Preparing for Stoptober

This year has been such an overwhelmingly expensive year for us.

And the bills certainly are not shy about continually appearing through my letter box.

How about you?

Do you feel the same?

I find that the stores really ramp up their 'you really need to buy this' strategies in the lead up to Christmas.

It starts so early, too.

The Christmas chocolates are already out and have been for weeks.

I don't mean to sound pathetic, but I will admit, I find it hard not to spend money if I start to browse through the many shops, as they urge me to spend, spend, spend.

So, the last two years, I have just chosen to opt out.

I start in September by slowing down my shopping. 

I halve my budget.

And In October, I aim to spend half what I spent in September.

Essentially, cutting my weekly shopping to a quarter. 

Which sounds impossible at the outset, but I have found it has made me far more conscious of my spending into Christmas.

And truthfully, it gives me a little boost, to clear out the cupboards, and sell things on. 

If I sell £50 worth of old clothes, I can spend that.

I have wool to keep me busy, knitting gifts, old clothes to cut up and quilt, and many other little diy projects that I really can make do and mend, in order to achieve the results I would like.

Without any new expense.

And that food pantry and freezer, we all know how congested that can become. 

It has made sure, I actually use up what I have long since bought, on sale, and never looked at again. 

A bargain is not a bargain, if you never use it.

I have found that since starting this, we start off January, in good terms financially, and feeling hopeful.

The children too, really get into the spirit and this year have promised to do an inventory list for me of everything I have tossed into our pantry, so we can make the best use of what we already have.

So, this is us, one week in to our Slowtember, preparing for Stoptober.

Do you ever make an opportunity to reevaluate your spending, or re - focus your finances?

Breakfast at our house

I read another article today.

About how it is too expensive to eat 'healthy' foods.

I don't believe it.

That's a photo of our breakfast today. 

Minus seven blueberry muffins.

Those were eaten straight out of the oven.

Total cost of our breakfast - £3.

For six people, that breaks down to 50p per person.

Granted we have this sort of breakfast on an every other day basis.

Our hens give us free eggs, so we have poached eggs on homemade bread, on alternate days. For me to feed 6 people breakfast for a week costs me about £10.

I don't think that is too terribly expensive.

How much do you budget for breakfast?

Advent day 14: Filling the cookie jar

Today, we made a simple cookie dough base and turned it into different kinds of cookie. Minimum effort, maximum effect. 

We made a sugar cookie base, and turned one quarter of the dough chocolate by substituting the flour for cocoa, and rolling it flat.

Then hatchling no2 smashed up some candy canes with a rolling pin, and we mixed those into another quarter of the dough.

We laid the candy cane dough over the chocolate dough, and rolled it into a log. Sliced it, and baked it in the oven for 12 minutes. It tastes far better than it looks.

This is a cookie after about 4 minutes out of the oven. These cookies come out soft and squidgy, and then firm up to be soft and chewy.

Then we took another quarter of the dough, and cut it up with cookie cutters.

The remaining hatchlings took their turns to bash up hard boiled sweets.

They put the smashed up candy in the centre of their cookies,

 and we baked them for about 10 minutes.

they came out looking like this,

and are almost see through. (maybe we used a bit more than we needed...)

Then we baked up the middles in little star shapes and filled them with chocolate gnache.

And we still have one quarter of the dough left to roll out for the hatchlings to cut up and decorate with sprinkles tomorrow.

Our base sugar cookie recipe

1 cup softened butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

3 cups of flour

Divide into quarters and place in the fridge for an hour ahead of rolling out.

This makes about 60 cookies.

Advent day 8: Fudge

Whiskey, Baileys, or Vanilla...

Easy Chocolate Fudge

Put one tin of condensed milking a bowl, 2 tbs of butter, and 400g dark chocolate.

Place bowl over a pan of simmering water until all melted, stir to combine.

Add 100g of icing sugar, and pour into a tray.

Chill until set.

For whiskey or baileys fudge, add 4 tbs of whiskey and 50g of icing sugar only, or omit the icing sugar all together.

We don't add the sugar at all, as we find it too sweet.

Chop and put in cute cellophane bags to give as gifts.

Easy and yummy!

Need Nog!

Okay, so December is almost upon us and it is time to get into the spirit of things. 

What better way to do that than Egg Nog!

All you lucky North Americans out there, can simply meander into your local grocery store and pick up a carton... so jealous... so much...

Rather I was, before I started making home made nog. 

Which is, if I do say so myself, Awesome!

Over here, the only nog available is tinned and shipped by Amazon.

Seriously... tinned nog. 

So wrong.

Do you feel my pain? 

Or am I just being overly dramatic?

Okay, okay, anyways on to the recipe:

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
• 1 pint whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 ounces bourbon 
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 egg whites*

Directions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the 1/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until it is completely dissolved. Add the milk, cream, bourbon and nutmeg and stir to combine.

Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat to soft peaks. With the mixer still running gradually add the 1 tablespoon of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

Whisk the egg whites into the mixture. Chill and serve.

(Completely stolen from Alton Brown at the Food Network)

I'm not a huge bourbon fan so I used whiskey, and with the help of some neighbours tried a second batch, phew where did the first catch go???, with rum. 

We tried this recipe sans alcohol out on the hatchlings, the nog is pasteurised, and while the eggs I use are straight form the chicken so to speak, well, no need to tempt fate.

All are good. 

I found this lady's recipe quite something. If you are serving nog to eight people, you may wish to try her recipe. (Best tell them not to drive though!)

I've not tried her recipe as yet. 

So if you do, let me know how that goes.

Hatchlings are divided on the 'to nog or not to nog' subject. 

That is fine we have plenty of hot chocolate.

So, I shall part, and ask you to join us, as we turn on the carols and commence a blogging advent to December 25th. 

Each day, I will post a festive recipe or holiday craft, both if we have had time, that the hatchlings and I are doing. We love this time of year and are trying to make the most of it, and entertain ourselves through these rather short, dark and chilly days. We'll probably have a splash of normal posts in between which should make for lots to see.

Happy Nog!

I mean, Happy Holidays!

Homemade gifts - Snowman soup

This is our project today. 

We are putting together all our snowman soups.

Snowman soup is easy to make. 

Buy a few dozen of these cellophane cones, 

and fill with your favourite hot chocolate powder.

This is our favourite.

Then top with chocolate chips,

and marshmallows.

 

Add candy cane, and tie with a ribbon.

Then pop it in a nice mug.

We are going to cellophane wrap ours in groups with some pretty snowflake cellophane I found.

If you want to buy inexpensive mugs and individualise them try Barefoot farm's great method:

http://mybarefootfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/handmade-holidays-sharpie-plate.html

Homemade gifts - Aprons

First I'd just like to apologise for the number of fingerprints on my camera lens that have caused some blurry spots in these photos. (I'll try to get that cleaned up.)

The hatchlings and I have decided this year we are going to do a holiday baking/ craft advent to count down the days in December. 

I'll be posting these daily and I hope you'll join us.

In order to get into the right mood, I thought it would be rather nice to have some festive aprons. 

Then I looked online, and saw what festive aprons can cost.

Digging through my fabric box and cutting up an old pair of trousers and a dress, these are what I've made for free.

I thought they'd make easy gifts too.

A snowman for hatchling no2. 

This fabric was a torn dress.

A polar bear for hatchling no4. 

Made from trousers.

A Christmas tree for hatchling no3.

Remember the old tree skirt? 

(Daddydragon thinks, 'Tree skirt?)

Well, it is a little shorter now.

And the kitty with a santa hat on the left is for hatchling no1.

Now we are ready to start on our holiday crafts, and hopefully we'll have a fewer stained tops too.

Improving what we have

My hatchlings are really hard on their clothes. 

So hard in fact that in one week, we had four pairs of trousers ripped to an unwearable condition.

That could add up to over 200 pairs of trousers a year if I kept buying more.

The pair of trousers in the photo was a plain pair of denim trousers that belonged to hatchling no1.

She just keeps tearing holes in them.

And I keep patching them.

Today, we were asked, 'Where did you buy those jeans? They are lovely!'

Another way we have found to improve clothes is iron on transfers. 

We buy them online for about 50 pence, and they come in almost any style and character you could wish for.

I take the pretty pink top someone spilt pasta sauce down the front of,

and iron on a A5 sized transfer.

Now, my hatchling has an elephant top (elephants are her favourite animal), and I don't have to throw out another stained top.

Sometimes such a very little bit of effort goes a long way.

Saturday morning

Look at that face! Is it any wonder he gets all the treats?

Down by the bay,

where the peedie 'neeps grow...

(I seriously heard someone sing that this week. I laughed so hard. Perhaps, I ought to get out more.)

And these, my very first attempt at making slippers.

This week we have been making all sorts of hand made gifts for December, and so I'll do a series of posts on these, so that if you feel so inclined you could do a few quick and frugal gifts for your loved ones.