Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to Favourite Things Friday. Thanks for dropping by!

FTF is all about sharing something you love and showing off one of your favourite things. So if you want to play along , write yourself a post , link it up to the bottom of this post and break out the teapot and prepare for some visitors.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic this week. Miss P celebrated her 20th birthday on Wednesday and I've been reflecting on parenthood which quite naturally led me to the subject of today's post.

As a parent you sometimes day dream about when your grown child tells you that you're going to become a grandparent. In my dreams I'd watched my daughter grow and go to uni, start her career , meet someone kick arse fabulous, get married and then I planned to  spend the next few years eagerly anticipating the "Mum I've got some wonderful news to tell you " conversation.

Champagne was going to flow as readily as the tears of joy . I'd excitedly think of baby names and secretly hope she didn't choose anything way out or weird, (Jackson is not spelt Jaxxsson for crying out loud) we'd  talk morning sickness and weight gain and I'd take her baby clothes and accessory shopping. I imagined the days I could spend babysitting because by that time I certainly wouldn't be working 9 days a fortnight. I mean after all- I'd be practically retired by that stage since I was planning on being about 53.

Generally, nothing much in life  turns out the way you imagined it. And when Miss P told me she was pregnant at the ripe old age of 17  I couldn't imagine myself as a grandparent  because frankly I hadn't quite finished dispensing parental wisdom. Not that Miss P listened. Case in point : I recall many many conversations about contraception and even abstinence. And since  Miss P also ended up living 3500 kilometres away from the early stages of her pregnancy (because Little P's Dad had a job that required them to be far away)  I missed out on all the other stuff I'd dreamed about too. Sometimes life is like that.

But when this little guy arrived (and I was actually there at the moment he made his entrance ) all the "I've really been ripped off" feelings disappeared and I fell utterly and completely in love. This little guy changed my life.

And I've fallen more in love every day since then.

I love him even when he looks like this...

Yep- he loves the camera.

And when I don't see him for a week or so I suffer from Little P withdrawal.

This week my favourite thing is being a grandparent. It is without doubt the coolest thing EVER.  I get to dispense grandparent-ly wisdom and Little P is too young to argue back. I'm young enough to enjoy this grandparenting deal.  Occasionally these days in matters of parenting Miss P will concede I actually do know what I'm talking about. And when Little P calls out "Bella"(it sounds like Lella at the moment just like Grandpa is Bran-pa but I'm sure he'll get it right eventually ) my heart just melts.  The best thing about grandparenting is that my sole job is to love the socks off Little P!

What's your favourite thing this week?

Frugal Grocery February Winner :

Thanks to everyone who played along with Frugal Grocery February - there were some amazing efforts ! Thanks for playing along and keeping me motivated. I really enjoyed doing it.  The winner of the Frugal Grocery Challenge Aussie Food Pack is Seams Inspired, who saved over 50% off her grocery bill last month !

 

Frugal Grocery February - Wrap Up

Today is officially the last day of summer in Australia and coincidentally happens to be the last day of the  Frugal Grocery February Challenge . I reckon we have some reckoning to do people.

In case you're new here , this is the deal, I decided not to buy meat for all of February after I was hit in the head by 476 kilos of dead cow, chicken and lamb falling out of my freezer in late January. Buying no meat morphed into not buying anything we didn't need because seriously folks I have so much food it's not funny. There - you're all caught up.  Continue reading.

My goal was to halve my grocery bill for the month - which means I had 300 bucks to spend. Gone are the halcyon days when I had a grocery budget of 1000.00 bucks a month . Of course there were 4 of us then. I have been aiming monthly for around the $600 .00 mark since Mr. P and I reclaimed our house after 20 years of servitude last November.

I mentioned last week  that I was going to have some shopping to do this week, since we are pretty much running out of some of the essentials of life, like gherkins. I made the tactical mistake this week of looking through the local store catalogue (which I have avoided every other week this month ) and spied so many special specials it felt like manna from heaven. I managed to blow my good intentions big time and spent $152.00. Lesson learned - avoid the catalogues. That $152.00 spend was more than I've spent in the previous three weeks combined.

In my own defence I haven't bought a piece of meat for about 4 weeks which for me is nothing short of miraculous. But when  Chicken boobies are on special as well as 2 kilo whole chooks, lamb chops and Porterhouse Steak my will is weak. It was a wonderful feeling to know I could legitimately stroll past the meat cabinet this week because for the last three weeks I've run past averting my eyes like a crack addict trying to avoid her street corner dealer.

In the end my grocery spend for the month was 303.75- a saving for the month of 296.25 , so I almost made my goal. Yes I could have done better - yes I could have held off to buy meat and crackers this week but that's sort of cheating isn't it? To deliberately hold off to make my stats more impressive?

It doesn't matter how much meat I think I'm using my freezer never seems to get any emptier. I think my freezer is like that never ending pack of Tim Tams from the TV ad.

I don't know why I stopped menu planning.  I kind of lost  it in November of last year and just never started again until I did the challenge. It really helped me stay on track. It also made me look in the freezer for inspiration rather than just buying the same old things week after week and ending up with 6 packets of peas in my freezer.

I learned to get creative with leftovers. A quarter chicken can be made into Laksa soup for two if you add a few other ingredients. Mr. P makes a mean chicken fried rice from almost nothing. And if we don't eat it and it's a leftover from  leftovers  it goes into dog food.

I still have two freezers full of meat. I still don't know what's in the freezer in the shed because I never needed to use anything but meat from the inside freezer. I'm sure that confirms I have a serious issue.

Mr. P has stopped laughing at my propensity to stockpile meat , toothpaste, plastic wrap, alfoil  toilet paper , washing powder, soap and canned goods. It kept him fed/clean and unsmelly for the month !

There is the small matter of me sending some fabulously Australian  food  to whoever saved the most percentage wise off their groceries for the month. If  you  played along and you'd like to pop your percentage saved in an email and send it to me , I'll announce the winner in my FTF post for this week.

I'm giving some consideration about whether I'll continue to torture myself for March or come up with another cruel and unusual punishment....

Frugal Grocery February - Week 4

This week I am happy to report that although I didn't manage my goal of no spending I kept it down to $33.25 . Little P came for lunch on Friday and he loves ham so I went and bought some and in the process I ended up buying three loaves of cheap bread to stash in the freezer (forward planning!) milk and some eggs. That's the psychology of shopping. You go in for one thing and come out with six.  I didn't feel so bad since all those groceries were what I'd call basics. It's not like I was off buying four kilos of chocolate. ( I wish !)    And last week one of the shops  had a super special on brand name coffee so I made the tactical decision  to lash out and stock up. I saved $21.00 on three jars of coffee and it only cost me $15.00. And we're set for coffee for a while.

Mr. P  made  cinnamon bun pancakes on Saturday and they were delicious. They made a great weekend breakfast. You can find  the recipe we used here. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

I'm pretty pleased with how this challenge has gone for us. Using what we have has been a huge money saver and has made me really think about what we already have and how we  can use it creatively. I must thank Mr. P who has pretty much done all the cooking during the week this month.  There has been a lot less "popping down to the shops " for one or two ingredients and mostly we've substituted or just left  out ingredients if we didn't have it. The roof wont cave in if we don't use fresh coriander-  just chuck in ground coriander if it's only about the flavour. 

This weeks grocery shopping  brings my monthly total to $151.75 (just over $50 .00 a week ) which means so far I've saved $298.25 for the month. My goal was to save $300.00 so I'm pretty confident I can meet that target and maybe even better it.

On the down side this week I am going to have to start re-stocking items. We're completely out of things like gherkins and pickled onions. I tend to be a hoarder and we'll have one in the fridge and another one on the pantry shelf. This month I'm down to about 5 gherkin rounds floating round looking lonely in the jar  in the fridge. I guess I should be thankful we still have plenty of soap and deoderant.  I have noticed though that I'm not throwing away 5 bucks worth of slimy sandwich meat every three days because it isn't being eaten because if I buy it , I've only been buying enough for a day or so, or using canned tuna or eggs or cheese for sandwiches or rolls instead.  

We had two meals last week from leftover chicken I'd chopped up and stuffed in the freezer at some point. One was Thai chicken soup which was just a packet Thai base with fat rice noodles.  Mr. P added extra stock, chicken, corn and spring onions and it was lovely. The other was a chicken fried rice which fed us for dinner and then lunch the next day. Mr. P just chucked in a cup of chicken, some carrot , some peas , soy sauce , a bit of garlic ,  spring onion and eggs . Both were very economical meals made from leftovers or things we already had laying round , and tasted really good. We do tend to be big meat eaters here and I think it's been a positive change for us to have almost meatless meals a couple of nights a week.

My menu this week includes a few more chicken meals since I have so much of that in the freezer. Mother of Pyjamas tells a story about chicken being so expensive  when she was growing up  ,  that they didn't get it very often.  That's certainly not the case these days . I love chicken and we eat it often mainly because it's versatile and cheap. I know when Mr. P needs beef or lamb because he starts clucking at me.

I haven't made a dent in the big outside freezer yet ...I guess there's always March. But I'm starting to see the back of the inside freezer and at least when I open the door half a barnyard doesn't fall on me.  That's progress. And I'm still finding it hard to believe I haven't bought meat in almost 4 weeks.

Come back next week for the final tally. I'd love to hear how you're doing if you're playing along.



Frugal Grocery February - Week 3

I don't mind confessing I slipped ever so slightly last week. By Friday night, after a 10 hour day at work I'd pretty much had an ever loving gutful of everything and we got takeaway for tea. Even as I was doing it -I was cringing because  I could have made that meal for free from the contents of my own freezer/pantry  and saved myself $27.00, but I was just soooooo tired. And I haven't bought takeaway in forever. And it tasted fabulous.

Another confession: Thursday I made Mr. P go to the shops before he went to boys night and buy me a bag of salt and vinegar chips because I hadn't had a chip in over a week.  I thought about making my own but it was all too hard. I think making your own potato chips is something you do when you're feeling resilient and have about two hours to waste. Or when you don't have a car and the nearest shop is 50 kilometres away. And for when you may have undergone a total lobotomy and think making your own chips is the coolest idea ever. For $1.90 Samboy did it for me. It was worth the money.

Saturday when I finally hit the shops in desperation (we'd almost run out of plain flour and I'd planned to make my own bread this week and had run out of white sugar because Mr. P has a really bad habit of using stuff and not putting it on my shopping list and I had already used caster sugar for something else because I was being frugal and not running to the shops-and I think I just won the award for the longest run on sentence EVER   ) I almost bought a pack of lamb chops but sanity prevailed I put them back. That would be because I'd already checked the outside freezer BST (before shopping trip ) and found three packs lurking in the bottom. I did have to stock up on fruit because we had pretty much nothing and I have at least three of the symptoms of scurvy. The price of fruit and vegies was horrendous so I gave serious thought to growing my own vegetables and then thought about all the time that would take me away from blogging and quilting and discarded the idea. I spent $35.80 on fruit and vegies.

Since we needed dog food and I only buy it every 6-8 weeks I dumped that in the trolley first because 100 pounds of dried dog and  cat food take up a shitload of trolley room and it didn't leave much room for anything else. Smart huh? Next time I might borrow some unruly children because that will motivate me to get in and out in less than 5 minutes. I'm giving you these two tips for free.

I ended up spending 89.55 this week (dog /cat food not included ) I want to show you where $9.00 of that went. See the almost invisible tube of toothpaste at the bottom ? That's mine. I got two tubes. You will notice it is less than half the size of a regular toothpaste tube and yet costs twice as much. That is because Colgate is colluding with my dental hygienist to keep me poverty stricken. I know denistry has come a long way in recent years but is this really necessary? Apparently it is.

In the spirit of using what I've got, I made Monte Carlo Biscuits on the weekend and whacked some Mocha icing in there that I found in the depths of the freezer. We all know I don't have a natural affinity with baking which has yet again been proven by the fact that these are the size of tennis balls.  Mr. P has since started publicly callling them monster biscuits.  It is worth noting however that he has managed to eat several of them on the sly despite his rudeness.  I hope they go straight to his arse.

And I baked bread and a couple of rolls for lunch. This is not the best bread I've ever made but it's edible. My loaves did  not rise as much as I would like them to so we'll call this damper shall we?

I tried to get creative this week with the menu plan to use up all the little packets of chicken, lamb  and beef that were formerly roasts in a previous eating  that I have stashed all over my freezer. Tonight we lashed out and had barbecue steak with peppercorn sauce , tomorrow is chicken fried rice, Wednesday is Rendang , Thursday is Thai Chicken  soup with noodles, and Friday is a suspect spaghetti sauce that I may have made as far back as early 2010. If we survive until Saturday I'll make beef pies and Sunday I'll do a roast of some sort.

So with this weeks spend my grocery total stands at $118.50 which is a saving so far of $181.50 for the month. I'm going to try not to shop at all this week. If we need milk I'll try to find a  cow somewhere which is harder than you may imagine since we live in the city and there aren't many people that keep cows tethered in the backyard....

So how are the rest of you doing?



P.S.  Just off to see if YouTube has a cow milking tutorial.  My parents had beef cows on the farm.

Frugal Grocery February- Week 2

Well it's the end of Week 1 . How did you go? An honourable mention to Ann Marie who has spent exactly zero so far on her groceries for February. Can you believe that? That's what I call commitment to the cause and kick arse will power.

I'm feeling pretty darn virtuous this week having only spent $28.95 on groceries. That's less than 20% of my usual budget. I saved $121.05 !

I pretty much stuck to the menu plan I set with the exception of one dinner and one brunch.  I didn't make cinnamon pancakes so that'll happen this weekend. At some point this week I'm going to run out of bread and when that happens it'll be home made for a while just so I can continue to save some bucks.   

What strategies did I employ this week to keep the grocery bill down? Well, I ran past the meat counter at Foodland last week muttering "I must not buy meat ...I must not buy meat " like a crazy cat lady. I've found I can substitute or omit ingredients  if I need to and my head won't explode. And I can drink milk one minute past the expiry date and I won't get botulism. Normally I'm freakishly anal about stuff like that.

However even with all of this frugalness going on at Casa Pyjamas I'm sure that the  stuff in my freezer continues to breed  at a rate of knots. Does this look any less full to you?

You'll be pleased to know I threw out the Hot Cross buns from last Easter two weeks ago. I just couldn't bring myself to eat the last packet. Year old Hot X buns surely have to be nasty. It's probably cost me more to keep them frozen for the last year than I paid for them in the first place.  

Here's this weeks menu plan. I'm going to have to possibly pony up for some milk before next Monday and buy some fruit/potatoes so we don't get scurvy but otherwise it's looking like a cheap grocery week again this week.  

I found a recipe for crispy skinned chicken a while back and since I love this stuff and not many Chinese places make it these days I'm going to make my own.  I use chicken pieces and this dish while a little time consuming is so worth the effort. Team this with some saffron rice I already have in the freezer and that's dinner taken care of. The meatballs are also a re-heat meal that has been sitting there for a couple of months. The prawns I picked up on sale a couple of weeks ago and stuffed in the freezer for when I want to feel decadent. You'll notice they are a Friday tea so I don't breathe my garlic breath on anyone except Mr. P come Saturday.

I bought bananas over the weekend at $1.99 a kilo. In about 2 weeks they're going to be hideously priced due to the cyclone last week. Last time the banana plantations were all but wiped out we were paying as much for them as $15.00 a kilo. Needless to say I didn't eat a banana for about 8 months. Mr. P asked the checkout chick if he was allowed to peel them before she weighed them up. Apparently you aren't.  I'm enjoying these while I can.

I can't wait to see how everyone did. Has anyone got any fabulous recipes made from dirt and air they'd care to share?

P.S. Oh and Ms Sarcastic Quilter I'm working bloody carrotaki into my menu plan for next week just to show you I can. This isn't like that broccoli cheese potato thing I murdered last year is it?

Frugal Grocery February -Week 1

A couple of weeks ago I had this idea that it might be good to look at challenging myself by living frugally for a month in February. I mentioned it in a post here , and since a few people said they wouldn't mind hopping along for the ride I posted about how I was going to do it here.

Welcome to Week 1!  In  the interest of being honest and real, I wanted to share with you what I'm dealing with here because it will explain why I absolutely need to do this. These  are two of my three freezers ...

300 litres of space

425 litres of space -chock full of food

And this is what 300 litres of food looks like spread out on a bench. Before you ask -those frozen  bananas are for cake. Waste not - want not.

There is enough meat alone there for over 40 meals. Ridiculous. I'm too ashamed to tell you what's in the bigger freezer.

Now that I've publicly confessed to being  a food hoarder (hey at least I keep it in appropriate places - not like some of those people on Hoarders that keep mouldy food on their lounge room floors -yuk) we can all move on. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.  Over the next month , I'm not putting anything more in those freezers. I'm only allowed to take stuff out of them. Not buying crazy meat bargains is probably going to kill me.

My menu plan is all done ....(see how truly anal organised I am? )

If you want to use the same menu plan you can download it for free here . I love this menu planner because I can write my grocery list on it as well.

I'm a little  freaked out about seeing my actual handwriting on the Internet . Like weird stalkers all over Adelaide will be watching now to see who buys just ham, pepperoni , tomato and milk at the shops this week so they can say "I know who you are"...

Becks Exploding Burgers will make an appearance. They don't really explode - they just did the first time I made them. It must have been the gunpowder. They still tasted fantastic and have become a regular meal at our house. Easy, Cheap and a crowd pleaser.

Kirsten's Yogurt Parfaits is on the menu because it just sounded so divine. I stewed up some apricots, peaches and apples a few days ago and chucked them in the freezer in preparation. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I met Kirsten. Her blog has provided an opportunity for me to try a lot of new recipes over the last year, most of which I make over and over.  I cheated and bought butternut snap biscuits to crumble up in place of her homemade ones. Hey -I'm back at work this week. Just keeping it real people.

Lots of sandwiches this week for lunches because I want to use up the bread  that's taking up scads of room in my freezer, plus it's going to be really hot here this week. It was sandwiches or ice blocks and my dental hygienist tells me sugar is bad for your teeth.

I budget $150.00 a week for my entire grocery shop which works out to $600.00 bucks for February.  I'm aiming to only spend $300.00 . That's my goal. Out there - in the open. I'm pretty confident I can do it. The beauty of this is that I don't really have to change my eating habits- I just have to use what I already have!

I can't wait to see what you do if you decide to join me.  Leave a comment so I can be sure to visit!