Feeding the 5,000 with Three Chicken Breasts

OK, so I may be exaggerating a bit there, I don't think even I could stretch a few chicken breasts far enough to feed thousands, but I did feed two hungry adults an evening meal for four days with them so that's almost as good in my book.

I'm quite a fan of the bags of frozen Smart Price/Value/M savers chicken breasts (I chop and change my supermarket depending on which is most convenient at the time). You get 1kg for £4, give or take a penny or two and they cook really nicely.

Of course I'd rather buy a free range chicken, but I can't afford that and if the truth be known my husband cannot be trusted around chicken. He loves it. Cook a whole one and he'd devour it as soon as my back was turned, picking cold chicken off the bone until there was nothing left. So these frozen chicken breasts are ideal as I can just defrost as much as I need and there's nothing for naughty little big fingers to pinch later.

Last weekend I was starting to panic a little over food, or the lack of it. Hubby had been ill and I hadn't been able to get to do the shopping, which meant I'd ended up having to buy bits and bobs to see us through at the co-op or Spar and my pennies simply don't go as far there as they do at somewhere like Asda or Morrisons. That's when I discovered I still had three chicken breasts in the freezer that I didn't know about. (I should probably point out that my tired, old freezer makes so much ice that the polar ice caps aren't really in any danger, I can ship out replacements anytime. This means often a drawer ices up to the point it's impossible to open without hacking at it like a thing possessed so whatever is lurking in said drawer gets forgotten about for a while).

The sudden discovery of chicken was a delight, and enabled us to have a roast dinner last Sunday for the first time since Christmas. The thing with these frozen chicken breasts is it's pretty hit and miss what size they are. Sometimes the bag is full of several rather small breasts, other times you may only get four but they are so big I'm left wondering if they've actually come from an ostrich rather than a chicken. Most of the time its a mix, so I had one large, one medium and one tiny breast in my cooking arsenal.

I trimmed the medium sized breast so I had two small ones to cook for our Sunday dinner, and saved the trimmings and large breast in the fridge. The portions may have been a bit on the small side, but most of us eat too much meat anyway and by the time I'd made a mountain of roast potatoes (some taken out early to freeze), stuffing balls, roasted onions, and plenty of veg we certainly didn't notice that the meat portion was a little mean (Roast spuds are the best bit anyway).

I had made a sponge pudding too, but we were much too stuffed to even attempt that!

The next day I diced the remaining chicken and put it in the slow cooker with plenty of sliced onions, and whatever veg I'd got going over in the cupboard or fridge (several carots, a tomato, a few mushrooms and half a red pepper) along with a 36p chicken casserole mix. I'm not a big fan of mashed potato but hubby loves it and would eat it until it was coming out of his ears, so I served some of the chicken and most of the veg with a mountain of mash.

Another very filling meal. Two down, two to go.

So what to do now? I've got chicken in gravy. Add a couple of spoonful's of frozen peas and a can of sweetcorn and serve with home made potato wedges. Delicious.

Hmmm, not much left now, but there is still quite a bit of gravy, a few pieces of chicken and a little bit of veg. Soup it is then. I added chicken stock, more onion, a clove of garlic and the remains of  a bag of frozen veg that neither of us liked very much, salt and pepper to taste, and blitzed in the blender. I have to say it wasn't the most attractive colour, BUT served with home made soda bread it was very tasty and extremely filling.

So there you have it. Eight servings from three chicken breasts. And despite using just chicken, veg and potatoes for the most part, not boring at all. Each meal was very different from the last. Not bad going if I say so myself!

Just My Luck!

I finally admitted defeat and put the central heating on an hour ago (yes, I know I said I wasn't going to until December but I'm blooming freezing).

We had about 20 minutes of glorious, wonderful, toasty warmness.....

.......... and the bloody gas ran out!!!

No heating until tomorrow and hmmmmm, maybe we won't be having sausage and mash tonight after all.

Oh well, cheese and pickle cobs for tea it is then. I loathe electric cookers but at times like this they look more appealing.

Have YOU Turned Your Heating On Yet?

Well have you? Have the dark nights and frosty mornings prompted you to light the fire or turn on the central heating? Or, like me, are you still stubbornly refusing to give in to the chill and simply donning extra clothes and digging out that trusty old hot water bottle? - Although in our case 'trusty' isn't the word as 'old faithful' sprung a leak a few nights ago when hubby was using it to ease his back pain (thankfully it was wrapped in a towel at the time, preventing him from being scalded by the hot water) and we've had to invest in a new one this week.

Throughout October, as it began to get colder and the evenings became quite chilly, I adamantly insisted I wasn't putting the central heating on (our only form of heat) until the calendar turned the page and November was well and truly here. Of course with November's arrival I moved the goal posts, scared by the rising gas prices, and vowed it wasn't going on until December. When December rolls around who knows.... will I be brave (or daft) enough to say lets wait until January?

To be honest with you I haven't been cold. Not really. Chilly, yes, but not properly cold. I certainly haven't sat here shivering of an evening and once I'm in bed, snuggled up under the duvet I'm actually quite cosy. My husband's felt the cold more, but I invested in a £3 fleecy throw from ASDA and since he's had that to tuck around his legs, or even sometimes wrap around his shoulders like a big cosy shawl, he's been as warm as toast. It's certainly proved cheaper than feeding the hungry gas meter. I think I'll get another one.

 

We close the curtains as soon as it starts to get dark, keeping as much heat into our south facing lounge as possible, and have a draft excluder at the door. We focus on keeping that one room as warm as we can. We both have thermals from our working days. I worked outdoors all the time and quickly learnt the trick of layering, and hubby often had to work outdoors too so we invested in decent thermal garments because a) we could afford to and b) they were worth their weight in gold. They still are. We haven't worn them much yet, we'll appreciate them much more when the temperature really drops.

 

Early nights and late mornings are another way we stay warm. That's not as lazy as staying in bed late sounds, honest, although it feels quite decadent sometimes. Emails, letters, sewing projects etc can all be done just as easily in bed and warm under the duvet as they can up and about and shivering in a chair. Winter just means a bit of a rethink of our routines. I might not like doing things this way but I know when we finally have to give in and start putting extra money on the gas meter that money has got to come from somewhere, and the thing most likely to be hit is the food budget. I'd rather not do that, so I'll use every trick in the book to keep us warm for as long as possible without increasing the gas company's profits.

 

I'll often go for a brisk walk if I'm starting to feel the chill, up the hill to the cliffs and back is enough to warm me up for ages. It's just a shame that isn't an option for my husband too. I'd love to be able to go for a long walk with him but he can't manage it at a pace to warm him up and the pain is just too much when it's cold and damp.

 

I haven't yet resorted to wearing gloves and hats around the flat, but there's a first time for everything. I'm not ruling anything out.

Damn you internet, you're making me be productive.

I've been having internet problems (on going) which is why I haven't posted anything lately. Hopefully it will be resolved soon because, frankly, it's driving me mad.

On the plus side however, without the distractions of that demon facebook, I've managed to get lots of little jobs done that I've been putting off for far too long - including the largest pile of ironing ever known to man. I've cleaned my carpets too, well some of them anyway, and washed the curtains. I've even been plugging away at the novel I started a couple of years ago for NaNoWriMo. Well it is November after all.

 

But best of all I've spent some quality time with my husband, simply talking or working together around the flat. Maybe I should schedule a couple of internet free days every week, even when it is up and running properly again.

I Have a Fridge!

Isn't that exciting? A fridge! It keeps milk cold and everything!

It was way back at the start of the summer that my fridge decided it had chilled its last. Lousy timing that, don't you think? Any fridge with compassion, with decency, would have given up the ghost at a more seemly time of year, like December, when I could at least have relied on my kitchen to resemble an ice box most of the time. I could have resorted, as I have in the past when necessary, to storing my milk outside on the window ledge, but no, it picked a warm, sunny, glorious day to make  a strange spluttering noise and die.

 

As usual when household appliances pack up without warning, it happened at a time that was not only seasonally inappropriate, but financially impossible. The chances of replacing it were slim, if not non-existent. There were expenses coming up that simply couldn't be avoided, a new fridge would just have to wait.

 

I must admit that at the time I did think, as I magnanimously set aside my need desire for a new fridge, that it would probably be only a month, maybe a teeny bit longer, before we managed to scrape together enough to buy a second hand one. Hmmmm. The problem with managing without something is you become accustomed to it surprisingly quickly. At first it drove me crazy. I had to completely rethink my shopping habits as there were so many things I couldn't keep fresh. Things I took for granted. Things like milk.

 

All of a sudden I couldn't buy cheap 4 pint bottles of milk for £1 from the co-op. Instead I was paying 60p for just 1 pint... and often having to throw half of that away. Milk disappeared from the shopping list to be replaced by coffee whitener (yuck) although I discovered it doesn't really matter what coffee you buy when you add whitener to it, it all tastes much the same. So I scrapped my one treat - a half decent coffee- and replaced it with 47p-for-100g-pig-swill-pretending-to-be-coffee.

 

Cheese was another thing I stopped buying. Yogurt was another. I discovered I could still keep a lettuce looking half decent and not a wilted mush if I kept it in the spare bedroom which never, ever gets any sun (wow, that makes the bedroom tax worth it doesn't it?) but cucumbers go off very quickly.

 

Sometimes I'd get very down about not having something that most people take for granted, especially if one came up on freecycle and we hadn't got the diesel to collect it, or if I saw one in a charity or second hand shop that I still couldn't afford, but most of the time I didn't even think about it...although I did become very wistful remembering the cold slab my grandma used to have in her pantry. When you think about it, only a few generations ago a fridge would have been an expensive luxury. If generations of grandmothers could cope without one, then so could I.

 

But I was extremely relieved to see one come up on freecycle last week, especially as it was very local and therefore not a problem to collect.

 

So now I am the proud owner of a fridge. It was a bit grubby and tatty (it was being used on a caravan site as their 'outdoor beer fridge') but after peeling off a few old stickers, giving it a good old scrub and some tlc, it looks pretty good and I am extremely grateful to the lovely lady who was giving it away.

 

Now I just need to find something to put in it.

Harvest

I love this time of year, the misty mornings giving way to blue skies, the still warm days but far fewer people on the beach; the woody scent of bonfires mixing with the last of the barbeques, and free food dripping from every hedgerow.

With what seemed to be an ever-shrinking budget fresh fruit was one of the first victims on my shopping list, brutally culled to ensure we weren't running out of things to eat two days before pension day. As a result, the arrival of blackberry season as been greeted with even more joy than usual, and not just the blackberries. Hips and haws, elderberries, rowan, even a few early sloes.... there has hardly been a day when I haven't been out walking the footpaths and lanes around here, filling my freezer (and our stomachs) to overflowing.

 

Hubby is particularly fond of blackberry crumble. So far none have made it as far as the freezer, I think I shall have to start making those in secret. Blackberry muffins are another favourite, although they are my weakness not his. Elderberry cordial, rosehip syrup...my kitchen is likely to be a hive of activity for weeks to come as I find as many ways to preserve all that berry goodness as I can. All too soon the cold weather will be here, and the hedgerow abundance will be over for another year, but if I plan this right and harvest what I can now, preserve as much as I can, we should have plenty to see us through the dark months.

Live Below The Line? That's My Life!

I've been reading with interest, and in some cases amusement, many of the stories this last week of those participating in the Live Below The Line Challenge. It's all in aid of a good cause, so please don't think when I say 'amusement' that I have in any way been laughing in a condescending way at their attempts to exist on £5's worth of food for five days, because I haven't. For many of those taking part it has been extremely tough and I think it has seriously opened a few eyes. Sometimes I wished I could just say to someone 'No, no, you're doing it all wrong. Look, just put all that food you bought aside and start again, and I'll show you how it's done'. But of course I couldn't, because firstly, I don't know these people, and well, that would rather defeat the object in the first place.

 

It was made harder, I think, by the fact it was only a five day challenge. £5 for five days is much more limiting than say £7 for seven days or £10 for ten days. Five measly pounds doesn't give you much variety. It will should have been a little easier for those taking part as a couple, or a family as they will have had more money to play with in the first place. It will still have been an unpleasant five days for many though.

 

£1 a day for food doesn't seem very much does it? There has been quite a bit in the media recently about how much is needed for food in order to survive, and depending on which newspaper you read the amount can vary quite wildly. The BBC says £12 a week is enough to provide a healthy diet. Damn right it is! That's the maximum I spend to feed two of us. If we had that each we'd be eating like kings :) Upon reading the article however, I find the terms 'with careful planning' and 'theoretically it is possible' and the chart they give as an example is based on a £15 spend not a £12 spend. As it is, I usually spend between £10 and £12 a week actually on food. The supermarket receipt reads slightly more than that, but by the time you've taken off things like loo rolls, tooth paste and shampoo, the food itself comes in at less than £12. For two of us. Less than £6 each. That's is less than the £1 a day that even the Daily Mail says you can 'survive' on.

 

Now don't you go worrying about the state of my diet, because I'm here to tell you I eat just fine. Last night we enjoyed a lovely chicken salad made with chicken breast. Later I made biscuits on a 'whim' to surprise my husband who had dozed off in front of the TV. This morning I had a banana before I went out for my run and egg on toast when I got back. For lunch I had homemade chicken liver pate with crackers and salad, and for tea tonight we'll be having a sausage casserole. I browned off a few Aldi frozen sausages this morning and popped them into the slow cooker with a stock cube, sliced onions, two tins of chopped tomatoes, the ends of a few bags of frozen veg that I wanted to clear out and a rather rubbery looking carrot I found hiding in the back of the fridge (nothing gets wasted here). I'll probably serve it with hubby's favourite, mashed potato, which means there will be more than enough for either tomorrow, or to go in the freezer. I may even add a tin of sweetcorn to it. Does that sound like an impoverished diet to you?

 

I'm not going to pretend that it is easy, because it is not. It has taken a long time of trial and error to get to this stage. There are times when I walk around the supermarket fighting back tears, and times too when I am unable to fight them back and I'm stood in the dairy isle sobbing, with other customers and staff doing their best to pretend not to notice (for which I am eternally grateful! If ever you see me, I will not think you harsh or callous if you don't ask if I'm OK, I'll just be relieved I don't have to talk). There have been times when I have fed my husband and gone without, pretending to him I feel sick so he doesn't question why I'm only nibbling on dry cream crackers. There have been times when I have made three days food last a week; when I've picked mould off the bread and toasted it in the hope it would taste OK that way; when I've cut squishy bits off vegetables to save the little bit that was OK; when I've lived off bread and jam; when I thought I'd never taste fresh fruit again...

 

It is thoroughly depressing, and demoralising, when you see only day after day after day of that kind of existence, especially when only a short time before you were a two income household spending as much in one week on food as you now spend in a month. It is easy to allow it to drag you down, to get into  a spiral of depression, but you have to fight that, you have to keep on keeping on. You have to get up bright and early each morning with a smile on your face, even if you don't feel like smiling, and you have to find a way to get by. You have to hope that there is an end to all this even if there isn't one in sight, because it will destroy you if you don't.

 

You learn to take pleasure in simple things. You find cheaper ways of doing or making the things you used to take for granted. You scrimp and scrimp, because you can't possibly save, and you get by. You find recipes, or invent them. You discover the wonders of cooking bacon and lemon curd and you forget you ever heard of such a thing as free range eggs. You sacrifice your green principles to make your grey world a little brighter, and you thank your lucky stars that you haven't yet resorted to taking the advice the Duke of Norfolk once suggested to ease the suffering of the starving masses during the Irish Potato Famine and added curry powder to hot water in place of food.