SOA Groceries, How do you do it.

misscousinitt

Hi there...

Just on the issue of time, home cooked food does not need to be time consuming. I am always strapped for time, but I love cooking).

Just for an example, this is my meal plan for this week and the times involved:

Tonight: Chicken & Mushroom Omlette (left over chicken from last night, sliced mushrooms and spring onions and eggs) 10 mins tops
Friday: Fish Stew - 10 mins prep - 20 mins cook
Saturday: Pie & Mash - 35 mins
Monday: Salmon with Dill & Cream Sauce - 10 mins prep - 15 mins cook
Tuesday: Turkey Lasagne (this one is a bit longer, but the leftovers are frozen and the leftover meal is ready in roughly 10 mins max as you only have to re-heat in the microwave and bung a bit of salad with it). 1 1/2 hours - but for the last 40 mins you are not standing over the stove - you can be sitting down infront of the TV with a glass of wine!).
Wednesday: Braised Beef, Yorkies, Roast Pots and Veg 1 1/2 hours (again the leftovers can be frozen and re-heated quickly with some mash so 20 mins tops) - again for the last 40-45 mins you don't need to be standing over it (just put the veg on 20 mins before the end).

Hope this helps to show that home cooked food need not take too much time up in the evening.

Good luck

yellowduck_2

Love the gingerbread people! I do a big shop about every 2 weeks and get stuff like tinned tomatoes, chick peas, big lump of cheese bag of spuds, chicken, sausages, bacon bits etc and then have a day cooking and freezing. Personally i hate cooking although I must admit I am good at it and can be pretty creative. I even make a massive load of mashed potato as I love mash in this cold weather and freeze it in portion sizes to last me for a few meals. I have a slow cooker, it is brilliant, I make a lovely spicy chicken and red lentil stew thing in that will post recipie if anyone is interested. Costs about £4 and makes roughly 4 portions depending on how greedy you are. Top up ny shopping with milk and go to the local market for my veg as way cheaper than the supermarket and much nicer. I guess a lot of it is down to being organised. Once you have got into the habit of menu planning and maybe having a cooking and freezing day it does save time and money. Dark Convict I like your name too!

dancingfairy

Intrigingly no-one has mentioned cakes, soft drinks, alcohol etc. I suspect this is because these are easy to cut out in the sense they are not essential to have and they tend to be expensive. I think if you really want to save you have to give up cut down on alchohol and soft drink and cakes or make your own cakes/jam tarts etc.
Another thing that's always handy is to stock up on things that won't go off when on offer, things like toilet rolls, toothpast, tinned things, dried things - eg pasta, rice etc - but it's only a bargain if you will actually use it.
Anyway - not sure I'm really qualified to give advice as I'm not the best at cutting the food budget down but I know the theory - lol.
df

dandm1

Lots of good tips on here already but thought I'd add my two pennies worth!

Hubby lost his job in December, so we had no choice but to cut back on the groceries! We've managed to get it down to £50 per month for the two of us, plus extras each week like milk/ bread/ apples etc. so it definately is possible. And funnily enough, we're eating better now than we have done in a long time!

I guess the main tip (other than what has already been mentioned) is to plan your shopping. I do my shopping online, so I can carefully create my shopping list based on exactly what we need/ what is on offer etc - and then I can review it if we go over budget and come up with ways of cutting back. And we don't get tempted by special offers in store for things you really don't need or overspend without realising!
After I get the shopping, I write a meal plan of all the meals I'm going to cook that month using everything I have bought, this not only saves time as you don't need to come up with something each night, just pick it off a list, but also means you don't let things go off or get forgotten about.

I've also been a lot more inventive with meals, trying a huge range of new recipes (try goodtoknow.co.uk - there are loads of really easy, quick and CHEAP recipes).
My favourite at the moment is sausage in onion gravy. I do it in the slow cooker but could easily be changed to an oven cook recipe. Brown sausages in frying pan put into casserole dish. In frying pan add onions and cook until soft, sprinkle over some brown muscavodo sugar until slightly caramalised, add some beef stock and some flour. Cook until thick. Cover sausages with gravy and bung in oven until cooked through. Serve with mash/ veg. Super easy, super tasty and super cheap...

Also, have a look on the Old Style money saving board, it really helped me.

doire_2

Cut out all junk food like chocolate, crisps, soft drinks etc.

If you want a treat then eat some fruit. Bag of apples, oranges, pears etc cost about a £1 or less for 6.

If you see food that will last a long time and its on offer then buy two or three of it. Stock up on tinned food for example.

Defo make your own lunch. Works out much cheaper.

taka

My best tip would be to plan to spend a bit of time once a week (maybe for an hr or so) and batch cook several things at the same time. I tend to cook big batches of things like curry that will do maybe 6 meals at a time and freeze the rest in single portions. I try to do 1 or 2 different things a week and that way I have several ready (home cooked) meals in my freezer to grab and during the week - I just need to zap a spud, cook some rice / pasta / couscous etc or whatever to go with it.

Things like a tomato based sauces are really easy to do too - toms, onion, garlic etc. It is a good basis for loads of meals that way - eg pasta, with rice and mixed veg, reduce it a bit and you have pizza sauce, use it in chilli... the list goes on.

Frozen veg can be very useful too - no prep time and no wastage! :T Things like spinach can be cheaper frozen than fresh too.

It may also be a good idea to get a student cookbook - some of them have very quick, simple, easy to cook, healthy, non scary for beginners (like me :rotfl:) type food on a budget.

Delias books are good to - You get a bit of explanation about why you are doing something and how to do it or prep it and not just the recipie!

berkshirelady

those biscuits are cool! you're obviously a better cook than you give yourself credit for!

Like other people I would recommend bargain reduced stuff at the end of the day. I'm lucky enough to pass a Co-op on the way home in the evening where I can regularly get things that have been reduced by 75%. Anything from fruit and veg to ready meals, so if you're not keen on cooking all the time, look out for reduced ready made curries, pizzas and shepherd's pies, I've got things like cottage pie for 50p each before. and then cook up some reduced veggies on the side - sorted!

It's definitely worth investing in some 'store cupboard' ingredients which you can use to pep up very cheap (and sometimes boring) ingredients. You can then pick up reduced items, look up recipes online to fit what you've got, and then you can do a lot of recipes if you have stuff like this handy (I get most from Lidl, the dried herbs are very good value). You'll find that lots of recipes will need some basic bits like stock, garlic or seasoning. pick flavours according to what you like to eat!

Stock cubes - veggie & chicken (good for soups), beef (great for meat casseroles)
Garlic
Dried mixed herbs
plain flour (for thickening sauces etc)
gravy granules
tinned tomatoes - essential!!
tinned pulses e.g. kidney beans or butter beans - good for bulking out a casserole or soup
curry powder (great for a spicy soup as well as curries)
ground coriander & cumin powder (as above)
dried oregano (good for tomato sauces or pepping up a cheap pizza)
tomato puree
onions (dried onion flakes maybe?)
soy sauce
chilli sauce or tabasco
vegetable oil
olive oil

good luck, and don't forget to show us your next creation!

:-)

JasX

doire wrote: »

Cut out all junk food like.................. soft drinks etc.

I disagree here, getting a load of cheap supermarket diet lemonade/sparkling water (under 25-40p a 2l bottle) costs next to nothing and if mixed with jucies/cordial is a very economical way to cater for refreshments

piggeh

I often find the pitfalls that I fall into are:

1) Lack of fridge space - as I houseshare it's difficult to get more than a few days' of stuff in one shop. So I have to go everyday almost, and then it just becomes laborious and I just get a pizza or something!

2) Lack of time - when I lived by myself I regularly spent a few hours cooking a lasagne or shepherds pie - worked out to be cheap portions. However it's difficult to spend so long cooking in a shared house, and not very relaxing.

3) Inspiration - the meals I do cook (pasta, salads, etc) get boring after a while. I look through my cookery books and online recipes and can never seem to find appealing 'simple' recipes! Or they always put one or two ingedients in there which I've never heard of I also try to avoid processed meats, like ham, corned beef, etc, so it limits choice a bit more.

niccatw

Ames wrote: »

Ooh yes, don't fall into the trap of having things in because you think you 'should'! I don't drink tea or put sugar in anything, so I don't buy any.

I completely agree Ames. Last time my folks visited, Dad came armed with coffee and demerara sugar and mum with granulated sugar and tomato sauce so they weren't subjected to the confines of my store cupboard :rotfl:

dancingfairy wrote: »

Intrigingly no-one has mentioned cakes

Banana loaf if (like me) your not keen on banana's when they start to get a bit old and squashy and a wee bit brown, this is a yummy way to save waste!

Seive 250g self raising flour, with teaspoon of nutmeg and cinnamon, rub in 125g butter or marg. Fold in 125g caster sugar, 2 eggs and the mashed bananas (I usually use 3) and a drop of vanilla essence. Bung in the oven (I use a loaf tin) at 180/Gas mark 4 for 45-60 mins (depending on your oven) and sit back and wait. Takes about 10 mins to prepare. Mmmm!