No-spend January/Frugal February - the no-spend challenge continues

[roguepixie]

OK - am attempting to start the second thread ... hope this works.

oooh pizza dough recipes please? I have used cheese scone mix before which was popular

bossy boffin left a recipe for pizza crust on the other thread...maybe she will tell us again...or have a peek. it was earliesh on.

sometimes I use puff pastry sheets...but I had a few to use in freezer.

n don't forget pittas....!

Just got email:

Zero insertion fees on Ebay (again) this weekend ... for all of us to get our junk lovely items on Ebay

On your marks, get set, start listing ...

My dough is 400g strong white bread flour, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250 ml water, 1 7g sachet of yeast. Makes two 12 inch pizzas. Make the dough, put in a lightly oiled bowl with some clingfilm over it and let it rise for about an hour and then shape onto pizza tray, add your toppings.

I have used that recipe for about 6 years now and it has never failed. We did make it in the breadmaker for ages until that broke, but now I knead it by hand and it's a good stressball :)

The pizzas also freeze really well. The recipe makes two, so sometimes we eat one and freeze one.

We do homemade pizza on a Friday. Ds has shop bought as he doesn't like my cooking, so I just buy him a value one. He'll learn. I can do three bases with just a little more than reckoner's recipe - so 300 ml water, 500 g flour etc. I also use olive oil rather than butter.

reckoner, do you give yours a quick blast in the oven first or just load ingredients up onto the raw dough? This is the area that I need to perfect!

I'm joining in because if I don't pull in our spending we'll be in total chaos. January has been rubbish - in February I want to make a difference.

I fry the peppers and mushrooms a little while I let the dough rest a bit on the pizza trays. I spread a little oil on underneath the toppings. Then put all the toppings on and put in the oven. Napolina pizza sauce is lovely but any tomato sauce will do. We used to put mozzarella on it but now just use cheddar. Garlic infused oil is nice for making a garlic cheese pizza.

Brilliant re ebay! that's the kick up the arse I need. When does it start?

I usually am very good at taking leftovers for lunch spew but was all out of rhythm since returning from holiday that's all.

I am at home today so in my breaks I will do the checklists. We are going out to the cinema tomorrow but it is a really cheap one (£4 per adult, under 3yo free) so our treat is having a pub lunch. The rest of the weekend will be decluttering ebaying and putting Christmas things in the loft.

I'm going to use the pizza dough recipe in my breadmaker and freeze portions of it. We're having some friends next Saturday for lunch so need to plan a "minimum time slaving over stove, maximum chatting with notseenforages friends" menu. mini pizza canapes is a good start.

I just used the easy 4 step Marguerita recipe from BBC Good Food. Took minutes. Didn't even need to let dough rise.

I'm having a no spend day today which will take this week's outlay to £11 for school lunches and nursery snack and 99p for sanitary towels.

Very pleased!

Little boys are ace, fishy .

I think it's a little early for cocktails, but anyone for a mid-morning cuppa?

I've just applied to be an exam invigilator at a local secondary school for GCSEs. I think this might actually be my ideal job. Will start to practise my stern, disapproving look immediately.

Meeting a friend for a drink this afternoon, but that should be my only spend. Hope to spend less than £2. Wish me luck...

Our putty tat went to the vet and it was £34.50 so less than I thought it would be.
DH has his guitar lesson, which is £11. He's learning Ziggy Stardust and I have had this stuck in my head for two weeks so I hope he starts on a new song today.

I made a couple of pizzas a week ago, one to eat and one to freeze. I made the dough using HFW's 'magic bread dough' recipe in River Cottage Veg book (a brilliant read, btw and excellent if you're getting a vegetable box, because you could find several recipes for pretty much any vegetable in there):
Makes 3 pizza bases, 12 pittas or loads of breadsticks.
250g plain flour (i.e. NOT bread flour)
250g strong white flour
1.5 level teasp fine salt
1 teaspoon easy blend/instant yeast
1 tablesp oil
Mix dry ingreds, add 325ml warm water and oil, knead by hand for 5-10 mins (always takes me 10!). Oil a clean bowl, shape dough into a round, place in bowl, cover with cloth or cling film, leave until doubled in size. Tip out, gently knock back and then shape into bread, bread sticks, pizza bases (small ball, roll out as thin as poss).

It made really nice pizza bases, and I used what was left over to make breadsticks, brushing them with oil, flaky salt and rosemary from the garden. I liked them more than the DSs though, who prefer uniform-size breadsticks.

I bought a jar of Aldi cheapy tomato pasta sauce (29p) last time I was there, to see if it was edible. TBH, it's quite 'gummy' in texture and therefore officially minging (on pasta) but it's quite nice on pizza for some reason, especially if you have the end of a can of tinned tomatoes to add to it. So that's our pizza topping at the moment.

Reckoner - I can think of worse earworms!

reshape sounds like a good recipe too. I of course will stick to mine as its what I am used to :)
I put the dough to rise in our airing cupboard. Ikea sell good cheap pizza trays.

never too early for cocktailssshh!

phoned tile warehouse today to get another pack to finish bathroom. found that they will sell by the tile so a little work measuring and will save money there! may also see if they will take back excess or can do disposal/recycling of offcuts to save me a trip to the tip.

Lol at Rogue finishing off the last thread. Congrats to Fishpond and the others expecting boys on the thread -makes me all broody for another boy (have 2 DSs) but that is definitely not in my budget at present!

Anyone have any good ideas for what I can do with a job lot of rhubarb tath was going cheap?

Oh, and lightbulbs - worth checking out on line for new lightbulbs (esp if buying in bulk): found a great deal last year on lightbulbs-direct.co.uk

Hello people! Just put more stuff on Ebay although I find it is not doing so well at the moment.

Have sorted out my purse and found various useful vouchers and loyalty cards, and clipped them together in categories so I use them on each occasion I possible could.

Filled car up with petrol yesterday - £70+ I would have put this off, but I had to go into work.

I would chop up the rhubarb, cook it up with a bit of sugar and ginger, and freeze it in portion packs for crumbles later in the year.

dinky it might sound obvious but make a crumble!!

We had one at a friends the other week, soooo good, we had to make one last weekend. not sure whether there is much on the savory side that can be made with rhubarb...but off to do a quick google!

permashattered here is the link for the organized home checklists - they include meal planners, master to-do lists, daily to-do lists, freezer and pantry inventory lists etc
www.organizedhome.com

and just marking my place - for those of you who are wanting containers for your batch cooking or for lunch leftovers, I buy 10 for £1 from poundland. They last quite a while but the best thing is how well they stack in the freezer. They are the same ones as the takeways use.