Monday

Well, I survived yesterday and feel much more hopeful about the rest of the challenge now.  The weather isn't looking so hopeful thought.  After a wonderfully warm week, Saturday and Sunday turned comparatively chilly again with a breeze that sent me running to close the windows not long after I'd opened them.  And the heating clicked on!  In June!!?

The garden is looking nice though!

Ah, well, if it was chilly outside, it certainly wasn't inside.  At about eleven, two hours earlier than usual, Beth and Alex turned up, bringing the rest of the supplies for the week.  We set to, dividing, sharing out, opening and repackaging and then cooking.  We made soup (recipe on Teacher's Recipes because it was rather tasty), mushy peas, carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers and rhubarb stewed in pineapple syrup.  We now have five little pots of fruit - three of canned fruit and two of stewed rhubarb - each!
As well as the rhubarb, Beth also brought over some of her purple sprouting broccoli so some went in the soup and I had some last night.  Very nice too: it has a completely different flavour to ordinary broccoli and I love it.

You know what the hardest thing about this is going to be?  Not the limited funds because I've been doing something similar for weeks in Cheaper than Chips and anyway I love cooking from scratch and have the knowledge and the technology to take me through.

No, the thing that will really stretch me is lack of coffee - or rather, lack of caffeine.  Value tea is absolutely no substitute!  I know I have access to coffee at school but I am going to try to do without apart from maybe a mug at lunchtime to see me through the afternoon.  It's not exactly the cravings although I am getting some, it's not the slightly muggy head which I know will clear, it's the sleepiness.  I know I drink too much coffee, especially at weekends.  Even on a school day I will have two mugs of coffee before I leave for school, one before school, one at playtime, one at lunchtime, one after school, one when I get back home . . . that's quite a lot of caffeine!  The plus side is that I slept like a log last night - after a nap in the morning, a nap in the afternoon (sorry, Beth) and a nap in the evening (missed most of Poirot, darn it!).

However, I have discovered that I prefer value tea black.  That means more milk for the porridge so can't complain (but I probably will)!

Over in Teacher's recipes it's been buzzing, so here's a few links, should you want to go over.

The recipe for Split Pea and Broccoli Soup

The guest post - my first ever (Beth!!) - on how to provide fruit for 15 with three value cans of fruit and some rhubarb!

My menu for yesterday

And the most important thing - if you would like to sponsor us, here's the link to Living Below The Line