March grocery challenge

chinagirl

Bit late now, but where are the best deals to be had on Easter Eggs?

I found Kwiksave doing a great deal on 5 eggs for £4.00. They were what I would call "medium" size choccy eggs, including Buttons, Creme Eggs, Mini Egg varieties.

Also, Netto did Smartie Eggs which contained hollow egg and 2 boxes of smarties for £0.79.

Were there any better deals out there?

Eliza252

Well its the end of grocery challenge for March month - and have managed my £10 a week grocery challenge so well that am thinking of cutting back to £8! (oo-er! - thats £10 for one person by the way!
I know coffee doesnt count as groceries - but i was kind of hoping i could include it in my grocery budget - had to make it a seperate budget though due to my big problem with expensive coffee! just cant help myself, I like starbucks way too much - just cant recreate steamed milk at home and mocha's mmmm.... I digress.
I defo have to curb my habit, its v. expensive. £1.60 for ya basic coffee - thats more than 10% of my weekly budget for groceries! Especially as think Starbucks are a pretty unscrupulous company apparently (although aren't they all - just depends how good there PR is as to whether you find out about it!). Nb. This issue also extends to Costa and Nero's!
Have tried Benjy's as a cheaper option but there is no where to sit and they dont have as many options.
Any suggestions for curbing my coffee shop vice? Its pretty much the only one I have left as dont smoke/drink very often or go shopping for anything other than essentials.
- I'm going to chuckle to myself if this thread gets moved - cus I havent managed to post one to the right board yet - its a personality flaw, I cant help it!

elona

Eliza

Could you do some research on coffee machines that you can use at home?

You could even start a thread on it and probably get a bargain.wwwrobertdyas.co.uk have a really good sale on at the moment. I got some great bargains.

Eliza252

Cant tell you how much i would love my own coffee machine! - I could even take my own coffee around with me then in a flask
I always assumed they were hundreds of pounds though..?
may start another thread and conduct a little research!
Thanks!!

Galtizz

As Elona says, look into getting a coffee machine

ARGOS have a choice of 17. The cheapest being about £50. That sounds expensive but, it will pay for itself in 31 cups of coffee (6 1/2 weeks if you have 5 a week). That doesn't include the cost of the coffee beans but it should still be a lot cheaper.

You can buy the coffee beans from Starbucks so you can even have the same coffee they use until you can find a cheaper one that is as nice

Talon_Karrde

hello liza,

i have a senseo coffee pod machine, which gives you the "crema" layer on a normal coffee, but no milk, you need to add your own as in a normal coffee. These machines are around 50 - 80 quid, and the pods are £2.20 for 18 (that 18 cups)

also look into the new kenco "tassimo" machine. you buy little discs, for tea, coffee, mocha, cappucino, hot choc...etc etc...this machine is around 99 quid i think

HTH
Ace

JCL

Think you can get £10 cashback on Senseo coffee machines at the moment. Just send off a voucher with proof of purchase.

Been advertised in the press (sure it's Senseo).

Penny-Wise_4

I have the "Krups Cermatic Espresso/Cappuccino Machine" £149.00 in Argos (this was a gift) (you can buy it cheaper - around £120 check out Kelkoo) This has the best milk frother attachment I have used in a home coffee machine (i love cappucino). Heats it up really quickly and makes it v v v frothy & creamy.

My mum has the "Morphy Richards Steam Combi Coffee Maker with Frother" £49.50 in Argos. Its good for making the espresso/cappucino and regular coffee but not so good at frothing milk - it take ages and ages to heat it up, for the best results you have to microwave the milk to heat it then froth it up with the coffee machine. But for £100 cheaper this may be more money saving and from what i remember of my mums it has a built in washable filter so you don't need to buy those paper ones which will save you a bit more.

moggins

We picked up the Delonghi Cappucino/Espresso machine from a car boot sale for £5 and downloaded the instructions from the internet. It produces fantastic coffee. If you really want one then have a look round the boot sales first as there seem to be loads of people who buy one as a fad and then rarely use it.

squeaky

VickyA wrote:

fazer, do you have a recipe for your curry? I'd like to make one, but only ever get as far as a jar from Tesco as the sauce.

Erm, joining in here... a dead simple curry is to chop some mushrooms, like a good handful, cut up some chicken breasts into small pieces and bung them into two or three tablespoons of oil and start them cooking. Start a pan of water boiling for your rice. Keep an eye on the chicken bits, and while making up the sauce outlined below, stir them frequently so that you can't see any red bits any more ie so that the chicken is white and therefore sealed, and since your pieces should be small they'll be pretty much cooked already.

Now in any jug big enough, or a blender, put about half a pint of milk, add either/or/and any combination of fresh cream, yoghurt, white wine. Now add a slightly rounded desert spoon of cornflower to help stop things separating and whisk it up.

Believe me you can *do* this faster than you can _read_ it.

Now for the master stroke. Schartz, in particular. make a whole bunch of good curry spice powder mixes in 90 gram pots. My favourite is their Thai mix but there are plenty to choose from. And you can mix and match to suit yourself.

So shake about half the pot over your chicken and mushrooms and stir quickly to coat everything and keep doing so for a minute or two to really get the spices going. Then pour over your sauce, stir well and bring to the boil, then cover and turn the heat down to a allow a moderate simmer.

Chuck your rice at the [hopefully] boiling water and when it's done...

Serve.