Bulk cooking and a haircut.

Yesterday was cold and blustery and not much of a day for going out. However, I was beginning to resemble caveman and gave myself a scare when I looked in the mirror.

So I took myself off to the Barbers. Poor woman, there have been roadworks outside her shop for 3 months and she is hugely losing business, there is nowhere to park so she says she has lost lots of her pensioners and is now having to dip into her savings. It really isn't fair, particularly as when I left, the men were all either having a cuppa or picking their nose.

Anyway, one severe haircut later and I am back to my former beauty and feel ready to go out again:

Last night I had a bulk cooking session. I was inspired by Froogs in her post here, just how far she makes her minced beef stretch. I thought, if she can do it, so can I.

I had slightly more beef to play with as I had bought a 645gm pack while it was reduced in ASDA the other day. Can't remember what I paid but I think it was just over £2 I decided to use half to make a bolognaise and half to make a meat and potato pie.

Got them both started on the stove but then once the bolognaise was all browned and bubbling I transfered it to my slow cooker.

I got 6 good sized portions out of this, 5 of which are now in the freezer and one in the fridge to be eaten over the next few days. When my brother was over this weekend he had brought with him a bottle of red wine, so I used what was left in the sauce to make it rich, tastes good.

The second half was used to make a meat and potato pie, from my granny's old recipe, always a favourite with me.

I am seriously not the best pastry maker. This is not too bad for me, but my rolling out leaves a lot to be desired. The final result is that the pastry tore in the oven slightly and it looks a real sight. But who cares, it tasted very good and I am slowly improving at it.

I hadn't judged the pastry quantity very well and had some left over. Rolled it out to see how much and found it would fit this case:

So I decided on a quick quiche as the oven would be on for the pie anyway. Used lots of store cupboard bits and bobs, a tin of tuna and some olives, some cheese, 3 eggs and some milk (didn't have cream) and some onions which I cooked slowly until they were a caramel colour.

This will do a lunch or 3 (depending on my greed)

I love baking something off the cuff with some leftovers like this. I had no intention of making a quiche when I started cooking, but for very little money I have a few lunches sorted.

Bulk cooking is definitely the way to make things stretch. In the past I would probably have used all the mince for one thing and not stretched it out with veg and other things quite so much, but instead I have 9 meals out of one pack of mince and 3 meals out of some leftover pastry. I don't know the cost, because I am rubbish at adding up the cost of all the different bits and pieces, but as I didn't need to go out and buy one single thing for all of this, it was all storecupboard ingredients, I know it was a very cheap set of 12 meals.