Mr men magic

Finally I went to Tesco to use my Tesco Orchard voucher and I left a very happy bunny!

I went to a biiiig Tesco extra (in Redditch) and spent about 2 hours in there with the little man, there was SO MUCH CHOICE!
It was fun going round looking at everything and grabbing some last minute stocking filler presents, I even found a few pieces on offer - even better!
I got some smelly wash products, nivea and Lynx items were on offer. I got the Apollo and Africa body wash (I love the smell of Apollo!) also found some tool sets reduced down... Like this one  which i got for just £0.75!!!
I treated !myself to a new dish drainer, bright red so very festive and matches the red saucepans perfectly.

The beat bargain of the day though was this lovely duvet set. It was already on offer from £14 down to £7.50 then I was lucky enough to use my £5 gift voucher against it making it just £2.50

I can't wait to see the little mans face when it's on his bed. The quality feels great so hopefully it should wash up brilliantly too. I love all the vibrant colours it really will cheer the room up.

Slow cooked chicken curry using coconut milk

Today's experiment is... Curry in the slow cooker & using coconut milk for the first time!

I haven't yet made a curry in the slow cooker, normally I would just use a cheap jar of curry sauce (one of those 20p ones) and that's it but I wanted to try to shake it up a bit. I came across some recipes for curry that used coconut milk and kept thinking about trying up and then one day when I was shopping in the clearance section was a dented tin of coconut milk. Perfect!

I used the following recipe and added my own twist :)

INGREDIENTS

1 large onion, cut into 10 wedges
1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into squares
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
1 1/2 lb (675 g) skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into cubes
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons (10 ml) chili powder
2 teaspoons (10 ml) curry powder
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) ground turmeric
1 can (398 ml/14 oz) coconut milk
1 tablespoon (15 ml) honey
Salt and pepper

I didn't have any turmeric so that was missed out. My chicken was some breasts which were reduced and separated then frozen (costing approx 44p).
I also added some potato to mine, I used 2 medium ones chopped into small chunks and placed these at the bottom of the slow cooker.
I fried the onion and red pepper on the hob quickly then added to slow cooker.
Then I added all the spices and honey, followed by the chicken which I had also par cooked on the hob. Finally in went the coconut milk and a little splash of water.

It went on high around 11 am and by 3pm was done!

Before dishing it was reheated to temperature and had some defrosted peas added.

Served with plain white rice and some reduced bread slices.
Yum!

Freebies at Christmas... Magical

Sometimes the things you get for free are awesome...

This month as part of the Tesco Orchard programme I received some vouchers to spend on Christmas presents!

How amazing is that? Especially when at this time of year people are struggling to manage everything, it just all piles up.

So i was very excited about it when they asked if i wanted to participate, who wouldn't be? Finally they have arrived and exceeded my expectations.

I knew i was going to get a £5 voucher and that it would be a minimum of £5 spend but that's OK cause "Every little helps" right? The extra three £1 off for family and friends vouchers are definitely an added bonus.

Now its just a question of what to spend the vouchers on, so ill be Christmas wrapping later (checking my list and all that) to see whats left to buy - because I'm one of those "organised" types who likes a bargain :D

My partner wants a Nerf gun for him and the little man... Guess we'll just have to see what Santa brings!!

Spicy burgers and jazzed up courgettes

Tonight for I had to !make burgers with my minced beef so they could get frozen. I brought the beef reduced, it's only supposed to be 12% fat so I chose to make burgers from it thinking they'd appreciate the taste more than a chilli...

So I mixed 400grams of beef (£1.75 from Morrison's) with one onion (from a 5kg bag Morrison's), a tablespoon of mustard and another of ketchup, a sprinkle of garlic, oregano, chilli powder and black pepper.
I made 12 altogether, then put 4 back as one and mixed in one chopped up green chili (from a medium bag of loose ones, reduced to 25p from Morrison's)...

Stuck it in the frying pan with one tablespoon oil and surrounded by sliced courgette.... Cue a hot and spicy party!

Yummy!!

Black Friday Madness

It's been an interesting evening, starting off with staying up late and heading down to my local Tesco for 12am. As my store is a 24hour store it was already open and there was a nice little crowd forming.
As per usual the Tesco staff were not at all prepared, I got there at roughly 11:50pm and by 11:58pm there were even more people and the products weren't all on the shelf... Then more madness struck.
12am hit and it was a mad dive, the three flat screen TV's just disappeared and a few coffee machines too... And there was an alrpund muttering of "But wait there are any prices"
So we all stood there, waiting. Some people grabbed things whilst they waited other just stood confused. a slight bit different to other Tesco store who had surges of people and crazyness. Some of the photos I've seen of those stores, well *shudders* I'm glad that wasn't mine.

So the Tesco staff come back with prices around 12:10, and I got two NowTV boxes for half price. A pretty good deal really when one month of NOWTV entertainment costs £7.99 and the box I brought contained a three month pass. That's three months for £10!!
Now my other bargain wasn't as simple. There was just one left and no price still. It was a heavy item so I didn't fancy holding it but bent enough to be touching it and got more protective every time someone else even glanced at it.... Eventually the crowd (all 30 or so of us) settled  and people started to go off to buy there things. I hung back and spoke to some Tesco employees only to hear that what I wanted wasn't coming through at a reduced price. But after more chatting and checking it did... Retail is £179.99.. The price I should have paid last night? £69.99
Yes!

So I go down the cashiers, and I'm also told that there's a few TV's down there as well but I'm not interested, and it's quite a FAFF to sort. It won't scan through at the reduced price :( in the end they did a manual override for a wonderful £69.... Yes even cheaper (99p is still cheaper!!)
So I'm wonderfully happy, the only sad thing is that because it didn't go through as the original item I didn't get any bonus points like with the NOWTV boxes ... Oh well!

Ohh Christmas....

It's getting closer, just a month to go!
My presents are nearly all brought, wrapping paper too ready to get going... And the tree and decorations went up at the weekend.

Cue one very excited Toddler! Who when asked what he wanted for Christmas replied "a lovely lovely baby". Yep a real one. Ohhh dear.

Homemade Bread in a Bread Machine

We own a Panasonic bread maker SD206....

It was given to us by a relative who no longer uses it and though we might. although we've had it a while we haven't made much, 2 basic loaves (1 on rapid & 1 on normal setting) and 1 cheese and bacon loaf.

We did get an instruction manual with the machine but its half English half German and has a major lack of recipes. I think there may have been another manual. Anyway some searching on google lead me to this blog and a option to download a scanned in copy. Result :-)

Although I like the taste of homemade bread I find it goes stale quite quickly. The last loaf made was a plain and we ended up with both crusts at the end. They had started going stale so I chopped them into small cubes and stuck them in the over to go crispy - wahoo croutons for our salad! 

This is the ingredients list for the basic loaf (medium size I think) including what it cost me to make :

1 TSP yeast (5g)                                3p
425g Flour.                                       23p
1 tablespoon  Sugar (15g).              1p
1 tsp Salt (5g).                                    1p
15g Butter.                                          3p
1.5 tablespoons Dry milk (22g).    13p

Water 310ml

Total cost - 44p

The next thing I want to try is making bread in the slow cooker...