Snowflakes and Chocolate Cake!

Well, It's 23:59 as I start typing so I just about count this as a blog entry on the 7th Jan :-p

Made a yummy beef casserole today with the stewing beef I bought yesterday, bulked it out with cannelini beans (forgot to soak them overnight but weren't hard at all so slow cooking them all day did the trick!), pearl barley and the rest of a dried casserole mix from Sainsbury's. It was yum! And I even manage to portion out 4 extra tubs for another day or two as well :oD they'll go in the freezer :oD

I'm off into town quickly tomorrow morning as I want to try and get a lasagne dish so I can bulk make tomorrow and get the second one portioned out and froze too (can you see a theme here? Lol). If I've got the oven on, I might as well make the most of it so I might even make an apple crumble too... Ooh I'll get one of them posh cheapy custards out when I put the tubs in the freezer! The chest freezer's in the garage so trips must be planned lol :-p I wanna try and get some vintage cookware from the charity shops as they always seem to have funky patterns and are made better than todays, and hopefully cheaper too! I'm hoping to find some of the white ware with black snowflakes! They remind me of my Mum as she has some, and even Mike has somehow managed to get a plate and mini bowl from somewhere - I think they must have been borrowed from his Mum and not taken back lol!! Plus, I love snowflakes so... Win win! :oD Must remember not to spend too much tho! I did try a request on Freecycle but didn't have any offers so...

I found a picture! There were some other cool snowflake designs too! I loved the crisp ice blue colour! Eeee you just gotta love retro! It's so funky and FUN!!

I also want to try and get some pig livers for the "pork balls" I wanna try and make. Hmmm there was something else I wanted to get from Sainsbury's but I can't remember what now...

I read out instructions and measurements to Mike tonight and he made a choccie cake and sauce in the microwave -

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8763/lois--7-minute-gooey-chocolate-fudge-cake.aspx

We used an 850 watt microwave, regular granulated sugar instead of caster sugar and it took 8 minutes to cook not 5. It ended up as a sponge island with a choc sauce sea around it lol. Wasn't bad. And we served it with cream still in the fridge from Christmas.

I guess I best get to bed as Ayse is back to school tomorrow so it's back to the early mornings! Eeek!!

Bought the last pair of ski gloves needed for our trip too! £2.99 incl p&p from ebay :oD I've been lucky in that the 2 pairs I've bought I was the only bidder :oD Awesome!!! Just need more thermals too... Then I think we're done :oD

Oh...  Frugal Tip #7 - Shopping
Don't be afraid to check out ebay and charity shops for bargains! One shop in town has ski gloves (in the sale) for £11.49! I'm so pleased to have won the ones I did on ebay, although they're not new and it's not as easy to take back if they're too small, but definitely worth a try in order to save money :oD

Hugs and snowflakes! xx