Saturday Sandwich 39: Christmas Sandwich

I wasn't going to do a sandwich this week but apparently the book has this Christmas leftover sandwich and on Boxing Day we were having that anyway :D

It's a vague recipe just using whatever you have left after Christmas dinner.  We had chicken, stuffing, sprouts and bread sauce. Then added sliced pickled onions and some cheese as suggested by the recipe.

 Butter some bread. One of my favourite things at Christmas is just chicken or turkey in bread and butter with a sprinkling of salt, yum!

 Add all your leftovers.

 Top with some cheese.

 Look at that awesome sprout cross-section.

We had ours with leftover broccoli casserole (which is one of the best food ideas JD brought with him from America in my opinion and a firm Christmas favourite now).

It was great as expected! The pickled onion was an interesting addition to my usual leftover sandwich but I liked it. We both very much enjoyed this sandwich and that's all there is to say about it. I know that because I've been sat with this page open for 20 minutes trying to think of something to say :D

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 3

P.S. Yes we have chicken for Christmas dinner instead of turkey. I realise this goes against tradition but we just like chicken more. :)

Christmas Crafting for the Frugal

This year I finally got around to making a couple of things I usually have to buy each time Christmas comes around.

Each year I buy a Christmas tablecloth. Just a cheap disposable one that gets thrown away afterwards. It costs £2 each time though so I decided to make one from material that will get used every Christmas.

A tablecloth is among the easiest things to make ever. I bought 2 metres of material for £12 and then hemmed it with pins along all four sides. Then I quickly machine sewed around all the edges.

I'm really pleased with how it looks and I'm already planning to add a table runner and maybe napkins next year.

My second thing to make was a reusable wreath for our front door. We usually buy one for about £9 from the local florist but this year I decided to make one. I had a look around online and decided on a pom pom wreath in traditional Christmas colours.

I bought some red and green wool for £3 a ball plus some ridiculously fluffy snow-like white wool for £2 a ball. I gathered some scissors and cardboard for making up the pom poms.

 I'd bought this polystyrene wreath in Hobby Lobby when we were in America last August but I've seen them in craft shops over here too. Cover it with wool to hide the polystyrene look of it.

Then just make lots of pompoms, as many as you can before it becomes tedious! I got bored of it quite quickly but JD came to the rescue to help me out and we got most of them done together.

Add the pom poms to the wreath by tying them on with the wool you used to finish off each pom pom.

I'm pleased with how it looks and it was made for roughly £10 (a bit less because there's loads of wool left) so about the cost of a usual wreath that lasts one Christmas. Plus our wreath is unique.

I feel very frugal ^_^

Have a lovely Christmas everyone xx

Saturday Sandwich 38: Queen Alexandra's Sandwich

Alexandra was married to Edward VII making her the Queen of Great Britain. After moving here from Denmark she's said to have enjoyed this sandwich made up of her favourite foods.

Recipe here ---> Queen Alexandra's Sandwich

To start with you make up some mustard butter using butter, mustard and a dash of lemon juice. Spread it on some bread.

 Add tongue slices.

 Add the chicken. This is a poached chicken breast cut up in mayonnaise with salt, pepper and a bit of hot sauce.

 Next add cress.

 Cut off the crusts and cut into tiny dainty triangles.

 Here's a sandwich we made but left the crusts on for comparison.

This was a surprisingly great sandwich. We both a felt a little weird eating the tongue (especially since it's got the tongue shapes to remind you) but it tasted good. The mayo chicken was a lovely texture and moistened the sandwich. The mustard butter added a delicious flavour. As expected the cress added nothing to the sandwich except a slightly fancy overtone. The sandwich was actually way better with no crusts and I wished I'd de-crusted both sandwiches :D

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 4

Probably won't do a Saturday Sandwich next week since it's Christmas but we'll be back making sandwiches in the New Year. Happy Christmas everyone xx

Our Dream of Downsizing

JD and I would love a smaller house.

It's not something most people aspire to in fact I'd say it's the norm for most families to want a bigger house. They feel they've outgrown the house they're in (usually because of the amount of possessions the average family has so they run out of storage space) or they want to move up the property ladder. It's what we're all ingrained to want in this material world. A bigger house, a bigger car, more possessions etc etc. Having a big house shows people what a success your life has been. A bigger house usually means a bigger mortgage and having to work more though.

What we'd love to be able to do is to save up and build our own small house. It'd be great to have no rent or mortgage to pay. We'd get solar panels and a windmill to help with energy costs too. We'd reduce our possessions down to accommodate the downsizing and take pleasure in having less stuff.

A small house would be easier to maintain, there would be less housework and  it'd be easier to heat a smaller space in the winter. Which would make it better for the environment, less energy used to heat it but also less energy used in building it with less materials used etc.

In case you're wondering exactly how small of a house we want you can read this story about a couple who built their own small house: http://news.distractify.com/abby-s-marino/itty-bitty-house/?v=1

What we love about a house like this is that no space is wasted in it. There are cupboards everywhere and areas for different things are only just as big as you need. It's perfect. Lots of bigger houses have wasted space. It's a particular dislike of JD's that houses all have fireplaces/chimneys which aren't used but take up space from rooms the chimney goes through.

It's not something that would be practical for right now because of our kids. Maybe we'll wait and plan to have a home like this when the kids are older and moved out. Or maybe we'll have a slightly bigger house for a family version, still smaller than most family homes.

For now it's just a dream but one day we hope it becomes our reality.

Saturday Sandwich 37: Confit Duck Sandwich

I didn't really want to post this sandwich up because it was a disaster but disasters happen and so they should be documented along with the rest :D

To start with today is Sunday, we forgot to take the duck out of the freezer for one thing and also neither of us checked the recipe which tells you to give the duck a salt rub and leave for 24 hours...oops!

So, we decided to have the sandwich on Sunday instead. We should have just abandoned it then and realised fate was against us.

Here's the recipe for you to try and may you have more luck with than us --> Confit Duck Sandwich

Ingredients: Duck legs, duck fat, bread rolls, salt, thyme, garlic and watercress

 JD made and applied the salt rub. Then we left it covered in the fridge overnight.

 We melted the duck fat in a pan and poured it over the duck legs. The salt rub is removed first. It goes in the oven at ...oh actually I just checked this and this is why it went wrong. We put it in at 225C but that was the Faranheit temperature. It should've been in at 110C which makes more sense since you cook it for 3 hours. Crap!

Anyway, not surprisingly our duck burned and the meat was all crispy and shrivelled up instead of soft and tender like it was meant to be.

 We only had enough meat for one sandwich so we added watercress and gave it a try.

 It was terrible. The meat was too crunchy to eat and it was unbearably salty too. We're not going to rate this sandwich since it'd be unfair to. We didn't taste the sandwich as it was meant to be. We'll do it again at some point instead.

Coming up next week: Queen Alexandra's Sandwich

Nudity and The Human Condition

Recently, a woman at Claridge's, a luxury hotel in London, was asked to cover up while breastfeeding her baby. If you're in England and have any media exposure you've probably heard about it, if you haven't here's a link. There are some absolutely uninteresting debates going on about that (in the sense that I can't believe we haven't moved past it as a society), but it got me thinking about something else when someone on the radio was quoted as saying "It's one of the most natural things there is." I agree with that, certainly. Being naked is also one of the most natural things there is. Simply having exposed breasts, nevermind feeding a baby with them, is perfectly natural. You might think I'm going to say something like "So just because something is natural doesn't mean you should do it in public," but in fact, I'm going to say completely the opposite of that.

 A body is something that everybody has. Whether you're rich or poor, black or white, in the southern hemisphere or northern, you've got a body. Everybody has the right to be proud of their body. Until we're a few years old, we get to enjoy that right. After that though, we're forced to cover up their bodies. Most children do not take kindly to that at first, as I'm sure most parents know. Children want to continue being naked, they want to enjoy their natural right to pride in their body.

The world we live in says your body is not good. You have to cover it up. Hide it away. The hidden message to all children when we introduce them to our civilized world and clothe them is that their bodies are dirty, possibly dangerous, and absolutely bad; this explains why so many adults have those ideas - they've had that hidden message given to them over a lifetime. The fact that the message is hidden is what makes it particularly effective. Every days, billions of people clothe themselves even when there's no legitimate need to protect them from the elements. As far as they know, there is no message, it's just what people do.

 Yet, if you look clearly and closely, the message is obvious. Your body is not fit to be seen. The only bodies most people see are their own, those on TV, in movies, and magazines. We all tend to be overly critical of ourselves, and the bodies we see in media are, of course, fake. It doesn't take anything more than that for physical self-esteem to plummet. We feel that way about our bodies, and we raise our children to feel that way simply by clothing them as we clothe ourselves. We have not enjoyed our natural right to our bodies, we have given it up in the name of civilization.

Those who say that breastfeeding is natural so it should be allowed are absolutely right, but they don't know just how far their argument goes if carried to its logical conclusion. Nearly any argument in favor of breastfeeding will also include such things as public nudity, yet the same people campaigning in favor of breastfeeding would not dream of campaigning for the right to bare all. They have made the connection between breastfeeding and our very nature, but have not yet made that connection between our bodies and our nature.

I suppose it's hard for me to reach a conclusion with this, simply because it's complicated and I'm also going against a lot of messages that society has built into me, which is a difficult thing to do. I'll just finish by saying that I believe enjoying our bodies and being proud of them is a big part of our humanity, and giving that up is giving up a lot. Maybe it's something to think about. What do you think?

- JD

Saturday Sandwich 36: Ploughman's Sandwich

I don't want to sound like the Hairy Bikers (especially since my Dad says I look like one of them) but Ooh I love a Ploughman's. It used to always be my pub food of choice whenever I got the chance to have one. I haven't had one for years though. A Ploughman's Lunch usually consists of bread, ham, cheese, pickle, apple and if you're lucky a bit of pork pie too.

Now to experience it all in sandwich form! :)

Ingredients: bread, ham, cheese, apple, sandwich pickle, mayo, spring onions and lettuce.

 Aw yeah, the best bit. Branston pickle on one slice of bread and mayo on the other.

 Layer up the sandwich with ham and cheese slices then add a layer of finely sliced apple.

 Next some chopped spring onions.

 Finish off with lettuce.

Serve with some pickled onions.

The best thing about this sandwich was JD's face when he bit into a pickled onion. He's had them before but only the sweeter silverskin ones and these were really strong. The sandwich was good and had lots of my favourite sandwich components in it. The Branston pickle was the strongest taste and had a nice chunky texture too. The apple didn't add much and I felt actual onion instead of spring onions would've been better.  It was a nice sandwich though and we both enjoyed it.

Ratings: JD - 2, Emma - 3

Coming up next Saturday - Confit Duck Sandwich

The Cost of Christmas

I just clicked on a news article that claimed the average spend on presents per child this Christmas will be about £312. That led to me reading a forum thread on NetMums where they discussed it. Lots of people said they spent less that £312 and plenty admitted they spent that or more each Christmas.

I read the comments for about half an hour and as expected with most internet discussions...it turned hostile. Parents who spent less judged the ones that spent more and vice versa. It seemed every parent thought that what they spent was the right amount.

And it is, under the right circumstances. Apparently 47% of parents feel pressured to spend more than they can afford. Often leading to credit card/loan debt that has to be paid off for several months after Christmas. As parents the urge is strong to spoil your children and to give them a 'perfect' Christmas whether you can afford to or not. I've occasionally worried we don't spend enough money on our kids at Christmas but who's to say how much is enough. Do you really need to 'spoil' your kids with presents to create happiness.

I have a general feeling that Christmas is too commercial. It's all about presents with adverts urging you to show someone you love them with diamonds, perfume, Ipads etc. If you have teenagers it's more pressure. We're made to feel that teenagers need the latest mobile, laptop or games console to keep up with their friends.

We've always spent the same on presents for Christmas whether we have more or less in the bank than usual. £50 per person for me, JD, Leigh and Erin plus £10-15 per other person we buy for. I feel that by most people's standards we don't spend very much. But with that money we manage to buy 6-7 things for each of the kids and something nice for everyone else. I sometimes make the odd present to keep the cost down and buy in the sales where possible.

I feel the thoughtfulness of the gift is what matters, not the expense of it. Everyone in our family gets presents off everyone else at Christmas time too so over-spending seems unnecessary.

We could afford to spend more but I feel I don't want to. Once you set the bar higher with kids you have to keep the level high or risk disappointment. I'd worry that spending a lot of money on them at Christmas would set them up for a life feeling like they deserve to have a lot of money spent on them. A feeling of entitlement. I want my kids to feel grateful for what they get instead of feeling ungrateful and expecting more.

That's just my opinion though and I imagine some parents will read this and just think we're stingy. Whatever anyone spends at Christmas-time is their business and I don't feel judgemental about it. I just wish everyone only spent what they could afford so there didn't have to be debt from buying too much.

Anyway, I love buying presents for Christmas and because I buy quite early I'm often impatient to give the present to see if the recipient likes it. I've already finished wrapping everything so now I have to wait for Christmas to come, argh!

Do you feel Christmas is a time to indulge children or are you more frugal like us? :D

Saturday Sandwich 35: The French Dip

The French Dip is a well known sandwich from Los Angeles. Two different restaurants claim to have invented it. One says it accidentally dropped a sandwich in some gravy and the other claims it was invented to cover up the use of dry bread. The latter seems more likely to be honest but no one knows the truth. Exciting, right?

There are lots of fancy French Dip recipes where you make your own gravy etc but we opted for a nice simple version.

There's a recipe here if you want to make your own ---> The French Dip Sandwich

Basically you make some beef and coleslaw sandwiches and then dip the sandwich in hot gravy before you take each bite. I love gravy but I'm fussy about what I eat it on. Gravy on chips...nope, gravy with bread...ugh, gravy on mashed potato, yorkshire puddings and roast beef...yes yes yes :) JD is less discerning with his gravy and will eat it on a slice of bread O_o

 Here's some dipping action so you can tell how it works :D

The French Dip is a delicious sandwich. I imagine it's even more delicious with some slow cooked beef and homemade gravy but ours was pretty great too. We're definitely going to try it again with slow-cooked beef so the kids can try it. Beef and coleslaw taste good together but the addition of some hot gravy really makes the sandwich. It's a messy sandwich to eat but that didn't bother us. Dipping the sandwich in gravy was a lot nicer than either of us expected. I really liked it and might even relax my gravy rules. I probably won't be able to stop JD from dipping all his food in gravy from now on.

Ratings: JD - 4, Emma - 3

Coming up next week - Ploughman's Sandwich

Saturday Sandwich 34: Frittata Sandwich

This sandwich is from the Leftovers section. I've had similar sandwiches before just using up eggs and cheese from the fridge. It's a vague recipe that uses up what you have and is useful for that reason.

Ingredients: eggs, goats cheese, red pepper, onion, bread, paprika, salt & pepper

Cut up the onion and red pepper. Saute it in a frying pan until softened. Mix up the eggs, paprika, salt & pepper. I added some mixed herbs too. You could any seasonings, herbs or vegetables to this recipe.

 Pour the eggs in to the frying pan and cook until the bottom is done. Flip it over and cook the other side. Cut up the goats cheese and sprinkle it on top.

Mix some tomato ketchup and hot sauce. Spread it over 4 slices of bread.

Fold the frittata in half over the cheese so it melts. Cut in half and use to (over)fill the sandwich.

I really loved this sandwich. The frittata was a lovely soft texture with a nice taste from the onion and pepper. The hot-sauced-up ketchup really spiced up the eggs giving a nice zing to the whole sandwich. The best thing about it was the goats cheese though. It oozed out from the frittata and was delicious. JD found the frittata too soft and commented that it's really hard to flip a frittata over. He's not wrong there! I'd definitely have this sandwich often. It's great :)

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 5

Coming next Saturday - The French Dip Sandwich

Homemade Gift Idea - Christmas Tree Decorations

I'm trying to be organised with Christmas presents this year. Which means starting making gifts before it's properly Christmas season! I started making some of these tree decorations in August to give to family.

Stuff You'll Need:

Scissors
Red and green felt
Red and green thread
Stuffing material
Assorted small buttons
Christmas ribbon

 I started off with a simple shape until I got the hang of it. This bauble shape is easy to do. Cut out the shape twice so you have a back and front. I used pinking shears to give a nice edge.

 Play around with the buttons to see how you're going to place them.

 Sew the buttons in place on one side of the bauble. I decided to leave the centre empty so I can add a personalised initial button or novelty Christmas button if I want to later.

 Sew both sides together using contrasting thread with a simple running stitch. Sew on a ribbon loop and stuff the bauble before you finish sewing it shut.

I think these tree decorations will make a nice thoughtful handmade gift for my family and will be something they can keep and use every Christmas. They were quick and easy to make and weren't expensive either. I also made some green tree shapes and different coloured baubles. All with initial buttons on to match the recipient's name.

There are lots of different ribbons available to buy and lots of other shapes you could use instead of these ones. See what you can come up with yourself. :)