August 2008 Grocery Challenge

meanmarie

Afternoon folks,

Back on track this month I hope...put me down for €300 please...have been naughty since coming from Oz and have had lots of extra people over last couple of weeks so starting on Friday 1st and continuing until 31st.

Good luck everybody

Marie

OrkneyStar

Herbaholic wrote: »

Afternoon all Where did the morning go :eek: !!! Welcome to all the newbies, hugs to everyone and congrats to the two new Mum's :T 2 NSD's in a row for me now and I won't have to go to MrA until Friday, so I'm doing well. Thanks for sharing your veggie photos Orkneystar, I'll be picking some green beans and lifting some potatoes to go with the whoopsied salmon for tea tonight, I'm really excited lol! Pumpkin update... its now as big as a football, very green but growing lots, I'm impressed, will take a photo and share when I can find the camera. Looking forward to pumpkin pie when its ripened I noticed yesterday that the plum tomato plant has two very green plum toms on it, I picked up that plant for 10p when the local garden centre had a [strike]'its dying cos we didn't water it so take it away'[/strike] reduced sale so anything I get off it is a bargain, my gardeners delight that I grew from seed are flowering both in the greenhouse and outside, be interesting to see which do better?!

Yesterday's beef curry was a bit of a disaster, it was to runny and no amount of cornflour would have thickened it up, I know what I did wrong, I added too much water (first time I've made a curry in the slow cooker and didn't have a proper recipe) so will correct it next time! Luckily I hadn't told DH what he was having for tea, so I thought for a minute about how I could rectify it (the old me would have thrown it away and said I was too tired and lets go out for a takeaway! :eek: ) but the new me threw in some rice and lentils, a little more spice and served it up as muligatawny soup with lots of fresh crusty bread, DH said it was yummy, so I got away with it! The rest of the 'soup' is in the freezer for another day

Got some baking to do this afternoon, thank goodness its cooler here today so I can do some muffins and cookies, was too hot yesterday and DH complained he had no 'goodies' to take to work for snacks, he was sent off with some apples and a banana lol!

Thanks to JayJay14 and Turbo5019 for answering my Asda CC query, much appreciated :beer: Have a good day everyone

Well done for rescuing the 'curry/soup'. I made a slow cooker pork curry for the first time and it worked out lovely (beginners luck lol), have you tried taking the lid off for 10-20 mins at the end, sticking on med or high and letting it reduce a bit ? I love my slow cooker.
Well here is the products of me and DH's last hour in the kitchen! http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2712959677_d9cfcab61a.jpg
Coconut and double choc chip cookies and mini blueberry muffins (both are adapted OrkneyStar style recipes I cut out from a cookery mag ages ago). I would share them but not sure who would want as there are already recipes like these around (I hear a lot about the millies cookies lol, but not made them yet!)- I will if anyone wants though .

mrs-moneypenny

i'll try again with an august figure of £400

findingmyfeet

denisefowler wrote: »

PS: Just thought I'd add, I don't usually recommend 'fibbing' to OH, but 'ommitting' a few details to the betterment of our bank accounts has to be good eh?????

found i had to agree with this one- never keep much from my hubby either but sometimes tweeking the fine detail for their own good is acceptable!! made my laugh too....

penguin83

I'm in for the 2nd month with a target of £450.00 please. x x

egon

Hi,

Angelnikki, can you please put me down for August with a budget of
£150.

We are away for a week in France, so my budget is for 3 weeks only.
I am also just using up what we have at home, and just buy little top ups!

Haven't done the GC in July, but kept an eye on the budget. It was sailing past the £300 mark!:eek: :eek: :eek:

Herbaholic

OrkneyStar wrote: »

Well done for rescuing the 'curry/soup'. I made a slow cooker pork curry for the first time and it worked out lovely (beginners luck lol), have you tried taking the lid off for 10-20 mins at the end, sticking on med or high and letting it reduce a bit ? I love my slow cooker.

Noo hadn't tried that, thanks Orkneystar Will try it in the future, first time I've just chucked everything in the SC, usually follow recipes. Didn't realise you could cook with the lid off!

I have another culinary disaster about to happen, put the BM on for a normal white loaf with seeds in (linseed, pumpkin, sesame & sunflower) it's done its first mix. now resting and I just realised that I've selected programme 2 FRENCH bread not programme 1 for BASIC :eek: Nothing I can do now but hope the basic bread recipe will work out okay for french bread, where is my head today :eek: :eek: :eek:

newlywed

Hi - failed very miserably last month

Aiming for £320 this month and hoping to be a bit more realistic (and restrained, and sensible )

gillaman

Forgot to wish you HAPPY BIRTHDAY OrkneyStar so belated good wishes and hope it was a good one -and that your parcels have arrived.:rotfl:

Tried making yoghurt in a flask yesterday - still very runny this morning. I was going to make it into smoothies, but my Rose Elliot book says you can make cottage cheese with the same sort of mix by putting it, covered, in a warm place for 1-4 days. If it works you get a golden crust on top which is soured cream and underneath is the cottage cheese. I've turned it into a bowl and put it in the airing cupboard. Will let you know how this works out - has anyone else tried it?

NSD today but off to Reading for a pizza/pasta meal out and looking forward to this. I love Italian cooking.

Cooked some kidney beans yesterday and added some peppers, herbs and spices to make a sandwich filling. Filled a tortilla with 1/3rd of it for lunch today and froze the rest in the tiny plastic pots from Mr A. Have quite a few shop bought tortillas in the freezer at the moment but will make my own using this site's recipe when they run out.

I'm also going to start sprouting seeds again. Did this beginning of last year and they were really nice, though a bit fiddly with all the rinsing. I just put them in a jam jar, covered with the cut off foot part of a pair of tights secured with a rubber band, and turned upside down to drain. Can put the sprouted seeds in sandwiches or stir fries.

egon

chelltune wrote: »

Congratulations!

I'm in a similar situation. I want to join the challenge but I am having a planned c-sec next Thursday. It will make it difficult to plan as I won't be able to do all the shopping.

I did a Tesco online shop that arrived today, I couldn't face the supermarket with DD (3.5yrs) and DS (5yrs) in this heat as my feet are badly swollen. The shop came to £45 which was good considering there was a pack of Huggies Drynites at £5.50 (only used when we are away in our caravan). I will go with a weekly budget of £60 to include food, toiletries and cleaning things.

I haven't bought quite enough for the week but will pop to Home Bargains for loo rolls, etc. I also want to get some of the Muller Yoghurts from Morrisons if they are still on offer.

Mueller Yoghurts are on offer until the 5th August