Hallowe'en will be upon us in no time now, and then the year turns towards midwinter and its attendant festivals, Yule, Hanukkah, Christmas etc. depending on your own tradition.
Diwali comes earlier, on 5th November this year, so hardly a midwinter celebration although the nights will be dark enough for a Festival of Lights to be very uplifting!
We have what can only be described as a mixed tradition here, and celebrate 'Chrismanukkah' while recognising that Yule and its variants are the original midwinter festivals.
It seems that Mankind has always felt the need to look forward to a celebration that recognises that the darkness of winter will not last forever, and so many of the festivals take place around the time of the Winter Solstice when, at last, the hours of daylight begin to stretch out little by little as the hours of darkness recede and Spring approaches.
These pictures come from 2008, our first winter in our new home.
In my wilder fantasies I like to think that the house renovations will be completed by mid-winter 2010! Since the pictures were taken, most of the rest of the house has been finished, but in the sitting room nothing much has changed except that the room is newly plastered! I guess we've saved the most enjoyable project until last, but whether we will eat Christmas Dinner from our dining table or the camping table we currently use is open for discussion!
We bought the Hanukkiya (Hanukkah menorah) in Golders Green before we were married - David decided on the modern design though given a free rein I might have been inclined to go for a more traditional one. This one has however grown on me over the years, and I really enjoy seeing it every year now and think he chose wisely.
Every family has its own midwinter festival traditions and there are no rights and wrongs about how to celebrate the festive season, so long as it's all about love, sharing and charity rather than greed, extravagance and showing off.
I hope that, as the current move towards living in simplicity and sincerity increases, the emphasis will once more be on home-made gifts created with love, and on valuing what we already have rather than spending on a load of new stuff to decorate our homes in whatever the marketing gurus have decided will be this year's 'key look'.
They can't sell you priceless memories, and you probably already have a boxful of those in the attic just waiting to be brought down, dusted off and hung on the tree!
Your Christmas won't be any better just because you obeyed the stylists' edict to spend, spend, spend - guaranteed to come from the chain stores, and from the glossy magazines!
But it might be a whole heap better if you spent time rather than money, and gave love rather than lucre!
Time to stock the Pantry with useful long-life products in case the Winter closes in unexpectedly!
Morrisons has some Batchelor's favourites on offer at the moment.
Batchelor's Condensed Soup (used to be Campbell's) 50p per tin, Buy 1, Get 1 Free. These are a great quality soup anyway, but have a second contribution to the store cupboard as they also have the potential, if only slightly thinned with liquid, to become a really good sauce for pasta (especially the Mushroom variety) or the stock for a casserole or stew.
Batchelor's Savoury Rice and Pasta'n'Sauce sachets are also on offer in a slightly crafty variation on a BOGOF. Basically, to take advantage of the offer you have to buy three items in order to get another three free, but since they are useful standbys with a long shelf life, it is worthwhile.
Batchelor's Savoury Rice, 58p per sachet. Buy 3, get 3 free.
Batchelor's Pasta'n'Sauce, 82p per sachet, Buy 3 get 3 free.
These items don't just have to be served on the side of the plate. They can form the heart of a dish, or add bulk to an otherwise bland or mean dish. They can certainly help to stretch the meat ration! (Thank you, Lord Woolton!)
Morrison's has also gone mad on pies this week -
Any 2 Fray Bentos tinned pies for £2. (Worth buying a Halogen oven just to watch the strangely irresistible puff pastry rise like something extra-terrestrial.)
'It's pastry, Jim, but not as we know it!'
Our branch had Steak and Kidney, Chicken and Mushroom, Just Steak, and Minced Beef and Onion.
And McDougalls Upper Crust Pies (frozen) Pack of two individual pies £2.42, are Buy One Get Two Free - so you get 6 very good quality pies for just £2.42. That's great value. Our branch had Chicken and Bacon, and Peppered Steak varieties.
I have to say that Morrisons is winning hands-down over its competitors just lately where offers on traditional products are concerned - I haven't troubled Mr Tesco at all for a few weeks now.
Aldi still has the edge on bread, breakfast cereals and jams (assuming you don't have a larder full of home-made!) but Tesco loss-leaders have not been sufficiently tempting or relevent to us to lure me in. We don't have a Sainsbury or an Asda here, so they just don't figure in the equation - we would spend any potential savings on the petrol to get there, so ya boo sucks to them!
It's remarkable how quickly Shopping Day rolls around again!
It really is noticeable how much easier it is to manage on a tight budget if you get into the routine of doing a regular shop on a particular day, rather than going out for just a few bits every few days...it's remarkable how often those 'few bits' turn into quite a lot of bits as you succumb to impulse buying, or buying without a list!
I'm certain that our shopping bill is getting smaller and smaller as we get better at spotting real bargains and at recognising the so-called savings that just don't add up.
Anyway, on to today's money-savers!
ALDI
A pack of 7 small bananas from the Dominican Republic is 99p.
Large Farmhouse Multigrain Batch Loaf is 85p, and among the best-tasting loaves of this type on the market, we reckon.
Among the 39p fruit and veg bargains are pointed cabbage, beetroot, and salad potatoes (Charlotte).
Their own-brand Swiss Style Muesli is 99p
And a big tray of Minced Beef was just £2.49. (Divided up and frozen for bolognese, cottage pie etc. Plenty for 3 meals for two people, maybe 4 if padded out with plenty of seasonal veg etc)
ICELAND
Still have bags of Frozen Veg of various kinds for £1. Weights vary, but most knock the supermarkets into a cocked hat for price. When they are this cheap you can buy a variety of veg where you might only be able to afford two or even one at supermarket prices.
They also still have tinned Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie for £1.
MORRISONS
Moy Park Chicken Kievs Packs of two, £1.99 are on BOGOF again. Cheap and cheerful, a useful freezer standby.
Black Farmer Sausages/Chipolatas are 39p off, so £2. Really good quality, these sausages should be the star of a meal, not a limp excuse that you have to combine with bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans and black pudding to take attention away from the fact that it's pig's squeak and bread in a skin!
Premier Deli Ham, the good stuff, any 2 for £2.
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Regular or Light versions, 60p.
Shippams Small Pastes (Beef, Crab, Salmon) 3 for £1.
Morrisons Simmer Soups (ie dried packet soup) 3 for 80p. Useful for adding to stews etc, and much cheaper than fancy casserole mixes or jars in sauces.
Morrisons Value Instant Custard Powder just 6p. Yes, 6p!Great to have in the cupboard for when you're too short of milk to make 'real' custard!
Morrisons also has a great range of British Grown apples, including my all-time favourite, the Egremont Russet!
Fortunately, we did pretty well today and have money left over for tomorrow when we go down to the market to see the Egg Man, and to BM and Aldi to pick up a few bits that were definitely cheaper there now we've had a chance to compare prices elsewhere!
Yet again, the kitchen has been fruity and steamy (ooh er, missus...) as I am determined to get my money's worth out of my jam-making kit!
Last Sunday we took a walk along to the ruins of the old Newhouses slums, and went foraging along the path to Arrowthwaithe Woods. We found plenty of rosehips and hawthorn berries, but the crab apples were out of reach and, disappointingly, there are no elderberry bushes in the area at all that we could find. We collected some hips and haws, and on Monday morning I set about combining them with our foraged blackberries (gathered before the 1st October when the Devil spits on them!) and yet more of next doors' apples to produce a few jars of Hedgerow Jelly.
And yesterday Dave went out into the garden and brought in the final harvest - some (mostly green) tomatoes, and a couple of peppers which I combined with apples and onions to make 'Last Pickings' Chutney. It was lovely to smell the fruits and the spices and the onions mingling with Aspall Cider Vinegar (from Suffolk, close to my roots!) and I would recommended chutney-making to anyone suffering from congestion - I don't think my sinuses knew what had hit them!
In all there are 14 jars of jams, jellies marmalades and chutneys in the pantry and my husband is muttering about needing to put up more shelves...!
Because of my current obsession with jam-making, my husband ended up going shopping alone this week...!
We are well stocked up on most things so he only had to do a basic shop - hence no more attention than necessary was spent looking for bargains. David has yet to embrace shopping as a sport akin to Big Game Hunting, but rather as a necessary evil, to be done and recovered from as soon as possible!
But he did turn up a rather good bargain in the Cheese department at Morrisons, where their own 380g Mature Cheddar costing £3.49 is on a BOGOF.
That's a whole lot of cheese for your money!
The big discovery this week was Dairyfine Chocolate at 79p per bar at Aldi. Unfortunately there is nothing left to check the weight of the bars (hem hem!) but they are a good size.
In our taste tests ( oh yes, very scientific...) we found that the Dark Chocolate bar was not bad at all for the price, good and chocolately and rich enough to be (relatively) long lasting.
The Milk Chocolate, on the other hand, was a real surprise. it doesn't pretend to be anything like the well-known market leaders, and instead has a hint of vanilla and caramel about it, slightly reminiscent of Caramac bars. Unusual, very pleasant, and unbelievably more-ish. And no, there isn't any more, ish or otherwise. Sorry.
