1. IN A RUSH

Cool your hot drinks by dropping ice cubes in.

2. PEELING ONIONS

Avoid tears when peeling onions by wearing sunglasses or putting onions in the fridge.

3. BAKING TINS

When baking a lot of cakes, and you run out of cake tins, then use empty small baked bean tins, lined with greaseproof paper for individual buns or muffins.

4. POPPADOMS

Instead of frying readymade poppadoms place them in the microwave for about 1 minute each, on kitchen paper.

5. FOOD SEALERS

Clothes pegs are very useful for sealing packets of opened food.

6. SAVE WASHING UP

When you next have the oven on for a pie why put an opened can of beans in the same oven on the bottom shelf for about 25 minutes to heat up, this works well with tinned spaghetti or butter beans as well and saves washing up saucepans and energy.

7. BUSY COOKING

To help plan your weeks' menu have an outline menu to help you, and make variations around this outline.

8. LEFT OVER STEW

A small portion of leftover stew can be turned into soup; liquidize; then add a can of chopped tomato and vegetables of your choice, season with chilli and garlic if desired the serve with dumplings or garlic bread and pulses.

9. SAFFRON RICE

To make saffron / spicy coloured rice add 1 teaspoon of turmeric to rice, cover and simmer for 2 parts liquid to 1 part rice for 25 minutes.

10. INEXPENSIVE SAUCES

Often "own brand" jams have very few pips or pieces of fruit in, this makes them ideal for use as sauces on ice cream or rice pudding.

11. LEFTOVER VEGETABLES

Save any leftover vegetables, place in a bag and freeze when you have sufficient add some stock herbsand spices and thus you have some soup.

12. LEFTOVER MEAT

Save in a bag and freeze when you have sufficient use in curries, risottos, pies, omelettes, stir-fries or wraps or even add to a tin of soup.

13. CAKE MISTAKE

If you have baked a cake that has gone wrong put it in the freezer and use later to make trifles or truffles.

14. QUICK SAVOURY TOPPING

Use equal quantities of oats and flour and bind with oil use as a savoury topping (or sweet if sugar added) bake in a medium oven for about 25 minutes.

15. INEXPENSIVE GREASPROOF

When greasing baking tins use butter or margarine wrappers for greasing a tin or these also can be used for baking.

16. CRUSTS

When making crust less sandwiches put crusts into the liquidiser to make breadcrumbs and store in the freezer for future use.

17. SPECIAL ROAST

Make a slit through the middle of your roast and place a whole garlic sausage inside. This looks impressive when carving as the pink sausage appears totally surrounded by meat.

18. SPICY JACKETS

Rub jacket potato skins with oil and then roll in garlic salt, chilli or curry powder before baking in the oven.

19. PINK COLOURING

A small amount of beetroot juice makes ideal pink icing colourant if you run out of food colouring.

20. LIQUOUR DESSERT

Fill empty oranges with ice cream and pour over some Tia Maria. You can also fill with jelly and then cut in half.

21. QUICK CRUMBLE

Mix equal quantities of crushed Weetabix and muesli, spread over fruit and dot with butter then place in oven.

22. GOLDEN CUSTARD

Make custard powder up with brown sugar for a golden sand colour.

23. LUXURY TRIFLE

Use a frozen cream sponge (thawed), add some brandy add tinned fruit and custard to give an instant impressive trifle.

24. LENTILS

Lentils are extremely healthy and cheap, they will thicken a stew and make meat go further.

25. COLOURED PASTA

Add drops of food colouring to pasta make it fun for children.