I'm not here anymore....

Thanks to Metro.co.uk for featuring my story I really appreciate the attention being brought to the blog. I see a lot of you are being directed here when my website is infact  www.hardupandhappy.co.uk where if you subscribe there you will be kept up to date with the latest recipes, tips and more! Also I've got a channel on youtube if you want to subscribe. I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! Please don't miss out as I will be closing the blogspot soon. Thanks for reading. P.S Here's my latest vlog just for you.

Autumn

When the wind makes the leaves dance

As they fall their last chance to shine

Flying, floating, swirling past the branches descending

Their last journey seemingly never-ending

On the way down a graceful flutter

Heading slowly for the ground

A reminder letting go is beautiful and not sorrowful

The tree doesn’t weep for the leaves it has shed

Instead it stands bare for a while, respectful and ready

For the time will come to grow again.

Amy Kelly

Ghoulish Games and Frightening Fancy Dress

I hope you have enjoyed my Halloween installments and you are all planning on throwing a party this year. As promised, here is my last post about dressing up and playing games at your party without spending a great deal of money. You really don't need to spend loads on fancy props and outfits to look the part  at your spooky get together. Now is the time to make use of clothes that don't fit anymore, have holes in or even old fancy dress outfits that can be made spooky. Neve, my daughter, had a part in the play at school as a clown and I had to buy an outfit for her to wear- once. Being thrifty this really bugged me-until Halloween of course! The clown outfit came in handy again and she became a scary clown. I know it's not the best of examples, considering the stupid craze surrounding clowns at the moment, but almost any non-Halloween related fancy dress costume can come in handy. I have used old dressing up outfits to cut up and make new ones from. With a bit of imagination and effort you will look better than a shop bought outfit. 

My eldest daughter Olivia is 15 now and she still loves to get dressed up. We used an old onesie to make her into a doll. With back-combed pig-tails, a teddy bear and a great tutorial on Youtube we made her up quite creepy. Again don't spend silly amounts of money on face paint and accessories, the pound shops sell kits, or even talc, red lipstick and an eyeliner would do the trick.

The best thing is, we all get involved and create a buzz of excitement for the kids and that costs nothing to do. 

I'm the biggest kid at heart and love making it special for the children. We play lots of spooky games together too. I do invest in the cheapest toilet roll I can find so we can play 'Make a Mummy' where the children grab an adult and a toilet roll, the first one to completely cover their 'Mummy' in toilet roll wins.

 My niece Lexi having loads of fun.

My mummified husband. The main thing is everyone has loads of fun and everyone must join in. The next game we play is 'Pin the Heart on the Skeleton'. As the name suggests you cut out a paper heart and try to pin it to the correct place on a skeleton- we bought this from the pound shop- whilst blindfolded. Closest wins, you could use different organs for different children, if you wanted to test the older ones knowledge a bit, pin the kidney or liver?

Another thing we do is take any old party game and rename it. Musical bumps becomes musical zombies, pass the parcel could be pass the brain- whoever it stops on 'dies' (is out) or musical statues is musical mummies where you stand with your arms out instead of 'freezing'. 

None of these cost anything so there is no reason you can't have fun, so get the house decorated, plan your food and have fun

                            

Feed your family for 50p

What if I told you, you could feed a family of 6 this hearty meal for just 50p per person? It's true, last night we had sausage and pepper casserole, with herby dumplings and carrot and swede mash. It was filling, delicious and best of all cost £3 for the ingredients! I'm trying to get my weekly shopping as low as I can, but still cook home-made, nutritious, meals. In this week's shop that was just over £42 -for everything not just food- I bought the ingredients for the casserole, that was to feed 6 of us. It was delicious, made from scratch and everybody was left full and satisfied.

Pack of 8 sausages each sausage chopped into chunks of 3- 85p 

Red pepper sliced - 25p  (Part of a 3 pack)

Half a box of mushrooms chopped - 43p

500ml Carton passata - 35p

2 Large red onions - 13p 

300ml Beef stock - (2 cubes and water) 6p 

(optional for flavour - 200 ml Red wine - 78p )

For the dumplings:

300g Self-raising flour - 9p

100ml water

herbs -6p

Full swede cubed - 45p

Bag of carrots chopped - 29p

Place all casserole ingredients in a large pan on a high heat and cook for 15 minutes

Add a tbsp flour and stir in stock, passata and red wine if you are using. Simmer for 10 minutes and transfer to an oven proof casserole dish and put into a pre-heated oven at 200 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Place the carrots and swede into a pan of boiling water and cook until soft and mashable, roughly half an hour to an hour.

For the dumplings, mix the herbs in with the flour, add the water gradually and stir with your fingers

until everything comes together in a big ball.

Half the mixture then again and again and roll into balls. After the Casserole has had 45 minutes- an hour, pop the balls onto the liquid and cook for a further 30 minutes. Mash the carrot and swede with a knob of butter and freshly ground pepper and serve.

Zombie Brains

I tend to cook a chilli for Halloween, so everyone has something decent to eat before all the junk. I dress it up as 'Zombie Brains' giving it a spooky name helps with getting them to eat it. You can  put almost anything you want in this. If you have anything spare- I had a corn cob left over from our veggie burgers, I sliced the corn off and threw that in, or substitute the kidney beans for baked beans, you could even use a different coloured pepper if you don't have a red one. If you want to make it go further serve with rice, chips or jacket potatoes. 

500g minced beef

Red pepper diced

Onion sliced

Tin chopped tomatoes

Tin kidney beans

Tsp cumin

Tsp chilli powder

Tsp paprika

Tsp garlic powder

300ml beef stock (oxo and water)

Fry the mince in a pan on high and when cooked drain off the fat

In another pan with some oil add the pepper and onion and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes with the cumin, chilli and paprika

When the onion and pepper are soft add the drained mince, tin of tomato, beef stock and give a good stir

Add kidney beans and leave to simmer for at least 20 minutes and serve.

2 pies 1 Post. R.O.G.O.F Read One Get One Free.

After my successful shop last week at Aldi, I was very busy in the kitchen. We managed to spend £39 to feed three adults, a teenager and two children for a full week. It takes a bit of time and effort to save money on your food bill, which can be seen as a negative thing that would put people off. What if I told you that it would create more family time and give you a sense of accomplishment, on top of saving you pounds? We make meal planning a family get together, where we all decide and argue about the following week's meals. It's great, there are usually strops and tears, but we manage to devise a plan and we wouldn't be us if we didn't bicker our way through everything. Involving the children in the process of menu planning and cooking, is giving them valuable life skills that they will use forever, I would say there is nothing more beneficial you could teach them. After we plan the week's meals, I can make a list of the ingredients needed, then shop for them, you MUST stick to your list, do not get tempted to buy things other than what's on there, another reason for the bickering as hubby tends to wander off the beaten track, I just remind him how much money we're saving and he soon comes back. Shopping this way will save you loads of money and the more meals you cook from scratch,  will give you a massive sense of achievement. Get the children involved at every opportunity, even if it's them passing you the ingredients, they love to help and it also encourages them to try new things and eat their meals. We have had two very different pies in the last two weeks that I wanted to share with you.

Firstly my Chicken, Bacon and Sweetcorn Pie:

3 or 4 chicken breasts

4 rashers cheapest smoked back bacon

100g frozen sweetcorn

Pack puff pastry

2 tsp dried thyme

100ml cream

Tbsp plain flour

1 pint chicken stock

In a frying pan on medium-high cook the chicken and bacon adding the thyme

Stir in the flour and gradually add the chicken stock a bit at a time until all the flour is dissolved

Add the sweetcorn and let it bubble for 5 minutes

Finally stir in the cream and transfer to an oven proof pie dish

Top with the puff pastry and cook at 180 for 35 minutes

The next 'pie' is so simple, you could let an older child make it with very little help.

Cowboy Pie:

3 tins of baked beans

2 tins of corned beef

5-6 potatoes

Milk and butter (for mashing)

Grated cheese (for topping)

Roughly chop the corned beef into chunks and put in a deep oven proof dish

Add the beans

Peel, chop and boil the potatoes for 25 minutes until soft

Mash with a splash of milk and a nob of butter until smooth

Spoon onto the beans and corned beef filling

Lightly scrape a fork over the surface and add some cheese

Bake at 180 for 30 minutes

Why should we donate to the food banks?

I find it really sad that we live in an age, that makes the Jetson's (remember them?) almost seem a reality. With hi-tech gadgets coming out of our ears and the ability to produce enough food to feed a galaxy, yet we have millions of people starving. I'm not even talking about the poor Ethiopian's, who with all the millions of pounds of aid that have been raised over the years, really should be sorted now don't you think? Is there just me finds that odd, since I was at school, in fact for as long as I can remember, we have been fund-raising to help 'feed the world', yet all that seems to have happened is more people are going hungry?

Talking of school, remember the Harvest festivals? The morning your mum would be frantically searching through the fridge, for any vegetables you hadn't used, that didn't resemble an old shoe. Pulling the emergency rations tins for the zombie apocalypse out of the back of the cupboard.

You would get to school and the hall would have magically transformed into some kind of Willy Wonka land-if Willy Wonka did vegetables. There was always a fancy bread loaf, that looked like someone had sculpted it into wheat. Amazing colours everywhere, fresh fruit and vegetables harvested from the land and not tipped out of a tin. I digress, it makes me sad to hear, that instead of us helping the dear elderly folk that live local to us, with all this fresh fruit and veg, we are now being asked to take tinned and dried goods for the food banks. We are now helping people just like us. Not elderly people that could use a boost, but people like you and me with families. How is this happening? How are people not affording to feed their families, when I have just done a weekly shop for £39 for 6 of us?

Are people really that skint? Are they uneducated in how to budget or cook? I really would love to know the answer and I am going to make it my mission to find out. By the way our first tea time recipe was good old bangers and mash. Easy, cheap and filling. 

Peel and chop potatoes into equal sized chunks boil for 20-25 minutes until soft

While they are boiling grill your sausages until they are cooked-I like mine overdone

With some scissors snip the outer leaves of a savoy cabbage very finely and the same with 4 spring onions

5 minutes before the potatoes are ready place peas in a steamer basket above the potatoes to save electric

In a frying pan with a generous nob of butter or oil and lots of pepper fry the cabbage and spring onion

Drain the potatoes when soft and add a splash of milk and  nob of butter to the pan and mash

Stir in the cabbage and spring onion mix and serve topped with sausages, gravy and peas.