I have recently stumbled upon a great wee blog by an amazing girl called Jack. She posts thé most delicious sounding recipes, for pennies per serving. The ingredients are not 'exotic' or hard to come by.
Take this weeks recipe, Mexican Chocolate, Chili & Black Bean soup, at 25p per serving. I actually want to go home and make this today, but I am stuck at work. And do not have any Black Beans. Need to remember to put Black Beans on my list of things to get whilst out doing my mail run for work.
I totally recommend reading this girls blog. Her situation is somewhat similar to mine after having Lyle. Lost my good paying job due to lack of affordable childcare, uncompromising employers who used indirect sexual discrimination against me (more on that another time), which left me unemployed, with a mortgage, a credit card, and all the household bills {that reminds me, I need to get my spreadsheet done for March, oh, and February too!} to pay. Their was a time were all I bought to live on each week was pasta, goats milk, ready brek, eggs, packets of ham, jam and bread for making sons sandwiches. When I went to Uni and was paying £420 every four weeks for childcare, £134 month for train tickets, £10-20 a week for petrol, £423.24 a month for mortgage, £40 a month for electricity, £35 for TV/lline/BB, £18 a month for mobile, I had pennies to live on, to feed and clothe us, I lived in and over my overdraft of £800, so my bank was constantly at negative eight hundred, we ate a lot of breakfasts for dinner and a lot of scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, omelets, and pasta with cheap sauce with reduced veg added for some real vitamins... I always tried to have apples and bananas in the house, and hunted the reduced area for fruit and veg. It was tough going, and one of the few reasons why I didn't go back to Uni.

So I touched on not having a bank card for a while now, just shy of two whole weeks. My bank balance isn't looking any healthier for it. Even though I am unable to take money out, nor pay for things over the Internet or in shops, good points, I am not squandering my money, bad points, I can't buy birthday presents for Lyle! I'm looking to get him some Harry Potter type robes and glasses and pick up a few Skylanders to go along with the guitar, crystal growing kit and a telescope that I got him, all for £10 each! They were £46, £35 and £55. I have also picked him up some wooden versions of board games.
Shopping these past few weeks has been a bit like when I was at Uni, using cash so I have to stick with what I am going in for, using a basket instead of a trolley.

Last nights dinner was a chopped onion cooked with abt 200/250g of minced lamb, crumbled two lamb stock cubes, 1 large carrot chopped up, and two handfuls of oats added, mix all together and then added hot water that was just boiled in the kettle, grated about half a carrot in as well, and chopped some button mushrooms to add as well. let it all boil up, and reduce to a simmer, cooked some shell type pasta. If you make your own spaghetti, you will notice that I have only missed out a tin or two of chopped toms and some tom puree and a spoonful of sugar.
Grated carrot should almost dissolve/disappear in the dish, and the oats, if you don't use too many, they soak up all the lovely meaty juices and blend in with the meat. Its a great way to bulk out any minced dish.
That small amount of minced lamb fed 2 adult gannets, one small gannet, and enough for him to have in his packed/bento lunch today. If I was doing portion control, that would have been enough for 5 or 6 meals.

Hamburger style lunch

So, our new lunch box arrived today.
And it is a winner!
Lyle loves it. He wanted to try it out last night, so he got a night time snack in it. He spent ages making sure he could close it. It is a bit tricky to close, especially for small children. But he got it!.

Today he has a goats cheese and Chinese leaf lettuce bagel.  A fruit salad (with a Christmas tree pick) consisting of Orange segments, red grapes and strawberries.
A small piece of rocky cake, a yogurt, some mini chocolate fingers. Fruit juice. A banana and water for play time.
This all went in his scooby doo lunch bag that is shaped like a bowling bag. So the box (& food) stays up right.

Feck off Thursday.

It's one of those lovely Scottish days, where the rain is a constant drizzle, you walk from the house to your car and u are soaked, as the drizzle gets everywhere. I love that kind of weather, especially just now, when its not too cold n freezing, although it is getting colder by the day.

I need to start looking into making warm lunches, Lyle isn't a big fan of soups, and the canteen have told ne they won't reheat anything as they can make the food themselves.

Todays lunch was put in the new lunch box, that I am loving already! It consists of a wrap with turkey slices and cucumber slithers. Some chopped cucumber (I need to get more Veg in!) , the very last of the sausages and dippers (these where only added as the carton of juice was too long for that segment) little blob of tomato sauce, and grapes n mandarin segments.
This lunch box also comes with a small snack box, and as it will be a wet play today, I gave him a strawberry jam sandwich with 4 little chocolate fingers and a snack bag of raisins.(he gets 2 play times, so I always make sure he has the option if having something for the afternoon) along with his bottle of water.

Yesterday my fork picks arrived. And we love them. Ok, they are Christmas themed, but so what. They are cute and do a job.  Today he has Rudolf for the fruit and an elf (that sort of looks like a ghost) for the cucumber and sausages.
All I need now is sauce bottles.

Yesterday I had a lot more on my post, but for some strange reason, it didn't post anything after the picture.
Oh well.
Here is Todays picture.

Wed, 12th sept 2012

Yesterday in the car, Lyle said to me "mum, everyone loves my lunches you make" . I drove home with a massive smile on my face after he told me he opened his lunch and said "cool lunch mum" and everyone wanted to see/eat it :-)

For today I made sandwiches, using a dinosaur cutter, I even cut out the turkey with it too, so it all fitted good. I rummaged in the fridge and used up the last of the cocktail sausages and the southern fried chicken dippers. Couple of leaves of a Chinese lettuce, sliced some cucumbers

Slept in Tuesday's lunch

awoke at 8.17am, not very good when we need to leave the house at 8.45am to make sure we get to school on time.
so todays lunch consists of cocktail sausages, southern fried chicken strips, blob of tomato sauce, grapes, cucumber, grated carrots and some breakfast called chocolate pillows.... orange juice and yogurt.
iced gems (& bottle of water, &a manderin) for playtime.

tonight i hope to make carrot cake to add to tomorrows lunch.

me, i am just about to make some beetroot soup that i got for about 5p a packet in the world of food isle ... i think it is Polish, the instructions are diagrams so cant be too hard to make haha.

Monday lunch for a dreary day.

Lunch time is now taking over nearly all my waking moments. It is all I think about. From what containers do I have, to I absolutely must buy a Bento box (recently bought a hamburger shaped one & can not wait for it to arrive, via amazon.co.UK from Hong Kong!).
I am constantly thinking of what to put in those containers. Last week was sandwiches or bagels, with some fruit and a little sweet...
To start this week off, I used small round crackers/biscuits.3 slices of lime, corriander & chilli chucked, diced, goats cheese sliced and 4 cocktail sausages sliced. These went in silicon cupcake cases and into the 2 small sections of the tub.
In the big space is a small bunch of red grapes and a few chocolate coins.
I added an alpro soya chocolate yogurt to the spiderman lunch bag and then from the car (as half my messages are still their from my Tesco shop at 1am!), I added a carton of Orange juice to complete his lunch.
I am actually jealous!
My lunch will most likely be a plain ham sandwich.

If anyone is interested, his play piece today is a Btl of water with the choice of mini pancakes or a 'pains au chocolat'  or fruit flakes.