How to eat for £10 a week

lemontart

thanks for all input, doing well with budget though the vegan teen is a prob but thankfully only with me 1/2 the time and fully understands situation with work etc (2 clients gone belly up owing me a lot of money)

Beth
xxx

culpepper

It definitely pays to shop at more than one shop though.
Asda raisins ,sultanas 41p Sainsburys mixed fruit 41p...500g
skim uht 38p....... 1ltr

I have seen huge turkey legs in sommerfields reduced to £1.10 week after week.Would easily do the 4 of us a turkey stew.

1KG I can't believe its not butter was about 96p in Asda last week and Flora was £1 (both cheaper than their own brand sunflower spread which shot up from 88p to £1.08

Poundstretcher 100 typhoo teabags were 89p instead of £1.99(printed on box)

Sainsburys value chocolate is lovely 25p a bar

missysx

what an interesting read...

i spend approx £50 - £65 a week on my shop. (£200 - £250 a month)
there is 2 adults and 2 children (including lunch boxs for my 6 yr old)

infact in november it was exactly £200... but this normally includes a bottle of wine a week...

my mother has to feed , herself, my dad, my 20 yr old diabetic brother and my 15 year old brother and has a food budget of £600 a month.... to me that is shocking!


one of my projects for 2007 is to put in a vegetable patch, so it'll be interesting to see how much i'll save when we're eating our own veg.

Quasar

bizzylizzy wrote:

Do you sprout the mung beans you can buy in the supermarket? I have seen packs of them in the pulses section but thought you had to get special ones for sprouting.
Also I had a disaster when I tried sprouting H&B beans and alfafa (separately). I kept them in a cupboard which is on an outside wall and they may have been too cold, they took much longer to sprout than they should have and then they started going brown. I did the rinsing etc.
Any ideas?

Any bean can be sprouted if it has not been treated. I'm not too sure about supermarket ones, but as I say I buy large packs in Asian shops and so far have had no problems.

Good health food shops (not chains) have selections of alfalfa and others to sprout, usually organic, and for the extra price they are worth it as they still are cheap compared to buying vegs. Also remember that you don't need a plateful of beansprouts as a salad - a handful will do.

I sprout them in this way:

1. I put them in a clear plastic tray, or sandwich box
2. Soak them for 4-5 hours (8 hours in the case of soybeans)
3. Throw away the water and put them on a windowsill - they need the light of day to produce the beneficial green pigment.
4. Twice or three times a day, I rinse them and put them back on the windowsill.

That's all. I start eating them when they are about 1 inch long and the tip is green - except for the mungs which as I said I let them grow a leaf to use as greens.

Peeps have slightly different ways to grow them, but the above is mine.

Quasar

kiwichick wrote:

Hiya Quasar,

I also sprout mung beans, they are delish. Can you tell me if the process is the same for chick peas please? I have some dried ones in the cupboard and would love to have a go at sprouting them. How long would it take to get sprouts and and what stage would you recommend using them?

With the mung I soak overnight in water. Drain in the morning and put in a transparent glass jar of plastic container. All I do is cover the lid of the jar/container and place on the windowsill in my kitchen. I rinse twice daily and drain.

Thanks,
Al.

LOL please see my post above on how I sprout my beans. I treat them all equally except in the initial soaking, as soy require a bit longer.

Chick peas sprout rather quickly and they are good to eat even with a tiny sprout. You can cook them very lightly.

I don't follow a strict timescale for eating them, sometimes I like the sprouts (of any beans) just coming out, sometimes about 1 inch or more long, or I let the leaf develop.

Please note: for maximum nutritional benefit, a sprouting period of 4-5 days is ideal, or so I've read...

angchris

ive never heard of sprouting beans before... do you just cut the sprouting bits off and use as a salad? and do they resprout... and what do they taste like?

Quasar

angchris wrote:

ive never heard of sprouting beans before... do you just cut the sprouting bits off and use as a salad? and do they resprout... and what do they taste like?

No you eat the whole thing, only the mungs as I explained in my first post, are cut low at the stem - but that's because I let them grow until the original bean has become a husk and needs to be thrown away.

They taste quite nice, expecially the chickpea sprouts.

You can also sprout wholegrains. I tried wheat, but the sprouts are quite sweet and I just cannot stand that.

It's really a matter of trying and find out what you like. The expense involved is not major. Just choose a type of bean/grain that you know you like anyway, then sprout a small handful just to see if you like it. If you don't you can always use the beans as they are.

But the beans/grain must be "live" ie. viable: whole and not treated with stuff to make them last etc. Supermarket stuff is probably not the best choice but maybe worth a try.

culpepper

Thats interesting about sprouting the beans.
We did mung beans a few times when kids were smaller as a project.
We put then in a jar with a piece of netting stretched over the mouth so that they could just put water in each time and then turn it upsidedown to drain. Must have a go at chick peas.

astonsmummy

Gryfon wrote:

Have a shop around for pasta...as in a local store over here you can get 1kg for 72p!

sorry i meant 3kg!:o

cupid_s

Petmidget wrote:

You cant consume cholestrol, it is produced in the pancreas. Any food with it in passes straight through you. So eating eggs wont increase your levels

Of course your diet will effect the amount of the cholestrol you body produces.

sorry for going off topic
surely this isn't true!?!
It is absorbed in the GI tract.

Telling people their dietary intake of cholesterol cannot be absorbed is dangerous. And factually wrong.