Budget-friendly recipe ideas

When you have a great idea, sharing it allows other people to benefit from it as well. The lovely people in the oily rag community are happy to pass on their top tips to make the most of your budget and keep your home running smoothly. This week, they have gardening, food and DIY advice. Read on – and feel free to share any other excellent tips you have in the comments below!

DC writes, “All coffee outlets are keen to get rid of their used grounds, which when scattered over the garden, will keep the birds away for 2-3 weeks. The best time to collect from BP is late evening or mid-morning. Ask the attendants when they regularly put the coffee grounds out they might keep them for you – but you must not let them down.”

Take advantage of the free coffee and tea cards that some of the fast food outlets offer pensioners. One reader is a regular customer of a fast food chain and she never spends a cent!

A reader from Paraparaumu says don’t throw out the leftover tea. Strain the liquid and add it to fruit drinks for punch, or use it for cleaning paintwork. Tired wooden furniture is improved by washing the wood with the cold tea, then dry and polish in the normal way. Pot-plants are also improved by watering with cold tea.

Here’s a simple recipe for crumbed sausages, which in posh households is known as ‘bangers a’ la crumb’. All you need is 500g sausages, 1 egg, flour, breadcrumbs, oil for frying, and salt and pepper. Boil your favourite sausages for 5 minutes. Allow to cool, then peel off the skin. Roll the now skinless sausages in seasoned flour, dip in the slightly beaten egg, and roll in breadcrumbs. Fry until golden brown.

Another way to turn a simple oily rag sausage into a taste-sensual sensation is to wrap it in flaky pastry and bake it. There is no need to precook the sausage. Slice the pasty into a long strip about 25mm wide. Roll it around the sausage diagonally so it overlaps, to fully or almost fully cover the sausage – it doesn’t matter if the end bits poke out. Place it on a baking tray and brush on an egg glaze then sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake in a moderate oven until the pasty is golden brown – which will be about 15 or so minutes. Try different flavoured sausages. So yum – and great for an afternoon treat or as party food.

John has written in with his “recipe” for making a perfect oily rag fire in a freestanding wood burning heater. “It all starts with junk mail. Use the newsprint type as the glossy paper does not burn so well. Next add dead cabbage tree leaves – the one’s that wrap around your mower blades and are really difficult to remove. Take a handful, fold them, and wrap them together. Then comes the kindling. I use dried flax flower stalks. Break them into pieces about 330 long – they work a treat. Then it’s a layer of pine cones. Once they are hot and roaring, I add the large pieces of firewood. Start with a softwood like pine, and after that use a mixture of hardwood and softwood. Before bed, add only hardwood so it lasts through the night. Next morning it’s just a matter of bringing it back up to the desired heat. The best thing is all of the materials are available free.”

Here’s a shopping tip. When looking for the best buy focus on the unit price, not the total price, like the cost of a product per 100g. It makes it really easy to compare the price of different brands and weights. For example, a supermarket might sell a 1.5kg bag of flour at $1.19 a kg, and $1.20 for a 5kg bag of the same brand – which just goes to show that bigger, is not always cheaper!

Unit pricing is mandatory in Australia but not here. We think it should be, given the savings that can be had. On their website, Consumer says a recent trial by the Queensland University of Technology found that shoppers armed with unit-pricing information saved on average 11 percent of their grocery bill. That’s pretty tidy sum over a whole year.

Don’t forget to let us know if you have a favourite tip to share with readers, or a question – you can contact us via the website at oilyrag.co.nz or by writing to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.

By Frank and Muriel Newman. Read more here.