Chicken Soup for the Sick, Toffee Chocolate Crispy Bars and a Car

When I got back from Sheffield on Tuesday afternoon, my daughter, who had been house/animal sitting, seemed to be coming down a cold and by Wednesday, was feeling a bit under the weather. So, as soon as the animals were fed and watered, I nipped out to the shop to grab some chicken to make a big pot of my comfortingly nourishing cure-all chicken soup. It's quick to prepare, uses whatever vegetables you have in the fridge and tastes absolutely delicious. It's full of flavour and you can almost feel it making you better. Because, once again, my finances are a disaster due to the purchase of a car (I will get to that later), I chose chicken thighs for the soup. Not only is the meat better value but it has much more flavour and it gives the soup an amazing depth of flavour. Into my soup pot went 2 Chicken thighs, 3 carrots, 2 small sweet potatoes, some shredded savoy cabbage, a leek and 2 chicken stock cubes. Normally, I would use home made chicken stock from the freezer but I've run out and will have to get boiling and making some more. Add water and cook on a gentle simmer for about an hour until all the flavours have cooked together to make a big pot of deliciousness. Then simply take out the chicken thighs and remove the meat from the bones and pop it back into the soup and hey-presto ..... instant comfort and at a total cost of £1.85 for a whole pot of lovliness. 

I then whipped up something sweet. Sometimes you just need something sweet when you're feeling under the weather and along with my shortbread recipe, my toffee chocolate crispy bars are my go-to recipes. They're quick, simple, cheap to make and totally yummy. I have posted about these before on my blog but basically, it's just Mars bars, or a cheaper equivalent ... actually, I use the Aldi equivalent which are much cheaper and work just as well as the more expensive ones.  I use a whole packet of 6 but they are only 59p per packet they are perfect for this. Some rice crispies or, again, an equivalent cheaper brand. The ones I use are 69p per box, again from Aldi and they are perfect for this recipe. Melt the chocolate bars with a knob of butter, stir in some rice crispies, press into a tin and chill until set. Then melt some cooking chocolate and spread over the top, chill again until the chocolate is set and enjoy. Cost - about 90p to make. 

It's weird, this is my 230th post and it's getting to the stage where I'm having to check if I have posted things like recipes before. Possibly because I lead a very boring, ordinary life. I'm either going to have to go and do some exciting things to blog about .... difficult without money but not impossible or I'm going to have to check each post to make sure that I'm not repeating myself. I must be getting old :-)

Finally, I managed to sort out my lack of transport situation. After 2 weeks without a car I managed to get a cheap little run-around from a lady who lives in the village not far from me. It's not pretty or glamorous or smart or trendy but it works, it has a full MOT on it and ..... fingers crossed ....... it will get me to the shops and back for a while.

 Unfortunately though, it wiped out all my meagre savings so I'm back to square one again.

Hey ho...... nothing new there :-)