Ye Olde Cookery Book ....

Hello there everyone .... its been a super day here .... lots of sunshine.
We are hoping for a nice day tomorrow when we sell at the Car Boot sale.
Fingers crossed ..... x

Just a short post .... firstly to thank you all for your comments, its nice to know I'm not just blathering away here to myself ... hehe ..... wouldn't be the first time!

...... and secondly ..... some of you mentioned the cookery book .... I've had it forever.
I think it must have been passed down from one of my Grandmothers I really cant remember..... its travelled with me from kitchen to kitchen.

As you can see its very battered and nowadays its held together by sellotape. It does have a fabric ... linen? .... covering, although that's falling off so the sellotape really does hold it all together.

Cookery Illustrated and Household Management

written by Elizabeth Craig and published in 1936......

So .... that's between the wars then .... fairly old .... its hard to imagine what life was like so far back.

The book gives a glimpse of household 'life' back then ... and what a lot there was for a newly married young woman to learn.

It not only gives advice on food and cooking ... but how to care for silk umbrellas and how to kill bed bugs!
Obviously essential information for every Girl!

How the world has changes .... off to do my Online shop now .... what would Grandma say!

Take care xx

Stove top cooking ..... Thrifty of course!

Hello there .... all well I hope...

Been quite a nice day here today ..... the 'Boys' have been playing on the roof ..... the latest project a Summerhouse/cabin .....

... they have been laying a felt roof .....

Great fun and lots of laughs .... you can be assured I was inside ... where its warm ... but still ... doing my 'bit'.

Usually the best idea with Men and outdoors-y projects is to keep them well fed and supplied with regular hot drinks .... bit like bringing up children really.

Major problem on the food front here at the moment ..... my oven is on the blink ... so no baking possible .... and no biscuits etc ( I don't buy anything like that ... trying to be frugal and all that!)

I had a think about all the women living all theirs lives without ever an oven to bake in ..... I thought 'come on Vicky .... women years ago managed perfectly well' ..... so what to make?

I thought of the Crofters on the Scottish Isles and indeed my own Mother rustling up something quick for unexpected visitors .... ahhh Griddle scones or Drop scones.

I reached down my old battered cook book ..... as old as the hills but just as useful and relevant today.

As I flipped through look what I found .... it could have been written for the housewife today.

Anyway I found a basic receipt....... its really a thick batter

10 oz flour
1 1/2 tsp Bi carb soda
1/2 tsp salt
1oz melted butter
1 egg
1/2 pint sour milk (I used fresh with a drop of lemon juice)

and I added 1 tsp sugar

Make a batter of this .... beating well....

Drop spoonfuls onto a hot griddle .... or greased frying pan if like me that's all you have.

When the mixture starts to rise a little and bubbles start to pop, ease the scone with your fish slice or pallet knife ... if you are posh ... and flip it over.

Serve them warm freshly buttered .... that's if you can get your men to come down off the roof.

...and mugs of hot tea .... Earl Grey of course.

This receipt made lots of batter .... too much for one 'Afternoon Tea' for us, so I have put some in the fridge for tomorrow I thought I would try it as a savory.... I have a little sweetcorn sat in the fridge too.
I will stir the sweetcorn into the batter 'drop the scones' cook and serve them with an egg and the last of the 99p Value bacon bits ..... should be a little different....I will let you know Hubby P's opinion .... as it is I have to disguise sweetcorn/ he takes issue with sweetcorn/its his digestion ... I will say no more...

.... I tell you its like raising children all over again.

Here we are .... having lots of fun ..... it takes a lot of talking about .... in very loud voices!

And with very loud toys....

Ohh ... yes indeedy ... the scones were delicious .... I had damson jam with mine.

Any ideas on stove top cooking .... I may be at it a while ....

Take care xxx

A Girl and Her Soap ... and odd Thrifty Snippets..!

Well .... we had a bit of sunshine today ..... I had to scrabble about in my bag for a pair of sunglasses ..... things are looking up!

Hope you've had a nice weekend.

I thought I would show you my soap ..... Ohhh how I love soap...

.... and not just the sweet pretty toilet soap ..... I really love the old solid, chunky brick -like bars of soap that our Grandmothers used.

I picked this 'Perfection' and 'Pinkobolic' soap the other week ......

Pinkobolic...!

...how fantastic is that...' REMOVES THE FEAR OF DIRT AND GERMS'... just great!

Hubby P snigger's like a school boy every time he reads Pinkobolic ..... always a silly boy at heart.

The other morning I finished a bottle of shampoo and thought 'what a useful bottle' ... too good to bin.... so I went to put it in the bathroom cupboard to 'store' it. Whilst rooting about in there I came across lots of half full bath foam, showergels etc etc.... bits and bobs that were not going to be used for their original purpose....

So I poured them all into the 'useful' bottle and intend to use it for cleaning the washbasin and toilet .... its soap after all, and leaves a very pretty scent.

Nothing need be wasted.

As you can see I have a little basket of different kinds of Domestic soap .... some plain Fairy, some very old Sunlight and some made in a factory in Accrington (where I went to school)... allsorts of odds and ends.
I use it daily at the kitchen sink .... just as Granmother did.

I do use it because I've got to face the fact that no one ele will want/treasure it when I am gone ... so I may as well enjoy it. I think its the smell off it you know ... brings back memories...

I remember when we were small we had a trestle table and we would fold one leg down to make a slide. This we put in the garden under the washing line. We tied the garden hose to the washing line.... turned on the tap and has a slide under the 'shower'. Grandad had got a wooden box full of blocks of soap .... proberably Sunlight .... I remember it was yellow and very hard... we used this soap to 'grease' the slide ......

...... we were very, very clean children that summer, that the scent of that soap is still with me.

The Pinkobolic smells wonderful .... it was made in Crosfields Warrington ..... anyone remember Crosfields?

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On to the everyday .... mundane even .... business of meals.
I have returned to the Thriftyness of Bacon (I kinda went off it for a while).

You really cant beat Tesco's cooking bacon at 99p for 500gms .... I slice it up thinly and store it in a plastic box in the fridge...

There is enough for three meals for the two of us .... under 15p/head/meal

This evening I fried it up with a few mushrooms that were looking a bit tired and new (Tesco Value) potatoes .... tasty.

Any Thrifty tips on the old bacon front .... or soap for that matter .... a Girl cant get enough of nice soap ...!

Ta ta for now x

New Boots and a Thrifty Snippets Bonus......

Here we are ..... back to the everyday .... and what a challenge!

A new blank canvas.... a whole fresh New Year .... what will we make of it..... I hope all pulling together we can get through it as comfortably as possible.

Its going to be tough for an awful lot of people so come on folks share all your money saving ideas .... your money making tips ... your Thrifty Snippets..!

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New boots all round at the Anglesey Allsorts household ...
both Hubby P and I needed sturdy new boots..... his are rather smart and arrived yesterday.

A rather significant investment for Hubby P (he hardly ever buys anything new ..... he needed a strong cup of tea when ordering the boots!)... so it was a nice surprise to find they were all they had professed to be .... good strong, all leather boots etc.... and a good fit.

And .... wonderfully packed!

I do get excited with packaging .... everyone is urged to 'be careful' when unpacking .... 'mind the tissue' ..... I love tissue especially if its pretty colours.

A Girl can do wonders when wrapping a gift if she has some pretty tissue and a ribbon.

I managed several sheets of nice soft heavy tissue-y paper and a good sturdy box with lid from the boot purchase.

I was ironing Richards work shirts .... he usually does his own laundry (strict training from age 14) but today it was my way of helping .... he and Hubby P were doing outside jobs so ironing seemed a warmer ... altogether cosier job.
Anyway .... I'm rambling on
.... having the iron still warm I ironed all the tissue from the boot packaging ..... only took a few minutes and its looks good enough to use as wrapping paper.

I have a special little ironing/airing rack ... its above a dehmidifyer in a particular damp corner of the cottage. The dehumidifyer keeps the area fresh and dry and helps air any clothes on the rack.

Can you see my little child's nightdress/under slip .... so cute.

Thought you might like a little look .... they were made of such lovely soft cuddly fabrics.

Its just had a freshening wash and iron..... I have it hanging on the upper rails of my bed with other sweet little baby gowns and whatnot. They are all in need of a wash so I am working through them.

And just to finish .... this is what I've been doing of an evening..... cotton dish cloths.

I was given a whole bagful of cotton yarn so I have crocheted it up into cloths ... I have quite a stack.... so along with the Money Saving I am trying the Money Making haha ..... and I put some on Ebay .... I really don't know if they will sell but hay ho ... ya never know!

So what Thrifty Snippets do you have to share .......

Take care xx

Frugal Fires and Thoughts of Yesteryear....

Hello there ....

Hope you all had a nice Christmas .... think I have had enough of it now .... all the sitting around and eating .... a girl can get a bit stir crazy.

I went to help Hubby P do a bit of sorting out at his storage containers today... it was nice to get a bit of fresh air.... bit of rosy into the old cheeks.

We had a good sort out of all the old furniture and brought home any tatty and broken bits for the fire .... we don't like to waste a thing ...... and if its wood it will burn and keep us warm.

May look a bit odd but its warming my tootsies as I type.

I remember as a girl my Grandad telling tales of the hardships during and just after the war, he was a Builder and cleared the odd house for a firm of Solicitors.

This is He....

He taught me how to make a fire ... how to lay it with dry paper .... save all the scraps of packaging from the kitchen ... it will all burn, add some dry sticks/kindling and one or two lumps of coal on top.
Put a light to the bottom and open up the vents so that it draws, if there is little wind/the fire is slow to get going, hold a sheet of newspaper across the front of the fire causing the air to be drawn up from under, and through the fire .... feeding the flames with oxygen and increasing their heat and power. Of course you need to remove the newspaper before it scorches and sets on fire..!

One of his tricks with an open grate/fire was to put a house brick to the back of the fire basket so that the fire was more to the front pushing heat into the room, he use to say its silly to spend good money heating the chimney.

I remember he and my Mother talking of the hard times when coal was either too expensive or could not be found, Grandad would break up old furniture to burn, another time he had cleared an old shop, much of it was old books, so he burnt the old and tattered ones .... they were dense and slow burning and kept the fire in.
He was a great reader, and I must say I would find it hard to burn good books but as he would say .... Needs Must.


Shoes .... old leather shoes were another source of keeping warm ... Grandad had cleared an old Pawnbrokers.
My Mother said as children they had great fun emptying all the little boxes .... when a someone pawned an item the the 'Pawnbroker' gave the customer a number and put it in a box with the number on it so it could easily be found when the customer came back and paid the money to retrieve it.
There were boxes and boxes of all sorts of everyday items .... lots and lots of them being shoes.

A lot of this stuff was kept in the cellar and Mum was sent down to get a couple of shoes to keep the fire going, no coal in the cellar but plenty of shoes!


We moan about things being hard but I think things will get harder before they get better, maybe we will be the ones telling our Grandchildren of the 'Hard times'.

I found a couple of Pic's of my young life to give you an idea of the barren moorland in which I grew up ... I just loved it ..... we had a freedom to run wild, something you do not see nowadays.

This is a photo of my Best Friend ... we grew together and here we are out in my first car ... I think we found an icecream van .... in the middle of nowhere!

Good days .... smiley days!

This next one is of my back garden .... me being chased by a big brother with a popgun!

In the depths of winter and Ivan is still wearing his short trousers with his wellies!

Twas just so then ... and nobody blinked an eye .... I'm sure nowadays we would be seen as deprived or something .... and it would be frowned upon to give us guns to play with.

Ahhhhh well ..... enough for now ...... take care xx

Thrifty Snippets... Fleece-y Bits and the Odd Parsnip...!

Hello there ....... You all Christmasssed up then!

I've ... or rather we .... Hubby P even helped ... have cleaned up within an inch of my life .... Father Christmas better be Bl***y Well impressed!

Thank goodness its only once a year!

Anyway as a change from all that glitz and glitter and hoo hhaaarrr -y stuff .... here's some bog standard every day stuff, the kind of stuff we will all be back to in a few days.

Bit of Thrifty Snippet-y stuff.....

Look at these cute little sheep ... I was given these bits of fleece fabric the other day. My friend couldn't bear to throw them out but they were only smallish pieces, bit small to do much with really.

I had thought a couple of weeks ago that I ought to get a couple more hot waterbottles, one had sprung a leak ... not good .... waking up to a damp patch!
And I had found a couple of new bottles at the carboot sale ... I swear you can find anything at a boot sale.
Anyway they needed covers .....

So what nicer than fleecy sheep!

I really couldn't be bothered trying to find the sewing machine under the heap of fabric and 'projects waiting to be undertaken' ....

I simply laid a hot waterbottle on top of the fleece and cut around it, the pieces (4 pieces, two for each cover) were just big enough.

I hand sewed the thing together as I watched Miss Marple.... a repeat but I enjoyed it ... and the cover turned out just fine.

Twill do the job. I'm just on with the other cover.

....... AND PARSNIPS!

Who loves parsnips?
.... well we do and I had bought a little bag for Christmas dinner ....

and then this turned up ..... given to us by a kind neighbour (I think someone had given it to him and basically he was just overwhelmed by the Parsnip-ness of it all .... ! )

A huge .... super sized carrier bag of super sized ..... super dirty parsnips .... enough to feed an army ..... should they like parsnips of course.

Well..... me being a trooper of the 'Waste Not Want Not' brigade .... I set to ......
up to my elbows in muddy water grappling with roots .....
how else should a girl spend her afternoon ( don't tell ... but I do hear some girls spend 'hours' in nice places being pampered with facials and manicures ... tis just a wicked lie ... surely .... just to dis-quieten us...).

I got through half the bag .... some roasting for tea, some bagged in the freezer for roasting and soup, a big pan of Curried Parsnip soup and some in the fridge for the next couple of days. I thought I would try making some parsnip crisps .... if I don't tire of slicing them so thinly...

Any ideas on Parsnips? I thought of wine but we don't drink it.

Ideas would be welcome?

....... this week we will be mostly eating Parsnips ..... can a body overdose on Parsnips.

This looks very festive doesn't it ..... but have you tried cooking by candle light?

The lightfitting in the kitchen has gone kaputt .... Could Hubby P find the right sort yesterday.... could he heck
.... luckily he found one today, I had visions of Christmas dinner being juggled under the candle flame ..... are the potatoes roasted enough? whats that floating in the gravy?.... that sort of thing .... you get the picture.

Guess what Hubby P is doing tomorrow.

A little random pic of my 'portable' mini sewing box .... thought you would like the diddy case!

Somehow Blogger has mixed the photos up when loading ... does anyone else have this problem?

Enough of me anyway .....
enjoy your festivities and think of us when munching on your parsnips!

Take care xx

What is it withith Girls and Candlelight......!

Hello there .... how's things?

All keeping warm and toasty, and not too stressed.....

Its just One Day! .... if only ....

Well ... no stress here, to be honest I am making very little effort .... just a little here and there, bought a bit of Holly today....




Its the only bit of decoration I have felt like doing ..... I'm determined to do Christmas for Me this year .... no great dinners, glittering house, and dashing here there and everywhere.

I went for a wander around the carboot sale today, a young couple were selling Holly, or a least trying to, they looked so cold .... so I bought what they had left and suggested they get home and warm up!
They seemed a bit surprised and chuffed I bought it all .... but not half as 'chuffed' as Hubby P 'seemed' when I asked him .... nicely .... I might add ... to haul all this prickly stuff home.

And Candles......

.... what is it with us Girls and Candlelight? .... we just love it..!

And we need no other excuse ....... its cold and dark .... to play with our candles.

I collect these little tin and enamel 'Wee Willy Winkie' candlesticks .... well .... along with all my other 'collections'.

I just love battered old enamel ware.... its just so ....honest? does that make sense?

Oh .... and I put up a few Christmas cards too ..... Hubby P's Birthday cards are up there too .... if you are a bit confused ! ...... he's 21 ..... again!

I just love the rich dark green of the Holly brightened by the glorious rich red of the berries, enough in itself you may think .... but today as I was putting rubbish in the dustbin I looked over to the garden that backs onto the hedge and spotted these little silver 'pennies' waving in the wind.
They are the seed heads of the Honesty plant, I thought they have done so well to survive this long in the cold and wet ..... they deserve a last Hurrah!

I brought them in and nestled them amongst the Holly .... pretty I thought.

I think this is the favorite of my WWWinkies ..... even Hubby P approves of the candles, although not for quite the same reasons .... he will tell you ....

'Yes Pet ....you go ahead and light your candles .... who needs central heating when you have a candle or two to warm the place!'

That's right ... its his preferred method of heating ... cheap you see .... he saves any and all candles, stubs of candles, half used candles .... anything resembling a candle, that he finds in the House Clearances and car boots sales.... and hands them to me with great pride.

So there we have it Candles .... different things to different people .... once a utilitarian thing, to be frowned upon as something the poor people had to use and now something we actively buy for pleasure (we wont think of Hubby P's attitude.... surely he's a one of a kind!).

How is it with you and candles? Is it just a Girl thing do you think?

Take care x