January 2009 Grocery Challenge

miss_keep_counting wrote: »

I have a question... I keep seeing kidneys in the discount section... are they worth buying, i.e. do they taste nice when cooked, is there much waste for the weight (they say the gut the middle) or will I be better off sticking to my normal fish, chicken and now beans for protien??

I use kidneys quite a lot in stews/pies as they are often half the price per lb than meat.

I have a recipe for a steak and kidney stew in the SC if you'd like it - you can always the put this in a pie/pudding dish and have steak and kidney pud!!

CARRENA wrote: »

... Someone help me set a budget. ...
Can anyone give me some more inspiration on meals to be cooked- I am stuck and need some help....

Heres a new Grocery budget thread which might give you some ideas to start

and here's the latest mealplan thread for inspiration, you could check back through the old ones (there's some other interesting links there)

How about the 'Save Zillions on Cleaning' thread

The Old Style Recipe Collection might be useful and there is a section on Cheap Meals in The Complete Cooking Collection.

There's loads of information on the OS forum - its worth a look through squeaky's index - but please ask if there's anything else you need

and I forgot to mention the recipe index on page 1 of this thread

Back from Asda and was pleasantly surprised at some of the offers they had on..especially the cleaning stuff so took advantage of that which included fairy washing up liquid 2 for a £1 and like others have said mr muscle cleaners too....

Will update sig when I get my receipt out but my total over the 2 shops today is around £27 which seemed to get me loads, Asda have also got packs of 2 chicken breast (its the stuff with the picture of the farmer on the front which says its chickens are definitely happy not sure though, but at £1 for 2 breasts I couldn't resist picking up 2 for my chinese night tomorrow, which will mean chicken left in the freezer) I wish I had picked up more now, but I am so aware of my budget at the moment I just think, oh well there will be another offer on something else next time!

I might have to nip to Morrisons for another pack of the tiger beer at £2 and a bottle of wine for tomorrow, but other than that i should be done now for a few days at least...

fallen_angel_shelley wrote: »

the dried ones had to be soaked for 8-12 hours and I didn't have time for the ones that needed soaking.
Shelley x

Shelley, if you forget to soak your beans (or suddenly change your menu plans mid-afternoon as I did yesterday:o) you can do what Rose Elliott calls a "[STRIKE]long[/STRIKE] {duh! edit: SHORT!} hot soak" instead. Rinse the beans, put them in plenty of cold water, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 3-4 minutes. Then leave them in the hot water, with the lid on the pan, for 45-60 minutes. Then rinse them again (to get rid of some of the saccharides that make them harder to digest) and cook as usual. I normally boil them again for another 5 minutes and rinse under the tap again before cooking because I've been feeding them to babies and small children for the last 25 odd (very odd:rotfl:) years so I wanted to make them as digestible as possible.

I made a lovely spur of the moment chilli (using that method of soaking the beans) yesterday, from a recipe I found on the back of a packet of Mr A's "exotic bean mix" that I found lurking in a dark corner. I fed 7 pairs of hollow legs with it, DS4 had some for breakfast this morning and we're going to eat it for dinner tonight as well (and probably DS4's breakfast tomorrow too) since I don't really have the freezer space.

He normally has HM soup for breakfast but this week's is a little strange. I made an orange chicken bake in the SC on Wednesday, but I didn't peel the oranges so I felt it was a little bitter, so to make the remains into soup I added some carrots (and my hand slipped as I was adding the lentils). Then I left the SC on high and forgot about it:eek: (took ages to clean!). Think of a very stiff pease pudding with carrot, orange, leeks, potatoes and chicken mashed into it:rotfl:

Just popped on to say, Scottish Coop have a few good offers on just now (and maybe other Coop sub-groups too ?), including half price own brand washing liquid/powder, 4 cans tuna for £2.50 (John West Stuff) and also Mayo for £1. We got some of the tuna, some reduced cooked cocktail sausages (£1), reduced organic eggs (with a decent date on too, 50p for 4), and also some Onken wholegrain yoghurt (full price £1.39)- I struggle to eat in the mornings, always have, but find yoghurt a good healthy start .
As my sig says we won't declare at the end of Jan (ours finishes on Sun), but we are happily (slightly) under 1/12th of the yearly budget .
Dinner tonight is LO savoury mince with pasta (not what was on the meal plan but using pretty much same ingredients lol), followed maybe by apple pie if I get round to putting the x-stitch down and make it!
Hope all are well and if not then hugs.
OS