Frugal Food - Just do with what I have July

Like a lot of people, I'm being extra careful with my money. 

I tried to be as frugal as possible this month.

One of my favourite bloggers, Frugal Queen, announced that she was having a 'Just do with what I have July'. She challenged her followers  to share recipes & menu plans to use up what was in the store cupboards to create frugal food.

Here is my humble effort.

Firstly I made a batch of carrot soup using left over carrots from the fridge. This time last year I would probably have thrown the carrots away. Instead I got a month' s worth of Saturday lunches. I frozen them in individual portions.  

Left over peppers & onions where thrown into the slow cooker with beans to make a curry. 5 dinners to be frozen. 

I love my slow cooker and often at weekend I will make a make a batch of chilli or curry, have some for dinner and freeze the rest. I've then got quick tasty meals to have when I get in from work. I just need to add any spare fresh veg to the chilli & serve with a jacket potato. 

These are my 15p Beany Burgers. It's one of Frugal Queen's receipes. I think mine cost a bit more that 15p a burger but no more than 20p. Half a pack of Aldi noodles (9p) with some frozen pepers (5p) and a handful lettuce from the greenhouse and it's another dinner for less than £1. I made batch of burgers and froze enough for another 5 dinners.

I make my own pizza now. It costs about £1.50. Friday night used to mean a trip to the chip shop but it's often pizza on a Friday night now.

Macaroni cheese is another  favourite.

Served with lettuce & tomatoes from the greenhouse.

And my favourite dinner of all - jacket potato, beans & cheese. I always have the ingredients for that in stock. 

I've eaten home cooked meals most days and they all cost less than £1.

Frugal Shopping - restocking the store cupboard

My shopping habits have changed over the past few years. 

I rarely shop at Tesco now although I might if they send me a voucher. I had one that I needed to use up today - save £6 if you spend over £40. I don't always use these as they are tempting me in to spend more of my hard earned cash than I've budgeted for.

But as the store cupboard was running low, this voucher was a great way to save & restock. I walked around the store with a calculator adding up the items in my basket until I just hit the £40, and only bought things from my store cupboard shopping list.

 Bea was very happy that her favourite cat food was on special offer. She's allergic to some cat foods and has IBS - all stress related problems of being a rescue cat.

 I buy lots of Everyday Value things these days. I bought washing power, dishwasher tablets, kitchen roll & bubble bath to store away.

Cans of beans, cans of fruit and packets of stuffing that will be made into curries, chilies & burgers. I've calculated that I have enough here to make the basis of about 20-25 or more meals.

All this for £34 pounds. There was a time when £34 would have been a mid week shop for a few bits & bobs. I've got enough here, along with my store of pasta & noodles to feed me for weeks not just days. I just need to add the fresh veg which I'm either growing or I'll buy in Aldi.  

Doctor Who Party

My daughter wanted a Doctor Who themed 16th Birthday Party. 

We got lots of ideas from the internet and added a few of our own.

We love decorating the house for parties & celebrations.
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My daughter made some themed invitations. She also wrote a Doctor Who themed murder mystery game.

I made some bunting featuring a picture of each doctor on each flag and another set with monsters & characters on it.
 My daughter made some themed paper chains.

From 2 scraps of wallpaper, I made a message to Sally Sparrow from the the Doctor from Series 3 episode 10 -  'Blink'.

The Crack in Time from Series 5 was made from black paper and stuck to the wall.

We hung the planets from a solar system mobile from the ceiling lights together with a paper model  TARDIS. 

We put up lots of 'Vote Saxon' posters & I even graffiti-ed my own house by painting 'Bad Wolf' on a window.

Some Gallifreyan wall art.

Black boxes from the Series 7 episode 'Power of 3'.

We ordered in a take-away for the main meal, but made a few snacks. Using icing sugar, I stuck small marshmallow arms & legs to larger marshmallow bodies to make Adipose from.Series 4 episode 1 -  'Partners in Crime'.

I used black writing icing to draw in the faces.

A few jars of Jelly Babies - a favourite of the 4th Doctor, guarded by my knitted Adipose.

A plate or two of Jammie Dodgers - a favourite of the 11th Doctor.

I usually cheat with the birthday cake as I run out of time. I bought a basic birthday cake from the supermarket and recovered it with swirly blue butter icing to represent a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff. We bought some themed cake toppers for the fairy cakes & the sides of the main cake. I wasn't clever enough to make an edible TARDIS that I'd seen on similar cakes so I crashed a model one into it.

An old Fridge Freezer box was turned into a TARDIS. We painted it blue and then stuck on the windows, panels & signs.

And last but not least - the TARDIS dress.

TARDIS Dress

I thought that my days of making fancy dress outfits for my daughter's birthday party might be over. I was wrong. For her 16th birthday she wanted a Doctor Who themed party and asked of I could make a TARDIS Dress. What a challenge!

We found so many ideas on the internet and picked out  the main features, the Police Public Call Box signs the windows and the door panels. I made a basic blue dress. It was a challenge in itself as it was designed to be adjustable and the initial seams were made on the outside. There was a lot of unpicking and resewing that I had to do but eventually got the dress together.

First thing was to add a black waist  band to represent the top of the TARDIS.

I positioned the fabric windows & sign, sewed them on and then
 trimmed the edges with black ribbon. 

I've NEVER had to do so much unpicking & resewing to try and get the windows straight & in the right position. After several attempts,  I abandoned it & got on with the top sign.

I made a paper pattern.

Traced it onto baking paper.

 I used iron-on fabric adhesive to back some white felt, traced out and cut out the letters.

Marked the middle of the of the waist band.

Pinned on the baking paper guide lining it up with the middle of the waist band.

Sewed the felt letters on over the top of the guide. Once they letters were sewn on I carefully ripped the guide away.

Back to the windows. I decided to make the windows first and then attach them to the dress.

By using 505 adhesive spray I could position the windows to the dress whilst my daughter was wearing it and we could peel them off & re-position them until they looked OK.  I made and added the blue panels in the same way.

I made a template for the information sign that's on the front of the TARDIS.

It took a couple of attempts until I was happy. I trimmed it with black ribbon and attached it to the dress.

The completed dress, with some TARDIS earrings from ETSY and TARDIS key necklace to finish off the outfit.

New York T-shirt Cushion Cover

My friends brought my daughter a T-shirt back from their trip to New York. Sadly it doesn't fit her anymore but she didn't want to throw it out. We decided to turn it into a cushion cover.

 I cut the front panel and the back off the T-shirt.

Assisted by Brian, I made up the cover using my  usual pattern. 

 I didn't want to put a zip in because I was worried about the material stretching. So, I made some loops and attached buttons to fasten the back of the cover.

The finished cushion cover - a good recycling project.

Brian helping out.