Back in 2017, I got a bee in my bonnet after watching a report that during school holidays 3 million-plus children were going hungry on a daily basis. MILLION. It truly floored me. Even now, approximately 12,000 children suffer from malnutrition serious enough to be hospitalized every year. IN THE UK, a first world country. Angry, I thought about what I could do to help.
We have been a Foodbank family for about 2 years now, the full works of debt, bailiffs and tears.
A strained marriage, my wonderful husband working every hour he could and me unable to qualify for any help meant we literally had to choose who got paid month to month after the mortgage.
Lockdown came not a moment too soon. Suddenly we found ourselves saving about £200 a month on petrol, bus fares, parking etc and at the time of writing, we are up to date. Its still very tight but it no longer leaves me suicidal, another side swipe of poverty.
I digress somewhat.
The first book I wrote was school holiday meals, simple recipes like Shepherds Pie, Chilli, etc.
I can hear you, dear readers saying that’s nothing different to whats out there and from that view, you are right. BUT I split my book in two, the front half was dedicated to helping people to have the right things in their kitchens and cupboards, their fridges and freezers to ensure nutritious meals, filling with some amount of the basic food groups present.
It then occurred to me that there may well be an amount of people who can’t cook out there, ready meals are a booming business, is it because they are convenient or because its that or cereal because cooking is something people have never got to grips with? So I did the basics of how to cook potatoes, rice, pasta, vegetables etc. How to make pastry.
The second half of the book is dedicated to the recipes, 20 to 25 easy and cheap meals for around £1 – £1.50. I try to keep them as budget-friendly as possible, some of them have their roots in pricey ingredients but there is ALWAYS a cheaper substitute.
The book went quite well, 300 or so copies downloaded, I was chuffed. I decided to see if I could write another one.
So I wrote (eventually) a second book concentrating on chicken. The same format, it had become evident that it worked.
My third book, Cheese and Eggs was later followed by Mince, any mince and then book five was Vegetarian.
While i was writing and trying to promote my little cookbooks I came across Pat Parker. Pat is the founder of this blog. She also partakes of many groups on Facebook that promote frugal living. One of them is Feed Yourself for £1 a day, a brilliant, friendly and helpful group. She very kindly promoted my books as she agreed with my thinking and ideas. I am very grateful for her assistance in my writing and also for her friendship.
So here I am, book 6 ! Sweet treats for the whole family. It is available on kindle unlimited or for 99p as are all my books.
I specifically chose Kindle for a few reasons. A paperback was likely to cost about £5, the Kindle app is free and meant I could keep costs down, the root of it all. I didn’t want to target the exact people I was trying to help.
So here it is, book 6! The next 3 are in the pipeline but for now, here you go.
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