August 2009 Grocery Challenge

Sunnyday

kezlou wrote: »

Beetroot and Apple Chutney

12oz finely chopped onions
21b cooked beetroot, peeled and diced
12oz cooking apples, diced (weight when peeled)
3/4 pint malt vinegar
1tsp fresh ginger
12oz sugar
1tsp salt
1tsp of chilli
1tsp cumin

Put onions, beetroot and apples into a pan with vinegar, Simmer until the apples are soft and then add sugar. Stir and boil steadily until the chutney reaches desired consistency. Add salt and spoon into jars.


QUOTE]


Thankyou so much for this :A

SD

cw18

Did a "big" shop (for me as a mid-month shop) today - spent £22.80 (after using a voucher for £2.50 off a spend of £25+) at Farmf00ds. It's years since I've been in one of those stores, but as I had the voucher (plus several more) I decided to check them out rather than heading in the opposite direction to Mr T.

My freezers are now full again (though a lot of this will easily take us into next month), and I've spent 26.5% of my budget in 45% of the month.

Got
Twin pack of Pepperoni Pizza : £1.75. The boys had these for tea
Twin pack of Cheese & Tomato Pizza : £1.75. I had one for tea, and the other's in the freezer for another day
425g of wafer thin ham : £2. This was in a 3 for £5 offer, but there wasn't anything else in the offer we needed/were likely to use/that I had space to store. So I resisted 'saving £1 only to throw the best part of £3 worth away'
2x chocolate sauce for ice-cream : 89p each younger DS has been telling me for days we'd run out! Only got the second to get over the £25 to use the voucher
3x 1kg mini chicken fillets : 3 for £10, rather than £4.50 each the fillets I'm not far off finishing (2 big bags bought at Costc0 back in January) are large, and whilst I can feed 2 of us on 1 it's excessive to use two when elder DS is home. I figures that with the smaller ones it'll be easy enough to pull out more appropriate amounts for what I want to use, plus they're small enough (and cheap enough as there's an average of 20 in a bag, making them around 17p each) for me to have one with salad for my lunches (plan to cook up and refreeze one bag purely for this purpose)
2x 1kg mixed veg : £1 each needed more frozen veg for this month, and had planned to get more peas and sweetcorn (which I always mix). But these are peas, sweetcorn, carrots and beans - so give us a bit of a change
1kg frozen rhubarb : £1 need to increase my F&V intake and love this stewed (especially with custand. nice with crumble, but can eat it without now I'm also calorie counting!)
500g sliced mushrooms : £1 the ones I've self-frozen never seem to defrost nicely enough to add to pizza, but I've not seen frozen ones for years. Used 200g tonight, so these will soon be gone - just a shame I didn't have more freezer space to get more of these :rolleyes2
and a real treat for us....
pack of 9 lamb chump chops : £3.95 can't remember the last time we had proper lamb, and the lamb grillsteaks we've been having just aren't the same!!

Fire_Fox

You all seem to be doing so well month after month that I don't want to let the side down!!

I've been into Leeds today so compelled to visit the health food store, spending £5 on two packs of wholewheat egg noodles and a bag of wheatgerm. I now only have £44 to spend in Tesco on a fortnight's shopping .... And yesterday I discovered that Mr. Fire Fox's well stocked cereal cupboard contains six virtually empty boxes. :rolleyes:

Think I will need to work miracles with vouchers and coupons! Have posted a query on the 'Food Shopping & Groceries' board to see if Tesco will accept the Sun newspaper Debenhams and Halfords vouchers as they took Morrisons and Boots.

pixie1

As hubs has recently changed jobs i didnt take into account the change in his payday, which has gone from the 30th of the month to the 15th. So I want to budget from the 15th from now on.....so.......I dont know what month Im in now lol I have budgeted what I have spent upto yesterday for the four weeks prior which was $477 AUD so would you say that was for July and start again for Aug as of today?

Sorry i know i sound thick, but i want to be part of this thread as its a great way for me keep track of my spends.

Thanks

Pix

elf06

Yep Pix I would go with that aswell! At the moment mine is ok but I suspect I will be in the same boat soon as I am 4 weekly paid and it all gets a bit squiffy!

tessie_bear

hi...hope everyone is doing well....i am a bit overspent....i blame the school holidays and we have got 3 weeks left...we have run out of lollies so ill have to do some shopping this weekend

cw18....we have been doing the farm foods thing for about 3 months...£2.50 off £25 spend...we use uht milk ...iits already cheap in farmfoods so an extra 10% off seems a good deal...the loo roll is good as well nicky its called....9 rolls for £2....we also get the blue box of broken biscuits...lush...also pop can be reasonable and sometimes yogurts and margarine....i am going to get one of the trays of fruit shoot ( i think 24 for £5 ish) when kids are at school and see how long into the school year i can make it last...with sneaky refilling

i have got a reduced m and s chicken defrosting for lunch tomorrow i havent really thought beyond that...maybe fried rice with the remains

i was in the local coop the other day and i glanced at the deli as i walked past...dont normally and they had a kg of smoked bacon bits(as they called them) for £1.82...i asked for one of the bags thinking it would be like the sainsburys bits and pieces i often buy...well it wasnt it was lovely back bacon...all the same quite thick cut...no bits...iv bagged it up for loads of breakfasts and quiches...i also got a bit of horse shoe gammon for £1 and a boil bacon joint for £1.15...ill look there again

take care
tessa

highland_fling_2

Good morning everyone

it is absolutely pouring here so no incentive to leave the house. Had planned to bake today anyway and I am going to try the lemon curd cake for the first time.

Back at work so I will cut slices of it to carry with my packed lunch.

Think I will try to make the red onion marmalade. Sounds lovely, would it keep for Christmas gifts? Thought it might be nice to include it in hamper of home made items for elderly relative.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

spendaholic

Slightly more pleased with myself today, having spent £27 of my £40 shopping budget yesterday. This did include vouchers, but with my £8 overspend of the week before, that now brings me to £5 under.

I'm having a NSD today - stopping in and batch cooking spaghetti bolognaise and baking a sticky ginger cake.

My exercise is about to be on the Wii. :j

earthmother

Can I ask an opinion - how long would you class a cake mix as useable? I just found two in the cupboard with BBE May on - wondering whether to risk them or not - would save on our puddings spend, and I do seem to have slipped on that aspect again this month

clutterydrawer

Well I went to Morrisons today intending on getting a couple of things to see me through the week but ended up getting so much that my freezer is jammed solid again! The good news is that by strategic use of vouchers the whole lot only cost me £7.08 bring my total to about £37 hooray!


and I saved £5 by cycling to the supermarket instead of taking the bus.