March 2011 Grocery Challenge

cat_smith

MrsMcawber Ox burgers were a hit! Brilliant recipe for livening up mince.

My car is dead so sent DH to do tonights shopping. Must get receipt from him.

CupOfChai

Well I have FINALLY added the shop I did last week on to my total! Just one more week's shop to do now, hoping I can come in well under budget as in other areas this month has been a very expensive one. I'm moving house at the weekend, due to a new job (Yay! But hence the expense, argh!), so will then be changing my shopping patterns. Because of which shops are where in relation to the new house, I have decided to try meal-planning a month at a time, then doing one big monthly online shop for freezer and things that will keep. Then I will top that up weekly with just the fresh perishable things like bread, some F&V etc.

tigerfeet2006

Went to the local greengrocers today and spent £5.69 on 6 satsumas (£1.16), 6 apples (£1.70) and grapes (£2.84). Have adjusted my sig.

Kitchenbunny

Evening, everyone. Just checking in to say I had an NSD today so damage limitation at least. I think we're stocked up for a while now so there'll be no more trips to the supermarket or the market during lunchtimes, except on Friday to get some sausages from the butchers. That'll be the only spend, then I think there's a few bits next week too ... it looks like I'll have to up the budget for next month but will try only slightly. I'll put myself down for £240 please for April. Here's hoping I can stick to it!

KB xx

PennyGrabber

Well, I'm GUTTED!! Went to get something to eat out of my fridge yesterday, and it didn't feel very cold. Opened the freezer door, and all the ice cream ran out over my kitchen floor... Guess my fridge freezer's knackered then! I had run down stocks in my fridge, and gave a few bits to a neighbour, but there was loads in my freezer. Lots of chicken breasts, mince portions, sausages, etc, as well as the normal veg etc. I've just cooked up the mince now, and got the chicken in the oven, then I'll try and find space in the outside freezer for it all. We'll have sausage sandwiches for lunch tomorrow and the day after. I'm quite gutted, as I'd recently done an inventory, and had started labelling everything so I wouldn't have any UMOs again! Quite a lot of money wasted in terms of what I've had to throw away, and of course the expense of the new fridge freezer. I've gone for a bigger model (and more efficient), meaning that I'll be able to turn off my outside freezer and get rid of it - if I don't, I'll just end up using it again, and I don't need to! This also means no meat slicer for me this month. For anyone who remembers, I've only just had to buy a new washing machine and fix my car, and at the weekend my kettle broke too! Oh, and the darling bf killed my sat nav on tuesday!

I refuse to up my budget to cover the replacing of the food - it's gone and that's it. I have enough to feed a small army in the outside freezer - which is luckily where I keep all of my batch cooking too. I'll just do a new inventory next week when the new fridge freezer comes, and then change my meal plan accordingly. Until then, we're using my camping fridge!!

Night all,

PG

ps - 2 more spends to add onto sig, still doing the best i've ever done for this far into the month.

cat_smith

Oh Penny I feel for you. I've had it happen to me once before and its so frustrating - it always happens when the freezer is full. So not fair.

tigerfeet2006

Penny, check your house insurance as it might cover the ruined food. I had this happen a few years back and I got £150 for the food.

slbhill

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

I've just had a look on Amazon and it's £79.99. So the challenge of the month is to save £80 on my groceries to buy it

Though I think I am going to have a Google and see if it is cheaper elsewhere

There seem to be quite a lot of people who'd recommend a slicer. Is the Argos one at around £35 any good, or is it one of those things where you really do get what you pay for?

The reviews are generally good except a lot of people say it's awkward to clean - are expensive slicing machines any easier to clean?

cat_smith

slbhill not sure about the 'get what you pay for' as I've not tried the Argos version. Does it do from 0.5mm to 15mm? Cleaning I think is a pain on all of them.

Hippeechiq

Penny I'm sure your probably have - but have you checked the fuse?

Same think happened to me last year, and I was beside myself because I'd been shopping the previous day and my freezer was chocka......turned out the fuse had gone in the socket that the freezer was plugged into (not the plug itself)

Just a thought

Horrible thing to happen though - and like someone else said, it does always happen when your freezer is full of food.

JIL wrote: »

Someone asked for a pumpkin seed and lentil gratin like the one served at Ikea. I often make nut/lentil loafs and this recipe http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/3498/lentil-and-cashew-nut-roast.aspx is a bit like the one served at ikea you could try playing around with the ingredients and substituting the cashews for some seeds and it may be close?
Hope this helps

JIL that sounds very nice indeed
Sounds very similar to the Cheese & Lentil Loaf in the recipe index that I make, although I prefer dishes like that cold with salad so not sure I'd bother with the sauce. Love the idea of the nuts in it though.