homemade mascarpone
Our Christmas lunch with family was a bring-a-dish affair, the best way to enjoy Christmas day without having all stress and financial burden of catering for everyone. As well as potato salad, I took the raspberry swirl cheesecake above. You can find the recipe for this cheesecake here at Taste.com.au.
I baked this on Christmas eve. Being a cheesecake novice, I was nervous that I had taken on too much. The stakes were high. I had promised cheesecake and had no back up plan if this didn’t turn out.
Well, after a few choice swear words and two hours baking rather than one, the cheesecake didn’t look nearly as good as the one pictured on the recipe, but it sure tasted sensational! (Oh yeah, even if I do say so myself 
).
This cheesecake recipe has a lot of ingredients, including a whole tub of mascarpone, meaning that it’s not the cheapest dessert to make. To bring the cost down, I made the mascarpone, which is relatively easy to make, much cheaper than the store bought stuff and tastes just as good, if not better.
To compare: a tub of supermarket mascarpone is $23 per kilo. Making your own with fresh cream comes in at around $7.90 a kilo, a big saving.
The recipe below yields about 400g of mascarpone cheese.
2012 frugal and thriving reader survey
Help make Frugal and Thriving a better website!
I’m busy planning for the coming year on Frugal and Thriving and my top priority is to make this a better website.
To help me achieve this goal, write the articles that you want to read, and cover the topics that are of interest to you, I’ve drawn up a very short (and anonymous) survey to get your feedback.
It would be wonderful if you could take just a minute or two to fill out the survey to let me know how I can improve the blog.
I want to thank you in advance for taking the survey.
debt free and thriving–a free ebook on getting out of debt
I’ve been working hard lately on writing an eBook about how to get out of debt and today I’m ready to launch it into the world!
This time of the year is popular for deciding to reduce debt – getting out of debt and saving more money are two of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions. Unfortunately, many of us don’t manage to stick to these resolutions.
This eBook outlines a strategy for paying off your debts (without too much pain) and saving money to cover future expenses at the same time, in order to stay out of debt in the future.
I would love to hear your feedback on the eBook, whether you find the information helpful and whether you see results. If you’re goal is to pay down your debts this year, I wish you all the best.
Have a great weekend.
You can download your copy (100% free) here (in PDF format).
how to make saving money as easy as doing nothing
I was going to write a post today about creating a budget, but decided instead to write about a money management tool that is just as powerful as a budget (if not more so) and can be used in conjunction with a budget or on its own.
The tool I’m talking about is automation.
Thanks to internet banking, automating your finances is not only possible, but it’s easy and can take as little as 10 minutes to set up. A few minutes doing this simple task can save you money, stress and hours time over the course of the year.
The other day I talked about the myth of willpower. By automating your savings and your debt repayments, willpower no longer comes into play. You can get on with the other things in life while your money takes care of itself.
tip tuesday– remove crayon from painted surfaces
Kids have an infinite capacity to entertain themselves. The only question is: ‘is it mummy-sanctioned entertainment?’ Drawing on the walls is certainly not mummy-sanctioned, although I admit that I often have urges to draw on the walls myself. It’s a lot of white space just begging for a doodle or two, although all that white space can be quickly covered by an energetic toddler while mummy finished the dishes.
My budding young artist drew all over the walls in our garage-cum-playroom and all over the newly painted concrete. This method works on both painted surfaces.
All you need is a regular old pencil eraser to rub the crayon out. It takes a bit of rubbing and at first it smears everywhere and it seems like you’re making everything oh so much worse, but keep going and you will end up with a little pile of coloured eraser shedding and a clean surface.
If the crayon stains, dampen a cloth with a little plain vinegar (or water), sprinkle bi-carb onto the cloth and then rub the stain until it’s gone. Bi-carb is an awesome stain remover, the real workhorse in your cleaning arsenal.
simple potato salad
This potato salad is always a hit at BBQs and functions, is easy to make and can serve a lot of people on a very small budget. I’ve included prosciutto, four thin slices cost less than a dollar and add a gourmet touch, but for a vegetarian version, leave out the prosciutto altogether.
I took this salad to our Christmas celebrations and so used a kilo or so of potatoes, I usually allow for a potato or so per person (depending on the size of the spuds) and adjust the rest of the ingredients to suit.
Above I used garlic chives, which we have growing in our garden. I love being able to go out and snip a few chives for the salad – for free!
I’m surprised I haven’t shared this recipe before – it’s one that I learned from my mum and that I often take when I’m asked to ‘bring a salad’.
free printable goal setting worksheet
My two main goals this year are to have more energy and more fun (vague, I know, but I’m still working on them).
While I had planned a post about the strategies I’m putting in place to achieve these goals (which include such things as homemade hummus – intrigued?), the weather was so nice today and we’ve been stuck inside for so, so many weeks now (did I mention we came down with the flu / virus on boxing day) that I packed dinner up in a container and we had a picnic at the river.
Dinner was honey and garlic roasted pumpkin risotto. We ate our picnic, played in the park, splashed in the water and the sand and ate ice cream. We live in one of the major tourist spots in Australia and yet we’ve hardly enjoyed the sun and water so far this summer, so it was so very nice to get out into the fresh evening air.
achieving new year’s resolutions – a strategy for building positive change part two
Yesterday, I looked at some psychological factors that help or hinder New Year’s Resolutions.
Today is all about taking action – the doing part of achieving your resolutions. The thing about changing your habits (which is the ultimate aim for most resolutions) is that it takes a little effort, a little thought and a little planning. And when life is already busy, that effort can be all too much. This is why many of us give up on our resolutions before January has even ended.
So what we need to do is to make keeping resolutions easier. Creating an action plan as per the steps below is one way of making your goals easier to achieve.
achieving new year’s resolutions – a strategy for building positive change part one
I am one of those people who like making New Year’s Resolutions. Psychologically speaking, the first of January is a threshold that heralds a new beginning, a clean slate and therefore a great time to examine life – what’s working, what’s not, what direction you want to go in, what changes you want to make.
Around 40% of the population make New Year’s Resolutions. Unfortunately, only around 10% of us will actually succeed in reaching our goals. The important question is: what is the 10% doing to be successful? The answer: they are following up on their resolve by taking consistent action.
top 10 most popular frugal and thriving recipes for 2011
I thought I would share with you the most popular recipes on Frugal and Thriving for 2011. These recipes were the most viewed and the most searched on the website and all of the recipes appear in the top 100 pages viewed on the site.
And like all of the recipes on the site, they are ones we cook and eat at home.
Of all of these recipes, my favourite would have to be pea and ham soup, although we probably eat the tuna rissoles the most (about once a fortnight), with the savoury pumpkin pie coming in second for most frequently cooked meal. The recipes appear in descending order of popularity. Click the picture to go to the recipe.
