strong cheese....



And ... with a bit of flour formed it into potato cakes to fry up with some sausages (value range ... it is midweek)
... Hubby P likes a nice sausage.

More gifted goodies ..
 

Just look at these wonderful grapes..



 Beautiful things ...
Given to me from a friend who is moving house and just hadn't the time to deal with them.
They are a wine variety i think .. lots of pips in them and a bit tart ... but to be honest ..
the last thing I fancied was Hubby P whipping off his socks with ideas of treading them for wine.
We have enough of a fermentation issue with the socks!
 
So I cooked um up .. put them through a jelly bag and made into jelly.
     
  
Lovely ruby red jelly .. bit on the runny side ... I should have added some pectin ...but I hadn't any so there you are ... 
A nice addition to the store cupboard.

Don't forget ... the Tuppenny Houses draw (last post) .. I will do the draw tomorrow... and find new homes for the little houses, there are two to win.

xx