October 2008 Grocery Challenge. Please read first two posts.

Money_saving_Diva_2

Hi ladies!

Hope this finds you all well and happy.

MrsM, I am with you - I have been browsing Suttons and Dobies brochures for weeks now! I already have some garlic to plant up and am amazed at how huge my winter potato plants are. Just no flowers yet so I presume, no potatoes!! But I live in hope. (It's my first time growing them in case you hadn't guessed)

Trying to live out of the freezer and store cupboard as the end of the month is looming, but it seems every day we need SOMETHING and it's really annoying me! :rotfl: But I keep smiling and keep trying. Controlling the OH is the worst part, sometimes it really does get me down because he is still impulse buying and not always thinking before he spends.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well with your own challenges
to all

Diva.x

meanmarie

Spent €10.66 on potatoes, turnip and mushrooms...so now have €40 left until 31st...using mackerel from freezer with 'pickled' red cabbage and baked potatoes for dinner...baked apples and yogurt to follow

Good luck all

Marie

cw18

Been up to Mr T for a couple of bits today -- and the 2.5kg bag of Market Value spuds I paid 57p for last Thursday is now 78p :eek:

That's a 21p increase in just 4 days , which equates to roughly 7p/day increase in cost for me when using spuds as I normally get three meals (9 portions) from one bag -- and would have only got 2 meals (4 portions) before I started watching portion sizes this month :eek: :eek: :eek:

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I have bought several ingredients today so should not need to do any food buying for the next few days. Plans are to have a corned beef and piccalilli pie with cabbages and potatoes for tea tonight. Then use up rest of cabbage with some soup mix and do a batch of soup for one lunchtime. Have got some leftover mashed potatoes in the freezer so will make fishcakes as well and one of DH's work colleagues gave us some free apples so can make crumble with those (already cooked and frozen). We'll have veggie curry and veggie pizza as well and we have eggs so can make some Yorkshire puddings and fill them with some cheap ingredients.

angelatgraceland

mumzyof2 wrote: »

I just need to check something.. and need someone to run through it and make sure its correct..
Chicken soup

I have bought a chicken and its oven.. once it cooked i take all the meat off and put the bones in a pan.. cover the bones with boiling water and simmer for about an hour. Once cooked get rid of all bones.. But what do i do next? Do i add some chicken and blend it? How to i make it thick soup?

Ok so you have your soup stock. Now what you add to it is up to you reall but the liquid of it probably needs to be topped up. So I am guessing at adding about 1 or 2 pint of water and a couple of stock cubes. Chicken ones or veg ones.
Add some onions,carrots,lentils,maybe some diced potatoes,pearl barley.
Add all of that together plus the bits of meat that come off of the chicken carcass. Chuck out th skin and bones.

What I do is this:

Boil carcass
Sieve the contents of the pan so Ive got a seive full of chicken and bones
Put on large plate and remove skin and bones
Put remaining chicken from seive into liquid mixture.
Cook all of this together.

Potatoes make it thicker. Do you want a chunky soup or a smooth soup?
If you want it smooth-when you liquidize it, it will get thicker anyway.
If you liquidze it only fill up the blender to just under half or it will overflow.
You will thenneed an extra pan to tip the blended mixture into.
If you want to thicken it you can get some cornflour, mix to a paste, then make it runny with more water and slowly stir it into the pan of soup until its a bit thiccker. Personally I never do this I prefer it without.

Hope that works well for you. I did mine the other day with ingredients above minus the pearl barley.

rosieben

mumzyof2 wrote: »

... I have bought a chicken and its oven.. once it cooked i take all the meat off and put the bones in a pan.. cover the bones with boiling water and simmer for about an hour. Once cooked get rid of all bones.. But what do i do next? Do i add some chicken and blend it? How to i make it thick soup?

sorry I thought I'd posted this link when you asked before, but I may have forgotten
Chicken soup from a carcass

cw18

scotsaver wrote: »

cw18 - let us know how you get on with the Heart's

Haven't costed up the meal yet, and am about to dive out for a spot of babysitting for a friend/neighbour, so won't be able to do that until 9-ish

But.....

The recipe was a little more fiddly than I'd expected (and probably not quite as frugal as I'd have liked), but I managed to do it without anyone else seeing what I was up to (packet now buried at bottom of bin). Sliced each into three before serving, so two slices each and doesn't resemble it's origins

DH has just been told it's "casserole" -- waiting to see how he copes as he's having problems swallowing, and the heart itself isn't 100% tender all the way through (think it's the nature of the item rather than something gone wrong in the cooking).

DS looked and asked what it was. Told him it's a cheap cut of lamb (which it is) stuffed with onion, mushroom and sausage meat, then wrapped in bacon, before being cooked in the sauce. He declared it looks like "slops",

DS is eating in his room as normal (dining room is now a bedroom, so we tend to eat in different places), but I can hear the cutlery hitting the plate at regular intervals which implies it's going -- and he's not come straight back out declaring it "inedible" which he's done with other things I've cooked.


The stuffing was a tad sloppy, so would have to look at adjusting that in the future -- and I suspect the sauce is a bit heavy on the tomatoes for DH.

Whilst I wouldn't want it weekly (probably not even fortnightly), I think I could cope with this every 3-4 weeks if it's not too expensive with bits (like the hearts) being snapped up at 75% off again

mumzyof2

Thankyou very much for the soup info. carcass is in fridge im doing it wednesday morning as have college tomorrow.

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We had some potatoes and cabbage left over after tea tonight, so I am going to have a stab at making bubble and squeak for lunch tomorrow. I made the cabbage and soup mix soup and added some dried herbs to flavour it and it looks ok, but not eaten any yet. I did go and buy some cocoa and baking margarine, baking powder and selfraising flour, but at least those things should last a while.

Julimk

DD has been a complete gannet and it seems that every two minutes she was complaining she was hungry & raiding the fridge and larder. As a result I have had to go to Mr T again & spent another £20 or so.

Mind you I can’t stay cross with her. She asked if I had considered going on Masterchef & I said that I wasn’t good enough. She said I definitely was & everything I cooked was delicious! Bless:D

And I got some whoopsied stewing steak & sausages for the freezer. So now, when I am through most of the portions already in there I have this & frying steak, mince & chicken breasts to start my meal plan from.

I know that I am using up the portions from the freezer, from the empty tubs that are piling up – but there seem to be as many in the freezer as before!