Last minute peppermint bark for festive feasting

If you've never tried peppermint bark before, I can't recommend it enough. It's sweet, minty, melts in the mouth and everyone falls in love with it.

I started making it a couple of years ago after stumbling across it on a couple of US blogs, and now we're all hooked.

My mother-in-law can eat a whole tray of it in one sitting and she's not even a lover of chocolate, so it's now an essential part of our festive gift making. You can whip it up in hardly any time, it tastes gorgeous and requires no skill apart from the ability to melt chocolate without burning it (and not scoffing the results).

So, without further ado, here's how to make it:

Take 2 large bars of chocolate, one milk and one white, and at least 6 candy canes. I bought my chocolate from Aldi and my candy canes from WH Smith as they were on special offer (3 for 2). But I did spot candy canes in Aldi tonight - lovely green and red ones too that looked very festive.

First, melt your milk chocolate, either in a microwave if you trust it not to burn, or in a bowl over a pan of water. Spread your melted chocolate onto baking paper on a baking tray and pop it in the fridge. Don't worry about neat edges. We're making bark, rough and uneven is good.

Next, unwrap your candy canes and place them in a plastic bag. Then take a rolling pin to them and bash away to your heart's content. They need to be nicely broken up with lots of lovely peppermint tasting crumbs, but try to leave some chunky bits (about the size of your pinkie nail) too.

Then, melt your white chocolate. I always melt my white chocolate over pan of water on the hob as my microwave *always* burns it. When your white chocolate is melted, mix in the crushed candy candy and give it a quite mix before spreading the white chocolate/candy cane mix over the milk chocolate layer.

Pop it back in the fridge until it has completely set. I usually leave mine overnight, but an hour should do it. When it's completely set, peel your chocolate slab away from the baking paper, break into chunks and resist the temptation to scoff it all there and then.

Pop the 'bark' into pretty boxes or bags, add a festive ribbon and voila you have a couple of gifts to give that cost in total, about £3 to make if you source your chocolate and candy canes from Aldi or somewhere similar. Festive frugality that doesn't taste like you've skimped - genius.

Pop along to the Advent Blog Hop at Snafflesmummy and check out all the other lovely, festive ideas!

Frugal family fun

Waiting for the sugar rush of lunch to subside...

A wise person once told me that boys are like puppies. They need lots of loving attention, lots of food and even more exercise. It's pretty much the 3 rules we live by with 2 puppies small boys.

But what to do with 2 puppies boys in South London that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Now, if it were up to the 6 year old, we'd probably spend most weekends at Legoland. But frugal it ain't (unless you cash in Tesco clubcard vouchers, which is our only favourite way to do it).

Most weekends you can find us at a National Trust property. We have 5 fabulous properties within a 30 minute drive of home. Double that if we want to venture a bit further. Family membership costs us £70 a year by direct debit but Quidco often have cashback deals making it cheaper.

Now for the maths

To visit Chartwell, our closest and probably one of our favourite properties, it would cost us £28.50 as a family. Some properties are cheaper than this (nearby Emmets Garden is only £14 to visit as a family), but it only takes 3 visits to Chartwell for us to make a saving on our family membership. Given that we visit a property at least twice a month pretty much all year round, we save in the region of £700 a year on entry fees. In the height of summer, we sometimes go "Trusting" every weekend.

It's the gardens and grounds of these stately homes that attract us the most. Big open spaces for the boys to roam around in, a good dose of wildlife and the odd history lesson thrown in if they show interest. The National Trust also have a great programme of free events. Chartwell usually has a 'Boats and Bands' day (Wartime Weekend it's called this year) during the summer where a brass band plays on the lawn while model boat enthusiasts show off their miniature works of art on the lake. All the staff and volunteers dress up in their finest 1940s regalia and the atmosphere is brilliant. Boys + water + model boats + unlimited sandwiches = easy family fun.

We rarely venture into the properties themselves (plenty of time for that when the bull in a china shop tendencies wear off). Knole is the exception - the lure of the roaring fire in the great hall on a chilly autumn morning is too great to resist. But on the whole, we stick to roaming the grounds.

Rolling down hills at Chartwell

What's wrong with the good old fashioned outdoors?

Absolutely nothing. But the National Trust properties just really appeal to us. There's clean toilets for easier nappy changes, treasure/bug/plant hunts for those that tire of simply charging around an open space, many are buggy friendly so little people can snooze after lunch while the rest of the family explore and there's plenty of interesting features to keep the grown-ups/grandparents occupied without the little people getting bored. We all love the kitchen garden at Chartwell for example - the children love the scarecrows and bug hotels while I like to have a good nosy at what the gardeners have planted where. And we ALL like to play "imagine if we lived here".

There's also the added benefit of having access to a fresh pot of tea and a scone if we're feeling decadent enough to venture into the tea rooms/restaurant. But for us, half the fun is packing a picnic and enjoying the fresh air. Egg dip dip sandwiches are of course essential.

Climbing trees at Wakehurst Place

This isn't a sponsored post, I just love the National Trust and think it's fantastic value for money!

Frugal top tip #2

OK, frugal fans, hold onto your hats - this is a good un...

Flowers. I adore them. Tulips, daffodils, gerbera, peonies, roses, sweetpeas, hydrangea. Love them all. It's one of my secret indulgences to have a vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen table and another on the mantlepiece in the living room. They bring me so much joy every time I catch a glimpse of them or smell their sweet fragrance.

But boy is it a costly indulgence. It's not too bad if I stick to my beloved Aldi. Their tulips are pretty good but their display tends to lack variety and their bouquets can be a bit hit or miss. Some flowers last a whole week, others start to look a bit sad before I even manage to get them into a vase.

So thank goodness Aldi also sell seeds. Hurrah! So this year, I'm turing self-sufficient on the cut flowers front.

I've got sweetpeas* sown in about 4 different massive pots as well as over at the allotment.

3 giant pots contain a wildflower seed mix.

1 pot has cornflowers.

I'm also nurturing some cosmos and some snapdragons over on the allotment. (edit: the cosmos have succumbed to frost, but the snapdragons were alive and well when I last checked. Will sow some more cosmos this weekend - that's the great thing about grow your own. Just keep sowing!)

...and the cost? Under £5. For hopefully a whole summer of vases overflowing with cut flowers.

Cornflowers

The tender beginnings of glorious, fragrant sweetpeas

*I was sent some sweetpeas and a lovely planter from Febreze as part of the P&G Clean Up London campaign, but I'll blog about it properly when the rain stops long enough for me to take some half decent photos :)

Frugal top tip #1

On weekday mornings, this is my best friend:

Frugal top tip #1

Hubbie fills it with piping hot, freshly made coffee and off I go to catch my train.

It means I'm not tempted by the slew of fancy pants coffee shops I walk past on my daily commute. It saves me about £2 a day - probably more actually. I'm never able to just order a coffee, I'm always tempted to add a muffin or some other sweet treat as well.

£2 a day, £8 a week (based on working a 4 day week), £32 a month. £384 a year!

How's that for frugality?

Feeling frugal

So, in an effort to make Operation Relocation happen I've had to perform quite a major mind-shift. I've had to embrace my husband's frugal ways.

No more shoe shopping. *sob*

No more coffees on the way to work. *weep*

No more mercy dash into M&S on the way home for a yummy pudding/bar of chocolate/tub of whatever. *wail*

It's lentils all the way. *wibble*

But that's ok, because we've discovered some gorgeous lentil recipes and thankfully the boys are not fussy eaters. The meal we made on Sunday night was gorgeous and so simple, so I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else was feeling frugal:

Lentil and Sausage casserole
8 sausages (Aldi have a great selection that are under £1.50 and not too suspicious)
Half a pack of salami slices (we buy salami from Aldi, it's only 99p and it's delish)
300g of green lentils
1 litre of chicken stock (we had a roast chicken last week and made stock from the carcass)
2 medium carrots
1 onion
2 bay leaves

Saute the onion in some oil until golden, chop up the carrots and let them soften in the pan before adding the salami slices, lentils, sausages, bay leaves and chicken stock. Bring to the boil and let simmer gently for 30 minutes. Serve with some lovely fluffy rice in big bowls and enjoy!

Warning: the sausages do turn a rather alarming hue of green and do remember to fish out the bay leaves before you serve.

Tip: If you chop up the sausages, this recipe can easily serve 2 adults and 2 children with leftovers for another 2 dinners and 1 lunch.

Does anyone else have any scrummy lentil recipes? Do share!