Birthday parties can get quite expensive, and if you’re trying to cut down on expenses this year, you might be thinking of doing them yourself for a change. But the thought of entertaining a group of children can be a bit daunting.

The Art Angels have come up with a solution, in the form of a Craft Party in a Box - which includes all you need to run a craft party at home. Read more about the parties here.

Last night, Channel 4 ran a programme about the rising cost of food prices. I was looking forward to seeing this, but in all honesty, “Dispatches: The Truth about Food Prices” seemed to take 60 minutes to tell me very little that I didn’t already know.

Rising fuel prices, increasing demand from China/India, farmers choosing to grow crops for bio-fuel rather than food, traders driving up commodity prices in the search for profits. None of this will come as any surprise to anyone who has seen the news over the last year.

Most disappointing though, was the programme’s website’s claim that:

The film features the stories of how two families are dealing with increasing prices. Food expert, journalist and author Kate Colquhoun offers them advice about how to eat more economically and cook with left-overs to reduce food waste.

Rather than showing the effect of the price rises on a family on a low income, or pensioners, the programme makers instead chose two comfortably well-off families, both spending over £120 a week on food for a small family. I had hoped for some useful information from the food expert about how to maximise your food budget, getting the most from joints of meat, using pulses etc as a cheap form of protein.

But no, the advice basically amounted to “Shop at cheaper supermarkets or your local butcher/greengrocer”, and “Don’t buy food you don’t need and don’t throw away food which can still be safely used”. That was worth waiting for then….I would never have come up with those ideas myself.

If you missed the programme and really want to catch up, it’s available for the next 30 days from the 4OD website

It seems wrong to be talking about making stew in the middle of June, but I was inspired by a segment of River Cottage Spring in which they mentioned that neck of lamb is a tasty and cheap cut. Coupled with the unseasonably cold and rainy weather over the weekend, suddenly Irish Stew seemed very tempting.

I bought the meat from our local butcher, who cut the neck into chops for me. I coated the scrag end of neck in flour, including the end piece, browned them in a little oil and put them to one side. Then I blitzed a couple of onions in the food processor until it was very finely chopped, and cooked the mush gently in a little more oil until softened, added a couple of tablespoons of flour and cooked it all for a couple more minutes, this gets rid of any floury taste.

Next I added chopped carrots and potatoes to the pan - I chopped most of the potato into larger pieces and some into smaller pieces. I covered it all with chicken stock and brought the pan up to the boil, then poured it all into the slow cooker and put the meat on top.

I cooked the stew for about 5-6 hours on high, the smaller pieces of potato had dissolved so the stew was really nice and thick although I could possibly have done with putting in a bit more stock in so that there was more sauce. I served it with some steamed brocolli (not very authentic!) for extra vitamins and a bit of crunch, and fresh warm bread out of the breadmaker for dipping.

The neck cost £12.74, and it fed all 5 of us, with 3 adult portions to go into the freezer. It could have been stretched a bit further but I was quite generous with the meat today. Everyone cleared their dishes, and it was pronounced a big success.

No, I’m not talking about dieting!

You can’t fail to notice that there is a lot of talk in the news about the credit crunch, rising costs of fuel and food, and the general need to tighten our belts. It seems like every day there is another announcement from the Chancellor or the Bank of England (although I’m not too sure about appointing Mr Bean as a Deputy Governor - are things really that desperate?)

A lot of money saving methods can also be very eco-friendly, so over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at ways that you can reduce your costs, with an emphasis on the more environmentally friendly methods.

If you have any ideas for things we can try out, or ways that you have saved money, please do email us with your suggestions.

I was looking through some of my cookbook collection last night, and came across the following in the introductory text to one of them:

Who, then, is this book for? Quite simply for people like myself, those who have lived and cooked during the affluent years and now find themselves caught up in the spiral of inflation, rising prices and impending world food shortages

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Surely it must be from a fairly recent cookbook?

Nope, that text comes from the introduction to Delia Smith’s Frugal Food, which was first published in 1976. And yet, it sounds so relevant to the current situation that many people find themselves in, where food costs and household bills are all rising at an alarming rate.

The book is dated in some ways, Delia was anti-freezers at that point in time (not so much now, eh, Delia?) and of course the book pre-dates the widespread use of microwave. But in many ways, it’s still a very relevant and useful book. Like many of you, I’m trying to rein in my grocery bill at the moment and so I’ll be using some of the recipes in the next few weeks.

I’ll let you know how I get on.