Cheap and Cheerful Food

Save money with Every Day Value

I’m a huge fan of these money saving programmes that often frequent the TV listings in the Autumn. Whether or not they are trying to get us to save money in the big run up to Christmas or not I don’t know, but I’m fascinated by the way that brands are always put upon a pedestal by consumers that deem them a higher quality just because the price tag is perceived to be the benchmark for quality.

Let’s take one item on my shopping list.  Digestive Biscuits.

McVities are 89p for 250g and they’re tasty but Tesco’s Everday Value Digestive Biscuits are just 31p for 400g.  Ordinarily you would think that because they are branded, McVities are the best.  Not so.  If you want a biscuit, and only a digestive will do the Everyday Value is perfect. To me, there is  no difference whatsoever.  More biscuit for your pennies – no brainer!

But it didn’t stop there.  We decided to try and save on our own weekly shopping. Generally our shopping is around £65 a week, that includes steak, chops, lots of fish, potatoes, vegetables, salad, chocolate mousses and crisps.   Andy did this week’s shopping and swapped 80% of the branded shop for Everyday Value and we saved £20.

 

Cheap Food and Filling Food

We want to have a sausage casserole in the week, so instead of using Butchers Choice, Low Fat sausages we’ve swapped them for Woodside Farm 8 sausages for just 66p. I know it sounds super cheap and I’m a bit worried that they might be full of rusk and sawdust but we need to save some money and quite frankly if it tastes ok and fills us up, I’m not too concerned. We do try to eat healthily without too many sweet things and carbohydrate laden, but right now we need cheap and filling so they will have to make do.  Grabbed a bag of casserole veg for £1, some potatoes for 89p and a packet of sausage casserole mix we already have from Approved Food which I got for 10p and we have a meal for 2 of us for 2 days done in the slow cooker.  £2.80 (including electricity) for 2 of us, over 2 days so that’s 66p a portion.  Can’t grumble at that, we’re money saving after all.

Money Saving Ideas

Are you interested in ways to save money? What kind would you be interested in?  Cheap healthy food?  Let me know in the comments below and although I’m no Martin Lewis Money Saving Expert, I’ll write a series of articles to see if I can’t help you save some money over the next year to make life easier and more comfortable for you.

Cheap and Cheerful Food

Chocolate Collection Hamper Competition!

It’s about that time when we start getting catalogues through the post full of amazing hampers for Christmas, so what’s better to celebrate the coming season than giving away one of those said hampers.

Fancy winning this Virginia Hayward Chocolate Collection Hamper? Do the usual then…

Win a Chocolate Collection Hamper

Good Luck!

Jacqui

Chocolate Collection Hamper Competition!

Hansells Yoghurt Maker Review

Yoghurt is one of my favourite things. It helps you with weight loss, it’s versatile, it fills you up and you can eat it any time of the day. The best yoghurt is one that you make yourself. My mum used to make our yoghurt in the 80s/90s with a bit of live yoghurt and milk, leaving it on the windowsill in some kind of warm water filled machine that by the morning would give you 6 small pots of natural yoghurt. You would then have to keep a little of that yoghurt to continue making it the next day. Thing is if you ate it all, then you’d have to go out and buy a small pot of live yoghurt to make it all over again. You ended up with pots of yoghurt every single day which if you liked natural yoghurt was a blessing. If you preferred flavoured then it wasn’t so great. If you wanted it sweeter and filled it with sugar it would go from a thick yoghurt to a thin watery one which wasn’t that great after all. That went by the wayside after a few years.

After I got together with Andy, he got the buzz to start cooking and baking. He popped into one of our local health food shops one day when they were doing a demonstration of the Easy Yo. He came out with one kit and 2 packets of their yoghurt mix. Again this lasted quite a few years until the container busted and we had a clear out so it went to the local recycling centre.

So, looking into doing stuff from scratch again (we’re making cheese these days too) I went on the hunt. I was alerted to Hansells.com who are a food group. They have been synonymous in New Zealand for 80 years. Their brands over here in the UK include the Coconut Collaborative, Gu, Tyrrells, the Snack Organisation to name a few so you already know that their products are going to be scrumptious! Ordered their starter kit, anticipating all the lovely yoghurt that I’d be filling my face with over the next month.

I then awaited delivery of the starter kit which thankfully only took a couple of days, and handed it straight to Andy as he’s the chef in our house. I didn’t even know he made the first lot until I was handed a 500g tub with a spoon and was told to try it. He had made me the coconut (they have several from Classic Natural, Thick and Creamy Greek Style & Honey, Unsweetened Greek Style and others) so the one Andy made was the Thick & Creamy Greek Style and Coconut with bits. The coconut bits were on the top, so i mixed those in and then tried it. It was fairly thick and very, very tasty. Andy says that it’s very similar to the Easy Yo kit, but the actual sachets are thicker and tastier (and who doesn’t like thick yoghurt – I know our dog does). So I polished that off within a few days and then we went onto the Thick & Creamy Unsweetened Greek Style.

What you need to do to make it is: Fill the largest container to the line required with enough hot water suitable for whatever kitchen temperature you are at (ambient, cold etc). Then put lukewarm water into the 1kg container about half way. Pour in sachet. Click the lid on. Then shake vigorously for a few seconds until dissolved, then top up with lukewarm water to the 1kg mark (in red). Reseal lid. Then put this into the largest container (now your water bath) and put the lid on. Leave this for 8 hours (preferably overnight). Open up in the morning and you have fresh yoghurt. You should then pop it in the fridge and use at your leisure for up to 2 weeks.

There you go. It’s so easy even I could do it. It’s a brilliant little kit, and is only £14 right now for the containers and 6 sachets (you get loads more than you do with the EasyYo starter kit). Total bargain, and so very simple to make fresh tasty yoghurt. It’s going to be a firm favourite in this house now as I’ve just gone and bought another 6 sachets to use over the next few weeks as I’m going back on my quest to lose 20 stone without having to resort to gastric surgery. Yoghurt is my saviour and now we have this kit we’ll be making it a lot more often to replace puddings and desserts. Blessing in disguise.

Hansells Yoghurt Maker Review

Best Buys In August from Amazon UK

I did an awful lot of Amazon reviewing in August this year and apart from a few things that were utter rubbish, I found a few little gems that I thought you might like to take a look at too incase you were on the look out for a few bits.

First on the list is an amazing PowerBank Charger called the Doxa 3in1. I got approached by the manufacturers about this one. It’s really well made, the sound from it is sensational and it’s an excellent power bank. It’s rare that you’ll find an item that does all three and does them well. They’re £20 (bargain) and really look the part. They’re not black and flat like the majority of power banks that I’ve seen, this one is cylindrical and is super smart, oozing funky!

Read my review here

Here’s the link to buy it for yourself

Second is the Solememo Children’s Headphone. I thought these were fabulous, from the packaging all the way down to the sound quality. Little ears need protecting (especially if you love turning the volume up) and these look after that perfectly. I was just taken aback at just how well made and super cute they were for kids. Blew me away.

My review for it: click here

Link to buy them here

Third was the Suaoki Camping Lantern. This got top marks purely because of the way it goes from a little powerful light, to a really lovely lantern by just pulling up the top part. Super impressed (I know it’s only a light) but it oozed quality even the box looked smart. Very impressed and gives out tonnes of light.

My Review – click here

To buy one, click here

Fourth was the 8K Xtreme Neoprene Chest Harness for the GoPro Action Camera range.

This was superb. Andy normally uses a nylon harness but it’s so damned uncomfortable, when they offered this to me I couldn’t say no. It would help tremendously with Pea’s site and videos that we produce on there. This was really comfortable for him. Didn’t cut him under the arms or over the shoulder. Was fiddly to get on but we’re a pair of dippy doodahs so it was probably us. For the money it was awesome.

My Review

Buy it here

Last thing which I got but thought would be an absolute pile of pants was a fan. Yep, plain old small fan. This was the XY 4” mini fan.

I agreed to review it but had second thoughts as I had another one sent which was a pile of manure. This one though is simply amazing. I never actually thought a little fan could be as powerful as this one. I was so impressed with it that I hunted for another on Aliexpress (it’s normally where they come from) and found one similar for half the price. That came today too and apart from the front, that fan is identical. So now I have 2 AMAZING fans with speeds up to 3 (they’re chargeable too) and I have not yet had to use the 3rd speed as the first 2 are so powerful it’s ridiculous. All that from a tiny 4” fan. It’s stupid!

I don’t have a link to my review as Amazon haven’t published it… but click here for the product link

and here’s the link to the one on AliExpress which is near enough identical (and is much cheaper).

Well that’s what I’ve been up to this last month. Oooh one last thing. If you love cherries but hate having to spit out the pips – try the gadget in Barry Lewis’ My Virgin Kitchen video below (it’s the first gadget). I have one and it works perfectly. Simply perfect.

Need one of those: click here

Jacqui

PS: Article does have affiliate links, but it allows me to buy you amazing prizes for Twitter comps!

Best Buys In August from Amazon UK

VQ Retro Mk II DAB Review

Been doing my favourite thing of all time this last few weeks – sitting out in the sunshine writing and reviewing.  I absolutely adore sitting out in the sun as it tops up my tan as well as gives me that much needed Vitamin D that my body craves.

I always like to play some music when I’m writing too as it helps with the thought process, and normally I’ll fire up Spotify but other times I just want to listen to the radio.  We have a Christie (which I reviewed a while back) which has pride of place in our kitchen but I don’t want to take that one outside because I’ll be moaned at about taking it out of the kitchen.

So by chance, the lovely folks at VQ recently contacted me again, and asked if I’d like to review their Retro Mk II.  I loved their Christie with it’s clean lines, ability to swap the orientation and the quality of sound, that another VQ radio was very welcome!

It arrived very quickly as it does when you order it from the MyVQ website and I was excited to open it and see the colour that I was asked to choose and to test it in the garden the very next day.

It comes boxed and very securely packed. When you open it, first thing you see is the plug. Pull that out, pull the packing out and then together with its dust bag, out comes the radio.  And oh, what an absolute beauty it is.

The reason I like VQ is simple – all of their radios are incredibly stylish.  Roberts Radios are nice, but VQ always go that extra step, giving you a huge selection of colours to mix and match with your surroundings as well as other amazing features to utilise your other items via Bluetooth.

Now on to the radio.  I chose the beautiful Radiant Orchid which is like a creamy lilac colour. The band goes all around the radio and coordinates with the handle.  This hugs the unit which is an off white.  The handles have huge buttons with the VQ logo and are really secure, so there’s no way it would fall off or loosen itself.

To the left is the LCD which features the clock and the station ID.  Opposite that is the control panel.  Mode changes it from DAB to FM, then to iPod and Auxiliary, plus there is a bluetooth mode where you can pair your phone to.  But what I love about this radio is the Apple Lightning Dock at the front.  Just push the little panel with the VQ logo on and out pops a charger for your iPhone, you can then play directly from your phone right there.  Once charged, tilt the phone towards you and pull the phone upwards and off the charger. Ingenious idea that.

Tuning is pretty simple. Just press mode, go to DAB, then it should come up and say Full Scan. Press the middle button on the control panel and it will take you through the full DAB set up.  When I did mine it did find a couple of strange looking stations, but they both turned out to be Radio 5 Live just under a different name.  Depends what area of the country you are in of course, you might get a completely different line up to me.

But that’s not all it features.  It has a dual alarm feature which if you get up at different times than your partner is perfect for you. You can even set it to different times for work during the week or if you are having a lazy weekend in bed.

Sound is clear and crisp, plus the louder you turn it up (you can see how loud it is by the additional squares coloured in on the LCD when you press the buttons) it does not distort.  I played numerous things through it to start with, iPhone, MacBook and each time turned it right up, then down, and all the time it was clear, not tinny or bassy (obviously didn’t turn it right down because quite frankly that’s just stupid).

It’s one of those radios that you want to be seen with.  As soon as I popped a picture up on my FB page, giving a sneaky peak into what was coming, a comment followed shortly from a friend stating how she would “love to have one of those” and I only put up the side picture of the control panel. That’s how iconic VQ’s range have become when they are just noticed by their colours.

Well now you’ve read about it, how about you try to win one?  Our friends at VQ have given you, our readers the chance to win your very own Retro MK II.  Just pop over to the competition page for your chance to win.

Good Luck!

Jacqui

VQ Retro Mk II DAB Review

Bring on the Branston for Summer

I love experimenting with new flavours, so when Branston asked me to incorporate their amazing range of condiments into our cooking, I was thrilled to get back in the kitchen and start jazzing up our lunches and dinners.

Branston has always been a favourite in our household anyway but I was incredibly interested to see the new flavours that have been appearing on the shelves this year. My Dad was always a plain Ploughman’s lunch with Original Branston Pickle type of guy but I think even he would have been won over by the Sweet Chilli Pickle popped on a hot dog, or a slug of Rich and Smoky sauce on the side of his potato wedges.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had tacos with beef and lashes of Caramelised Onion Chutney and burgers slathered in tomato relish, but we also wanted to use them as not only additions to our goodies but as an actual ingredient in what we ate.

First up we decided to go for a Smoky BBQ Gammon Steak.

You need:

Gammon Steak

Rich and Smoky Sauce

Grated Cheese

Salt and Pepper

Put oven on 180c (Gas Mark 4) Take one thick cut gammon steak (cut all the fat off). Then spoon over a tablespoon on Branstons Rich and Smoky Sauce. Sprinkle the cheese all over, season with salt and pepper, then pop it in the oven for about 25 mins or until cooked.

That’s all there is to that one. Quick, easy and very tasty!

Sunday Roast is also given a bit of a facelift if you spoon a huge, luscious tablespoon of caramelised onion relish bland Yorkshire Pudding batter! We always use the Yorkshire Pudding Recipe from BBC Good Food which makes 12 huge puds but before you put the batter in to cook, add two heaped tablespoon of Branstons Caramelised Onion Chutney to the batter. You can even add a mini sausage to the batter too once it’s in the tin. If you want to take that further then turn it into a toad in the hole! It certainly peps up the plain and takes it to the next level.

But these are not all you can do with Branstons range. If you check out the website there is a whole host of recipes where you can experience the diversity of the range from Sticky Pork Chops to Cheese, Pickle and Potato Pie. Don’t they sound amazing?

It’s definitely time you Bring out the Branston for your family and ramp up your tastebuds this Summer – we are!

Bring on the Branston for Summer

Summer 2016 Giveaway

Right, when this weather finally breaks and we get a bit of sunshine, we all love a BBQ don’t we.  Don’t have one? Well have a go at our latest competition and see if you can’t win one!

Win a BBQ

Good Luck

Jacqui

Summer 2016 Giveaway