Thursday 26 March 2015

Breadline: what I have in the freezer

Streaky bacon, reduced, 5p a rasher.  That means I can make a scrummy bacon sandwich (a great treat for me which takes me right back to childhood) for breakfast using three rashers and some home made bread for under 20p.  It's good to add to the list of breakfasts which tends to be rather small.  Not low calorie but, oh, so delicious!

Five packs of pork mince (each 525g) to make into burgers, meatballs, casseroles, curries, maybe even lasagne on a small scale, making my own pasta and turning some into lasagne and some into other kinds.

One pack of turkey breast mince and one of turkey thigh mince.  The breast mince was on special and  was very reduced.  I can't remember how much the thigh mince was but it was cheap and has such flavour.

24 organic or whatever chicken thighs, unfortunately boned and skinless, but they were less than 50p each so excellent value for that quality.

I also have four pieces of salmon, two lightly smoked, each 50p.

I don't think I will miss out on meat anyway, do you?

Just to say, this bounty will be shared with Beth, not for her as she is vegetarian, but for Alex who rather loves his meat.  Even so, I expect there will be some to carry over into May.

I have been slowly working my way through the Frugal Queen's blog, right from the fist entry I could find.  The list of things I have learned is endless but now and again a few things leap out at me.  Here are a couple - so very simple but they need thinking of.

When I have stale bread, I often zizz it into breadcrumbs and freeze them, but there's a limit to how many breadcrumbs a single lady needs so often the loaf ends get thrown away (how shameful is that?).  However, FQ suggests freezing the bread whole and then using it to make croutons for soup as and when.  As you know, I am a great soup fan so this is a brill idea.

The other idea is one I can't think why I haven't done already because I always have grated cheddar in the freezer, bought when there's a offer and used in cooking/baking.  I usually have some value hard Italian cheese in the fridge.  It has a long life but I don't use it loads so I often have a noggin of it  that starts offering hospitality to a  bit of mould and then I chuck it.  
No more!  The last little bit (and it was just a little bit, to be fair) has been scraped, trimmed and fine grated and now sits in the freezer alongside the cheddar!  It's not priced like the cheddar is because I forgot to check and also it is just a wee bit, but almost enough to use for my next lot of mini-quiches.

Look after the pennies . . .

3 comments:

  1. Joy I often have the crust of parmesan left in the fridge and I just throw it into any soup/stock I am making so that it can deliver its flavour. It comes out like a wet flannel which the dogs/hens find irresistible. I also make two types of bread crumbs both fresh in the freezer and dried in a tub for use in coating various foods. I have a real passion for anything in egg and breadcrumbs. Some times if I feel like pushing the boat out I make queen of puddings with the bread.

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  2. I used to like making summer pudding with slightly older bread, as it still soaks up the juices very well. I was famous for my summer pudding! Within the context of my family that is...
    The frozen grated cheese is a great idea, I just hope you're better than I am at labelling it - I have some 'mystery cheese' in my freezer right now, because it's frozen I can't even go by the smell... I have learned my lesson there though, and labelled the cheeses I've frozen since (cheddar and mozzarella)

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  3. Good ideas, Diane, thanks.
    Chrissie, freezing grated cheese works really well and yes, it's carefully labelled. :-)
    J x

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