Store cupboard challenge

Squidgy

We had chicken with a tin of condenced soup on Saturday. Cooked the chicken, fryed some onions and garlic, put in the soup (tomato and red pepper), cooked for a bit more. Topped with rashers of bacon, then the sauce, grated cheese over and cooked in the oven for bit. Try this with your pork. It was delicious.

tiff

Thanks for the ideas Elona, Sarah and Squidgy. I fancy the chinese egg style thingy. I absolutely have to go shopping on Thurs, I went last week and spent £22 but this week I know I will have to spend more. Fine as long as its not over £40.

r.mac_2

tiff wrote:

Ok, I'm scraping the barrel now. I need to do a shop on Thursday and start my personal February challenge. I now have in the freezer 2 big bags frozen peas, 2 packs liver, 2 x 1llb portions cooked pork, oven chips, 1 chicken and mushroom pie, 4 salmon fishcakes, Quorn mince and maybe a few other things that I cant think of at the moment. Yesterday I cooked a chicken from the freezer and we had a roast dinner. Tonight is chicken curry with the leftover chicken and Bombay potatoes.

Can someone give me some inspiration for the cooked pork please? Not curry as we're having it tonight. Thanks

tiff -

I know what you mean. I am going to join you in the february challenge. luckily though There is just me to worry about. Not sure what limit I should set myself for food for the month. Any tips?

tiff

Hi RMac, what do you spend weekly? If you know your weekly figure and you're sure you can do better just maybe aim for £10 less or so, whatever you think. Then the following month you could try and reduce it further if you wanted to or just keep it the same. The main thing is its your own personal target, we're all different and have different ways of doing things. For myself I dont want to cut things right to the bone, but certainly improve on my pre Christmas monthly shopping bill of £400+. I know I can do it as the last 3 weeks have been a great improvement.

I'll set up a new thread for anyone else that wants to join us.

marsha8

My favourite slo-cooker recipe!
Fry sliced onion in little oil to brown.(I always have onions in store)Add Minced beef (defrosted from freezer) until no longer looking raw.Add clove of garlic,crushed).Add 1 LEVEL dessertspoonful of chilli powder(always in store cupboard).Stir for a couple of minutes.Add 1 carton of Passata(lovely thick tomato sauce)- always in store cupboard.Add drained red kidney beans(in store) & add salt to taste.Cook for 4 hours on "Auto". Or cook in saucepan for about 45mins.
Serve with rice - I prefer brown rice for chewiness & health. LOVELY.

ALIJV

you could mak e....cherry,suet pudding with blamange instead of custard, maybe the kirsch would help make you a bit tipsy so it'll taste good whatever? or maybe you have some other alcohol lurking in the back of your store cupboard to make it stronger and you wouldn't notice what it tasted like anyway

Sarahsaver

I spose really I aim to be organised enough to always have certain things in the cupboard.
These are - the ingredients for a trifle;)
tinned tomatoes
rice
pasta
pesto
tinned tina
tinned sweetcorn
value tomato soup (no matter how lovely i make soup my daughter will only eat this)
a sack of potatoes
a big bag of onions
frozen value sausages
porridge oats
flour

then its never too much of a 'challenge' to come up with a meal;)

Nickynoo1

I dont have any mince in the freezer but i do have some frozen burgers. Thought i might defrost these and try and make the meatballs as mentioned earlier. I'll add some egg, breadcrumbs and garlic then see how they turn out. I've a tin of tomatoes and an oninon for the sauce. I'll let you know if it works.

Now I have some porridge oats, flour, butter and sugar in my store cupboard, and i quite fancy some oaty biscuits. Any ideas how to turn these around?

Nickynoo

Scarlet_Freckles

Tonight
Well we have pork chops that have been lurking in the freezer, with my special sauce made from brown and tom sauce, worcester sauce, mustard, a touch of vinegar , a spoon of canderel (or brown sugar for those of you that can have sugar!), some onion and hot water (believe me its yummy, a kind of x between a sweet and sour and a bbq sauce.) Don't ask me for amounts... its guess work everytime :-)
Then I'm going to use up the dried onions, tinned mushrooms, sweetcorn, and seen-better-days orange pepper to make a yummy rice risotto to go with it.
Banana left in the fruit bowl and custard for pudding....winter warmers yum.

speff_2

Could I possibly mention a couple of books which are the Old and New Testament(apologies to the devout amongst us) of store - cupboard cooking?
First of all, the classic "Cooking in A Bedsitter" by Katherine Whitehorn, and then Cas Clarke's "More Grub on Less Grant", the follow - up to "Grub on A Grant"? I am long past my student days, but I still use these diligently in the kitchen.