March 2010 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

Well, I've officially fallen off the wagon this month, and it's only the 2nd! True, my month started on the 23rd, but i had a bad day at work today, so went shopping in asda to cheer myself up. Don't know why i bothered, as now i'm more depressed than i was before!!

Spent (gulp) £31.28:o:eek: so now I'm stupidly close to going over my budget, and i have 21 days left! Didn't even need anything, and it should've been a NSD!

HELP!!!!!

PG x

rosieben

CherryPie wrote: »

Fajita Seasoning

Would love to take the credit for this, but I'm pretty sure I copied this from a post on here! So if this is your recipe, thanks!! HTH

CherryPie x

ooops, you're right CherryPie, poppy-gloss posted this on the January GC and I missed it I've added it to the front page list now

Keiss_21

losingpatience wrote: »

I have some left over beef casserole in the freezer which I was going to turn into pasties... but I don't know how to make pastry I know there's pastry recipes on the first page of this thread but I don't know what pastry to make for pasties?? ( I know this is probably a very obvious question but I've never made pastry before! )
Can someone point me in the right direction please?!

losingpatience - I now use this recipe from the front page of this thread, omitting the sugar for savoury recipes. I also use wholemeal flour. All my friends and family think it is fantastic!

scotsaver wrote: »

Hi scotdebs - can I just ask if the Chicken Fajitas were homemade or made up from a packet - I'm looking for a nice Fajita recipe to try and make for myself rather than using a packet for the spices etc.;)
banwa -

scotsaver - I must admit to using the fajita spice packets sometimes....but usually use the fajita spice mix from Julian Graves..really nice!

slowandsteady wrote: »

Hmm i actually think i may have some frozen chicken stock hidden away, how long will it be ok for, i have had it in there a while if its where i think it is?

slowandsteady- I have to admit using months-old stock once in a while...it gets lost at the back of the freezer sometimes! I did a trawl on G****e, just in-case other don't recommend this..and found some saying they had used 9-month-old frozen stock...even mine isn't that old (at leastI don't think so!:o...must date the stock, must date the stock! I freeze stock in my ice-cube trays, then bag the frozen cubes, so I can take just one or two out if I want to cook a small amount of food without fat, but want to "fry" it....lovely flavour!


I have had two big spending days, but am now pretty well stocked up for the next week or two, except for fresh F&V, but enough for this week. I even got lots of compost and seeds, so will spend the next couple of days sorting out my seed-sowing plan for the coming months. I have included the compost and herb & veg seeds in my total as they are going towards "feeding" the family later on in the year.

Off to do some knitting now...another birthday pressie.

Have a good week everyone.

holly44

Well today would have been a no spend day but me and DD have cold so Lemsip's were the order of the day (I did buy sainsbugs own make so that saved a litte)

Other than that NSD

Tea tonight was homemade fish and chips ,batter as follows found on you tube

Plain Flour
Bicarbonate of soda
Salt

This is supposed to be a geniune chip shop batter
Well I can say it makes a very crispy light batter will definately do again

So far Have not done big batch cookerthon, but will do tomorrow hopefully will feel better

kittynortheast

Thanks very much to Pink Winged and Mrs M for organising this thread, it's only the 2nd of March and I've already lost it as well I think!! I'll give it another month but think it may have to be a £375 rather than a £350. I could cut down more but we don't go out for meals, have takeaways once in a bluemoon and buy up bargains galore, if its not on offer I don't buy it (sometimes buy nice meat from the farm shop), so I feel a bit mean cutting down completely when we aren't actually in debt any more but... still don't have spare cash-Where does it go? What do I buy?!!!

Did a batch of spag bol today for freezer and have started putting my HM bread ready thinly sliced (aldi electric knifey) in the freezer so it is always fresh, had chicken on sun and mon, sandwiches too!! Made some turkey carcass stock soup at the weekend, it was lovely (was rather extravegant at christmas and had an organic turkey-every last bone and piece of gristle was utilised!!). I meal plan, throw nothing away, take up every free meal offer, so I do try! What more can I do??? Suggestions gratefully received!

loulou0327

My name is Loulou0327 and I'm a ...........shopaholic!
Of my 200 pounds for the month i have spent 97.76 at Mr T :eek:.
Though looking at what i bought there wasn't any junk in there and its all stuff i use every week.
I made a list on my supermarket with what i thought i needed for the month and the necessities that i new i would use that i had run out of i bulked bought from the list i printed off. I got some really funny looks as i was stuffing my trolley full of 13 bottles of value squash and 15 chubs of dog food lmao.
Though i found my supermarket really useful for my list because i find that some big supermarkets especially Mr T have different makes of the same products two isles away from each other. For example i wanted to try and make my own Chinese this month i picked up 2 very extensive cook books for 20p each from a charity shop and was very impressed with the cheap cuts of meat they use.
Looking for soy sauce on my supermarket i had tesco soy sauce down at 65p but on the isle with all the chinese stuff they only had amoy at 85p, low and behold 3 isles away with completely unrelated stuff is the tesco brand at 65p.
They also do this with curry spices in the regular spice isle they cost a lot for just a small jar, but across from the gluten free section in my Mr T is big bags full for half the price as the little jars.
It makes me so mad that they use this strategy to grab extra money out of you.
Any way rant over lol.
I tonight successfully made;
Crispy fried prawn snacks,
Crispy chicken appetizers,
prawn and sweetcorn soup and
crispy seaweed.
It definitely gave us our take away fix, cost us hardly anything and the kids loved helping to make our own special take away.
I also have left overs i just hope they freeze ok.

holly44

Sounds to me Kittynortheast you are doing loads right , I think no matter where you shop food is expensive

My problem is if I do chilli I will also do homemade gaucamole , soured cream , nachos , cheese , rice , and wedges so obviously not a cheap tea . So I'm going to try and cut out all the extras I serve with food or cut down to just one or two .

I think the only way to cut cost 's is bulk buying which I know is not ideal for a lot of people as storage is a problem , but the savings are massive . Try looking at some of the american homemaking blogs ,if you pm me I can give you or anyone who is interested some links .

purpletent

Hi
Thanks for you running this thread.
Please can you put me down for £360 for march.

Thanks
Purpletent

Souk08

On target so far this month and enjoying the challenge!

loulou0327

Just a quick question.
Does anyone know where you can get powdered soya beans or do i just grind up raw ones?
there is a Chinese desert recipe i really want to try that looks yummy and also apparently brings prosperity.