Make do and mend

Because we live so close to the shops and services of the high road, Jules and I have developed a bad habit of shopping for every meal, which is a. expensive, and b. means we seldom have staples lying around, like onions. So inspired by the need to clear out our freezer and fridge before we move, I present to you a whole meal made entirely of things we found in the house. I made a loaf of banana bread out of the hundreds of black "I'll do something with these one day" bananas in our freezer, Jules made the rest: a knockout chicken & leek pie, frozen sweetcorn (not pictured because corn is boring) and two perfectly crackled creme brulées. Total cost= £0. We are so frugal and thrifty!



We had a mightily productive day, filled with packing boxes, ordering a refrigerator for the new house, expanding our skills to bookbinding with dental floss and a hotel sewing kit, and learning about the perfect storm of ridiculous factors that caused the worldwide credit crisis, the finer points of invitation etiquette, wartime eating in Britain (yuck! gross!), about Edith Piaf and the French Resistance, and what goes in to an Elizabethan-era Umble Pie (answer: all the bits you'd rather were left out), a food that, according to Giles Coren, has "no redeeming features whatsoever." Our brains are smoking!