Making Good Use

Unearthing Yet More 'Stuff'

P had to go up in the loft yesterday evening to check out the water tanks as the central heating was clonking and banging quite alarmingly.  (He managed to sort out the problem then but today we're back to clonking and banging and I've turned the heating off as I'm a total wuss and am afraid everything is about to explode!!  So that'll be P back up in the loft again this evening - he will be pleased!!)  Anyhoo, whilst he was up there I asked him to try and locate a large cake tin which contains all the attachments for an unused food processor I've got.  I'd like to sell the blommin' thing as it will free up a lot more cupboard space but will have to find the attachments first.  He didn't find that particular tin but did unearth another one that I'd totally forgotten I owned.

 

I'm pretty sure I bought this in Hay-on-Wye ten or so years ago.  It was always in a rather battered state but I really liked it because my Grandma used to be a secretary at Carsons Chocolate Factory in the 1920s.  The factory used to stand amongst open fields, but was very conveniently located near to Mangotsfield Railway Station (and, according to Wikipedia, had it's own siding which saw chocolate trains until the early 1960s - I never knew that!!) 

 

Another interesting fact about Mangotsfield station is that Arnold Ridley (Godfrey in 'Dad's Army') wrote his play 'The Ghost Train' based on being stranded at the station overnight.  I did know that interesting snippet, but it's nice to see it confirmed by Wikipedia too.

I vividly remember going by train to Bath from this station when I was little, and I also remember me and my family going to watch the last train run on that line after it was axed by Dr Beeching.  Sadly, the station and Carsons Chocolate Factory are both now long gone but I'm going to find somewhere to display this tin to remind me of bygone times.

PS  Maureen, I'm dedicating this post to you as I know you have fond memories of Mangotsfield too.

PPS Tomorrow I'll show you what I've just unearthed from a drawer - yet more 'stuff' I'd forgotten I had!!

Gearing Up

Back home again after a lovely relaxing week with my Mum in Bristol (thank you, Mum, it was just what I needed) and now I need to start gearing up for Christmas.  I've got a lot of nice items to list on ebay this week (just hoping for some nice sunny weather to get the best photos - today is VERY grey and overcast) and then on Friday is the annual Christmas Fair at the town-centre church.  I always enjoy going to that and there are usually some excellent bargains to be had, plus some rather nice home-made jams.  I'll be seeing if I can find some Lego sets for my nephew again this year and also stocking up (again!) on nice toiletries for myself.  Plus, I'm hoping there'll be a few nice bits and bobs suitable for re-selling.

I've made a reasonable start on handmade Christmas presents having finished two quite a while ago (I'm rather pleased with how both have turned out but can't show them on the blog otherwise it will spoil the surprise,) but I've got a few more to make as well.  I also made a start on buying a couple of presents yesterday, which is quite early for me. 

It seems impossible that it's the second week of November already (where did this year go?) and I'm finding the 'countdown to Christmas' button that's recently appeared on ebay rather alarming as every day it tells me how little time I've got left to get my a*se in gear!!

Bristol Bargains

Despite the drizzle yesterday morning, Mum and I decided to pop down to Church Road in Redfield (an eastern suburb of Bristol) to check out the charity shops and to have a spot of lunch at Grounded. 

 

We both struck quite lucky in the charity shops with Mum finding a gorgeous National Trust blue and white cat plate and me finding a rather spiffy Evans jumper with heart-shaped embroidery for myself (a very welcome addition to my winter wardrobe) and an Ikea / Cath Kidston Rosali very large cushion cover / pillowcase to sell on eBay.  I was delighted to find the Rosali cover as I know they're good sellers and this one only cost me 50p.  I was also quite proud of myself for having spotted it in a very jumbled basket of old linens - I did have a really good root through the basket after having found it but, sadly, couldn't find it's mate, or any other Rosali items.

Lunch was tres delicious - goats cheese with red onion chutney on a bed of rocket followed by sticky toffee pudding for me and a mahoosive piece of carrot cake for Mum.  It was a lovely little trip out and even the drizzle stopped pretty much as soon as we got there.

Unearthed

Because we've been going to the local farm shop a lot more regularly lately, and buying rather a lot of the Biona organic products they've had on offer, we've begun to seriously run out of storage space.  I've got a large cupboard in the hall that not only stores all the table linens and kitchen towels, but has also been a very useful storage area for the overspill of tins and jars from the kitchen shelves too.  Lately, due mainly to our bulk buying at the farm shop, that cupboard has become more and more crowded.  I knew eventually I'd have to bite the bullet and try and sort things out a bit and this past weekend seemed as good a time as any to do that.

Inside said cupboard was a never-been-used-or-even-taken-out-of-its-wrapping electric steamer which I won years and years ago - probably when I was still living in Bristol.  If I hadn't used it in all that time I felt the likelihood was that I was never ever going to use it (I've got a perfectly serviceable, if slightly ancient, steamer saucepan.)  So I decided to send that to the charity shop - with a note on it explaining what it was and the fact that it had never been used.  That freed up some very valuable storage space.

Flushed with my success in the hall cupboard, I moved on to the sideboard - another repository for all sorts of unused cr*p!!  In there I found quite a few bits and pieces of vintage china that I'd had stored away for years - most of it was also delivered to the charity shop this morning.  However, amongst the clutter I unearthed a set of four rather nice small dinner plates.

 
These have been washed up and taken into use - and I couldn't have found them at a more convenient time as I've had a few breakages lately and a lot of our china is quite badly chipped now.  I refuse to buy anything decent and / or new until we are FINALLY living in our own house so these are not only rather nice to look at (Stardust pattern by Barker Bros.) but darned useful too.  I wonder what else I've squirreled away somewhere and forgotten about ?  I foresee a major unearthing session going on next week when I get back home from visiting Bristol.

Leftovers

I'm really enjoying the twin feasts of both a new Nigella and a new Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall cookery series on Thursday evenings (pity the schedulers had to put them both on at the same time but, thanks to the wonders of the BBC iPlayer, Nigella can be watched the next day) and both have been giving some excellent ideas for using up leftover foods.

Having watched Hugh last week - when he was focusing on Breakfast - I had a light-bulb moment about how to use up the five quite-seriously-out-of-date eggs languishing in my fridge - pancakes.  I hadn't made a large batch of pancakes for some few years and, after a judicious sniffing of each egg as I cracked it open, I ended up making 12 really large ones.  Six were used to make stuffed savoury pancakes (stuffed with natural cottage cheese tickled up with mustard powder, garlic and some grated cheddar) topped with a chilli tomato sauce (a tin of chopped tomatoes, half an onion and a pinch of chilli powder.)  That yielded two evening meals for the two of us (although the second meal was supplemented with some leftover meatballs in homemade tomato sauce) and the other six pancakes were eaten for dessert on three separate occasions - with lemon juice and sugar for me and with strawberry jam for P.

Some leftover and rather wilted spring greens were yesterday turned into a rather yummy, if violently green, soup with the addition of half an onion, three carrots, a couple of sprouted potatoes and a handful of mushroooms.  That, along with some salad and a crusty roll, made a nice  supper last night and, eked out with some additonal milk, another nice lunch today.  My bowl of soup at lunchtime was accompanied by a wrap containing some of the leftover salad, a light grating of parmesan and the rest of the homemade salad dressing from yesterday - and very yummy it was too.

Tonight's evening meal will be a second serving of Beef Tagine (left over from Wednesday,) which I'll have to bulk out a bit with another tin of tomatoes, served with a generous helping of quinoa.  The Beef Tagine is one of Jamie Oliver's recipes and has become quite a firm favourite in our house since I first saw him cook it on TV.  It takes a bit of fore-thought to make the dry rub for the meat and leave it marinading overnight, and it does take 3 hours all told to cook (although there's not much work involved) but I don't mind that as it always yields two very tasty evening meals from pretty cheap ingredients. (And, having just checked out the comments on this recipe, I think I'll also be adding a few 'tired and emotional-looking' leftover dates to tonight's serving too.)

I'd really like to give Nigella's Marmite Spaghetti recipe a go too (though, oddly, I can't actually find it on t'internet.)  When she made it on the TV a couple of weeks ago it looked rather tasty to me, but I'm not sure I could sell it to P as he refuses to eat anything that's black!!  The fool, doesn't he know how tasty both Marmite and Pickled Walnuts can be (though not at the same time, obviously.)

Another great source of leftover inspiration can be found over at Reactive Cooking blog, tagline 'Don't waste it - cook it.'   And very tasty her recipes look too.

Any other useful leftover recipes and / or sources for inspiration that you know of out there?

Essex Girls

I'm sure everyone in the UK knows what is meant by the phrase 'Essex Girl' - for those overseas who may never have heard of this disparaging term think bling-bedecked, wannabe-WAG, orange perma-tanned, white-stiletto wearing bimbos.  As an incomer to Essex I can assure you that this stereotypical description is generally very wide of the mark BUT now and again, in my little corner of SE Essex (and, lets be honest, this is the bit that people mean when they talk about Essex Girls - not the flat, open and sparsely-populated estuaries and salt marshes near the coast, nor the very upmarket little towns and villages to the north, where old money and retired army majors abound - no, they mean the stretch of Essex that roughly borders the Thames Estuary, from Romford in the west to Southend in the east) I do spot a full-blown example of Essex Girl in all her blousy glory.  Though, thankfully, I've never come into contact with any of the truly dreadful creatures that are currently being featured in ITV2's 'The Only Way is Essex' (check out the link here) who are hoping to dispel the myth of the Essex Girl - and I fear they're not being ironic when they say this!!

Anyhoo, I went to a wonderful talk yesterday evening at the local library all about Essex Girls - only this time it was about girls from Essex - or women who had Essex connections - throughout history.  It was really interesting and I learnt a lot about the local history of the area too.  There were only three women discussed last night - Ann Boleyn's sister (aka The Other Boleyn Girl) who lived with her husband in Rochford Hall (now site of an upmarket golf course,) Princess Caroline of Brunswick who made Southend-on-Sea a fashionable Georgian spa resort, and a little known Essex girl - Hannah Lake, who emigrated to America in the 1650s and through marriage became one of the founding mothers of the New World (she even had Wickford connections which was even more interesting for me).  The talk was given by a local author called Karen Bowman who has recently published her first book, Essex Girls, which she has written partly to counter the dreadful press Essex Girls get nowadays.

It was a great evening and all provided for free by the Essex Library Service, and as they had a great turnout (on a very wet and windy evening too) I'm hoping there'll be a few more such evenings in the not too distant future.  The Library Service is truly amazing in Essex, not only are the libraries open seven days a week (yup, they even open on Sunday afternoons) but they also have a wonderful stock of books, free internet access, DVD hire and very helpful staff.  They could teach the libraries in both Bristol and South Gloucestershire a thing or two - like being open more than two half days a week for one thing and having some decent books on the shelves for another!! 

Free Lego Toys in the Daily Mirror

 

Sorry I'm a bit late in passing on this info., but if anybody has a small Lego-obsessed person in their family (as we do) they may like to take advantage of the Daily Mirror's free Lego toys offer.  They started on Saturday and continue until the middle of next week.  There are ten different kits to collect plus a storage box and play mat too.  All the details can be found here.

If you find there are no Daily Mirror papers left in your local WH Smith, it still might be worth asking if they've got any of the toys left.  P managed to get hold of both Saturday and Sunday's toy long after the papers had sold out by asking at the counter.

This is a really good offer and I got a few of the toys last year too - my nephew really enjoyed playing with them and, at six-years-old, was able to put a couple of the kits together by himself.  They'd make great stocking fillers too.

 

Decimated

I went to the 'So Long, Somerfield' clearance sale and ended up with a very odd assortment of items from their much-depleted stock.  I went on Wednesday afternoon (they were closing at 5.00 pm on Thursday) and found the whole place pretty much decimated already.  It reminded me very strongly of visiting the GUM department store in Moscow in the mid-80's - very little on the shelves and what was there was most odd.

Anyhoo, I ended up with a few decent bargains at 75% off the original price including, a bottle of Baby Bio for 46p, a pack of 8 kitchen roll for £1.53 (these were only 50% off but still an excellent bargain - even cheaper than Aldi's own brand - and it seemed everyone at the checkout had a pack of these in their trolley,) energy-saving lightbulbs for 24p each, two packs of organic figs 74p each, two packs of fair trade Earl Grey tea bags (again, only 50% off on those but still a good bargain.)  A humungous pack of tea lights for 32p (always useful even if you find, as I did, that I still had A LOT of them lurking in the sideboard drawer.  Ah well, we're good with tea lights from here to eternity now!)  There must have been other things but I'm darned if I can remember what they were now.  I know I also got four pints of organic milk (last chance of organic anything for 8 days) and some loo roll but neither of those were reduced, although the loo roll was on special offer.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the 'bargains' as a lot of the stuff wheeled out I'd never acutally noticed them selling in that shop before.  Maybe they'd shipped it in specially to get rid of it - who knows.  I didn't bother going back on Thursday as I expect by then the shelves would have been stripped completely bare.  Never mind, I was happy with what I got - even if it was a very odd selection of items.

I noticed there was a large article in Thursday's 'Daily Telegraph' extolling the virtues of stalking 'Mr Reducer' (the person wielding the reduced-price sticker gun) in supermarkets (in The Telegraph's case this was M&S and Waitrose - naturellement) in order to get a bargain.  Blimey, shows how tight everyone's finances must be if even The Telegraph are featuring reduced food.  On the other hand, it just goes to show that chasing after supermarket bargains is quite the 'mot du jour' now and that maybe I've been a bit ahead of the trend all these years!!

Magnet Attraction

So, having thrifted these wooden puzzle pieces on Monday I was all fired up to make some fridge magnets with them.  I quickly ordered some stick-on magnetic strips from eBay and as soon as they arrived I turned them into fridge magnets.

 
I was so pleased with how quickly and easily they could be transformed that I started looking round for other items to turn into magnets.

 
I spotted some tiny crochet squares (found during a lovely day out in the summer) and they look great on the fridge door too.

 
Then there was the large box of vintage Ladybird flash cards - thrifted at some point during the summer - I knew I'd find something to do with them.

The whole process was ridiculously easy, the hardest part being to get the backing off the stick-on bit of the magnet!

I've linked this post to Apron Thrift Girl's Make Share.

They Kept That Very Quiet

So it transpires that the Somerfield supermarket in our small town is about to close for eight days and re-emerge as a fully-fledged Co-operative shop instead.  I can't say I'm sorry about that as the split personality of the store (Somerfield name sign, staff in Somerfield uniforms, Somerfield carrier bags but Co-op own brand products and a Co-op divi card) has been driving me ever-so-slightly nuts for the past year or so. 

I could, however, have done with just a tad more notice that the only place hereabouts where you can buy organic milk and veggies etc is about to shut for over a week.  The only other supermarket in town is Aldi and, much as I do like Aldi A LOT, it does carry a rather limited range of goods. 

I'll be quite sad to see Somerfield finally shut up shop as a) they're a Bristol-based chain and I always liked to feel I was doing my bit for West Country business by shopping there  (even if a long way from home,) and b) my first ever (Saturday) job was working at the local Gateway supermarket (which is what Somerfield used to be called in a previous re-incarnation.)

However, I'm hoping that there may be a few good bargains to be had before Somerfield close their doors for good and am planning on getting myself down there Thursday afternoon to see exactly what is being heavily reduced before closure.  I'm thinking that all fresh items - dairy, meat, fruit, veg etc should be being discounted as they won't last over the refurbishment period.  Mind you, the shelves were looking very denuded even yesterday morning and by Thursday afternoon I should imagine the place will be practically stripped bare.  I did find a bag of bread flour reduced by 75% to only 36p yesterday because the bag had split a bit and I'm hoping there may be more such bargains to be had before 5.00 pm on Thursday.