Eat well for less

When starting to think about eating more frugally and simplify food shopping, I think most of us discover just how freeing it can be to plan meals and create a shopping list, and how much we can save by cooking from scratch. Such a simple change but it massively helps bring down food spending and food waste, and cuts out last-minute trips to the shops to get "something for dinner". 

Now these pearls of wisdom are being brought to a new audience with a fantastic new programme from the BBC called "Eat well for less". A tv chef and grocer help a different family every week to cut their food bills and eat better. They invade the family's kitchen and replace their normal food shopping with unbranded food. Some is swapped for cheaper food, such as dried pasta instead of fresh, or supermarket own-brand products. Some is their normal food without the packaging. Some is even more expensive but better quality.

We watch them nervously try the various foods and try to guess what is swapped and what is the same, and then there is the big reveal, we learn the identities of the products and the savings on each item. It amounts to thousands of pounds saved over the year. And most entertainingly, the families often like least those items which weren't swapped - once the packaging is removed, turns out they don't really it!

They also have a dietician looking at the amount of sugar in different brands of pasta sauce, and comparing the nutritional value of different tins of baked beans. They do blind tastings of yoghurt, tea and orange juice (among others) in the general public and see whether the most expensive is also the most popular.

It's made us look again at our own spending, and we've started trying some cheaper brands to compare price/quality. We've also switched from buying bags of pre-prepared salad to preparing our own from a head of lettuce and a punnet of rocket. 

It's a really interesting programme, and for those outside the UK, the episodes are available on youtube. 

I'm so excited about baking soda

I know, it's truly sad, isn't it? But this totally made my day!

The pot on the left is the baking soda I have been buying - 400ml for €3,19. On the right is my official new source of baking soda, at €1,65 for 500ml. Am I happy? Oh I am so happy. And it's so silly, but it's a cheaper source of baking soda, which I use for everything from washing my hair to cleaning the kitchen to brushing my teeth. It was totally accidental - I was looking for castile soap to make some homemade bubble bath...

Giving in to the fabric-y goodness...

I pottered along to my favourite fabric shop in Brussels today, in search of some scraps of silk - I very much want to try this tutorial for homemade silk flowers to decorate my hairstyles. They look unbelievably beautiful and deceptively simple. I thought I would try to get a small bit of silk to try, but wow - the smallest amount I could buy would still be €6! So I decided to save that project for when I ever make something out of silk, and then I can use the off-cuts.

Fail

City fail. I have been into no less than EIGHT SHOPS looking for cup-cake or muffin cases, and NO ONE stocks them. I am more than slightly appalled. Someone has suggested I try a kitchenware shop in the city centre, but that means that I will not have time to make the cupcakes for at least a week. Grrrrrrr....

Another example of the frustrations of expat life - something that would be so easy in a Tesco or Morrisons becomes such a challenge. Especially when no one knows the French word, nor is it in my dictionary. Anyone out there know how to say 'muffin case' in French or Dutch?

Tardiness

Well, it's been a long time since I posted here but to be quite honest, between moving into a new appartment and starting a new job, a new Spanish course and taking up several additional activites, I've barely had time to breathe!

I have been very active on the crafty front. I have long wished to dive into the deep end of sewing, but lacked a sewing machine. I looked at second-hand and cheap options, decided that even if I had the money I didn't have the space, and squared up to my options: handsewing or handsewing.

Now, there's not a huge amount of information about handsewing kicking around on the web - a bit of embroidery stuff, and that's pretty much it. I also felt that many of the free patterns were rather uninspiring (in direct contrast with free crochet and knitting patterns in places like Ravelry). My family already have this rather negative stereotypical image of me as some DIY-ecofreak-hippy nutcase, so if I make my own clothes, I really want them to look (at first glance and from a distance) as though they are good enough to be bought. Mostly for that - "where did you buy that?" - moment.

The daunting prospect of spending lots of money on patterns and fabric only to never get around to finishing the stitching then loomed before me - I am very bad at procrastinating and rarely finish projects. So I started simple (but not small) with a tablecloth - fun fabric, very basic stitching. And voila! I am sitting at my kitching table, writing this, with a red cotton with white polka dots cloth which delights my soul everytime I see it.

So now the second tablecloth is in production, and most exciting of all! A dress pattern I ordered has arrived - Very Easy Vogue. (I'm stacking the odds in favour of success!) And I've just found a funky independent not-too-expensive fabric shop. Three guesses what I'll be shopping for on Saturday? :D

Again, I am reminded by how much I love making things. There is such a sense of satisfaction from creating something, from leaving behind me a small legacy of (hopefully) pretty and functional objects which would never have existed had I not decided to make them. The thrill of the tablecloth was even enough to make me do the ironing this week, for almost the first time ever, because I couldn't bear to leave it rumpled...

Imperfection

So this week has been a far from perfect week. I've always got that goal in mind - a sustainable, fulfilling and productive week where I haven't (a) pigged out on chocolate; (b) wasted time in front of a computer or tv screen; and (c) otherwise procratinated or failed to achieve. It will take me a while, but I'm just going to take 5 minutes to remind myself of the times this week I had a chopped carrot and some hummus instead of chocolate, of the time I've been spending with friends rather than facebook, and of the few small steps I've made towards my organised and sustainable life.

The most significant is reorganisation. My room is tidy, my bedsheets are clean, my floor is hoovered. I finally tackled the ever-growing 'To Sort' pile, and now my desk consists of one permanent file in the corner, and seven 'To Do' piles. At least now I can sit down with one pile and one coherent task, and not feel I'll get sucked into the vortex.

Most satisfying, on the other hand, is toiletries. I've been interested in DIY toiletries for a while, and I've been experimenting a bit over the last month. I've found a facial moisturiser that is cheap, simple and that my skin is loving. (Not that I'm going to stop experimenting, of course...) Prepare yourself. I am using - glycerine and rose water. I know! Radical. My skin looks clearer, feels softer, and also feels more - spongey is not the word I'm looking for. When you press the skin, it bounces back more resiliently. I've also been using a mixture of honey and sugar as an exfoliator, and it's the loveliest feeling! As I'm using up each product in my bathroom, I'm replacing it with a homemade version rather than a shop-bought.

Expat Excitement

This is the second time I've lived abroad, and the longest, and I am firmly convinced that something strange happens to the wiring in your brain.

I've been to two expat shops in the last week, courtesy of an English friend of mine here. There's an Irish shop a few metro stops away, and an English shop just out of town. She was amused by my reactions in both - I went around squealing and gasping my appreciation at finding items I would never buy normally in the UK. Oh, the excitement at seeing clotted cream, Hovis flour and Cadbury's chocolate! I swear, I nearly fainted when I found the Battenberg and Cherry Bakewells. (He does make exceedingly good cakes, doesn't he?) They had Dip-Dabs, sherbert lemons and sour Skittles. It was like going back in time - I can't remember the last time I had a Dip-Dab, I used to eat them with my sister when we were wee things. (No liquorice toffees, though!)

I did of course spend far more than I should have done, which will result on some fairly strict budgeting for the next couple of weeks. I did get tahini, so I can have a go at making my own hummus soon. And Wensleydale cheese and some pickle, for sandwiches. (This country makes 80 different types of cheese, why am I buying Wensleydale??)

This is the thing. I only came back from England a couple of weeks ago, but it was like a starving man at a feast. Heinz spaghetti hoops in a tin - I ask you! What was I thinking?? It does strange things to your brain, does living abroad. Or perhaps it's just me?