Last Day of the Month

Goodbye April

 

Well here we are at the end of April, and a quarter of the year is over, so far we have had nothing to boast about weather wise. We usually see some decent weather during April, but this month has lived up to its showery reputation, and even on the few sunny days the temperatures have hardly reached double figures. However the last two days have been lovely and sunny and the long evenings have begun (one of the main reasons that I love this time of year). The flowers too have started to appear, and though most trees are just begining to show shoots, the white blossom  trees are blooming. So lets hope this is a promise of a summer to come.

"April showers
bring forth May flowers"

                                    

False economy?

More Money Saving Tips?

I have just read this article on the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22263706, and while I agree that the food is interesting the experiment itself is not so good. As has been pointed out it is only for five days, and such a diet would be very restricting for a longer period. What has not been taken into account is the fact that most of these foods cannot be bought loose, so in order to get a 1/2 can of kidney beans one must purchase a large can, or if one buys a small can then you  are paying more, and in order to  pay 8.7p for an egg you must purchase 30 eggs. So while it is perfectly possible to live on £1 a day you must first have enough money to bulk buy. Or eat the same things until they are used up which would become even more repetitive. Another point made was that the calorie intake wasn't high enough for a persons daily needs. Jack Monroe's blog here http://agirlcalledjack.com/category/life-food/ though, gives some very good and cheap recipes

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's Birthday

The birth of William Shakespeare is celebrated today, and although no one knows for certain that he was born today, I think it fitting that one of the Greatest Englishmen to live shares his birthday with St. George. William Shakespeare was believed to have been born on the 23rd April 1564 at a house on Henley Street in Stratford on Avon. There is no recorded evidence of his birth, but his baptism is recorded. on the 26th April 1564, since it was a common practice to baptise children two to four days after their birth and there are three little crosses on the certificate it is assumed that he was born on the 23rd.

William Shakespeare's parents were John, who was a glove maker, and an important civic dignitary in Stratford on Avon. He had risen to become the Mayor by the time Shakespeare had reached the age of four. Unfortunately John was also involved in illegal activities and eventually lost his civic position. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was the youngest of eight daughters of Robert Arden, a landowner and John Shakespeare's landlord.

William attended King EdwardVI school, which was the local Grammar school. He left at fourteen due to the change in the family's circumstances. He married Anne Hathaway when he was eighteen and she was twenty six. Anne was pregnant so the marriage was necessary. According to the Baptism Records Shakespeare and Anne had a family of three children, though their son Hamlet died aged eleven. The couple spent the first five years of their married life at William's father's house in Henley Street.

Shakespeare's Houses

William Shakespeare left Stratford on Avon for London between 1585 and 1592 where he worked as an actor, playwright and was a share holder in the Globe Theatre. He eventually purchased a property (The New Place) in Stratford on Avon and died there on on his birthday and was buried on the 25th April. In his will he left the house in Henley Street that he had inherited from his father to his daughter Susannah and he left Anne Hathaway his second best bed.

Through the years I have studied quite a few of his plays, the only tragedy I studied was Hamlet, and found it heavy going, but I did enjoy studying his historical plays, even if he did take liberties with the facts, I suppose one could call it artistic licence. There was also a matter of timing, Richard 111 was written during the reign of Elizabeth 1, whose grandfather Henry V11 defeated Richard; and Macbeth was written during the reign of James 1 who was alleged to be descended from Banquo. I have been to see many of his comedies without any prior knowledge of them and found them easy to understand, and some of the ideas, though probably shocking in Elizabethan times, to be perfectly relevant in this day.

Related Posts

 http://kalas2.blogspot.com/2013/04/23rd-april-st-georges-day-date.html

23rd April- St Georges Day date

St Georges Day

Today is St. George's Day in the U.K. and St. George is the Patron Saint of England. His flag which is seen at many sporting events is a red cross on a white background, St. Georges cross appears in the Union Flag. In Blackpool as in the rest of the country there are very few St. Georges Day celebrations. The Scouting Association mark the occasion with a St. Georges Day Parade, which takes place on the Sunday nearest to the 23rd April. The Scouts assemble at the Cenotaph on The Promenade, and march to one of the churches in the town centre where there is a short service they then march past the Town Hall, where the Mayor or some town dignitary takes the salute.
But what was St. George's story? I have never quite known how or why he is the Patron Saint of England. I have just done a bit of research found out that St. George was a Roman soldier, who protested against the persecution of Christians and was put to death by the Romans.

His flag was adopted by Richard The Lionheart and his followers on the Crusades.The Normans also had a vision of him the night before they won a battle, and adopted him as a Patron Saint. A very different story from the legend of St. George and the St. George kids story that has him charging around killing dragons

Related Posts

Willimm Shakespeare's Birthday

money management strategies, and money saving tips

Money Management Strategies

Many years ago I remember a lady called Shirley Goode who used to appear regularly on T.V. giving advice on money saving tips for everyday life , and how to make the most out of your food budget, then as with everything she seemed to vanish from the scene. I had tried googling her a couple of times, but I couldn't find anything about her, then a couple of weeks ago I found an old notebook with a reference to her, and found out that I had been spelling her name incorrectly. So I googled her up a few days ago and found that she still works for the BBC, so I presume she must work on the radio. I have also found that she has her blog at-   http://shirleygoode.blogspot.co.uk/

She not only shows you how to feed your family for less, her money management strategies also show you how to get the best out of the money that you have saved. I shall certainly be following her useful blog from now on.

Another excellent site for money management tips is the Martin Lewis website, this website is full of money saving tips for everyone, with all the latest bargains. There is also a weekly e-mail which gives you information on all the latest deals and freebies. I have only recently discovered this website and my friends and I have saved quite a lot of money already. The website is at this address-http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ and if anyone is serious about saving money I would highly recommend they visit this site.

 

Money Saving Tips

Leftovers

I have been thinking about all the money savings tips I have picked up through the years, and since food is the main household expenditure item, one of the best ways to save money is to look at how to control the food budget. I think wasting food in a starving world is criminal and I am Proud to say very little gets wasted in this house.
As well as that now food prices seem to go up on a weekly basis, and I am always looking around for money saving tips and ideas. Last week I had a few Hot Cross Buns left over from the Easter period, which had gone stale and hard. So I decided to make a simple bread and butter pudding and replace the bread in the recipe with the Hot Cross buns, and even though I say it myself the results were delicious and well worth the effort.(you can also use stale brioche instead). Here are some more money saving tips for everyday life in this house.

Leftover Chicken

A good money saving idea for famlies is to buy whole chickens, rather than chicken pieces. I manage to get three meals out of one chicken, plus the bones make a tasty stock. I find the best way is to bone the chicken and then divide the meat for the three meals, then casserole, curry or make it into pie fillings, by adding vegetables you bulk it up, and it can serve 3 or four people depending on appetites.

The bones can be placed in a slow cooker,  with onion, the green part of a leek, carrot celery and any other scraps of vegetable you have hanging about, add a few peppercorns, a bouquet garni and a bay leaf; I pour on boiling water and turn the slow cooker on before I go up to bed, when I wake up in the morning I have a flavoursome stock ready for use. (this can also be done in a pan and cooked on a very low heat for about 2 1/2 hours.

 Ham 

 In this house there is no question of what to do with leftover ham, since my grandson loves pizza, and ham and pineapple happens to be his favourite, it normally ends up in a pizza. If we have a lot of ham leftover I make a white sauce and add some cooked chicken and ham into it then turn it into a chicken and ham pie.

Leftover Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potato can be used as toppings for pies, it can also be turned into croquettes by shaping, then dipping in flour, egg and breadcrumbs. It can also be used to make fishcakes. But the favourite in this house is potato scones. For every 8 ozs. of mashed potato I add 2 ozs. of self raising flour and a little salt, grated onion and herbs can also be added, but I like to add grated cheese to the mixture and mix it all together. Divide and roll into little round circles and cook on a griddle or dry frying pan. My ambition is to make enough to freeze some for another day, but no matter how many of these scones that I make they all get eaten within a couple of minutes of being cooked, so it still remains an unfulfilled ambition.

Vegetables

Any cooked, or uncooked vegetables that I have left at the end of the week, including baked beans usually gets thrown into a pot of soup, made with home made stock, if I have any, or else just with a stock cube. If I have any scraps of meat left in the fridge, which is very unusual I throw them in as well. If I am making it as a complete meal I usually add some sort of grain or pulse to it e.g. lentils, rice barley etc.

Fruit

Any fruit left in the house at the end of the week is usually put into a fresh fruit salad. I make a syrup with about four ozs. of sugar and a half pint of water and finely grated orange or lemon rind, when it reaches the syrup stage I add a few a few tablespoons of orange juice and some lemon juice. When it is cooled I pour it over the diced fruit. If I have any rum in the house I had 1-2 tablespoons to the syrup before adding the fruit, though not if the grandchildren are going to be eating it.

Any bananas that have become overripe I use to make a date and banana loaf. here is the recipe
Ingredients 
115 g. (4 ozs.) butter 
115g. (4 ozs.) light soft brown sugar 
115g. (4 ozs.) honey 
2 eggs beaten 
225g. (8 ozs.) self raising flour 
½ teasp. nutmeg 
55g. (2 ozs.) chopped dates 
2 large bananas 
Squeeze of lemon juice 
Preheat oven 180˚C/350˚/Gas Mark 4 and lightly grease and line a 2lb loaf tin 
Beat the butter, sugar and honey together until light and fluffy 
Sift the flour and nutmeg together and fold it into the mixture with a metal spoon 
Meanwhile mash the bananas and mix with the chopped dates, 
Fold this into the loaf mixture, then spoon it into the prepared tin, and bake for 1-1½ hours until golden and firm to the touch. 
Leave it to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire tray to cool 
*When I am watching my weight I usually replace the butter with the same quantity of Lurpak lightest, and the sugar with the same amount of Slender

Mrs. Thatcher's Funeral

A Lavish Funeral Funded by the Taxpayer

While it is very sad to hear about the death of any person, even one as old as Margaret Thatcher, as a taxpayer I object to picking up the bill for her funeral with full military honours. While Winston Churchill also had a very public funeral in St. Paul's Cathederal he was a Prime Minister who was responsible for uniting the country during WW2. Margaret Thatcher on the other hand has been the most divisive Prime Minister of all time, and while it is true that she has many supporters, she has an equal number of detractors, people who hate her and what she stood for.

The policies of her Government ruined many lives and changed the face of Britain forever, in the end she had to resign, because even her own party felt she had become a liability. I have never before heard of people coming out in the streets to celebrate the death of an ex P.M! Many of the people whose lives were adversely affected by her are taxpayers, and it seems like a slap in the face to all these hardworking people that their hard earned cash is being used to fund her expensive funeral.

Monday's viewing

An Evening of Watching the Box

There didn't seem to be much on the television tonight apart from Pointless, The Chase and Paul Hollywood's bread baking lesson. The man himself is a charmer, and his enthusiasm for baking is catching and hopefully he is inspiring a whole new  generation of artisan bakers. When I first got married I always baked my own bread, and I remember a week in 1976 when bakers were on strike, most of our street turned to me to supply them with their daily bread. I think that the baking bread aroma gives a house a homely feel. When we moved into this house however, the kitchen was quite cold and all my bread recipes insisted that the bread must be kept in warm place to rise, Since the yeast mixture didn't seem to do much in the hour to hour and a half that it was supposed to double in, I assumed I could no longer make bread and so started buying it from the supermarket instead. 
But Paul Hollywood has changed all that he does not use warm water or keep his mixture in a warm cupboard, he just covers it up and keeps it out of the draught, and leaves it for however long it takes to double in size. I started baking morning rolls and everyone enjoyed them, my son even informed me they tasted like the special artisan rolls that Tesco had just started selling. I stopped making bread however when my main oven broke last month, but after baking some Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, in the smaller top oven, where they turned out very well I have decided to return to the practice of making my own bread.

A lot of people that I have met have complained that home made bread goes stale very quickly, so it can be very wasteful. I always manage to use up any stale bread in various other dishes, so none gets thrown away. It can be used for toast in the morning, or be incorporated into a pudding with the main meal. Last night Paul made a summer pudding with different berries, that had me drooling. It is a very easy pudding that doesn't require any cooking.
In this house, I normally make a bread and butter pudding (my favourite) if I have a lot of leftover bread. 

Breadcrumbs

Another thing I do with leftover fresh bread is to blitz it in a processor and freeze it to use in sauces and stuffing. If it is starting to go stale I either break it up and put it at the bottom of the oven to crisp up and when it becomes a nice golden colour I blitz in a processor and use the golden breadcrumbs for coating fish etc. I always place hem at the bottom of the oven while I the oven is on for dinner, so saving fuel as well. The other way I use the stale bread is that if I am making soup I simply chop the bread into small cubes, place in a bowl and add olive oil, toss to coat them, then place them on a baking tray and bake them at 375 degrees until crisp and golden (about15-20 minutes).

 

Sunday

 Re-Connected

Back on the Internet after three days without any connection. What did we do for pleasure before the Internet? The same thing happened last month, the engineer came and capped something and told us that was the problem, but the engineer this week came and undid all that, so I shall make the most of the Internet while I have it, because something tells me this is not the end of the problem. I wouldn't mind, but whenever they come they always make you feel as though you are responsible!

Easter Egg Nests

Yesterday evening my granddaughter and I finally made the Easter Egg Nests (pictured above), a week late but still fun. Up at 4.50 this morning for more fun and games, but made the most of playing with her as we know from experience this doesn't last for long. 

April Fools Day

April 1

April 1st is also known as April Fools day because on this day it is a tradition for people  in many countries  to play tricks on each other. These April fool jokes vary from country to country, with places like France and Italy where people tie paper fish to peoples backs for a joke. In many countries newspapers play pranks on their readers and print  hoax stories on their front page.  In Britain, even  serious Current Affairs programmes like 'Panaroma' get in on the act with reports showing spaghetti being harvested from trees.. among Google's April fools jokes this year have been  Google Nose which allows users to search for more than 15 million smells. There was also the You Tube prank saying You Tube was going to close down for 10 years read it on  http://www.youtube.com/youtube?feature=etp-gs-jke

Well so far there have been no April Fools pranks been played in this house. Listening to the news it is going to mean that from today we are going to be a lot poorer with Airport tax going up, the water rates have gone up and if people are on benefits the new benefit changes start today. Now wouldn't it be great if that news was an April 1st prank!