August 2010 Grocery Challenge

come_on_get_happy

Morning Everyone -- long time lurker, joined yesterday, am dealing with my own personal mountain....
I used to take part in this years ago so will rejoin (some habits are still with me)
August budgeted for £200 on groceries, so far I have spent £65 ... loads of basics/"interesting" offers, in freezer and cupboards. So today will be meal planning to the max (old habit forgotten) and revisiting some of my old favourite MSE OS boards!
Will take DS out blackberry picking later, all this rain should have plumped up quite a few bushes!

Gintotmelinda

Morning everyone!

Not raining were today so may get washing dry that was out all yesterday.

Have collected jars and thinking of making jam as OH loves it on toast for breakfast. Any top tips as I haven't made it for years?

Planning to make bacon pasta bake for dinner tonight-yum leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Having breakfast in bed yog,Sains basics muesli and blueberries(£1 from Mr M) with the lappie as not working today(just some marking to do :eek:) and have let Dolly the girlie cat out to play in the garden.
Do any of you guys make yog at home....is it nice? I am currently liking Sh*pe.

What are you cooking today?

Gintot

Winky,_The_House_Elf

Still managed to avoid the shops yesterday,until 10pm last night when I realised we had no milk!

A fantastic HM Chili for tea, with brown rice - I didn't realise how long I needed to cook the rice for! It seemed to take forever! Did big batch in the SC and froze 4 meals worth lots, stretching 450gr of mince with oats and mushrooms (needed using up) to make about 7/8 large portions in total. Hubby is on a health kick so even though he barely notices it, I sell it to him by saying I had done it so we are eating less red meat Oh I popped a bit of dark chocolate in which really made the flavour richer- will definately do that again.

Shopping tonight to get few bits for our camping trip, but will put it seperate from anything for home as that comes out of our "entertainment budget" as hubby is doing overtime on BH weekend to pay for all of it.

Winky x

Rather than clogging up the board I thought I'd edit this post

Very large caulliflower
Large Savoy Cabbage
6 Pinklady Apples
8 Big Bananas
Large leek
Turnip

All for £5.54 from the green grocer.

Phoolgrrrl

So far £18 at Mrt and £8 at butchers. 26/75 so on target, only doing 3 weeks shopping this month as was on honeymoon last week :jDoing a first aid course in evenings this week so OH is making teas. Next week must make soup!

verynewmoneysaver

Just put in a grocery order from Mr T for £47.74 including delivery. Have started making my own yoghurt to eat with fresh fruit so thats saving a bit of money.

Hippeechiq

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Yes Ive seen it described as "creamy" but it doesn't appeal to me either! My imagined risotto is more like a variation on savoury rice and I somehow think yours may be too? Why not do it that way and just choose the ingredients you wish to add to it?
Had a small spend today in Co-op mainly of stuff to do the recipes from the site mentioned previously-Weezls?
Bought 2 loaves of reduced bread, some milk reduced chicken breasts, dried peas,butternut squash,FR eggs,oil,onions and mustard plus a multipack of fruit pastilles as dh has been asking for them for weeks! It was painful paying £1.99 for them though!Total of £15.63
Planning to cook: risi e bisi,onion tart,spanish omellete and butternut squash tart among other things!
today I had too much to do and no time to cook so I ate the leftover bacon and onion pie from yesterday, ds made toasties,dd did oven chips for herself and dh and also had chicken nuggets(yuck) and soup and sandwiches.Tomorrow I will cook!
I tried out my apple curd on toast for breakfast for myself and same for supper. Froze 2 jars to make sure its not wasted. Going to Tesco some time for som value salted peanuts to try my own peanut butter I have some jars spare so I can make a few things now-just not chutney as Ive got loads of it!

Yeah - I'd say we have a similar idea of how we would like Risotto to be, but I'm the kind of gal that has to have a recipe and exact quantities to follow. I'd love to be a chuck-it-in-and-see type cook, but I'm just not

Wow! That's a lot of planned cooking. Hope it all goes well. Would be interested in what the Butternut Squash Tart is like, especially as it's such a, well, let's face is, cheap, recipe.....I've never eaten Butternut Squash - anyone able to describe what it tastes like?

As I've said before - the Onion Tart is to die for. It's definitely worth the effort of all that chopping and teary eyes.

The site you mentioned is still Weezls baby (and also that of a small group of dedicated helpers) and it's worth a look if anyone else in interested in economical, low cost, nutritionally balanced meals - proving that you can have both - lovely pictures too, so that you can see what the end result should - and hopefully will - look like
Cheap Family Recipes

Good luck -hope it goes well

Botany

On the risotto question: Mr T *used* to sell green own-make bags of 'Italian easy-cook' rice. That was guaranteed to result in a good, yet not gooey at all risotto. They were also spectacular for rice salads. Oh... and they were very reasonably priced, compared to the more specialistic risotto rices out there. Unfortunately, they stopped selling those about a year ago, and haven't replaced them with a suitable alternative. I'm actually upset at MrT for doing so, because the disappearance of this own-brand rice is just one of a long list of own-brand items MrT has discontinued and which I used to like very, very much. Oh well...

Anyway, traditional risotto rices are Arborio and Carnaroli (but they do create a creamy risotto, AND they are not as cheap as I'd like them to be). If you want a risotto that is not gooey (with grains that stay separated) you will need to find a parboiled (often labelled as easy cook) kind of rice. Just make sure the rice is yellowy, short and fat - long grain does not make a good risotto.

Aldi sell a (cheap!) easy cook short grain rice, now that I think about it. Haven't tried making risotto with it yet but I suppose it would be worth a try. Has anyone experimented with the Aldi rice here?


---

On a separate topic, I have spent a massive £1.27 in MrW yesterday. Yes! One pound and 27 pence!!!

This vast amount of money got me: 2 bananas, an organic baguette, 4 fresh sardines (450 grams), 2 bags of salad and a basil plant. Ohhh the joys of Woopsies!!!

:T:T:T

LannyLee

Botany wrote: »

On the risotto question: Mr T *used* to sell green own-make bags of 'Italian easy-cook' rice. That was guaranteed to result in a good, yet not gooey at all risotto. They were also spectacular for rice salads. Oh... and they were very reasonably priced, compared to the more specialistic risotto rices out there. Unfortunately, they stopped selling those about a year ago, and haven't replaced them with a suitable alternative. I'm actually upset at MrT for doing so, because the disappearance of this own-brand rice is just one of a long list of own-brand items MrT has discontinued and which I used to like very, very much. Oh well...

Anyway, traditional risotto rices are Arborio and Carnaroli (but they do create a creamy risotto, AND they are not as cheap as I'd like them to be). If you want a risotto that is not gooey (with grains that stay separated) you will need to find a parboiled (often labelled as easy cook) kind of rice. Just make sure the rice is yellowy, short and fat - long grain does not make a good risotto.

Aldi sell a (cheap!) easy cook short grain rice, now that I think about it. Haven't tried making risotto with it yet but I suppose it would be worth a try. Has anyone experimented with the Aldi rice here?


---

On a separate topic, I have spent a massive £1.27 in MrW yesterday. Yes! One pound and 27 pence!!!

This vast amount of money got me: 2 bananas, an organic baguette, 4 fresh sardines (450 grams), 2 bags of salad and a basil plant. Ohhh the joys of Woopsies!!!

:T:T:T

ASDA's own brand risotto rice is 98p per 500g & comes in both the varieties you mentioned, although they do give a more creamy risotto.

Have you tried some of the discount stores (Pound stretcher, Home & Bargain etc) as they usually have Ainsley Harriot risotto packets for about 40p & I've found they are not as 'soupy' as the traditional risotto rices I like to use, OH loves them though!

missy_dee_2

Hi all

Just updated sig - spent £40 at weekend, which makes my total £83 so far this month. Easily got enough food to last me until Saturday - so more or less on target.

Spent £28 at Mr T, then popped into Mr S as forgot something and and ended up spening £12 - but on loads of reduced stuff - whole chicken, chicken breasts, 2 packs of cod steaks, pack salmon, a ready made moussaka, sausages and mince. I worked out easily 10 meals - so not bad!!! I'm not normally that lucky though! So my freezer looking nice and full again.

I also got a massive bag of veg from my uncle's friend allotment - free of charge! Only thing is I have emough new potatoes to sink a battleship. Question - can you cook then freeze new pots?? Otherwise I will have to take some of them into work.

My tomatoes almost ready and got loads of raspberries to pick and I also froze loads of redcurrents the other week. Although to be honest not sure what to do with them - so any suggestions welcome.

Anyway good luck everyone.

Thanks Dee

shell2001

Pleased to say that since shopping delivery on Saturday morning I have not spent another penny:j

I will need to get some things for next week so off for a route through the freezer to see what I can get away with NOT buying;)