An extra post this week. New ways to save!

Thank you for all the messages and comments yesterday. I will be replying properly as the weekend goes on. Our state now has a lot of flooding and is in quite a crisis but our family is not in the flooded areas. We used to live in one of them and know the areas well. So that is still unfolding. There are still widespread phone and internet outages but we have internet today so here I am!
My friend Nerilie lives in Pt. Lincoln which is a regional city and beautiful place and quite remote. Last night they still had no power, supermarkets were empty, no phones, fuel, schools shut, shops had shut, and the towns water supply which is pumped was also under threat. They were in pretty big trouble. NEVER in a thousand years would I have thought this possible!
I have reached the stage I'm writing things down in order to remember them and learn.
This can happen anywhere I guess! In a world of weather events we also have internet hackers and terrorism etc. We always just hope nothing will ever happen.

I have to tell the truth and say I have a really strong feeling about this. It is almost two years since I felt very prompted to start preparing and got busy on it. I wrote a post about that at the beginning of the series I wrote. I just had a nagging feeling and I heard others who said the same.
Now I have a very strong feeling and it is that trying to get prepared was not for this event. That this event is a practice run and to learn from it.
Normally I don't think I would talk about feelings in this way. But I am stepping out and saying it. My whole life if I ever ignored a really strong gut feeling about something it never turned out well! So I have learned my lesson there. Trust yourself when you have a strong feeling about something.


Now to my Saturday post! I have been excited about this!

Over the last three years I have really learned a lot! Each year I seem to have found new ways to save and get ahead and each time I find something new that is a big saver it is like an exciting light bulb moment!

I can even track some of my biggest savers and the things that have made a difference. Some things are little and some are huge! When you realise the value of things and work out the savings it can be a shock! Vicky says you can't bet the best price which is FREE!

Last week I had a bit of a discovery and it was the result of reading Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth. Jes often gets a mention here by both readers (i.e. Kelsey the other day showed recipe cards she had printed from her website,  Maria had just been baking with recipes from there as well!)  and myself as I find so much there that helps and inspires me.
Jes has written an e book called 100+ DIY Projects to make with fruit scraps.

Now, I already felt I make the most of any fruit that comes our way.
I love to make jams for my pantry and for gifts. In winter when we have oranges I always make the Sunshine cake and when I have lemons I go crazy making Lemon Butter, lemon icing,  I freeze the juice and slices and drink the juice daily.
I have even made Lemon Vinegar for my cleaning cloths.
I thought I am pretty good at using all the fruit we can come by in summer.
Last year we had lots of figs! I was making fig jam and figs in so many meals... fig pizza became a new favourite here!

So imagine my shock when I read Jes' book and a few pages into it I start to seriously regretting every orange peel, lemon peel, apple core and peel that I have thrown away.  She literally has over 100 uses for these things.  After a few more pages I was having flash backs of mountains of lemon skins I threw away last time I had lemons from Hilde!

According to Jes I could have made Lemon Essence, a myriad of beauty and bath products, soaps, Vitamin C Elixir, cleaning products and beautiful things.  The peel is packed with nutrition, vitamins and scent. So we throw all this away then go and buy vitamin C tablets! haha

Worse still I realised I could have used my lemon peels in my next batch of soaps and I enjoyed soap making so much earlier this year. She has recipes I am dying to try that will use up all my future peels with gorgeous citrus scents.  Also my favourite soap was the one I made with Lux flakes which are soap flakes. Her recipes are just as easy and the results are like in the stores that sell homemade soaps for outrageous prices.  I never thought of citrus peels to add scent, colour and even texture to my soaps!

To top it off beautiful labels that you can print are supplied. So you have the correct name for the product and a professional finished for gift giving. This looks lovely in our own cupboards too.

Overall I found so many things I can't wait to make that will fill both my pantry and gift cupboard. Many of these I will be using for next years gifts. A lot of things are ways to build up your pantry for practically free.

I have already pretty much eliminated the chemicals and cost of most cleaning products. The last frontier was the oven and now I don't need chemicals for that either!  For many people cleaning products, air fresheners etc amount to hundreds a year. Really you can eliminate the lot! The recipes Jes gives you are just lovely and your house will small beautiful. This eliminates another area of spending on air fresheners etc.

Jes has you making things you never really dreamed of, makes it easy and fun and her recipes do not require expensive or fancy ingredients. It is not real economy if you have to spend money to use these things up. Her ingredients are mostly stuff you already have.

We have summer ahead of us. Here we get winter citrus and masses of fruit in about January and February.  I keep a jar cupboard and build that up all year for this time! However now I will be doubling my efforts and saving bottles too as fast as I can.  The stuff I mostly throw away will all become gifts, cleaning products and things to store.

I am sharing this because I just love it. I am not being paid or anything like that! Jes gave me a copy of her book and asked me if I would review it which I did on Amazon.  This is just a world of savings to me and a way to use things I regularly have thrown in the bin!

So save your bottles and jars and your fruit scraps. They are going to get us a mile ahead with many projects form now on!

This is the link to Jes' page if you would like to get the e book. You can read about it further there as well.

Do you have any wonderful recipes that use the things that we all regularly throw away? Stocks and bone broths come to my mind.  These are another thing that are full of nutrition yet many of the ingredients regularly are thrown in the bin.
I think the skills to use all these things are great to learn in good times and would be incredibly helpful in bad times. We are surrounded by resources if only we know how to use them.
Who doesn't love free ingredients!  I still can see the huge pile of lemon peels I threw away some months ago. I won't be doing that again.

Between October 3 and 5 Jes is selling the e book for a discount price. If you enter the code
loyal reader the book will be $5.99

If anyone wants to buy the book would you think about leaving Jes a review as these are so helpful when you are trying to get a book off the ground.

This has really opened up a wonderful subject for me. What do you make from things that people routinely throw away?  I am going to have a post coming up just on things made for basically free because they use up scraps. Roseanne already sent me pictures of some of the things she makes!  So please share on this as it is really quite amazing when you discover something wonderful has been right in front of you all along but you didn't see it!

Have a lovely weekend. Here it is Grand Final day in the AFL football. We will have the whole afternoon relaxing and watching.  It is really fun. Provided the electricity stays on of course! xxx

























Jes is offering the book to us for $5.99 instead of the regular $9.99. This offer is between the 3rd and 5th of October. You need the code... loyalreader

Stretch a Meal and Use it Up. Miracle Muffins.

I thought I would add today to our stretch a meal and use it up series. This week I am making a big effort to use up bits and pieces from the freezer. I seem to be a collector of lots of small bags of ingredients!  I started on the weekend with something similar to an archeological dig and unearthing random packets of left over berries. This produced about a cup and a half of mainly blueberries.
So I made my Miracle Muffins. Oh, I also unearthed a small tub of vanilla yoghurt. So that went in too.

This recipe is so handy. You can turn all kinds of bits and pieces into muffins that can become breakfasts, sides with soup, lunch box fillers, after school snacks, morning tea... anything! It makes two dozen medicum muffins but you could do mini muffins for a small child or texas man size muffins in which case you would get a dozen.

This is the recipe. It is very versatile!

4 cups of SR Flour,
1 heaped cup of sugar, any kind.
1 cup of butter OR oil.
1 cup of milk , any kind.
2 eggs.

To this you can add:
Chopped apple, raisins, sultanas, currents, dried apricot, date...
Pureed fruit, tinned fruit, stewed fruit, cooked rhubarb,
fresh or frozen berries, banana,
Yoghurt, plain, flavored....
Chopped nuts.
Chopped chocolate.
Jam.
Grated carrot.
Any combination you like that you have, want to use up and think will be nice.

Mix wet ingredients together and add dry ingredients and blend. Add any ingredients you do not want broken up last and fold them in ie chunks of fruit or berries. I use a small square of baking paper in the bottom of my muffin tins. Bake in a medium oven about 12 mins but test with skewer.

My general rule is if I use really wet extras ie yoghurt or pureed fruit I will use a little less milk.
And another is probably I will use about a cupful of this or that but you could use more or less. If I have added too many wet ingredients I add a little more flour.

You can add a topping before you bake them and use up a sprinkle of sugar. A drizzle of jam. A sprinkle of left over cereal. Some nuts. Also add a spice or sugar that you think might work ie I would sprinkle with cinnamon if I made apple... or vanilla sugar goes well with fruit.

So mine on Saturday were the basic recipe plus a cup of vanilla yoghurt, plus a big cup of blueberries, plus about two tablespoons of plum jam. I went for plum as I have a ton and it's pink. I fold in the berries and then the jam gently so it is visible like strawberry ripple. This bulks out the berries and it basically seems you have way more berries than you actually do!

When baked I sprinkle with icing sugar.

The thing is this can make savory muffins also.
Use the base mix and omit the sugar.

Add:

A handful of grated cheese,
Creamed corn or corn kernels.
Chopped ham or bacon,
Cooked onion,
Mashed pumpkin, grated zucchini,
Also add herbs if you like. I add chives to cheese and bacon muffins...


The same flexibility applies.

Turning a few bits and pieces into a tray of hot muffins is a real family filler. These also freeze so well. Then you always have quick lunch box options on hand. I doubt I have ever made the ezcat ame combination twice but they are always really good.

Using up and stretching what we have reduces waste, saves a lot of money and might reduce our trips to the shops as well. Most of the time it is enough to try and keep food costs down. I would say just about everyone has that battle. When I see the price of something simple like a muffin in a cafe or a bakery I think how making a couple of dozen is so cheap in comparison.
My savings on the grocery budget are adding to my pantry so it is like a double challenge. Or a triple challenge if I count the use things up from the freezer one as well!
According to the prices in our local bakery my batch of muffins would have cost $64. I got just over two dozen out of this batch, I got 28. Can you believe that? $64.  The cost to make was probably four dollars or so. And it all took under an hour. So lets call that a $50 an hour pay cheque.

I hope this might add to your stretch it and use it up go to recipes and it will save you money also.

Have a wonderful week! We have a beautiful sunny day after a really cold night. I have grocery shopping to do and some errands to run then I hope to get into the garden and soak up some sunshine.

I am excited about Wednesday's Pantries and Preparedness post! See you then! xxx

Stretch a Meal and Use it Up. Flans, Quiche, Impossible Pies.

Nothing uses up leftovers and makes a great meal better than a pie! These are such an opportunity to use up little bits and pieces and make something spectacular. And the bonus is they are great for breakfasts, lunches and dinners and also made in small sizes they are great for sending in lunch boxes. They are also very portable. Perfect for a picnic or to take as a gift of a meal to someone.

Recently Lucy took me to a cafe nearby and they specialized in Flans. I wish I had taken photos now... Firstly they looked spectacular. Each one was placed on a large cake stand. They had all kinds of interesting fillings like pumpkin, sun dried tomato and feta, spinach, chicken and so on.
They just looked glorious and I thought how easy these are to make and people were going crazy over them! I also should have priced them. But going by the price per serve it would have had to be $50 for a whole flan.

Yesterday for Mother's Day Lucy asked Mum and I over. Lucy who is meant to be resting on Doctor's orders and due in a few days...

Anyway we arrived and she had made us all a lovely lunch. First I'll show you desert which is really nothing to do with anything I just have to show you! :)
Desert was a baked cheesecake which was just beautiful...

Her main was a Chicken and Spinach Quiche with rocket, pear and walnut salad. It was yum!

And she decorated it with hearts for Mother's Day. Which I loved.

Inspired by how nice this looked I thought today I would add Quiches and Flans to our ways to stretch a meal and use it up.

There are two main "quiches" I make. The first is a quiche that has the custard like filling and make modifications to the filling. And a pastry base. This is a chance to use.... onion, practically any cheese you may have, spinach, asparagus, bacon, ham, sun dried or fresh tomato, roast pumpkin or sweet potato... and so many other things. You can use a sprinkle or a lot depending on what you have.

You can make your pastry or use ready rolled. The basic filling is 3 eggs blended with a cup of cream. I mostly use evaporated milk instead. It is very flexible. Classic quiche might have stricter rules but we are being versatile!
A yummy trick is to cheat and use Mimi's Onion Confit spread over the pastry base. Then pour in your egg mix. This is beautiful and I call "Caramelized Onion Quiche".

The next version is to use sour cream. A simple mix is 3 eggs to 300ml/10oz sour cream and your choice of fillings. This gives a thicker consistency and is good when using more fillings.

Another variation is to use dried breadcrumbs sprinkled over the bottom of your dish. Then fill with your fillings and gently pour your egg mix over the top and bake. This gives and easy pie crust.

The other way I will do this is to make a more rustic pie and use some flour in the mix instead of pastry. Impossible Pies work as the flour sinks and the pie is self crusting. This works best if you let your pie sit for a few minutes before baking. It is a super easy recipe and so versatile.

The basic recipe is 4 eggs, 2 cups of milk or cream or a mix, and half a cup of flour. Blend all together and pour over your fillings. There are so many versions of this.
Grated zucchini (or thinly sliced) is good in this.

Some basics are use seasonings of your choice, saute your raw ingredients that need it like onion or spinach to reduce it down. Others like tomato, corn etc don't need pre cooking. Some things are decide for yourself!

I always serve with a relish of some sort and a little side salad.

For lunch boxes I make any of these in muffin trays. For little kids I would make mini sized ones. If you are low carb or gluten free I would use no flour in the impossible quiche. Really then you are making a frittata but lets not get technical!

This is Lucy's recipe for her pie. She pre baked her short crust pastry base (with weights) and the hearts. She added the hearts to the pie after it was almost cooked.

1 and a quarter cups shredded cheddar cheese,
1 cup cooked diced chicken.
1 ten ounce package frozen spinach thawed and drained really well. (this is half a cup)
1/2 cup chopped onion.
3 eggs.
3/4 cup milk.
3/4 cup mayonnaise.
Salt and pepper.

Fill your pie shell with your chicken, onion, spinach, cheese..
In a bowl whisk the eggs, milk, mayo and seasonings. Pour this over your dry ing.
Bake in med oven until knife comes out clean. Let sit a few minutes before serving.

This is beautiful. Next time you have left over cooked chicken reserve a cup for this.

For a large serving I double or triple the recipe and line a baking dish with non stick baking paper. Then just make a giant rectangle. This cuts up into lots of serves.
To make it look spectacular make a cake sized on and place on your loveliest cake plate or stand. It really looks fantastic!

These recipes are very flexible. But with a few ingredients and some eggs you have a meal. I keep  tins of evaporated milk and long life cream in the pantry and I always have cheese in the fridge so I mostly can whip something up in a hurry!

I would love to hear your versions. Mimi makes a Salmon luxury pie, I think we had better get on to her about this recipe. I made it once for Valentine's Day. It it an example of a recipe with a little bit of a strong flavored ingredient that makes it wow.

Some of us are in spring and others are in autumn! This is good as these recipes are just as suitable as a hot meal or as a cold picnic lunch.

I hope you have a wonderful week. I am out the door to the shops and then getting some soup on.
My plan is to make a muffin tray of bacon impossible pies to go in Andy's work lunch for the next few days.

Last week we did "substitutions" in our Stretch a Meal and Use it up series. The comments, ideas and recipes you all contributed made it wonderful. It was epic! Thank you!

Lots of love.xxx

Stretch a meal and use it up. Substitutions.

Last time I talked about Crumbles (Crisps) and general meals that are great for using things up.
Mimi posted a really wonderful comment (I will let you just read that) about how she saved lots of what seemed like excessive ingredients from a recipe, made a few substitutions and got two dinners out of it instead of one. One of the things she did was use broccoli stalks sliced finely through the first recipe instead of celery and carrot. The celery and carrot then made it into the next meal.  This is a perfect example of substituting and stretching!

This can be just amazing, a few substitutions and a few changes can result in big savings.  Many times recipes are actually produced to promote an ingredient. Most times recipes do not have your families budget in mind. But we can outsmart them! Also we can build up our recipes that are flexible and have variations. Straight away you are able to use things up, use what's on special and save money.

My simple method to stretch something is very often to simply double the recipe but not the expensive component. So I have made blueberry muffins, doubled the recipe thus getting two dozen, used one lot of blueberries and a tablespoon of berry jam instead of the second amount of berries. This works so well. They are beautiful and you would never know. If you think about it blueberries are the expensive component. You could leave them out altoghether and use apple. Or half blueberry and half chopped apple.  You could decide to make another kind of muffin althogether!

Many ingredients that add a ton of flavor are only needed in small quantities. Sun dried tomatoes, nuts, fancy cheeses, chorizo, salmon etc are great as you actually only need a really little bit. You can well and truly double the recipe but not these without losing much at all. Or you can add a little chorizo to a pasta dish and give the impression it is a meaty dish with very little meat in fact! Clever use of ingredinets can bolster up flavour and stretch plainer (and cheaper) ingredients. Recipes using these type of ingredients are easy to stretch without needing to use more of the expensive components.

Most casseroles, fried rice, meat and vegie dishes and soups you can substitute the vegies of your choice and use far more than the recipe calls for. We probably all do that.  There are times certain vegies are crazy prices. Like here Caulifowers are $8 each at the moment. No recipe will have me buying one just now. I'll make something else! If we can just swap our recipes around to suit the price and season we are half way there.

Some of the substitutions I use are:

Blanched almonds in the place of pinenuts in pesto.
Vegetable oil instead of butter in cakes (it works in most, they also keep fresh longer)
Yoghurt or milk with lemon instead of buttermilk.
A plainer cheese isntead of a fancy one.
Evaportated milk instead of cream (in quiches, tarts etc)
A cup of pureed fruit instead of a cup of butter or oil in a cake.
I crush or break up chocolate from a sale of left overs rather than buy chocolate chips.
Chicken thighs for chicken breasts  or a whole chicken  as it is often cheaper than two chicken breasts!
The meat thats marked down for the meat in the recipe.


There are times when you can just skip something all together without any disasterous effects. Or add heaps more of something that you do have to stretch the overall number of serves. Many recipes call for one carrot or something like that and I add four. More vegies are a good thing, at a cheap price... the meal will go further.

One of my favourite highly interchangeable meal is pizza.

First of all the base can be so many things...

Make your own dough using yeast and flour.
Make your own dough using yogurt/milk and flour.
Use some kind of bread as the base. I love to use turkish bread cut in half lengthwise.
Use bread and make as toasties for the lunch boxes.
Split muffins and make mini pizzas.
Lebanese Bread or flat breads.
Pre made pizza bases.
On the weekend I made my dough with yeast but other times I have used all of the above. It depends on what I have.

Next the sauce can be...

Tinned tomatoes, a jar of tomato pasta sauce, homemade tomato sauce, BBQ sauce (this works great with chicken topping) also onion jam or Mimi's Onion Confit, Pesto...

Mine this time was just a jar of tomato pasta sauce...

..

Then toppings can be..

Tomato bolognese sauce with or without mince, bacon, ham, cooked chicken or lamb, tomato, capsicum, onion, capers, anchovies, pineapple, salmon, prawns, salami, mettwurst, soft or hard cheese or a mixture, sun dried tomatoes, roast pumpkin, sweet potato, onion, mushrooms... I am sure there are so many more things I've missed! But the idea is to look and see what you have that you can include.

Mine was salami, bocconcini, pineapple, grated cheese, bacon...

The last layer, after the pizza is cooked could be mixed hers, rocket, fresh soft cheese that then melts gently, a sprinkle of herbs.


We all get to end up with our favourite combinations. Andy likes salami and strong flavours like that. The thing is you only need a really little bit to get that effect and these peopele are happy!

Now my combinations would proabbly give an Italina Chef a heart attack... but the flavors are yummy, you use up all kinds of left overs and make meals that are good hot or cold! I would never made one pizza. I usually make three  or four, at least. If you are doing this you might as well end up with lunches, lunch box food, maybe an easy dinner in tow nights time...
This is such a chance to make an inexpensive dinner and use up all kinds of things.

I made half a dozen smaller pizzas that went on a fishing trip and made lunches...

On the subject of stretching meals and using things up Stephanie on her blog posted an idea on avoiding food waste. It was one of those "WHY didn't I think of that moments!" I will let you read it for yourself here Avoiding Food Waste. I am implementing this idea.

If you have excess bread I have a great use it up recipe here which is a beautiful bread and butter pudding that cuts like a cake and looks spectacular. Hilde reminded me that if you go to many bakeries at the end of the day you can often get bargain bread, buns, croissants etc. All of these make wonderful bread and butter pudding. You adjust the sweetness ie if using sweet buns you wouldn't need to add sugar to your eggs, milk/cream and vanilla mix. This adds even more substitutions!

If you have excess fruit this is a cake that uses up plums, peaches, nectarines or apricots...  the recipe is  here. This also makes great muffins. Pictured here with nectarines and at the top of this post using plums.

What are substitutions you use to save money, make a meal stretch or make it healthier? The more confident we are with substitutions the more we save.

I am working on a post on how to stretch meat meals. I am married to a meat eater and a lot of ladies are, I know from comments! My Nana elevated stretch meat in meals to an artform and so well I never realised until recently. Meat is one of the most expensive parts of the food budget. So making it go as far as possible is a big help!

Have a great week! I am heading off to grocery shop and have zucchini soup to make from my bargain zucchinis. I hope to get a good start to the week! xxx

Stretch a meal and use it up. Crumbles.

Today I am starting what will be a series, "Stretch a meal and use it up".
There are so many ways to do both these things and when you are doing both togehter you are onto a winner! Like with crumbles. Good old fashioned and yummy crumbles.

Firstly they "use it up" on two levels. You can use up quite tired fruit that is no longer appealing fresh (and could be headed for the bin) in a crumble. So that bowl of apples going soft become something delicious. You can use up a glut of fruit. You can use tinned fruit that you found on a great special.
In summer I had peaches that needed using that day or it would be too late.  I used a suggestion I gratefully recieved here and made a peach crumble. Actually several. Once this fruit was cooked I had a few more days to use it too. It was the best crumble I ever made!

So you are using tired fruit that might have been wasted. Or bargain fruit or tinned. You can mix some of this and that if you think they will go together. I have mixed pear and apple, rhubarb and apple, apricot and apple... apple and sultanas. You can use raw fruit, in which case cook it longer and slower, or cooked fruit which will heat through and be cooked quicker so you are really just going for a golden brown topping. If you are not sure go to your most trusted chef, cook book or website and check out a few recipes or use a family one as your basic recipe and vary from there. You cannot tell someone how much sugar to add as some fruit is already sweet and some is tart. You really need to add and taste. But once you have made one then it is an easy go to desert any time you have fruit to use up.

The crumble part, the topping, is also using up left overs. Your crumble topping uses up all kinds of things that could have been thrown away. Once you make crumbles you see all sorts of things that you can save to go towards your next one. Keep a big jar in the pantry and add dry ingredients that can be used as your next crumble topping. Some great things include...
The crumbs from the bottom of the cereal packet.
Crumbs from the bottom of the biscuit barrel or packet.
Left over cereals or museli.
Oatmeal, rolled oats, porridge.
Sultanas, nuts, other dried fruits.
Biscuits that no one liked much!
Coconut.
Anything that is not already crushed I put in a snap lock bag and belt it with the rolling pin and in it goes. As long as things are dry they will keep in your jar ready for your next crumble.
In the fridge I keep left over nuts. Crushed these are beautiful in your crumble toppings.

When you need a topping you melt some butter, add some flour, brown sugar plus some of your mix and that is it!

My best ever crumble was very simple. I greased a baking dish and 3/4 filled it with sliced and peeled peaches. These were sweet so I added the smallest sprinkle of sugar.
In a bowl I melted butter, maybe half a cup or so, and added flour, brown sugar and crushed walnuts. I added a dash of cinnamon. I tasted it to see if it was sweet enough, so just go by taste. It should be delicious.
Once this was crumbly I sprinkled it in a thick layer over my peaches and baked it until the crumble was golden and I could see the fruit was bubbly.
Served with cream this was just beautiful. Crumbles soak up cream or ice cream like a sponge. Custard is the other obvious addition.

As we always have nuts in the house I include some crushed nuts now in my topping. But you can adapt your toppings to suit yourself and be nut free or gluten free or whatever you wish.

Crumbles used to be something our Grandmothers made and for good reason. But now they are "in fashion" again I notice as the cooking shows and restaurants have been featuring them (along with a lot of good old fashioned comfort foods).

I made one on the weekend and I used a tin of pie apricots as Andy loves apricots. He worked all weekend so I made special dinners. I used the flour, butter, brown sugar, crushed walnut mix. It was beautiful and as it was raining outside a cooked desert was a treat. We don't have desert every night. It is either special or when I feel dinner was a bit light on or when I am serving soup as a main. Then I get a meal from less and top it up with desert. To me desert can be used as a way to bulk out a meal when you need to do that.

I just love that you can make something so good from fading fruit and remnants saved up from cereals etc. You feel as if you have made something wonderful out of thin air.

Recipes that use up our leftovers, stretch a meal, make the most of the times when we have too much of something and help the budget overall are just so good. Pizza is a good one. So many bits and pieces work as toppings! And so many things work as bases.

Some others I find really useful are impossible pies, fried rice, sweet or savory scones (biscuits), pancakes, corn bread, custards... baked, rice, creme caramel, soups, stews, mornay, bread and butter puddings, muffins. All of these have great use it up potential as you can vary the ingredients so much.

Some things that stretch a meal like a casserole or meat meal are yorkshire puddings,  vegetable side dishes, dumplings, corn bread, bread rolls, rice, mashed or baked potatoes or sweet potatoes, potato bake and Nan's tomato casserole.

Left overs and bits and pieces take on all sorts of possibilities when you have highly adaptable recipes. So that is something I am working on in following posts. It helps us eliminate waste and be creative!

What are your "use it up" recipes and recipes for when you really need to stretch a meal to go further?
Mimi recently said that she was trying to hold back one ingredient where possible when making a meal. Just adding one thing less. This over time was giving her ingredients to make another meal, or toward another meal. I thought this is really good. I often add more than I need. Economy wise and calorie wise this is a winner! You can kind of make a little game of it.

Another saver is to try and go just one more day before you shop. To have a use up every left over day and stretch your supplies out just an extra day. This can call for some inventiveness! But over a year this can be a big saving!

Combined I hope our ideas can help each others budgets.

I want to tell you a little thing. When we travelled recently we went through a lot of country towns. Increasingly we have noticed how many empty shops there are. How houses look run down and gardens dead. We have seen the gradual decline in many places we have visited but also in places we have lived. Tonight Andy was talking to his friend on the phone. His friend is a very industrious hard worker. (Also way out in the country). Andy said how he is finding it tough. People are not spending and there is no money around... so his business is very low and everyone else's are too. So he will do anything at all for a dollar and is taking on all kinds of random extra things. Each time we speak to someone from this area the report is a little bit worse.
I am not saying this is everywhere but we are noticing it where we live. Around here empty shops and closing shops are just the norm now.

So I think there is a great need for helps like the blogs we talk about, for blogs like The Cheapskates Club and My Abundant Life, for economical recipes like Mimi posts and for learning skills to do better, cook better, DIY, live frugally and happily... all of these things. The need must be there and people must be looking. And for us, the more we learn the better! The more we build up our pantries the better!

Have a wonderful week!