Author: boomingbanter

In the late 1960s business was good at The Ulster Weaving Company and my Daddy worked overtime every Tuesday and Thursday night.

I have no recollection of what my Mum made for dinner on Tuesday, maybe it wasn’t a permenant feast, but I remember clearly that on Thursday night she always made us home made chips (aka French Fries) with eggs and sausages.

My Mummy was really good at making chips. At that time she was working in a school canteen and her boss Mrs Totten had given her the secret to crisp chips! You gotta blanche them first. So on Thursday mummy and me would stand in the kitchen and prefry the chips listening to Top of The Pops on TV.

As soon as Daddy pushed his big old bike through the back yard door we’d start frying them for the second time before tucking in when they were really hot.

Yesterday for the first time ever and thanks to this budget business I made chips at home for Aaron. We always buy oven fries so have no deep fat frier but that wok worked wonders again!

They weren’t anything like Mummy’s because I didn’t blanche them nor fry them in lard but Aaron gave the thumbs up and said we must always make them like that!! The black bean burger that went with them? Well that’s another story!!!!!!

Blessing # 221 – Fresh Fries

We are rocking through the stocks and have had to pull the reserve milk out of the freezer. We left the chocolate milk tucked away at minus 20 for another day!

Yesterday we made some bean soup for lunch. As it was cooking I got totally absorbed in emails. Nexts thing you know there’s a distinct smell coming from the kitchen. I’d burnt it! The bottom of the pot was as black as coal.

Rather than trash it water was added, the bottom scraped and the soup stirred up and reheated. It tasted yummy and had a really good color too. That carmel crunch created character! Ignore the black speck just act like they were meant to be there!

Reminded me of my Daddy too! When my Mum was making stew he’d always say to her « give it a wee bit of a burn girl to make it tasty » A hero and a gourmet!

This morning as Aaron had all the milk on his cereal my oatmeal had to be made with water only instead of half water and half milk.

Heated in the microwave for the usual two minutes it boiled over. Another day, another mess and more scraping!

It didn’t taste too bad but was a lot thicker than when made with milk and water. Gave some ideas too for black bean burgers on the menu tonight! It should be well disguised

Blessing # 220 – Sticky Stuff

We have had two vegetarian days in a row. Last night was an Irish like fry with griddle baked soda bread minus the meaty bits! The soda was not exactly as Granny would have made it but was much better than the last attempt.

Aarons first comment was “where’s the bacon” We discussed the extortionate cost of this item as we ate the eggs and beans on the plate.

He then spent time perusing  Gordon Ramsey recipes on the internet and talking about MEAT! We agreed to a feast for Chinese New Year. In the mean time we’ll have a good old spaghetti bolonaise for our next dinner.

This morning we got a call from school at 5:00 am to say there was a two hour delay because of ice and freezing rain. So we adjusted the alarm and went back to sleep.

Next thing we knew it was just past seven as we heard the garage door security chime.

Aaron had woken up at 6:20 thought we had all slept in and decided he would let his ancient parents sleep. So he rushed to get washed and dressed, grabbed a mouthful of cereal and went to school.

Of course when he got there he was the one and only! When he got home we all had a good laugh and soon afterwards got another call to say that school was closed for the day because the conditions were so bad!

An unexpected day off, even if you don’t get a long lie in bed, is one of the best things ever! Especially with the prospect of your favorite dinner on the menu!

Blessing # 219 – Snow Days and Spaghetti

The last sad banana was dispatched to school this morning as part of Aarons packed lunch. With it went the fear that is now lurking in the home that things may be transformed in radical ways!

After a very standard macaroni and cheese dinner the urge for ice cream was so great that a brainwave struck.

Oatmeal is creamy in a lumpy sort of way. Combined with chocolate milk could it possibly become an inspired gelato.

Alas friends after beating and freezing and beating some more it was clear it could not. Dad ate some, and being the maker I ate a lot but Aaron was not fooled. It was oatmeal and it looked like barf!

The food scientists theory still hold though that this may be possible so back to the drawing board for round two of “ was my grandpa an Irish or Italian?”

Blessing # 218 – Experimenting

As it was Sunday we decided to come as close as we could to a traditional roast dinner.

What is most obvious is that our portion sizes are radically reduced compared to what is normal for us.

Usually we’d throw an entire Chicken into the oven along with stuffing and a huge dish of roast potatoes. On the veggie front we’d nosh our way through a whole cauliflower cheese and countless carrots but yesterday was different.

We are counting carrots and potatoes now not calories so as oil is in good supply these were liberally doused in essential fatty acids!

Our chicken was limited to roughly one pound for the three of us. Ironically even more than what the FDA thinks of as a portion. We’d call it a snack!

What we ate was tasty but we could easily have eaten the double of what we did.

We hit the cookies and the chocolate milk as dessert and took diversion in watching TV. Football in the basement for Aaron and Pride and Prejudice for Dad and me.

Blessing #217. –  Balls!

 

The weekend threw a few challenges our way.

On Friday around six, just as the rice was boiling to serve with the “thank you husband for putting up with this chicken curry”, Aaron bounces in.

He announces casually, almost in passing, that his back tire is sort of  soft. Soft my foot. It’s almost flat!

A litany of  WHATs and WHYs then ensues and panic calls to Tire Discounters to see WHO is still open to repair this!

Seriously he was going to leave it till the next morning and then try to get it fixed before work!

Sometimes you despair of the minds of teenagers until you remember when you did the same sort of things! Or worse!

So we turn off the gas and off we go to get the tire fixed. No patching possible we are hit with a $115 bill which of course was paid immediately.

WHAT though if we were truly strapped for cash and living on a budget. This would have been a desperate situation. Almost certainly we would have had to put the tire replacement on credit and it is not hard to imagine the viscous circle that might follow.

Saturday brought snow and we felt fortunate that the tire went out on Friday and not in the snow storm.

Aaron got home from work safe and we hunkered in for the evening as the snow continued to fall. We decided something tasty was called for like a nice big minced beef pie.

Butter being in short supply we made a vegan shortcrust pastry for the first time ever. Let’s say it was very short, quite tasty and reminiscent of samosa pastry but like the tire a little flat!

Blessing #216 – Perfect Timing

We drank our last drop of OJ, some cans were emptied, a dozen eggs done and we closed out on cottage cheese.

Stocks of milk and bread were dwindling too and Aaron had made a serious dent in the Frosted Flakes.

To continue happily we need to replace the OJ, milk, bread and eggs and get some sort of breakfast cereal as the lad hates oatmeal.

Cottage cheese we can do without and even though we are down to our last full stick of butter thanks to all that baking we can’t afford to buy any more of that so spread it will be!

Off we went on a trip to Aldi to spend our last $10. Aaron was at school so he’d have to accept our choices and compromises.

As we enter we hit the produce section and staring us in the face were some sweet looking oranges. Tempting at $2.29 for a large bag. We go for it as we have a longing for them and we have quite

a few apples left along with potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, frozen peas and some tired bananas.

That leaves us $7.70. Our must haves are the bread and milk.

Bread was priced the same as last week at $0.89 but the price of a gallon of semi skimmed milk had almost doubled. Still well priced for what it offers from a nutritional perspective but how can this be? Why would there be such a difference?

We go to check on the price of a half gallons. Eureka! Full fat half gallons are heavily discounted to only $0.39!

We agree that a little more fat won’t hurt us and even though the use by date is January 15 we know it will keep longer unopened.

We bag two half gallons and then see on the bottom shelf that full fat chocolate milk is also at $0.39 per half gallon. Pays to look down!

This would be a nice treat but also has a use by of January 15. Do we need so much milk especially chocolate milk? We decide to take two, freeze one and freeze one of the regular milks as well. Luxury of a freezer strikes again!

Over to the OJ with just $5 left! Our favorite fancy bottle “not from concentrate with pulp” is $1.97 for a half gallon whereas the tetra “no pulp from concentrate is $1.69. We check the vitamin C content. No difference and to boot the concentrate version is forties with Vitamin D and Calcium so we take two.

Eggs are down in price from last week so we take a dozen that should see us through but now we are scraping the barrel.

This means Frosted Flakes are out and regular Corn Flakes at $0.99 for an even bigger box are in! This shouldn’t be a problem since we have sugar left and now a rather large reserve of a delicious dark creamy liquid to pour on top!

Blessing # 215 – Chocolate in any form tastes sweet!

 

 

Aaron got good news at school. He has been accepted into French 3 which will make his Godmother Patricia as happy as it made us!

This called for a little celebration so I decided to make cupcakes and cookies as a surprise for him.

In our budget box we’d only bought baking soda as a leavening agent but when needs must you find recipes to get the job done.

The cupcakes turned out well but here comes a confession. I had them baked before it hit me that I « stole » the papercases from our usual stock. They weren’t in our budget. I didn’t even think about them just grabbed them and stuck them in.

The cookies were less than stellar. They look and taste a bit like a dried out pancake.

From there on the day of adventurous cooking went downhill rapidly.

The cream cheese frosting for the cupcakes had to be made with sour cream and granulated sugar that was run through a coffee grinder. It has the consistency of bird poop but it tasted real good.

Next up the minestrone soup our first meat free dinner since we started. This was going nicely looking balanced and tasting quite good till I decided to give it a little boost with  a squirt of mustard.

This mustard has been bugging me as it cost 55 cents and we still had found no use for it. Why did we buy it when we only ever use it on hotdogs and ham? Well it is a complete waste of space and it absolutely doesn’t mix well with minestrone! Maybe it’s worth a try as a  face pack to see if it will shift any wrinkles.

Finally to go with the soup some home made soda bread was meant to be the highlight of the meal. Instead of baking it on a griddle as you should I stuck it in the oven since it was already on.

Disaster! I forgot about it and it became more like a baguette than a soda. We ate it anyway and talk of France and French 3!

Dibley is suffering in this whole business because he is missing all those little crunchie things he gets as we nibble at night while watching TV.

Poor soul is desperate for a peanut or nachos or even a piece of popcorn! So he was delighted to share a cookie even if it wasn’t the best!

Blessing # 214– Les Petits Biscuits

Yesterday Aaron and I went to the eye doctor for our annual check up    We both had a change in our prescription.

It is funny how eyesight changes with time. Until I turned forty I had great vision but it went down hill fast. The rate of change has slowed but had not stopped and now I’d need arms as long as a giraffes neck to see clearly.

Aaron on the other hand is really short sighted so his vision improved slightly. The doc suggested Aaron get glasses as well as contacts to give his eyes a rest each day given his amount of “screen” time.

So all in all we ordered glasses for me, glasses for Aaron and contacts for Aaron for the whole year. This, even after good insurance deductions, set us back a four figure sum.

On a daily basis this spend would work out to be about two dollars a day but it is definitely a luxury. We did not need a designer to make our glasses and contacts are not essential but we choose to spend. Why? Is it vanity? Is it to impress others? Is it because we just don’t need to think about it.

Think we did though and the thing that is so blatantly obvious is how many meals we could have bought or sponsored for those who need them so much more than we needed this.

The funny part of  the event is that the eye doc had to put contacts in my eyes so I could choose my new glasses with precise vision! I saw the glasses very well and choose a pair of Jimmy Choo’s but I also clearly saw myself without glasses for the first time in a decade. Man do I need a miracle face cream!

So scary the sorrow had to be drowned somehow and with no wine available  it had to be in spaghetti bolonaise!

Blessing # 213 – Seeing The Wrinkles

Yesterday we had an event that caused a bit of turmoil. Our smoke detector in the basement went off just as we were about to tuck into our dinner.

It was only the battery that needed replacement but as it is linked to the main alarm system this too started screeching.

It makes a noise that could be heard a mile off and if you can’t get it stopped then your in trouble as the fire department might show up. So we all start running left and right to get this stopped and of course the alarm company calls to see if we are OK.

Dibley was so petrified he peed all over the living room carpet.

We of course discovered that while we have 101 batteries we have no replacement battery for the alarm.

So after dinner Aaron and I were dispatched to buy the battery and a few spares as well as some pet pee cleaner upper for the carpet.

Those items set us back $30.

Now normally we would haven’t given this a second thought but that is a third of what we spent on all our food last weekend!

Certainly the pet pee cleaner is not an essential but a smoke alarm battery prices at $7.99 for one or $9.99 for two surely is important.

Wonder how many people who are crunched for cash might choose not to buy the battery if food was the alternative.

While at the store we ran into some very heavily discounted Halloween and Christmas candy and we are craving sweets. We resisted as it would still have made a big dent in our remaining $10 budget.

Our tummies were full of fried rice so it made that decision easier but if we had been hungry that choice may have been much harder.

Blessing # 212 – Wok Works Wonders