Slow cooking a whole chicken.

Most people probably know that it's more cost effective to buy your chicken whole than in bits, right? Considerably less people probably know that cooking your cost effective chicken in a slow cooker instead of the oven is even more cost effective.

I don't know the exact ins and outs, but I can only assume the smaller size and lower temperatures mean slow cookers use less energy.

After a quick internet search, it became clear that a lot of people are wary about not killing off bacteria in a slow cooked chicken. Well, again, I'm not an expert by any means but I do know enough not to be worried. The legal limit in Scotland for serving hot food in restaurants/cafes etc is 82 degrees. At this temperature most microscopic beasties that could live inside you and make you ill will be dead. My particular slow cooker boils water (slowly...) on it's high setting, so reaching 82 degrees is no trouble.

That being said, I would definitely recommend allowing your chicken to come to room temperature before putting it in the slow cooker, and make sure you cook for long enough for the insides to cook completely (6hours on high was enough for our small chicken).

Anyway, I'm rather getting off the point, which is cheapness! Asda are doing 2 whole chickens for £7 so a £3.50 chicken can be slow cooked, pulled apart and split up to make many meals.

Ours was particularly small, so each breast will make a meal for 2 and the leg meat will make lunch for the Husband for 2 days. 6 meals worth of meat for £3.50? Quite the bargain, if you ask me.

Before I sign off, I have one tiny disclaimer about cooking a chicken this way- it is not for the faint hearted. Your chicken will fall to bits once you get it out. There will be bones everywhere, and you will be able to see the chickens innards. If you're the kind of person who gets a bit squeamish about meat, this is probably not for you. Once I had finished with our chicken last night, it looked a bit grizzly.

So don't say you weren't warned.

VIP Week at Dorothy Perkins

Let me start off by saying - I frickin' love Dotty P's. Love 'em. They're my shop saviour. I just always forget they're there. I can't count the number of times I've been schlepping about the shopping centre looking for a dress, or a cardigan getting increasingly frustrated by the too-young too-small offerings in H&M, the too-tarty in International and the too-expensive in Next, only to be saved from blowing my brains out at the last minute by Dorothy Perkins.

Let me also say that the bulk of the clothes I buy come from ebay. Probably about 80%. Occasionally though, I spot something new that I have to have. This week was one of those times. I spotted the beauty below and fell instantly in love.

£30 though? A little more than I'm prepared to pay these days. What to do? I noticed a wee link at the bottom of the page offering a 10% discount for newsletter subscribers, so subscribe I did. By a very happy coincidence this week happens to be VIP Week, which means DP offer 25% off everything with the appropriate code.

Hell yes!

I rushed  to the check out, entered my VIP code and my subscriber code. They both worked! I nearly did a dance right at the computer. My beautiful £30 dress was now a beautiful £19.50 dress. Still more than I usually spend, but much more reasonable.

VIP Week happens fairly regularly so if there's something you really have to have I'd recommend holding off. The postage on my dress was £4 so if you can get to your nearest Dorothy Perkins for less than that (I can't, sadly) I'd suggest buying in-store too - the VIP  prices also apply there.

Now I just need to find an excuse to wear it.