Winter preparations are under way...

Yet another productive weekend!
Firstly, I have to thank Frugal Queen (see her blog on the right hand side... she's AMAZING!) for reminding me the importance of doing a little prep work before this time of year, when the heating bills soar and Christmas is threatening to empty your bank account, leaving you with just enough to buy a box of reduced mince pies in January to keep your spirits up...
Ahem.

Anyway, one of her top tips for saving money is to meal plan and take regular stock takes of what you have in your cupboards, freezers and pantries. I honestly have never quite got the hang of meal planning, probably because I don't always want to eat what I have planned to that night. Bit like getting dressed... depends if it's a fat or a skinny day? But tonight, having now done a full stock take, I'm SHOCKED at how much food we actually already have, here, bought, and wonder whether we actually may be able to make it through to middle of October without doing a big food shop. We've also been hugely helped out by my brother, who is moving out of his flat this weekend. He bought me round 5 carrier bags absolutely teeming with dried stuff, and then again today he bought a huge bin liner of frozen stuff that won't be eaten. Thanks to him, I have stocked my home without needing to spend a penny! Check it out...

With the exception of needing to buy cleaning products, toiletries and the occasional fresh bit of produce like fruit, veg and milk, why would we need to?? Look at how full our cupboards are!!

 Tomorrow I plan to draw up our first week's meal plan, and see how that goes.
The only downside with eating what you have first is that, from a Slimming World point of view, you might have to cheat a little in order to use up what you have!
It's a difficult balance to get right; often the reduced isles in supermarkets are full of things we may not be quite so able to eat, ready meals especially, even though they're perfectly edible as a meal.
The other good thing about stock taking is that you find all the foods in your cupboard that you either, a) forgot all about - for example, I found a bag of pearl barley and mixed beans, and remembered that there's actually an awesome SW bean stew that I will be making again at some point. Plus, baking is on the cards as I got an idea of what staple baking products I have. And b) you find all the foods in your cupboards that are well, well, well out of date!! Time to have a clear out too! It also gives you the added opportunity to give your cupboards a wipe - they can get really dirty over time where things spill out etc.
So tonight's first 'use it up before you chuck it out!' dinner was roasted courgette and tomatoes with a cheese sauce from this SW staple and... curly fries. There's the cheat bit!!

I've also done some berry picking today. They will soon have all disappeared from their bushes and there are still things to use them for, if not freeze them for a berry compote or something similar. Years ago I attempted to making flavoured vodka for my family for Christmas, but started them too late so the fruit didn't have time to infuse the vodka. So by starting now, by December they'll taste of what they say they're meant to taste of.
I've made a couple of bottles up of blackberry vodka, which already look so beautiful in all their purple glory! I also collected a decent sized punnet of sloe berries, although it seems these have already been collected by other Hemel residents! Hard to come by! But tomorrow I'm going to make sloe gin using a Nigel Slater recipe I found online. Pictures to follow...
Mr Slater, by the way, is the King of making up delicious recipes out of "whatever's left in the bottom of the fridge". I love his show!

What will you do to make sure you're all ready for the cold winter months??

BB xx