A Tribute To My Nan

My Nan, along with my Mum taught me to cook and in fact (sorry Mum) it's standing next to my Nan and her stock phrases which stand out in my mind when I think of my early cooking experiences. She was a key inspiration for this blog. She sadly passed away on 23rd February this year and I miss her so much it actually physically hurts.

But she lives on in my memories and my heart and is there with me everytime I bake a cake or make the dinner and so it's fitting that I dedicate this post to her.

My Nan had five children and nine grandchildren who were comforted by her clever and satisfying home cooking. In fact, at her funeral, her last day holiday hash even got a mention. Nan and Granddad didn't have much money when my Mum and her brothers and sisters were growing up, but they never missed a meal - largely due to my Nan's skill at frugal cooking. Both my Nan and my Granddad prioritised food. Offering guests something to eat was fundamental to welcoming someone into their home, to the point that if you decline my granddad will keep offering a range of tasty morsels until he finds something that suits (and if you're not hungry that's no excuse).

My Nan's mother was a cook and she passed her secrets on to my Nan and in turn they were passed on to me. My apprenticeship including cakes (fruit and sponge), souffles, quiches, how to make a basic roux (and from there a white sauce and a whole host of other dishes) and even on one occasion rainbow trout (I didn't like it). I was a vegetarian (well pescatarian until the age of 15 when I finally declared no more fish after a 14 day fish diet instigated by my Granddad to help me with my exams - brain food don't you know) from an early age and this was unquestioningly accomodated by my Nan. It was a common Saturday ritual to discuss what I wanted for dinner and then have my Nan help me cook it. My favourites were cauliflower cheese and vegetable lasagne (that basic roux came in so handy). I can hear Nan's voice now, "As my Mother said, gentle persuasion is the key Trudie". This gentle guidance was given in response to my over zealous mixing which splattered the walls and surfaces with molten cheese sauce.

We never used a recipe and apart from cakes I don't remember doing much measuring. It was all stored in our heads having been orally transmitted from my Nan to me. I'll let you in to the secret of the white sauce later.

I suppose my training started even before I could reach the cooker when I come to think about it. My early memories involve standing with my elder cousin and a play rolling pin in my Nan and Granddad's conservatory or shaking milk in a jar to make butter (rancid after a day of shaking by little hands on a sunny day).

And before I give you my family method for a white sauce, there's one more tip. "Use the heat of your hand". This is invaluable when creaming butter and sugar when making cakes ;-)

Nan's white sauce:

A large dollop of butter (or marg if that's what you have or are sticking to the dairy free thing)
Plain flour (although if I've only got self-raising I'll use this instead)
Milk (or milk and water, or soya milk - my preference)
Salt and pepper (and now I tend to add a bay leave too)

First slowly melt the fat.
Turn the heat down a bit.
Shake in flour and stir until you've got a smooth lump (this is a roux). You can probably look up the flour to fat ratio, I do it by eye.
Slowly add the milk stirring, stirring (remember gentle persuasion) so it's smooth.
Don't worry if you get lumps, you can beat them out with a whisk and usually I abandon the wooden spoon and move over to a whisk at this point as a matter of course.
Keep adding liquid until you get the right consistency (e.g. the thickness you like).
Season.
If I'm making a cheese sauce (either using actual cheese or nutritional yeast flakes for the vegan option) I'll make the white sauce a bit thinner than I like because the cheesy stuff will thicken it up.

So here's to you Nan. I've already had N on a chair next to me in the kitchen and I promise to cook with her, teach her your recipes, methods and phrases and above all to remember the love you put into food and me.

Dairy free and sugar lite

My youngest brother gave up sugar a couple of years ago and I don't mean sugar in tea. He just literally gave up all sugar. No more sweets, no more chocolate, no commercially produced bread (yes bread contains sugar), no tomato sauce. The list goes on. He gave it up partly to control his weight and partly to stave off tooth decay.

He did continue to eat honey and fructose, so my Mum would make him 'special cakes' made with fruit sugar, but recently he's gone even more hardcore. Sugar substitutes are out now too. That means his diet is essentially savoury and unprocessed.

He's also recently given up dairy and is a committed vegetarian. I have to say his will power is stunning!

Now I like sugar. Not on my cereal or in tea, but I like sweets and cakes. A bit too much. Just before Christmas I realised sugary treats had ceased to become treats and were a daily addiction. I don't like that sort of feeling of powerlessness and my trousers were feeling tight. Sugar had to go. My resolve was increased when I did a life expectancy test (motivated by a programme on Radio 4). Given my lifestyle my expected life expenctancy was 98, but the feedback suggested I could do a bit better with a few small changes and limiting sugar was one of the changes I could easily make.

So I've gone sugar lite. I'm not as hardcore as my brother, and I like the occasional treat, but I firmly believe that's all it should be. I've also given up dairy - I used to be a vegan so this is no big deal.

The remarkable thing is that I am less hungry than I was. I think my blood sugar must have been in turmoil from the sugar highs and crashes.

Here's my sugar lite and dairy free menu for this week

Saturday - Pasta with slow cooked cabbage and pinenuts (this is much nicer than it sounds)
Sunday - Snitzel with mashed swede, roast potatoes and parsnips and broccoli.
Monday - Sausage casserole and sweet potato mash
Tuesday - Savoury roly poly with mashed swede, green beans and carrots
Wednesday - Sausage and chips
Thursday - S is cooking (he doesn't like me to plan his days too often)
Friday - Millet casserole.

I've just realised that everything except Friday's dinner begins with an 'S' - maybe I should change Friday's menu.

I should also add I made leek and potato soup for lunch on Sunday, which is sustaining me though lunches all this week. I grew the leeks so it's been a particularly cheap week of lunches. In fact Sunday is becoming decidely soupy in our house, but that's for another blog.

I thought you might like the recipe for the savoury roly poly as it was super nice.

Ingredients

Roly poly part
4 oz vegetable suet
8 oz of SR flour
pinch of salt
water to make a dough

Filling
2 medium onions
tsp of bullion powder
tsp of veggie gravy granules
3-4 tbs of veggie mince
splash of water

Mix the suet, flour and salt together and add enough water to make a dough. Put in the fridge to chill.

Cut the onions into slivers and fry off. I like to brown mine, but you could cook them more slowly.
Add the rest of the ingredients and heat the mice through.

Roll the pastry into a rectangle about 6 inches by 10 inches. Spread the filling over the pastry leaving the top quarter empty (so the filling doesn't all sqidge out).

Roll the pastry up like a swiss roll and tuck in the ends.Wrap loosely in foil if steaming or in greasproof paper if microwaving.

You can steam the package for 1.5-2 hours over a steamer if you like. I haven't got a steamer so I microwaved mine for 7-8 minutes.

Enjoy!

This week/next week

This week

Spaghetti sorentina
Leek and quorn pie (ah allotment leeks, yum), served with allotment cabbage.
Cauliflower cheese
Almond and coconut korma
Quorn chicken, chips and peas
Shepherds pie
Medjerra http://www.deandeluca.com/recipes/recipe_lebanese_rice_and_lentils_with_caramelized_onions_mujadarah.aspx (My recipe's slightly different to this, but I am being lazy, posting this link instead of writing it up). It's soooooo nice though, really tasty - much more than you'd think.

Next week
[Away until Tuesday's dinner]
Sausage and tomato casserole and mash
Egg and chips
something previously made from the freezer (I'll let S decide as it's his turn to cook - I'm hoping he'll go for toad in the hole)
Leek, walnut and lemon pasta

Sage toothpaste and other frugal toiletries

I haven't spent a full week at home for ages so my weekly shops and meal plans haven't been weekly recently, but I thought it was about time for another post.

And I definitely have something to talk about. . .

My last post was about frugal house cleaning and this post is about frugal self-cleaning (sort of) and so I'll start with my favourite topic of the moment - sage toothpaste.

S's Mum has given us a tub of toothpowder she made from sage, myrrh and bicarb and I'm telling you, it's amazing. You just wet your toothbrush, dip it in and brush. My mouth has never felt so fresh. I tested my teeth with disclosing tablets before

I started using the powder and then again after a week and the results are astounding. Before I had a lot of plaque left after brushing, after a week of use twice a day my teeth were sparkling!

This toothpowder is cheap - sage is not expensive (particularly if you grow your own), bicarb won't break the bank and I've just checked online and you can get 12.5 g of myrrh for 61p. The recipe came from James Wong's second 'Grow Your Own Drugs' book - so I'd better not post it up, but find the recipe if you can and try it.

I try and steer clear of personal chemicals and say no to parabens (although I do use a nasty plasticy brand name shampoo. I used to use a good no chemical one but the manufacturers no longer make it). I use a crystal stick deoderant (pricey initially but they last forever, proividing you don't drop them) and I use cotton wool and water for N's bum. We use plain glycerine soap in the bath and shower (we don't use anything in N's bath except a couple of drops of lavender oil) and generally steer clear of other products. I do splash out on a moisturiser from Pure Nuff Stuff, but at £9.25 per pot, it's not an excessive expense.

There's a world of homemade beauty products out there to try. I've tried a papaya exfoliator (honey and papaya), vinegar hair rinses and oat scrubs to name but a few. All worth a go if you ask me - cheap and much more pleasant a pot filled with chemical nasties! And do try the toothpowder it really is amazing.

Wednesday bargains

I was coming back from an exercise class earlier and I needed some bread. I tried to use the co-op but having driven round the block twice there wads definitely no where to park, so I gave up and went to Tesco (I hate Tesco so this sticks in my throat).

On this occasion though Tesco was the right place to go. I bought

A spelt and sunflower bloomer
Two organic avocados
A bag of wild rocket
A six chocolate teatime cakes

This cost me a grand total of 32 pence!

I did need the bread, but the other items were impulse buys. Still at 14p, 9p, 4p and 5p respectively I think I can justify the spends. And actually I spent half of what I would on the co-op bread. Nice.

So going to the supermarket at 8pm is obviously a winner!

No Knead

My Dad made this bread and it was yummy. He makes a loaf a day, but uses a 'no knead' recipe. Kneading bread puts me off a bit - I find it hard work, so this is a good answer. Sure the bread is slightly dense, but what a tonic compared to the steam inflated supermaket loaves. It makes great toast and smells good when it's cooking.

Here's a recipe from the New York times (seeing as I'm thinking too lazy to knead, then I'm too lazy to write the recipe out when someone else has done the work).

The Virtues of Vinegar

Oh, I’m a bad blogger. I’ve missed weeks and weeks, how does it happen? Oh well, here’s my latest offering. I’ve included my meals for the next week, but this blog post is going to focus on cleaning. Yes, that’s right cleaning. Our weekly shopping budget includes all our cleaning and toiletry products as well as our food. I’ll cover toiletries some other time, but this time I’m going to let you into how I manage to buy all our cleaning products (as well as our food) in our £35 a week budget.

First, this weeks meals:

Saturday – Spaghetti Sorentina
Sunday – Stew and dumplings
Monday – Cauliflower cheese, new potatoes and peas
Tuesday – Chips, nut cutlets and baked beans
Wednesday – Creamy mustard pasta
Thursday - Stroganoff
Friday – Pizza (this is just for S – N and I will be away at my Mum’s)

So back to cleaning. How do can we possibly clean effectively given the miniscule amount we spend on cleaning products? The simple answer is that we rely on some clever cloths and lots of vinegar. Yes, that’s right vinegar, one of the most versatile products in my cupboard. I use white distilled vinegar for a whole host

of cleaning jobs.

The first and most obvious use for vinegar is for cleaning windows and mirrors. I’ve tried other proprietary window cleaners and none are as good as vinegar. I use it diluted (approx 1 part vinegar to 10 parts water) for windows, just spray it on and buff it off with scrunched up newspaper but use it neat for mirrors (using the same method). Vinegar and newspaper are by far the best way to get a squeaky clean window, trust me.

Vinegar is also great for cleaning out your kettle. Just boil it up and then give it a good rinse and another couple of boils with plain water to remove scale. Much better than a chemical descaler. I also use to clean out my washing machine. I tip a bottle of white vinegar straight in the drum and put it on the hottest cycle. And while I’m on the subject of washing machines, here’s my best vinegar use – in the washing machine drawer during a wash instead of washing conditioner. No, really, try it. Don’t worry your clothes won’t smell of vinegar. You don’t need too much, probably the equivalent of two capfuls of washing conditioner will do the job. I know, it sounds crazy but I started using it when my daughter was born. Babies have very sensitive skin and I read that you shouldn’t use washing conditioner. When I was looking up on what I should use instead I saw vinegar was recommended – it’s kind to babies’ skin, keeps reusable nappies absorbent, helps keep the machine scale free and at around 58p per bottle is an absolute bargain.

Since having a baby our washing machine runs at least daily and given the cost of washing powder that can be expensive. I’m also a bit concerned about all the chemicals I’m pumping into the water supply – ok, so non-bio doesn’t contain enzymes, but even the eco stuff includes all sorts of strange ingredients I don’t really like the sound of. I did try some of those strange things that look like dog balls full of ceramic pellets. At about £15 for two they were an expensive experiment when I realised they have the stain removing potential of well, dog balls. However, I have found a BRILLIANT natural, sustainable alternative - soap nuts.

Last year I got a mama pack (like a bounty pack, but nicer and not a chemical filled marketing sham) and inside was a little soap nut trial pack. Soap nuts are actually little shells from a nut that comes from trees which grow in India and Nepal. They fall off the tree plentifully and are completely sustainable as a resource. The shells contain a naturally soapy agent and are great in the wash. You just need to chuck about 6-8 shells in (in a little muslin bag) and that’s it. You can reuse the shells for between 3 and 6 washes and so they cost around 3p a wash.

They won’t get rid of the very toughest stains and our white nappies sometimes look a wee bit yellowish (as they aren’t being washed with the bleaches in washing powder) but that’s soon resolved by hanging the nappies on the line to dry and bleach in the sun. I cannot speak highly enough about the virtues of soap nuts, but why not find out for yourself and bag yourself a free trial at inasoapnut.com

Also contained within my mama pack were some e-cloths. These are basically a microfibre cloth system. Now I can’t tell you exactly what the difference between these microfibre cloths and any others are, but they do seem to be more effective. Take a look at their website e-coth.com

I’ve got a couple of general purpose cloths (which I rotate) and a couple of the glass and polishing cloths. They do require you to use a bit of elbow grease for tougher marks, but they clean remarkably well and largely eliminate the need for chemical surface cleaners. So after the initial outlay for the cloths, they are a very cheap option. Also it means when N was first learning how to eat solids I could clean her highchair without leaving it covered in a layer of lemon scented chemicals which would have tainted her food.

I do use bleach down the loo, I have tried citric acid, but I have to say I do prefer bleach. We live in a hard water area and so lime scale is a problem for us. We used to use Harpic’s lime scale remover (which was a big chunk of a week’s budget), but actually a 28p bog standard (sorry no pun intended) bottle of bleach gives better results.

We also use regular washing up liquid too. The eco-stuff’s just not that good and the e-cloth sponge was not a success for us (hey maybe, I should soap nuts - now there’s an idea). I’ve used bicarb and a lot of elbow grease to clean the oven. Being veggies, our oven’s not too greasy, and I couldn’t use Mr Muscle when I was pregnant, but even so bicarb’s hardwork, so I do tend to use the scary-make-your eyes-water stuff now.

Oh and I nearly forgot, essential oils – well two in particular. I use tea tree oil in with the nappies and in the nappy bucket and lavender in the wash if I fancy a bit of a fragrance. And bicarb, another favourite of mine. I make it into a paste to clean the fridge. It gets rid of fridgey smells and is nicely abrasive. So really all I buy is washing up liquid, vinegar and bleach, all of which make a pretty limited dent in our weekly budget and keep our chemical footprint down.