6 links of chorizo sausage (or any spicy sausage… or dispense with sausage)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
two chilli peppers (any variety, I used kashmiri)
left over veg of some description - in my case celery, carrots, cabbage, courgette and frozen peas
black-eyed beans (can or dried)
kidney beans (can or dried)
tomato puree
long grain rice

PLUS

the entire contents of your spice rack (almost)

(I used; cajun mix, paprika, chilli powder, coriander, parsley (fresh), rosemary (fresh), thyme, bay leaf, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder)

Fry the chopped onion and sausage in a little bit of water to stop it sticking. (I use water instead of oil because it doesn’t make much difference to the taste, is healthier, and stops that annoying ‘congealed fat’ effect on leftovers)

Add crushed garlic and chilli peppers. Also fresh chopped herbs, and hot spices e.g. paprika

Add rice, and stir in the rest of the spices. Make sure rice is well coated.

Add boiling water (or stock)

Add canned beans

Add chopped veg

Add tomato puree

Mix and bring to boil

Simmer for an hour or so

Adjust seasoning to taste

Eat and enjoy.

I managed to feed three people, and get six containers of leftovers. Because most of the ingredients were leftovers (the veg, the kidney beans) or stuff anybody should have on hand anyway (onion, garlic) the recipe came in pretty cheap. The sausage was a lucky find, honestly, it was reduced on the fresh meat counter and I’d probably dispense with it as there is plenty of protein supplied by the beans and peas. I’d estimate about £3.50 - £4 depending on availability of fresh grown herbs etc and assuming the sausage is a steal or dispensed with.

ALSO

Happy Pancake Day. I forgot, until Katie reminded me. I didn’t make pancakes in the end, because I couldn’t be arsed. I’m debating what to give up for lent… I can’t actually think of any bad habits I need to quit at the moment! More, good habits I need to instil, like exercising more.

Bento 56

Though I won’t have any left-over stir-fry until Wednesday, as we are having it for dinner Tuesday night.

I also made some vanilla sugar cookies, which should hopefully last me until Friday >.>; Although the sweet things always seem to go faster than planned around here.

Today has rocked hardcore style. I did so much stuff. I got up at 6am (but then went back to bed until 8am - blame it on me trying to stay up and watch the Superbowl with Phil.) After I DID get up though, I did the following:

- Did laundry
- Did dishes
- Made meal plan
- Went to dentist
- Did food shopping (£25 for the week, booyah)
- Got taken out to lunch by my Mother of Awesome… we went to an all you can eat multi-cuisine buffet that was really good. They had loads of veggie options too. Me, Mum, P. and my brother. Fun times
- Got a floor lamp for the living room so it’s not like ‘perma-darkness’ … also paid for by Mother of Awesome.
- Bought some cereal bowls for me and P. FINALLY after planning on buying them for months (since at least the last time I went to Wales). £2 each, but they are pretty good quality.
- Hung laundry
- Did dishes again (!)
- Made pea-burgers and carrot salad for the week.
- Made sugar cookies

Now I am going to go and have a bath and feel proud of myself. YES.

…..

I am so ridiculously domestic o.x

- Two tuna steaks, rubbed in cajun spices (buy pre-mix, or blend your own I don’t care)
- Get a frying pan nice and hot, then chuck them in and cook for a minute both sides
- Grill until done to your preferred doneness

- Long grain rice (brown, white, wild - WTFever), cooked in stock (vegetable or chicken, whatever you have on hand)
- Some courgette (zucchini) or some kind of squash-like vegetable.
- Some spring onions (green onions) chopped up
- One chilli pepper (any variety will do)

Chuck it all in a pot, and cook rice until all the stock is absorbed (NOTE: Easy rule of thumb, you want double the amount of water/stock as you have rice. So…. I measure my rice now in my measuring jug instead of on my scales. Or you can eyeball it. Whatever!)

- Add spicy herbs - chilli powder, paprika, more cajun spices basically. Salt, pepper. Basil. Whatever. The vague goal is to make the rice turn ‘dirty’ i.e. browny-red.

Anyway. The results are in the side bar. Not amazing, but not terrible either, for a very part-time business. Sadly, in the last couple of months a few clients hired me, and then either decided to go elsewhere, or disappeared off the face of the earth, which was a bit demotivating, but I reckon I can tackle some more projects now. (We shall see)

I bought P. a couple of video games, and a controller, and he bought me a skype phone and a camera. In theory this should mean more phone calls, more photographs, more ’stuff’ but I suspect in truth it will not… especially given that I’m still sitting in my nightshirt after midday!

Okay… time to clean the house I think…!

I have exactly £25 in my bank account right now.

In the last 7 months I have:

Paid off £1,278 of Overdraft debt.
Bought a £500 computer
Saved a £490 emergency fund.

Plan:

Learn to drive
Pay off at least £500 ‘extra’ of my student loan. I want it under £10 grand by next december.

Of course, back then I was planning on house sharing in Cambridge.

Anyway, we did sort of do some things - we went to Manchester for the NINJA concert, as opposed to going to the Eden Project.

Most of it was dependent on getting my bills down and my income up, though. And since that didn’t happen, most of the rest of the stuff didn’t either. I still want to join a martial arts group, but there is no way I could afford subs or clothing.

I also couldn’t risk building MR up, when I can barely stay on top of the work that I have!

Knowing that we have the next costly step of the immigration process next year, and the leery spectre of learning to drive hanging over my head, I’m not sure that anything should be planned for….

So yeah. Watch this space.

Tonight is Halloween. I don’t know if we’ll get a lot of trick-or-treaters on the main road though. We were invited to a party at a pub last minute, but we have no costumes so probably won’t go.

My internet is being bloody crap at the moment which is annoying me. It keeps hanging and chugging slower than molasses. Given that I pay over the odds for it, it’s even more annoying than it would otherwise be. Because of it’s slowness, I had to upload some files and then set an alarm for 3am so I could wake up when they would finally be done!

Also, I want to buy a kitchen compost bin. It looks cool. But it’s £20. I’m so poor!

But I do have an emergency fund now £500 and growing!

I am starting to see the reward for the slog though - money that came in so far this month

£53.71 from one project
£130 from another
£70 from a third.

and I need to send an invoice for $380
I have a cheque for £100 on its way.

Someone is coming to look at it on Monday to see if they want to rent it. Heh.