Day 4 of 31 - It's Pancake Day!

March 11th - 14th, conversations with 42 global leaders - free online event!

Pancakes all Round!

This morning when I got up, the sun was shining through the living room window and onto the newly hung mini plant pot holders - there was a little bit of heat, briefly, until the sun shifted round another degree and out of reach of any of my windows - a definite minus point in the house 'directional facing' stakes!

We forewent the usual porridge at breakfast in favour of pancakes, but I cheated and used a cheap 'just add water or milk' packet mix and, of course, added water.

I like my pancakes made crepe-style, so the batter covers the entire frying pan. This makes them large enough and thin enough to roll them up and serve hot with fillings, depending on what's available.

They shouldn't be too dark, I prefer mine just lightly cooked then flipped. These are so cheap and easy to make that we do tend to have them quite often throughout the year, especially when the ducks are laying. Scoop of flour, pinch of salt, an egg and some milk to the consistency that you most prefer - that's it! They are versatile enough to serve sweet or savoury, with a variety of toppings.

For me, it's usually a sprinkle of sugar and lemon juice, as Maple syrup just isn't on the frugal grocery list. Ordinary syrup is nice, as is a handful of strawberries and a dollop of ice cream and/or cream, but that's more of a 'use up the garden strawberries and homemade ice cream' combination. Today, I had mango!

Pancakes were my first 'make' of 'Making it in March', but now for a Frugaldom special announcement ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILKIE, 5 YEARS OLD TODAY!

On this day, five years ago, my first little Silkie chick hatched out in the polystyrene incubator despite the abuse the eggs had taken during their journey to me via Royal Mail. I'd bought half a dozen hatching eggs via eBay and the box arrived looking like someone had kicked it! Despite this, I set the eggs, turned them faithfully every few hours for 18 days and then waited patiently for day 21 to arrive in the hope that something would hatch - without holding out too much hope, I might add!

On 4th March, 2009, out popped one solitary Silkie chick, one that we aptly named 'Silkie Chick'. She is still known by that name to this day, a full five years later! This is her hatching from her shell inside the tiny incubator that was set up on my desk at the time.

Sadly, none of the other eggs hatched, so this chick ended up being reared in a cardboard box in the porch and preferred to behave more like a dog than a chicken! She was cheeky right from the start! She did eventually settle with the other hens and we did get her Silkie company by way of little Dumbledorf.

We eventually hatched another 5 blue cuckoo striped Silkies for additional company and, over the years, Silkie Chick has hatched and reared a few chicks herself, but she is now the only furry-looking bantam we have left after a mink went on the rampage in broad daylight in October 2011. Little Silkie Chick, here, survived the attack only because she was hiding inside the rabbit hutch where she had decided to lay her eggs! Daft old bird!

But I digress, again! On to more 'Making it in March'. I made it into the kitchen to unpack my latest 'MuscleFood'* order: 5 kilos of chicken breast fillets, 2 kilos of turkey mince and a kilo of boned chicken thighs. Yes, we BUY our chicken - you didn't really think we ate any of our own home-hatched or home-reared birds, did you? Anyhow, this lot arrived and I managed to fit it all into the freezer after splitting it up - the turkey mince was on offer at £1 per 400g pack with maximum 5 per customer, so I got my 5. The chicken thighs were paid using loyalty points, thanks to online friends who have used my referral links and codes. This order should keep us going for the next couple of months, as I still have plenty of beef mince, bacon and pie filling in the freezer. But not only that, the order included an added free gift... A CAT DEN! Scruffy Cat will love it, I'm sure! :)

Remember all the 'rubbish' leftover after unpacking the new living room door? Pieces of polystyrene, 4 plastic corner protectors, 4 strips of thin wooden board, assorted spacers, board edge protectors etc.?

I finally found a way to recycle some of this 'rubbish', along with the cardboard box and insulated liner that came with the meat order this afternoon. Naturally, I saved the ice packs into the freezer.




Turning a cardboard box into a cat den

I started by removing the flaps from the box so I could use these to create a roof with 'attic' space for storing all the cat's toys.

Making a door in the insulated box liner

 Next thing I did was to cut an entrance (and exit) door in the insulated box liner, roughly the size of a small cat flap.

Making the apex roof with attic space

Is anyone else trying this? Take the four cardboard flaps cut from the box and pair them up - one long and one short - lengthwise. Overlap the longest piece over the shortest piece where you will be folding it in half to create the apex roof. I initially used tape before gluing it in place. You should now have two equal lengths of cardboard. Fold these in half to form a right angle. This is where I was lucky to have saved the door packaging, because I was able to use the corner protectors to hold the cardboard at the 90 degree angle by gluing in the plastic, but you could simply fold and glue scrap cardboard. Do the same with the second strip and then these need to be joined together, side by side.

Reinforcing the apex roof

I used three of the four plastic corner protectors for the roof - one at each end and one in the middle and, rather than glue it all together with more cardboard, I used two of the pieces of board from my 'rubbish' stash. If you glue your board or card about 6cm from the edge of the cardboard, it makes a small ledge that helps to prevent the roof slipping while gluing it to the box.

Adding the roof to the box

Before adding the roof, I covered the main box in fabric - I used some more of the old fleece that I had covered my homemade footstools in a couple of weeks ago. Next, I replaced the insulation liner and glued it into place. I reinforced the front of the box using a third piece of board.

Next, I used the little folded pieces of stiff card and glued then along each of the side edges of the box and then glued the roof onto these. I was left with one plastic corner piece from my 'rubbish' stash, so this gave me another idea! I had also kept the pieces from a broken A4 picture frame - the type you see in pound shops. (The glass didn't break, so that got kept, too.) I used the two longer pieces of the frame as edging for the cardboard roof and joined them together using the fourth corner piece as a feature at the peak of the apex.

Side view of the cat house in construction

Before doing any more work on the cat's house, I decided to introduce the frugal puss to her new 'den', just to make sure she actually fitted through the door! As you can see, I haven't added any roof décor or edges to the attic space.

Scruffy cat investigating her new 'den'

Another rummage in my crafty stash and this time I was able to retrieve someone's unfinished project that was sent to me for recycling into McGonk stuffing. Using my largest crochet hook, I crocheted the last of the ball of wool onto what was already there; it made a near perfect sized cat blanket for lining the bottom of the box.

Woolly blanket for the cat's new bed

Blanket completed, I fitted it into the box and then waited for the cat to pass judgement. Her first reaction was to go inside and play 'paddy-paw' on her new fluffy blanket, so I think she approves.

Let sleeping cats lie.

That's as far as I got with Project Cat's Den today, so I'll need to continue with this project tomorrow, when I'll add the attic pieces and get the roof tiled - I'm sure I have enough scrap cardboard in stock to cut and overlay cardboard shingles, rather than just paint the roof. :) I want to start doing that right now but, once again, the day has passed far too quickly. Now it's almost time to find the cat's pyjamas!

NYK, Frugaldom

* Friend referral link, which has the potential to earn me a few extra loyalty points.

Budgets, Food and Grocery Shopping

Let's play a game of 'Chicken'.

• Buy one standard whole chicken - I checked a few places and know that £5 can buy a decent sized chicken here in UK.
• Unwrap the chicken and let it sit for half an hour before cooking it. (Never sit uncooked meats above or beside cooked meats and don't splash water everywhere if you insist on washing your chicken first - I never bother washing mine.)
• Cook the chicken - the general cooking rule used to be 20 minutes per pound weight and then another 20 minutes over, which roughly calculates to an hour and a half for a chicken weighing 1.5kg, but mine slow cooks on top of the pot-belly stove if it's lit.
• Carefully pour off any juices for gravy making.
• Remove the chicken skin carefully and set this aside in a stock pot.
• Strip off every gram of cooked meat from the bones.
• Keep the white meat separate and set aside all the other meat you strip from legs, wings and the underside - there can be enough hiding under there to make a pie!
• Place whatever is left of your chicken carcase into the stock pot or large pan along with the skin and any other bits removed from the bird (giblets, if these were included).
• Cover with boiling water then allow it to simmer vigorously for an hour or so, but much longer if you are using a slow cooker. This will produce stock for your soup, while any juices from the freshly cooked bird can be used to make gravy. You cannot over cook stock unless you boil the pan dry!
• Strain the stock off into a separate pan, jug or bowl and allow it to cool.

Use excess pastry for decoration

1. Use the white meat for roast dinner - one decent sized breast should be sufficient for 2 portions when served with all the trimmings, so there should be enough white meat for 4 tasty meals.
2. Use the leg meat to make a curry, stir fry, sweet and sour or even add it to mixed vegetables with gravy and serve it as stew with something like suet dumplings.
3. Use the remaining meat to make pie filling with any leftover veggies or gravy and then freeze it if you don't need to use it right away - it freezes just fine and should be sufficient to serve 4.

The above should equate to 12 meals if you are serving with plenty of vegetables etc.

IF YOU HAVE MEAT-EATING PETS - I have a cat, a friend has ferrets.

• Leave the chicken carcase in the first pan and add some more boiling water.
• Skim off the fat and any excess gelatine from your jug of cooled stock and add this to the stock pan.
• Boil until the bones are soft enough that they crumble when rubbed between your fingers
• Strain off the excess water - again, this is stock that can be used for cooking
• Allow to cool and then blitz the entire contents of this pot with a blender - I use a stick blender.
• You now have close to 100% chicken paste suitable for making your own pet food. A typical can of top brand cat food can contain less than 5% chicken so bulking this out isn't so difficult when feeding to your pets along with whatever else they like. I have mixed it with boiled eggs, rice, potatoes, pasta, porridge and any combination of safe leftovers for the frugal puss and she loves it! (Onions, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes are not safe for adding to cat food.) It's like gourmet paté for pets. (I don't add salt when cooking it, just a sprinkle of herbs.)

Left - chicken paste for the cat. Tight - chicken stock for soup

Next, make your chicken soup.

Skim off any surface fat - this can be used for stir frying and I have also used it in place of oil when baking savoury sandwich bread.

Soup-making is a simple case of simmering the stock with some rice, any diced vegetables you have that need using up and a sprinkling of herbs or spices. Add extra water as required and season to taste - any seasoning from salt and pepper to spices can be used. You should get enough soup for up to 12 servings, again dependent on portion sizes. See the homemade soup section for some more ideas.

This is the basis of our 'Chicken' game and it shouldn't cost any more than £10 to get you started. Half of this should buy you a chicken and the other half should be sufficient for vegetables, rice, suet, flour and seasonings to put all the meals together and provide you with enough to feed a family of four a decent meal every day for the best part of a week if you count soup as a meal.

The game really comes into play when you start getting inventive with your ingredients and making sure that absolutely none of the food you buy goes into the bin - not one bit of it.

If you don't have pets, pop your gourmet pet food into a jar and give it to someone who can and will use it within a day or two; add a homemade label, I'll bet they'll appreciate it! Or else use a freezer-safe container and keep it until it's needed for feeding wildlife - our garden hedgehogs loved the stuff!

Please help spread the word that living on a tight budget needn't be awful. If you know of anyone struggling to the extent that they cannot afford food, send them to their nearest free Internet access point, which could be the library or even just a local Wi-Fi hotspot on a friend's laptop and point them in the direction of the Frugaldom forums at www.frugalforums.co.uk Better still, invite them into your life and share what you can with them while helping them along the path to frugaldom.

Apologies Herbivores, We're Frugal Omnivores Here.

OK, so I'm mildly stunned by high quality at low prices!

The frugaldom grocery challenge is one that I quite enjoy, especially when there's the occasional plus point, like hosting barbecues paid for by third parties. Not only is it fun sharing such good fortune, but there are also the leftovers and the savings from not having had to pay for lunch or dinner on such days.

My annual budget for all food, toiletries, cleaning and laundry products has been increased this year to a whopping great £1.25 per person per day - that's a 25% increase on previous years, just so we can enjoy a few luxuries now and again. (Basic essentials, if anyone wants anything extra like hair gels, aftershave or cosmetics, they buy it for themselves.)

Quail egg

The frugal diet, to some, may appear fairly luxurious in as much as it includes things like scallops, freshly caught mackerel, pheasant, goose, freerange duck and hen eggs, trout, quail eggs, homemade champagne and any number of hand-made delights not normally associated with moneysaving. But these things aren't costing cash - they are freely traded among like-minded others who fish, rear poultry and game and spend time, rather than money growing, picking, preserving and making the best produce they can from fresh, home grown ingredients. (Have you tried freshly made egg pasta with spinach?)

Here in Frugaldom, we don't eat any of our feathered friends, we simply keep them for eggs, so that means buying meat.


Having lost ROSSPA, (a farm shop outlet that used to deliver my butcher meat overnight) I had been struggling to find an affordable supplier who could deliver. (We've no car and don't live near shops, remember.) My body-building son said he'd heard 'Muscle Foods' was a good company to deal with, so that's where I went. (As reward for doing so, they gave me the above link where all my friends could go and claim 4 free chicken breasts with their first order!)

Their fresh meat is all ethically produced within Britain and the EU, they have won multiple awards and are Fine Food Guild members. Add to this the fact that they guarantee no added water or salt in their products and you can see the odds stacking up in their favour instantly.

On the whole, we eat mostly chicken, so I was aware of current costs and offers in supermarkets even if I can't get to any of them to buy their produce, so when I saw the price of fresh chicken breast fillets at £5 per kilo, I was very pleasantly surprised. In fact, I instantly ordered 10kg and then added a couple of kilos of lean beef stew and mince to fill my almost empty freezer.

The order arrived overnight and was exceptionally well packed, fully protected in thick insulating polystyrene wrap, bubble wrap and ice packs. Some of these ice packs were still fully frozen, despite the heat of today when my order was out for delivery. Better still, I've popped them into the freezer, too, to save for using in the cool bag for taking picnics on the bikes.

Looking at the chicken fillets, they are quite huge - a single one diced will make a meal for two of us here, at least! (The secret to frugal cooking is always shred, dice, cube or grate to make things go further and add salad, veggies, pasta or rice etc.)

The fillets came packed in 5kg containers, so I have individually wrapped them in cling film for freezing. I weighed a couple of them beforehand; the first fillet weighed 220g (about double some of the supermarket ones), the next 245g and, in total, I had 44 fillets each capable of feeding two. An average of 227g per fillet and almost zero fat to trim off them.

But that's not all! You know us frugalers always like a little bit extra, well that came in the form of a free sachet of seasoning, a free sheet of thick, insulating poly-foam, some free bubble wrap, several free ice packs and free trays that I have washed, dried and used in the freezer. Once emptied, they'll get used as seed trays in the greenhouse. The poly-foam will be ideal to insulate planters during winter, to keep them off the frozen ground.

Now I am not too sure what the people at Musclefood are going to think of this, as my only effort at building body beautiful is to walk and cycle a bit because I don't have a car, but they may find themselves being the suppliers for several other rural-living frugalities like myself and the worst part is - THEY SEND YOU MORE OFFERS! I've just been offered 1.5kg of veal for £6!

First meal - stir fried chicken breast with onions, pepper, raisins pineapple and cashew nuts with noodles - enough to serve 3.

My 'refer a friend' links are included or else you can go to http://www.musclefood.com/SK5873 and claim your 4 free chicken breast fillets when ordering. There's also a loyalty points scheme, so it's pretty much a win/win situation for frugal living pundits like me who love nothing more than a bargain slap-up meal.

Don't get too carried away with these bargains - do as I suggest and see if you can find a neighbour to share your order so you can take advantage of the free delivery options whenever an exceptional bargain appears on the horizon. Or else have a body-builder in the family and combine orders. :)

Having fun with a full freezer,
Frugaldom

Question:

Dear NYK,