Sloe Rum

Yesterday Lucy and I went to her mum's friend's fields near Carrick as we were kindly given permission to pick cooking apples and blackberries. We also happened to find sloes growing in the hedgerow so we picked a container full although we had no clue what we would do with them. After some research on tinternet last night I found a recipe for Sloe Vodka but I didn't have any instead because I had a hughe bottle of white rum in the cupboard I decided to make some Sloe Rum. The recipe is from this great site please visit it:
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/superb-sloe-vodka-recipe-518

Sloe Rum

Pick sloes, wash and dry them (so as not to dilute the alcohol)- 445g



Use a cocktail stick to prick each fruit so juice can exit into the alcohol



Add sugar in the fruit- 112g





Add alcohol in my case rum! - 1 litre




Shake, this needs to be done one a day for 1 week then weekly for 3 months




Keep in dry dark place for 3 mths then strain the fruit off and put liquid into a clean bottle. Allow to ferment or just drink it straight away! You can add sugar to taste at this point.

Peach Breakfast Muffins

This recipe came from the fantastic muffin book -Muffins fast anf fantastic by Susan Reimer, I did slightly adapt this because I didn't have a few ingredients but the muffins turned out just great and were delicious for breakfast.


280g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt
85g granulated sugar
1 egg
150ml sour cream
50ml veg oil
140g peaches well drained and chopped


Heat oven to 375 F
Prepare muffins tins
Sift all dry ingredients
Beat all wet ingredients in separate jug.
Mix both together then add chopped peaches.
Fold together until just combined (batter will be lumpy)
Spoon into muffin cups 3/4 full

I added a sprinkle of brown sugar to the top of each muffin.

Frugal Jambons

I love jambons, but there is no way I will pay £1.40 for some pastry, cheese sauce and bacon... So I decided to try to make my own with quite pleasing results.

Here is my recipie, it is not exact so feel free to queak to to your own taste.


Jambons

Ingredients

50g butter
3 Tablespn flour
150ml milk warmed
100g cheese grated
4 rashers of bacon cooked till crisp
1 pack of ready made puff pastry
eggwash to brush

Method
Melt butter over a gentle heat, add flour, stir and let cook for 2 min, slowly add milk stiring constantly until all combined or you think it is thick enough.
You should now have a thick white sauce, add grated cheese (any type you like it is a good chance to use up any little pieces that live at the back of the fridge) and stir till melted, crumble in the bacon, set aside.

Roll out the puff pastry until 3 mm thick, cut into 10cm x 10cm squares. I can get 9 usually.

Place a dollop of cheese and bacon mix in centre of each square then fold in each corner towards the middle loosely.

Place on a greased baking tray brush on eggwash and cook for 20 min or until brown at 180C

If you can wait until slighly cooled before trying one you won't burn your mouth- I never can.

Can frugal be beautiful?

I read a lot of blogs about the frugal lifestyle, I really enjoy most of them, however I often wonder if some of them value frugality over the joys of life. I love stripey or shiney things- always have, my Dad reports that as a child I received some money and proceeded to buy with it an object in which he could see no value. He asked me why I chose it, I replied "I bought it because it was shiney Daddy".

I enjoy a fairly frugal lifestyle however not to the detriment of quality and richness. I really would like this blog to be a jewel like forum for that sharing of what is good in life with the balance of getting a good price for it! I am hoping to invite several friends to be guest bloggers to share their loves of food, cooking, having an organised and tidy home with insight in new ways to save money and to have fun at the price you decide.

I hope that this can be fun and informative, thanks for reading my first blog post.