The Review: Countdown to Christmas
Yes, I’ve been out photographing the Christmas Lights! I’ve even put my own Christmas tree up. This week I published more blog posts and hope to do more over Christmas too; right up to New Year.
Everyone in the UK is trying to be a bit thrifty and frugal this year to save money. Apparently, as a country we are deep in debt and almost bankrupt. We can hardly afford to send the kids to expensive private schools and parliament has had to limit it’s champagne bill a little. I still think they are swimming in it rather than drinking it…
Frugal Friday: Value Added Christmas was my frugal post yesterday. There are a few ideas to save money on the countdown to Christmas.
Thrifty Thursday: Christmas Countdown was about getting value for money too. I bought a free range chicken, it tastes a bit nicer, but I’m not sure if it was worth the extra money. I’ll see what it tastes like cold at lunchtime with a bit of salad cream on it.
The Top Christmas Markets was a featured post by Lily Donaldson on Wednesday. That too was about shopping at markets and helping out the small market traders at Christmas and maybe picking up a bargain too.
Photography: Autumn – Winter was my usual photography post on Tuesday. It can be hard to find something to point your camera at in the coldest seasons. I was out on Wednesday night photographing the Christmas lights around the town. I wrapped up warm!
Photography: Gareth Gates photo-shoot was also on Tuesday over on A Zillion Ideas and featured photos from last Friday’s Christmas Lights switch-on.
Life: Diversity was Monday’s post about having enough diversity and variety in your life.
The Sunday Ramble: We are all photo-journos now was my Sunday ramble through the dustier pathways of my mind. I’ll be back with another fascinating ramble tomorrow.
Gareth Gates turns them on was an extra post about my outing to photograph the big switch-on on Friday. There might be an extra post this week too!
That’s all I wrote this week. I’m looking forward to a bit of weekend photography now. I used a 4 star filter for today’s picture. It gives a nice effect, but I need to experiment with it a little more.
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Mike10613's Blog 
your observation about the free range chicken is interesting because everyone says it tastes better and is worth the money. you are the first person i have read who is not sure it is that good value. i hope u will post when u eat it cold and tell us what your views are . is it worth it? i always think how a chicken , or any meat tastes of is sabotaged by seasoning it. no one i know eat their meat without salt at the least. so how are they going to taste the meat when the salt gets in the way??? now the texture is one that can determine a good free range from one that is not, but i think a lot depands on how long you cook the meat. any overcooked meat will lose its texture no matter if it is free range or not. so what is it about free range that gets people so excited that it is superior? hope u will find out and tell us.
6, December 2014 at 9:01 am
Hi,
Yes, you can’t taste the chicken if it’s been stuffed with sage and onion. I sometimes sprinkle it with sage. I ate it cold last night, but I was so hungry it could have been a horses leg! I think the difference between free range and the usual cheap chicken I buy is minimal. I usually have a samll one for 2.99, this was 4.99 and slightly bigger. I cooked it slow so it was very tender, but didn’t have as much taste as they used to have. I think there was be less fat and more water in them.
Eggs aren’t the same as they used to be either. I might have to kick the whippet out of the shed and keep chickens instead! lol
6, December 2014 at 11:50 am
so even with the more costly free range chicken you can still get water leaking from it when cooked. i remember in the past they would retain the big lump or two of fat at the back end, so we get lots of chicken fat running into the tray, which is quite nice as it can be used for my stir fry… or to coat the roast potatoes; and they can still get their profit by the increased weight given by that fat.
but now they have removed that fat (to please the fat adverse buyer?)and i suspect maintained their profit by increasing the weight using phospated bound water injected into the chicken. that is why the chicken look so dry skinned and have such plump breasts!!(they do look very lovely with that pumped up breasts) and yet so much water produced after roasting.
now that u mentioned even expensive chicken has water in them, there is really no reason to buy them. i do wish they would not inject the water, i would actually buy them if they did not. even if it is more expensive.
6, December 2014 at 1:31 pm
Yes, some of the chickens we bought years ago that were supposed to be boiling fowl had more taste to them. I hated plucking and removing the insides though! At least they were fresh, they often had eggs inside! Chickens won’t brown now either, I think that’s the water. I had some chicken wings and they browned, they can’t really inject the wings with water can they? I might get some more when I go to Asda on my annual Christmas visit. Now what can I do about buying a turkey for Christmas? Fresh or frozen?
7, December 2014 at 11:05 am
talking of fresh turkey, i have never seen them sold in supermarkets. only frozen turkeys are sold there. and they are all very expensive. is there any difference in tastes between fresh and frozen? anyone knows? i thought a duck will be nicer but it is not traditional and wont feed a lot of people. which is what i think turkey was the original reason why it was used for christmas. it is one bird that can feed as much as 20people at one go.
8, December 2014 at 10:28 am
I thought about duck,they have them in Aldi. They did do turkey’s that were fresh frozen in Asda, not sure if they still do. I might go there tomorrow…
8, December 2014 at 10:56 pm