Gammon was pretty much the first meat that Master Fussy-Eater Frugal would eat and even now, it's still one of his favourite meals.  It's also really versatile so we tend to buy a small gammon joint every week and although we love a good old mid-week roast dinner, I do try and mix it up a little bit - especially with the leftovers that we always have.  I thought you might like to see how far you can stretch a gammon joint by showing what I've made with ours.Before I go on to what we do with our gammon joint, I should really recommend that you always buy the next joint of meat you can … [Read more...]

Have you seen the 'On This Day' app on Facebook that sends you a message every day to remind you of what you were doing on the same day in previous years?   I love the idea of it and the statuses and photos that I've posted in years gone by regularly make me smile as they remind me of moments I'd all but forgotten.There have been a few lately though that have brought back memories of some of my less than brilliant parenting moments and I thought I'd sacrifice my parenting pride and share a few of them here with you today...Please try not to judge me, especially for number 1 and 6! … [Read more...]

I remember asking Santa for a Mr Frosty every year between the ages of around 6 and 12 but for some reason, he was never in my pile of presents on Christmas morning.  I never gave up hope though and one Christmas many year later, my patience was rewarded when Mr Frugal presented me with a Mr Frosty and a bag of ice!I couldn't wait to get started at making the amazing slushies that I'd dreamed about as a child so decided have a Christmas morning slushie which wasn't as great an experience as I'd hoped for.  For starters, the handle you turned to crush the ice was so stiff that I had red … [Read more...]

Usually at this time of year I feel compelled to write something about why I'm not a fan of Mothers Day and over the years I've even written the occasional letter or two to my lovely Mum.I think about my Mum on a daily basis, often asking myself what she would do or wishing that I could share something with her, but this time of year is generally quite hard to deal.  Usually I try to avoid as much of the Mothers Day hype as possible which is a shame as I know that my children want to show me how much they love me as much as I wish I could have the chance to show my Mum.I didn't … [Read more...]

Slow cookers are awesome, they really are!This last couple of weeks have been a bit of a nightmare for me as I've been working longer hours than normal as well as not feeling 100% thanks to a seemingly never ending cold but thanks to my slow cooker, I've been able to serve up meals that are so delicious that you'd think I'd been slaving away in the kitchen all day*.(* This may be a slight exaggeration but they've definitely been tasty ;-))We've had the usual food you would think of when you think of a typical meal you would cook in the slow cooker - curry, chilli, casserole and … [Read more...]

Remember before Christmas when I told you that I was trying to focus more on experiences rather than gifts?Well one of Master Frugal's experiences took place this week and it was amazing - far better than I had expected and worth every penny we paid for it.He's a huge Boro fan and follows them avidly so when he didn't really ask for much at Christmas we had no idea what to buy him as his main present. It felt like we'd be buying him something for the sake of it as he hadn't really asked for anything and didn't really need anything. So we started thinking about what sort of experience … [Read more...]