Are Muffins the ultimate budget cake ?

You may have spotted that my posts so far this year have been alphabetical. I needed to keep posting but I knew that it was unlikely that I would be cooking anything worth talking about for awhile due to lack of time and lack of money…so thought I’d challenge myself.

As it is the black dog has taken up residence in the house and I have run out of plain flour…hence 2 posts in a row about muffins. The great thing about muffins is you can use almost any flour, any type of fat (although you might not get quite so nice a flavour with lard), and put anything in it. You can also tart them up into something a bit special with icing.

They are the ultimate baked goody for the credit crunch, and you can freeze them ! I am surprised that I have managed to restrict myself to only 2 books dedicated to these lovely little morsels of heaven (mind you there are enough recipes elsewhere anyway) . These are Perfectly Simple Muffins: Steven Stellingwerf and Muffins Fast and Fantastic: Susan Reimer. Of the 2 I would say that Muffins Fast and Fantastic is the most useful as it has a great section at the beginning giving advice as to how to tweak the given recipes to work best for alternative types of flour or fat. Also there is a great section about freezing and the best methods for defrosting.

Savoury muffins are a revelation. I had never considered these until I came across the Welsh Rarebit Muffins in Nigella’s Nigella Bites but since then they have become a regular addition to my freezer stash for emergency packed lunches. I tend to make some standard size muffins and some fairy cake size especially for Spider as I’m not sure he could manage a full size one as yet

Unfortunately I am finding it hard at the moment to have sufficient PMA (what management books call “positive mental attitude”) to drag myself into the kitchen to try and bake myself happy…but when I do I shall be making some cheese and herb muffins for next weeks lunches.

Home Baked thought for the week. Management would get more out of their staff if they actually talked to them and then listened to what they said in return… unfortunately some seem to think that stressing you out is the best way to make you perform !

Roll on pay day, its always easier to feel positive when the bank account is not so empty…

Blue Friday

Feeling down again today. Don’t usually come into Reading on a friday, and whats more I’m working here all day, having used my leave to cover the time I spent in yesterday’s traffic jam.

Yesterday’s problems are still there waiting to be dealt with, I had fun in Stratford yesterday but that was really a more enjoyable form of sticking my head in the sand.

The financial problems are the easier one to sort out. Don’t know how to sort out the boundary issue, both choices (instruct a solicitor or employ a builder to finish off the work we didn’t have done in February because of that woman claiming that it would mean going over the boundary of the properties), are likely to prove expensive.

How Did We Get Here ?

Bit of a philosophical question for this time in the morning. You will be please to know that I am not about to launch into a discussion of life the universe and everything but instead an explanation as to how two sensible people with a  reasonable income, without profligate spending habits could have let themselves get into such a financial hole…we planned it.

 

Yes our financial situation is a result of planned agreed actions, and one or two unforeseen but predictable events.

 

Two years ago we bought this house, despite the fact it was far too small for 2 households to live in. We put down just over a 10% deposit; obtained a moderate mortgage, well within our incomes, fixed for 5 years. Then 8 months later after more budgeting and planning we moved everything we owned into the garage whilst a very nice man called Chris took the back and front off our house.

 

Our extension was paid for by the money Husband had left over from selling his house, the sale of an endowment policy (which we had been planning to use in 2011 for a family world trip) and 2.5 years of child benefit. About a month into the build Husband accepted a voluntary redundancy offer – seemed sensible to go now rather than to wait until they finally moved the rest of the office to Poland (or Milton Keynes). Husband concentrated on project managing, ensuring we stuck to the budget.

 

It wasn’t that we went over the budget really that caused the problem. We redid our sums and estimated that we could afford a bank loan to deal with most of the cost overruns and tighten our belts a bit. The problem was that just as we finished the build the costs of everything else started going up, specifically diesel which, when you have a daily commute of 134 miles, causes a big hole in your carefully planned budget. Add to that the cost of electricity, gas and food and unexpected problems such as the clutch pedal breaking one day in the middle of the commute and you suddenly find that one salary no longer covers the bills and each month the gap gets wider and wider.

 

We took what action we could. Kept our heads vaguely above water with the occasional sale of a big value item (husband’s motorbike, camera equipment). I periodically sold books through Amazon, switched suppliers, changed insurers, kept an eye on the grocery budget – but we kept sinking.  I arranged with my employers to work 2 days in an office closer to home and asked to go back full time whilst Husband looked for employment. Unfortunately it took 9 months longer than anticipated for Husband to find a new job and it took 3 months for employers to agree to me going back to full time employment.

The cupboard is bare

Actually that’s not quite true. I know this because I did a stock take the other night to establish what we have/have not as all our various resources are low.  I used up the last of the plain flour on Tuesday night making the Baseline Brownies and can’t justify buying any more until next Thursday as all the bank accounts, those that are not already drastically overdrawn, are dangerously low.

The more serious problem is that I can’t afford to put fuel in the car in order to go to work. My home work journey is 134 mile round trip. I used to do this journey by train but it is 50% cheaper by car. I have negotiated with work that I will occasionally work out of a local office nearer home but somehow I think they would object if I spend all next week in a different office.

We have been surviving this week by creative cooking and lucky bargains from the local co-op.

Monday – end of date sausages and mini baked potatoes. I made more pumpkin soup for my lunches out of the pumpkin my Dad grew.

Tuesday- “hope” omelette, as in “I hope this tastes OK”, primarily leftover potatoes and roast lamb bound together with egg. Husband had the leftover sausages from Monday as his lunch.

Wednesday – Toad in the hole with more reduced sausages and mini bakers.

Tonight I intend to use the leftover potato from yesterday with the remains of the pumpkin to make gnocchi. Using rye flour instead of plain and making a sauce from onions (the only veg left in the fridge), passata (soooo cheap from Aldi) and the meat from the remaining 2 uncooked sausages.

Can still make Toddler some muffins though as I still have SR Flour (along with several other more exotic types of flour) and a big bag of prunes which he won’t touch (doesn’t like the colour) unless I cunningly disguise it as something tasty. I may have to try my hand at bread dough as it is a truth universally acknowledged that children will eat almost anything if it comes in the form of pizza. Suspect that might not include lentils though…