August 2008 Grocery Challenge

patentgirl

Sending you a hug KAAT hope you get it sorted out
another NSD for me today nephews birthday and my SIL always does a lovely spread so havent got to worry about tea tonight
I definately agree Penny Pincher noticed nibbles and fruit and ice lollys are going 10 times faster since school holidays have started! going to have to get DD15 baking while i am at work

Mollymop5

£200 for August .I'm trying really hard to keep to budget but my kids just keep eating and eating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chell

I never thought of adding the runny jam to yoghurt. It is very sweet so would be nice added to some natural yoghurt that is quite sour. Homemade fruit corners, good plan ZoeGirl.

The muffins sound nice, is it plain or SR flour?

Herbaholic

Morning all

Big hugs to Kaat Lady, hope you feel better soon. DeniseF, if you can't get your thyroid checked this time make another appointment with your doc to ask them to check it for you. I have an underactive thyroid and have a medical exemption certificate, it means I get my hormones and any other prescriptions free. Don't ask me why it applies to all prescriptions as I don't know, but its worth getting your thyroid checked anyway

A lot cooler here today so far, looks like we may have a showery day, not so bad, the veggies need it and I do to, feel like I'm wilting with all this heat of late. Yesterday's bread turned out okay, DH took it with some whoopsied chicken tikka and mango chutney for his pack up today, along with a box of cocount muffins (to share with everyone at work he said lol!). Thanks for the Hovis breadmix cheap at Tesco info Angelnikki, I like the granary one so will stock up when we go to MrT this weekend. Think I may try and make some jam in the breadmaker as its supposed to be capable, just not got round to trying it, may try the tinned peach preserve recipe I got off the July GC.

Detracted from meal plan yesterday DH fancied chippy fish, chips & mushy peas, no way did I want to spend my GC money on a chippy tea, so I compromised, and offered to do a homemade chippy tea, if we had it all in, if we didn't we'd go to the chippy. Decided to do some jacket wedges in the oven (weight watchers style), so better for us with some chip shop style cod in batter from the freezer, when it got to the mushy peas bit I paniced as we had no tins in :eek:

Took me several minutes but then remembered last year I was out for a meal and had 'crushed peas with mint and fromage frais' in! Yes! thought I I'll do that, ummmmm nope, checked the cupboard and no mint sauce (only fresh mint in garden and it was raining hard) and no fromage frais. I then spied an unopened jar of garlic mayonaise in the fridge, knew I had some frozen peas in, so cooked some garden peas and mashed them with the garlic mayo and a bit of black pepper and served up our homemade chippy tea and DH was impressed, he called it posh fish n chips lol!

What really made me smile was I got the garlic mayo last week from MrA it was whoopsied to 5p but went through at 2p and until that day I'd never bought garlic mayo before! Some things are just meant to happen. Have decided it would be nice stirred through pasta with chicken, sweetcorn and peppers to make a pasta salad a la Mrs Mac, but may need to let the mayo down a bit. Anyway the 'creamy garlic mushy peas' will now be on our mealplans a lot more, DH said he preffered them to tinned mushy peas anyway and I feel like an :A because I didn't fizzle away my GC money and used what was in.

Herby

*Mari*

Hi Im new to this and wondered if I could join in!! Could you please put me down for 65 pounds a week. Thats for 2 adults 2 teenagers and an old cat! We're away for two weeks which Im not including as it's already been budgeted for!!

galadriel

That sounds delicious Herbaholic, I will have to pinch that idea. I am quite partial to fish and chips myself but it's such a long walk to the chippy they are cold by the time I get back so I tend to make them myself more often than not.

MRSMCAWBER

Morning all

After the extravagance of my 2c spend yesterday-im back to my NSDs :rotfl:

I have an easy day again today..this evening it is hm thai beef curry and naans -just taken them out of the freezer -so i just need to do the noodles and some peas :T

Hubby has taken a salad with steamed potatoes and goats/feta/cheddar/cheshire cheese on -they were allready opened and i find if he gets a small bit of each he eats less than just giving him 1 kind -then he wants a slab

The brownies are in the micro -need to make room for them in the freezer -for those emergancy must have cake moments

Its not quite as hot here -so far -so im off into the garden to empty some tubs and set more carrots, salad leaves and pak choi -the carrots i set 2 days ago are through allready :j think the storm last night helped as it was still warm even though it tipped it down...

right i will get on with the garden
have a great day everyone

yellowmonkey

Morning.

So the shopping begins. Just over £13 today at Mr M so not too bad. Chilli is on the go as I am playing golf this afternoon and wont feel like cooking when I come in. Going to make some " Moon cakes " with DD's. I do not normally bake cakes and stuff but after my success with my own toad in the hole I am inspired

Hope you all have a great day and "keep it low";)

ym

Herbaholic

Me again, just sat down with morning coffee and copy of 'Easy Cook' magazine which I got yesterday and thought of SavingForTravel and OrkneyStar, the mag has several blueberry recipes in all sound delicious. There's Blueberries with yogurt, honey and caramelised almonds (needs 225g blueberries). Blueberry, coconut and lime ice cream (needs 125g blueberries) and Rasberry and blueberry lime drizzle cake (needs 100g blueberries). Not sure if I can post the recipes because of copyright and stuff, but thought you may be interested. They do say to crush some blueberries and add to some balsamic vinegar to make a blueberry salad dressing which may appeal?

Someone was asking recently about using plums (sorry can't find who or where) but there's a recipe for Plum and almond crumble slice which needs 6 plums, looks rather nice, wonder if I could use peaches instead as I don't like plums lol! I'm off to make some of the Banana & Lemon Muffins from the last page now yum, yum, yum

For any newbies to cooking or busy people Easy Cook is a great mag, has good ideas, easy to follow, not always cheap recipes though, but you can substitute cheaper or alternate ingredients to bring the cost per portion down. They do break the recipes down into servings you get, how long it takes to cook, cost per portion, calories and whether it can be frozen or not. Lots of seasonal recipes over the months as well. Have a skim through the mag if you're out and about and see what you think. Nope I don't work for them, just thought I'd share some inspiration, I have a few back issues, think I'll go dig them out and see what other goodies I can find

Herby

egon

Good morning,

I have done the meal list for August. We have so much fish in, we have to eat it twice a week, so we can halve the amount!!!!!!
This will hopefully empty one of the freezers, so I can defrost it.

We have lots of frozen fruit, any ideas what I can do with them???

I have done a shopping list for the first week, it is still more, then I had expected. Ok, some of it is stock up (spagetthi).
But I will only buy what is absolutely necessary, then I do a big Mr T delivery for when we get back of holidays and nursery starts.

KAAT I hope you are feeling better soon.

Egon