Well I had the turkey stew and it was really good. Trouble is - I don't follow a recipe and therefore it rarely tastes the same!!

I get a great kick out of managing to make a meal as cheaply as possible. Over here in the UK we don't have any food subsidised, and for some reason it's quite expensive to eat over here, especially out in restaurants etc. My son said that he loved it in the US because it was really cheap to eat out and the amounts of food was excellent. Here we don't have that luxury and to even have a burger and chips you are saying goodbye to about £4 (roughly $7) and the amount is small.....

Also considering how many chickens there are here, why is it that it is so expensive to have chicken??? I mean 4 small chicken breasts costing £5 ($9) is ridiculous, so I spend quite a bit of time looking for good cuts of meat that will serve me two or three meals. I mean, I'm a pensioner and I have to be as thrifty as possible.............

I digress - I have discovered a great value meat - turkey legs!!! I can get a whole turkey leg for £4 ($7) and it comes in two pieces. One bit is the bottom of the leg and the other bit is the top of the leg - the one with more meat on it!!. I use the top part of the leg first - that'd be £2. The other bit gets put in a ziplock bag and goes in the freezer for later!!! I roast the bigger bit and it's gorgeous. There is so much meat on it, that I only end up having about a third of it. That leaves about two meals left.

The second meal is usually a cold cut to have with chips etc. That leaves about a third of the meat left. This I will have as part of a stew. That was what I made today.............

I have this great little slow-cooker - just enough for one. I chopped up an onion, two carrots, a couple of potatoes, some dried soup mix of pulses, lentils, barley etc, then I put in some arborio rice (risotto rice) because that thickens the stew, then crushed two chicken stock cubes, seasoned it, and then topped up with water and a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce. I added the remaining turkey meat, all chopped up and switched the slow-cooker onto low and left it to do it's thing!

About 5 hours later, I remembered the stew (!!!) the smell was lovely coming from the kitchen. I stirred the pot, hmm bit watery, so those gravy granules do the trick, plus I added some frozen peas. That carried on simmering for another couple of hours................

It was delicious and there is at least half of the stew left, which will mean I already have tomorrow's meal all sorted out!!

So that piece of turkey leg will have done me 4 meals!! That's about 50p ($1) a meal which is good value methinks!!

I know it sounds strange, but that gives me so much pleasure making a meal out of virtually nothing. Everything is so damn expensive over here in the UK. Petrol (gas) is very dear about £1.40 a litre (about $14 a gallon!!) so therefore everything else is expensive because of transporting.

This isn't a moaning blog about how hard-done by we pensioners are in the UK, just an explanation why I get a kick out of getting value for money!!! You ask Mickey - he lives up in the north and has lots of cheaper shops than we do down here in the south, and he gets great bargains.

I confess I need to get a life really - never thought I'd get really excited by this!!!! I remember when getting a new dress or a pair of shoes in the sales used to get me this excited!!!! LOL