Indian Summer
How lovely is this Indian summer? I'm really enjoying the warm and sunny weather in this last burst before the nights start drawing in.
Mike and I went to a nearby pub for lunch recently - the same pub where we came out to a flat tyre and had to change it with full bellies!
This time, our new to us hybrid car wouldn't start! Oh flipping heck. Had to wait in the hot sun for 2 and a half hours for a breakdown engineer. Hybrid cars have a normal car battery to run the electrics inside the cabin. We had been using the air conditioner in the very warm weather. and a woman who lived opposite leaned out of her window and said that the windscreen wipers had been going whilst we were inside the pub.
The battery was flat!
We took it to the place we bought it from who checked it and said that the battery was fine, and no-one would hear that the windscreen wipers coming on when the ignition was off shouldn't happen! I'm going to get a portable battery pack to carry with me in the car!
Dietary Progress
In the pub there was nothing on the menu that would fit my new way of eating and I ended up having a really delicious steak and mushroom pie, with extra veg and no chips. After eating it, I saw a board on the wall with loads of fishy things that I would have much preferred. Oh bum! Never mind, next time
I wore a summer dress that I hadn't worn in a while, I don't wear dresses often, much prefer trousers - and it was noticeably too big! Yay!
Sixteen pounds lost now.
When we got home, I tried on all the trousers in the wardrobe and now have a rather large pile to sell on Vinted. I shan't buy any more yet. I have several pairs still that had been too tight which I can now wear. Two pairs will last a little while longer still as I have to take them off after coming back home as they are still a bit tight.
So they will see me through the winter. The summer trousers I've been wearing all summer will probably have to go come next summer as they will probably be too big by then.
What a lovely problem to have! It's also serving as a wardrobe de-clutter at the same time.
MASSES of Coconut Milk Powder
I found a new to me source of short dated food - lowpricefoods.com
I was looking for dried coconut milk specifically, and this popped up. They were selling it at 2 packs for £1.95. In the shops it's more like £5 a pack, so an incredible bargain. It keeps indefinitely, so I ordered loads! It took quite a while to arrive.
I'll share it with the cookery group that come to my house, and I'll use it in soups and curries and all kinds of things.
They still have some left as well as lots of other things.
When my husband has a curry from the takeaway, I scrape all the leftover bits and pieces and sauce left in the foil containers into a big saucepan. Then I rinse the containers and tip that in as well. Then a big scoop of red lentils, perhaps a bag of batch cooked beans from the freezer, a few bits and pieces of veg if anything needs using, and some coconut milk powder. Simmer it until the lentils are done, and the result is a really delicious lunchtime soup for several days.
What I've been making in previous Septembers
Fresh Tomato Soup
The tomatoes are coming to an end now. One of the seasonal treats in August and September is using fresh tomatoes to make soup.
Tomato soup is great using tinned tomatoes as well, but using fresh makes it extra special
Runner Bean Pesto
Also in season in August and September are runner beans, fresh from the garden with any luck.
I tried this lovely pesto with runners from my garden last year - it was delicious!
Eccles cakes
My husband loves an Eccles cake. I make these for him sometimes and they taste rather wonderful, though I say so myself.
I do a tart using the same mixture too sometimes, as a change.
I published an ebook for meal plan 1 in August 2021 and am delighted that many people have thought it was worth getting. I repriced it again in June 2022 and it was still holding on, even in these scary times. Now we are in September and prices have shifted again and I've managed to get my head around WooCommerce so I can feature it on the blog and you can find it here.
I was busy recooking, photographing and updating the recipes for Meal Plan 2 and putting them into an ebook as well. The meal plan was first written in 2013 and still prices up, which is fabulous and that is finally complete. The book is done now too, prices seem to be stable enough to do it.
I've finally completed the e-book from the Stretch A Chicken To Last A Week series. Took me absolutely ages to finish it off!
Do come and say hello on the Fantastically Frugal Food Facebook group, or the Sensational Slimming Sustenance group. I'd love to see you. Lots of useful tips, recipes and ideas. The over 17,000 membership are brilliant, brimming with talent.
And don't forget Thrifty Lesley, where there are 800+ recipes of fantastically frugal food and many weekly meal plans. And Cheap Family Recipes where you can find all kinds of delicious things that don't cost much, with two family monthly meal plans.
I've also got a few YouTube videos up, not many yet, but I'm planning to do more. I've done a couple more, need to edit them now. So much to do, so little time!
With all best wishes, until next time
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