Hibernating & Being Thrifty

Well, January is finally over. The longest month of the year. And yes, I know technically it’s only 31 days, but it feels like 131. Why does it seem like this first month drags on eternally? Christmas was centuries ago. I don’t like January. It’s a fatly depressing month. Everyone is ill, depressed, broke, and overweight. We all made resolutions and some even went so far as to sign up for gym memberships — yeah, good luck with that.

What have I been up to since we last spoke? Well, I’ve been giving hibernation a go and you know what, I think as a lifestyle it’s a good fit for me. After all, what is there to leave the house for? As storm after storm tore across the UK, one barely leaving before another was kicking the door down, I was not tempted to go out unless I absolutely had to. It rained. A lot. My hair does not like the rain. It was cold and dark. I was coming home in the dark. That is one of the only good things about this time of year, I can be home in my PJs, eating dinner, and settled in for the night by 6.30pm and nobody thinks it’s weird.

After having Franki and Rys here for the first two weeks of January and celebrating our Christmas then, I was left with empty cupboards, an empty bank account, and carrying an extra 10lbs of weight. Great. A whole year of brutal and dedicated dieting only to put it all back on.

As I did the sums, I realised I was in quite dire straits financially. So, I did an inventory of the contents of my fridge, freezer, and cupboards, and hunkered down in siege survival mode. I stayed away from my bank account. I had a little bit of cash left over from Christmas, and my niece bought a copy of each of my hardbacks and paid me cash. I would use that money for essentials and eat my way through the food I had in the house. Which wasn’t much.

So, January turned into some sort of bizarre “Ready, Steady, Cook” experiment. For non-Brits, this is a TV programme where a couple of celebrity chefs have five random ingredients presented to them by a member of the public from which they must produce a meal. I had a reasonable amount of rice lurking in the cupboard, a little bit of pasta, and a big bag of potatoes given to me by my parents. Where they got them from, is anyone’s guess, but I think given the truckload of dirt each one was caked in these were feral spuds.

Anyway, so commenced my fortnight of eating random weird shit found in the bottom of the freezer. You know what that is, I expect everyone has it. That lone chicken leg because there was one too many in the pack for your needs and you didn’t want to throw it away, so you stuffed it in a bag and threw it in the freezer, where it worked its way down to the bottom and you forgot about it. I found a bag of white fish fillets. Not in their original packaging so I had no clue what they were. They were white. They were fish. That was as good as it was going to get. There was half a bag of peas — always a good standby — and half a bag of Brussels sprouts — not so good.

There were odds and ends of bits of meat, bags of sauce, a big bag of gravy left over from Christmas dinner, a couple of chicken breast fillets, a chicken kiev, etc. I wrote out a list of different meals I could make with all the things I had. Some of the meals were a bit bizarre. One night, I had a large jacket potato stuffed with homemade cauliflower cheese left over from Christmas dinner, and hot cooked beetroot from my father’s garden. Hot, filling, and surprisingly tasty. Another night I had the chicken kiev with a big tray of roasted potatoes, red onions, beetroot, and Brussels sprouts which was surprisingly lovely.

I ran out of butter and spread early on so had to look for alternatives to use. One evening, I was making a chicken and pasta dish in cheese sauce. I had the milk, cheese, and flour, but no butter. What I did have was beef dripping leftover from Christmas. Hmm, I thought, the butter is really only used as a binding agent. The cheese sauce is being mixed with fried chicken strips and red onions, so I don’t care if it does have a slightly meaty taste. I made the sauce using beef dripping instead of butter. Result? It tasted exactly like cheese sauce.

I found a bag of pastry crumbs in the freezer. It was just flour and butter mixed into crumbs. What could I do with that? I mixed it with sugar and a little water to bind it. Then pressed it firmly into a lined baking tray. Chilled it in the fridge for twenty minutes and then cooked in a medium oven for twenty. Voila. Shortbread to have two slices of at lunchtime with a coffee.

Now coffee, that was interesting. I had two scoops of ground coffee left in the tin. I decided to keep that for a special occasion. I’d just go without coffee or drink tea, I decided. The coffee I like is over £3 a pack and is a non-essential item. The cash in my purse was hoarded for things I could not do without such as milk and toilet paper. Looking through the cupboard, right at the back, I found half a jar of Mellow Birds coffee. Yeah, the 1970s called, they want their coffee back. The reason I had half a jar of Mellow Birds coffee in the house is because Franki went through a stage of making coffee cake and Mellow Birds is excellent to use because it’s a powder, unlike most instant coffee that is granular. The Mellow Birds dissolves easier and doesn’t leave a grainy texture. It’s also brilliant in coffee buttercream frosting. Anyway, I looked at this jar and shrugged. I mean, how bad can it be? I remember it being awful back in the day when my mother used to drink it, but I wasn’t a big coffee drinker then and I wasn’t so desperate.

I made a cup and tried it. Not too bad. It’s obviously not my ground coffee, but it will do. It’s better than nothing. Luckily, I have plenty of teabags so that wasn’t an issue. If I’d run out of tea things would have got Very Ugly Indeed.

Over the past fortnight, I’ve learnt a few things. Looking at the bag of small fish fillets, I took two out and defrosted them. I made homemade chips using the feral spuds. I made a thick batter. Dried the fish, dipped it in seasoned flour, then beaten egg, then in the batter and deep fried it in oil in a large pan. The batter cooked quickly. Too quickly. By the time the rest of my food was ready, and, on my plate, the batter was taking on a slightly burnt texture. I heaved it out, drained it on kitchen paper, and put it on my plate. I cut into it, eager to see how it was. It was raw. In the middle. I took it back to the kitchen. Put the fillets on a small plate and blasted them in the microwave for a couple of minutes. They were then fine, although the rest of my food was getting cold. Lesson learnt. Blast the fillets for a couple of minutes first and THEN deep fry. After all, I guess it is only the batter you are cooking. Despite the initial set-back the homemade fish and chips with peas and tartare sauce was delicious. Will definitely do it again.

I found a small pot in the bottom of the freezer. Something red was in it. What was it? I had no idea. I defrosted it. Took the lid off and had a cautious sniff. Tomato something. I then remembered back in the summer a patient gave me a punnet of cherry tomatoes from his garden. I accepted them and thanked him, because hey, never turn down free food, right, even though I’m not keen on raw tomatoes. I brought them home, put them in a pan with a little water, brown sugar, salt and pepper, mixed herbs, crushed garlic, and onion powder and cooked them down into a thick sauce. That whole punnet reduced to literally a cup full of sauce. I then put it in the freezer and forgot about it.

So now I had this sauce. I put on a saucepan of water and brought it to a boil; I added rice and the last handful of frozen peas. I had two tiny fillets of white fish left. I put them in foil with a handful of mild chilli flakes and the whole pot of tomato sauce. Wrapped up the foil and popped in the oven for twenty minutes. When the rice was cooked, I strained it well, put it back in the pan, added pepper and soy sauce and stirred well. Then I opened the foil parcel, wondering what monster I had created. To my surprise, it looked and smelled okay. I poured it over the rice and sat down to dinner. It was Delicious! Like a fish biryani. It was tasty and had just the right heat level for me. It was very satisfying, and I’ll admit, if I’d ordered it in a restaurant, I would have been very happy. So, will be doing that one again as well.

Payday was the 28^th of January. I think that’s another reason why January feels so long. Many people are paid before Christmas, sometimes even on the 19^th or 20^th of December. They then must wait until the 31^st of January before they are paid again. That is a Very Longgggg Time. Especially if, just like the grasshopper dancing all summer and not collecting supplies for winter, you blew December’s pay on Christmas, heedless of the six long weeks until the next pay packet and all the bills that still must be paid in January.

Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?

I used to have a job where I was paid before Christmas, but I also used to get a Christmas bonus of an extra week’s pay, so I made sure that was what I spent on Christmas. My current boss did ask if I wished to be paid before Christmas and I told her Absolutely Not. I knew if I was paid beforehand, I would have had it, spent it, and forgotten about it by the time the mortgage was due in January.

Even though I’ve been paid, I’m still in survival mode. I went quite a way into my overdraft and although I’ve clawed my way back out simply by staying away from the bank account, I still have a heavy month ahead. I have appointments with the dentist and hygienist that I cannot postpone again — they were supposed to be on Christmas Eve, but yeah, spending a day’s pay on Christmas Eve was not going to happen — so they were put back to the 12^th of February. I also must renew my parking permit and that’s going to be another £100.

The only problem as well with eating down your freezer and cupboards completely is that eventually, you must buy more food. I mean, seriously, on Wednesday morning, the freezer was down to ice, cubes of frozen lamb gravy, and three slices of frozen pink grapefruit. Even I couldn’t think of a meal to make with those. Can you imagine the chef’s face on Ready, Steady, Cook if I rocked up with those ingredients?

Okay, Julia. I’m going to have to add a few basic ingredients to yours. To the ice and pink grapefruit, I will add gin and tonic. And to the gravy, I’ll add a leg of lamb, roast potatoes and vegetables.

I had no choice. I had to go shopping. Instead of going to Tesco though, I trotted along to Iceland (the shop, not the country) because everyone claims it’s cheaper. I bought: 2 pints of milk; a large pot of yoghurt; onions; apples; grapes; frozen mangos, blueberries, and mixed summer fruits; a bag each of frozen carrots, peas, and green beans; toilet rolls; three tins of soup; two beef and vegetable pasties; two minted lamb pies; a lasagne; and a fish pie. Total cost, £24. Is that cheaper than Tesco? I have a feeling it is. And yes, I know, it’s probably not such good quality, but hey, it’s food. It’s fattening and filling and right now that’s all I can worry about.

So far, the lamb pies are excellent value. There were two for £1. They are large, tasty, and filling. I had them with roast feral spuds, mint sauce, peas, carrots, green beans, and lamb gravy. Total meal cost: 70p.

The lasagne I won’t bother with again. It was £1 but only did one meal. It was thin, bland, and disappointing, the pasta was rubbery.

I don’t know, maybe this is the start of a falling out of love with Tesco and other large — buy everything you need in one go — stores. I think I should explore the smaller cheaper stores like Iceland, Poundland, Audi and the like, where maybe I can’t get what I want but can probably get what I need, and maybe that’s the way to start thinking.

I am doing two days of overtime in February and then several days in March and April, so I will be able to slowly rebuild my account. But the cost-of-living crisis is here and it’s not going away. Food is getting more and more expensive. I do need to live within my means and if that involves shopping around, doing without, and lowering expectations, then that is what I will do.

Needless to say, I did not drink very much in January. I finished up the Christmas alcohol, and on particularly depressing days when I was facing an uninspiring dinner, my homemade cherry vodka was a bright and much-needed treat. But that’s all gone now. My house is officially an alcohol-free zone. Alcohol, contrary to popular belief, is Not Essential. I am aware this may come as a shock to some, but it is possible to live without it. To put it bluntly, if it comes down to a choice between a bottle of wine and a pack of loo rolls, well, then, I’m sorry, but it’s a no-brainer.

Okay, in other news. My KDP account is still broken, which is depressing. I am in email correspondence with them, but nothing has been done to either fix it or set me up a new account. I honestly don’t know what to do. There is no real alternative to Amazon for a broke indie author so if it’s not fixed, well then … But I am trying to stay positive and not think about it too much. Amazon must fix it. They fixed it before, and it was fixed for a week before it broke down again. They must do what they did before, and this time make sure it stays fixed.

Whilst hibernating, I have been resting, reading, and writing a lot. My work in progress (WIP) is now standing at 68,000 words and I’m estimating that I’m about halfway through. I am having a blast writing it and I hope the readers will have as much fun reading it. When will it be published? That’s hard to say, hopefully, late spring but it all depends on the schedules of my proofreaders, formatter, and cover designer. Writing a book is the easy bit. It’s everything that comes after that’s hard.

Hope January hasn’t been too unkind to you and that 2025, in general, has got off to a good start. I’m going to go and make a cup of Mellow Birds now — nom nom — and then get back into the writing zone.

Take care.

Julia Blake