![]() We call this Almost Instant Fudge because it's really quick to make and has just two ingredients - yes, just two ingredients. To present this as a gift I like to repurpose a gift box or a pretty jar. Just recently I picked up Moccona jars for 50 cents each from the op shop, and they are perfect for packaging treats, including fudge and even Grandma's Shortbread Almost Instant Fudge Ingredients: 2 packets choc melts 1 tin condensed milk Method: Combine the choc melts and the condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl. Cook on HIGH in 30 second bursts, stirring between each burst, until the chocolate has melted and is completely mixed into the condensed milk. Pour into a well buttered 20cm square pan. Let set about 10 minutes, then carefully mark into squares. Place in the fridge to set completely. You can add chopped nuts or dried fruit to the fudge after cooking. You can also trim the cost by using MOO Condensed Milk. I buy choc melts on sale all year round and keep them in the freezer ready to use.
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This hamper comes complete with the ingredients for MOO Pancake Syrup, MOO Hotcakes and the tip sheets with full recipes in a neat gift hamper making it portable, the ideal gift for the family heading off on holidays.
Cheapskates Hotcakes Hamper You will need: Mum's Secret Hotcakes & Moo Pancake Syrup Tip Sheet Large paper lunch bags 2 x ziplock sandwich bags 1 x 250ml glass bottle with a leak-proof stopper (an old mint sauce bottle is good) 2 cups SR flour 1/4 cup milk powder (skim or full cream) 2 tsp sugar 2 cups brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla sugar Optional - cast iron pancake pan - from specialty stores, around $5 Instructions: Print the tip sheets. Mix the SR flour, powdered milk and sugar together and put into a ziplock bag and label "Hotcake Mix". Place the brown sugar and vanilla sugar into another ziplock bag and label "Pancake Syrup Mix". Decorate the front of one paper bag with "Hotcake Mix" and another with "Pancake Syrup". Decorate a third paper bag with the words "Cheapskates Hotcakes Hamper". Place the hotcake mix and the pancake mix into this bag along with the small glass bottle. Fold the tip sheet and slip into the paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over and staple shut. Attach a gift tag. This shortbread makes a wonderful gift, on its own in a pretty box or on a nice plate, or teamed with a special tea or coffee and a nice cup and saucer. It's also gender neutral - anyone can enjoy homemade shortbread.
Grandma's Shortbread - $3.55 Ingredients: 250g butter $2.50 1/2 cup castor sugar 25c 1-1/2 cups plain flour 30c 2/3 cup rice flour 50c Method: Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift flours together. Using fingertips gradually work flours into butter mixture until combined. Knead on a floured surface until smooth. Roll out to about 2cm thick. Cut into circles or fingers. Put on buttered trays. Sprinkle with castor sugar if wanted. Prick top of biscuits with a fork. Bake until firm and light golden around edges, about 15 - 20 minutes. Cool on cake rack. Store in airtight container. This is no ordinary run 'o the mill hamper - this is a Cheapskates Style Cleaning Hamper - the best gift ever for the practical people on your gift list.
It will come in at under $20. Cleaning Hamper - $16.10 You will need: 1 plastic bucket - 80c Laundry soap - $2.00 Washing soda - $4.00 Borax - $4.10 White vinegar $1.20 1 packet microfibre cleaning cloths $4.00 Cleaning Tips Grandma Used Cheapskates Washing Powder Print Tip Sheet. Pack all the items into the bucket, wrap with cellophane and tie in a bow with ribbon. You should find all the items at your local supermarket, but if you have time, you'll do better on prices for the microfibre cloths at $2 shops or even a hardware store. For the laundry soap, generic or store brand is fine. A box of four cakes is around $2.20, and you'll find it in the laundry aisle, usually towards the bottom of the shelves. Washing soda (or sodium carbonate) is from the laundry aisle. The common brand name is Lectric Soda, it's in a white packet with red writing on it. You may need to search for it, but it will be there. Borax is the mystery item on this list. Not all supermarkets keep it on the shelf, both my local Coles and Woolworths do, but you need to search for it. It's in the cleaning aisle, towards the pest control section. At Coles the brand is Bare Essentials, in a white tub with a pink lid. If you can't find it at the supermarket, don't despair. You'll get it at a hardware store, and definitely at Bunnings. For the microfibre cloths, if you have the time to zip into your favourite $2 shop, they'll be much cheaper than at the supermarket. If you're pressed for time, check the prices at the supermarket before you toss them in the trolley. Coles sell a pack of three - dusting, glass and kitchen - for $4, Simply Clean. And they're labelled so you know what their use is. MOO Butter
Ingredients: 600ml cream Pinch salt 1 cup ice cold water You will need: A stand mixer, hand mixer or food processor (all will work, the stand mixer and food processor are the easiest to use) A bowl A sieve or cheesecloth (I prefer the cheesecloth) First things first, get your cream. The higher the fat content, the more butter you'll get per litre of cream and the nicer the butter will be, so skip the reduced fat creams and go for a good pure cream, or thickened cream or a full fat whipping cream. Tip that cream into the bowl of your mixer. You can use a handheld mixer or a food processor - both will turn your cream into butter just as easily as the stand mixer. Turn the mixer to medium speed and leave it for about 4 - 5 minutes. You'll see the cream thicken, then start to curdle, then you'll notice that it is separating and there will be liquid in the bottom of the bowl. This is the buttermilk. Don't waste it, you can use it in baking in place of milk or water. The creamy, yellow "butter" will be in clumps around the sides of the bowl. Now you need to get the butter to form one clump and completely separate from the buttermilk. To do this you'll need about 1 cup of ice cold water. I usually put a cup of cold water in the freezer for about half an hour before I start butter making. Turn the mixer back on and very slowly pour in about a quarter cup of the ice cold water. You'll see all the butter will clump together and there will be even more buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Take a sieve and place it over a bowl. Tip the butter and the buttermilk into the sieve. Now, with clean hands, you need to pick up the clump of butter and gently squeeze. You'll see more buttermilk coming out. Keep squeezing gently, until you can't get any more buttermilk from the butter. The aim is to remove all the buttermilk as the more you can remove the better your butter will keep. Once you've squeezed all the buttermilk from the butter you're done. You have lovely, fresh, unsalted butter. To add a little flavour to the butter, stir through a pinch or two of salt. I use a fork to mash the salt into the butter. Put the butter in a dish and keep it in the fridge for up to eight weeks. Pour the buttermilk into a jug and it will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge And there you have it, fresh butter in 20 minutes. From the September 2017 Cheapskates Journal One question I get every year, usually just after Christmas, is do I think that the Christmas hampers available on the lay-by system are worth the money? And every year my answer is an emphatic no. Because when you break them down, they cost a lot more than the same items would if you were to source them yourself. When you MOO your Christmas hampers you choose what goes into it (you're not stuck with foods you don't like and will never use). You also get to choose when to buy those things (if you're smart you started with the non-perishables earlier in the year and bought them on half-price sale or even better, on clearance). And you choose how much of each thing to put into your hamper. Cheapskaters have their own methods of getting amazing Christmas hampers at rock bottom prices that have exactly what they want in them. If you're not familiar with it, I recommend the Joyco Hamper method. Joyofquilting is a long time Cheapskates Club member (she's also the inventor of Miracles Spray) and a few years ago she posted her template for her very own Joyco Hamper. Joy starts her Christmas grocery shopping early in the year, buying and stockpiling non-perishables and baking supplies and she uses her very detailed hamper template.
I usually start my Christmas/New Year grocery shopping in September and have it all finished when I do the November the shop. The bonus for me is that I buy enough to keep me out of the supermarket until it's time to do the March grocery shop the next year. Then the only things I buy are milk, eggs, bread and some fruit and veg, and only because I can't store enough of those things and keep them fresh for long enough. Why? Mainly because I loathe shopping in the heat and battling crowds during December and shopping during January doesn't appeal either - I want to enjoy our summer holidays. Having the Joyco Hamper template to work off helps me to remember to include the Christmas treats on my shopping lists. Things like ham, turkey, chocolate almonds, drinks, nuts, extra dried fruits, even the bon bons and candles for the table. And I can assure you my version of the Joyco Hamper doesn't cost anywhere $800, or even $400 a la the DIY version on the news. No siree! I budget $120 for our hamper and it includes all of the above, plus the extra veggies, serviettes, cheeses, dips, crackers, olives, pudding and cake ingredients and so on. Enough of my rambling, the point of this post is to share the Joyco Hamper template with you - just click here to download your copy.. As we Cheapskaters have been known to say, "make it your own". Use it as is or add or delete according to your needs. And smile as you shop for your Joyco Hamper because you'll be saving an absolute bundle. ![]() Oranges are cheap at the moment, and the quality is excellent. Don't forget to check the label to make sure you are buying Australian oranges to ensure they are top quality and of course to support Australian farmers. This cake uses a whole orange and just four other basic pantry items, making it quick and easy. Whole Orange Cake Ingredients: 1 whole orange 1 1/2 cups sugar 3 eggs 1 1/4 cups oil 2 cups SR flour Method: Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place the whole orange, sugar, eggs and oil in a food processor and blend well. Add sifted flour. Whizz until flour is mixed into orange mixture. Bake in a greased and lined loaf tin for 45 minutes until cooked. Note: Olive oil gives a very moist cake but can leave a “taste”. I like to use half vegetable oil, half olive oil. The result is a lovely moist cake without the taste of the olive oil. This is the original recipe as given to me. I have tweaked it somewhat to suit our eating habits, and the result is a delicious, moist cake, that is more nutritious. After all eating a healthy diet doesn't have to mean eating a dull diet. The recipe I now make swaps wholemeal spelt flour for the self-raising flour and unsweetened apple sauce for the oil. I also cut the amount of sugar in the recipe and replace one of the eggs with flax seed and water (a great egg substitute). The result is a very moist cake, almost a mud cake texture. I also bake it in cupcake papers just to make it go further. I get 24 large cupcakes from the recipe and they take approximately 18 minutes to cook, depending on your oven. I'd start checking them after 15 minutes. The cakes are done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Every household has at least one lurking in the freezer to the back of a kitchen cupboard. It may come out in summer, but once the weather cools down it's forgotten again.
The humble ice cube tray can do so much more in the kitchen than make ice cubes. Freezing your leftover food into cubes will save you a lot of money. Food cubes are all the rage at the moment (have you seen the frozen smoothie cubes and the frozen baby food cubes in the supermarket? Have you seen the price of them!) so save yourself time, and money and make your own with food you know you use. But how can you tell how much gravy or tomato paste or lemon juice is in a cube? Some measurements to make using your cubes easy: 1 regular sized ice cube compartment holds 2 tablespoons of liquid. 2 cubes is the equivalent of 1/4 cup of liquid 4 cubes is the equivalent of 1/2 cup of liquid 8 cubes is the equivalent of 1 cup of liquid Knowing this makes it easy to pull out the right number of cubes for your recipe. ![]() I have been making these cup cakes for ages, and until last weekend no one knew they had sweet potato or flaxseed in them. They are so good, and so much like little mud cakes that unless you know they are packed with lots of goodness you really won't know. If you want to get some extra nutrition into your family, without them knowing, and still give them a sweet treat, try these little cakes. The secrets are to make sure the sweet potato is very soft and very well mashed, almost a puree, so that it combines completely with the dry ingredients, and to beat the oil/egg/flaxseed mixture for at least 5 minutes, so that it is very thick and fluffy. Do not be tempted to skimp on the time or your cakes will be dry, hard little rocks. Ingredients: 1 cup of mashed sweet potato 1 ¼ cups of spelt flour ¼ cup of unsweetened cocoa 1 teaspoon bicarb soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/8 teaspoon of salt ½ cup of buttermilk ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup of olive oil ½ cup of raw sugar 1 large egg 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal soaked 2 tablespoons of water Method: 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare patty pans. 2. Prick one medium sweet potato with a fork (a lot) and cook in microwave for 5 minutes turning every minute. 3. Combine dry ingredients into a bowl (flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt 4. Combine buttermilk, vanilla and sweet potato until well blended. If you want to keep the sweet potato a secret, make sure you get rid of any sweet potato chunks no matter how small. 5. In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium high, beat the oil while slowly adding the sugar. Add the egg, flaxseed meal and water – 1 at a time. Beat for 5 minutes. This is important, don't be tempted to skip this step or even shorten the time. 6. On low speed add the sweet potato mix, then the flour mix. 7. Use a 1/4 cup measure to fill patty pans and bake 15 – 20 minutes. Test after 15 minutes, as these cakes do not take well to being over-cooked. 8. Cool on a cake rack, then ice with your favourite chocolate icing. Ingredients:
500g mince 2 tins baked beans 250g grated mozzarella 250g grated tasty cheese 250g cottage cheese 2 tins tomato soup 1 tin diced tomatoes 1 large onion, diced 1 tsp dried basil 1 clove garlic, crushed Lasagne noodles Method: Brown meat, garlic, basil and onions; drain. Whizz baked beans until they resemble the mince. Combine baked beans, meat, tomato soup, diced tomatoes and simmer. Use 9"x13" cake pan. Pour just enough sauce to cover bottom of pan. Layer raw (uncooked) noodles, sauce, half mozzarella, half tasty cheese and cottage cheese until all used up. Cover with foil. Refrigerate overnight. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 1 hour. Can be frozen after overnight refrigeration. Notes: Stretch this meal further by adding 1 cup TVP that has been soaked in 1 cup boiling water for five minutes to the mince after browing. From Debt Free, Cashed Up and Laughing |
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