I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

lil_me

My freezers, one tiny one big ish are packed full so I might give this a whirl too. I also have pasta, rice and more stuff like that. We try to holiday most of the summer so I'd like to reduce it down to one freezer for the holidays.

I get milk from the milkman, I need to use up the meals I've frozen one ofs over the last few months & bargains from my butcher which I struggle to resist. Going to avoid popping in. Trying to do slimming world so I'll have to use my imagination.

I don't think I have as much in as Penny-Pincher, wow!

I wonder if I spend as little as possible can I afford an extra week away with the saved shopping money

I'm in Durham too

recovering_spendaholic

hi Everyone!

Hi sofiaki!
Welcome Craigywv!


Penny Pincher - how nice to see you again! I have often wondered how you were getting on - hope you are okay.

NSD today:j I came down this morning and found that DD1 had come in (probably drunk) in the early hours and had opened the freezer and left the door open, which meant that when I got up at 9am the freezer was all frozen up but at least stuff hadn't yet started to defrost. I got the steam cleaner out and defrosted it and found that, once all the ice had gone, i had more room than I thought! got a pack of mince out and made chilli con carne for dinner tonight and have enough left for another meal.

I made tuna sandwiches and quiche for lunch (quiche out of the freezer) and for breakfast we just had toast.

I got a piece of belly pork out of the freezer for tomorrow's lunch. I haven't ever cooked a large piece before and I hope that if i cook it really slowly it won't be too fatty.

i got four tins of Butter cookies (50p a tine) from Approved foods last week and they are really stale tasting. I was thinking that i could make them into crumbs and make biscuit base but am not sure - any ideas of anything else I can do with them?

Edwardia

Hi everyone :wave:

Lynsey, normally Resident Moneysaving Guru of this Thread, smack on wrist. Buying tzatziki mix.. it's so simple you can get kids doing this.

To make enough for a family to pig on or as a side dish for a BBQ when people come round you want 1 pot Total Greek yogurt (2.10 ASDA 2.39 Sainsburys) and no the Lidl stuff won't do..half a cucumber, a clove or two of garlic (not the Chinese stuff and not garlic powder) depending on how much you like and a generous handful of either dill or mint, leaves only.

Stick yogurt in serving bowl. Peel cucumber and grate it into a bowl (not the yogurt one). With clean hands squeeze the cucumber to get as much water out as poss (you'll be amazed how much you get). You'll end up with about a handful. Fold the squeezed cucumber into the yogurt carefully. Finely chop or cut dill or mint or mixture of the two by hand without making it mushy, fold into yogurt. Add peeled crushed.minced garlic anything from half to two cloves of garlic and fold through carefully. You're just trying to blend the flavours through, not whip it.

Can make in advance and serve later and will keep a couple of days in fridge at least provided cucumber was well squeezed. Best served not really chilled.

Makes me think of summer.. and Greek islands :cool:

Florenceem

Penny-Pincher!! wrote: »

OH has done a freezer and tin cupboard inventory.

We have:
Freezer List:

Meat:
4 x cheese/chive burgers
1/2 leg of lamb
7 x chickens
Chicken fillets
Chicken pieces (cheap)
2 x 2 pack steak burgers
4 x 95% meat sausage packets
1kg Aberdeen mince free flow
2 x lamb chops
1kg Silverside joint
Lambs liver
Pork chops
Gammon large joint to cook and slice for ham
Lamb pieces
2 x 4 quarter pound burgers
5 x omega fish fingers packets
Cod fillets
6 sausage rolls/50 sausage rolls

Veggies:
2 x corn cobs/2 x mix veg/1 x cauliflower/1 x mushrooms

Other:
2 x onion rings
Small quiche
6 x Pitta bread and Garlic bread (pack of 2)
8 x WM bread
6 x Large White/2 x small white/3 x Hotdog rolls
1 x Chicken Tikka ready meal
4 x butter
Tomato soup
1 x OJ
25 pints milk

Tin Cupboard-17th April 2012

Soup x 16 :eek::eek::eek:
Beans x 6
Kidney beans x 5
Spaghetti x 2
Tuna Large mine x 12 /Tuna Small mine x 7 /Tuna standard x 8
Coconut milk x 4
Peas Marrow x 5/Peas mushy x 2
Potatoes large x 6 /Potatoes small x 1
Tomatoes chop x 3/Tomatoes plum x 4
Carrots x 2
Pears x 2/Peaches x 2/Oranges x 1/Pineapple small x 6/Prunes x 1/Grapefruit x 1
Rice pudding x 3
Chickpeas x 1
Evap Milk x 1/Condensed x 1
Hotdogs x 1
Red Salmon x 1 (yuk, was in a hamper)
Ham M&S x 1
Pies Fray Bentos Steak (for 2) x 4

OMG, there are so many:o Im really trying to use all this up and utilise them. Been padding out couscous with the kidney beans and having peas with meals to use some up. The peas, kidney beans are value basics and were only a few pence each but are good protein sources. Before anyone says anything about the Tuna, I only like the John West yellowfin in spring water and can only find in Waitrose, so stock up when on offer or get a good voucher code to pad the shop out. I usually have more pulses which I add to curries or sauces to get more protein and nutrients.

I have done a meal plan for the next 3 weeks and as we work from home, I usually have a hot lunch or leftovers. There are 3 of us and DD has a packed lunch which usually is a sandwich, sausage roll, apple, raisins, natural yogurt, biscuit and water. I sometimes have a baked spud with tuna mayo and onion...yum!

Have a voucher code for £20 off a £75 spend at Waitrose, so may use it before it runs out the end of April and stock up on fresh meat as I prefer their meat to most other supermarkets and if I utilise the deals, I may get enough for a month, then we can buy fridge stuff from Aldi etc?

PP
xx

I am not brave enough yet to do an inventory!

Florenceem

Freezer update - got a small tub of blackberries for crumble and a beef/onion slice for Sunday's dinner out of the small freezer - made a bit of space.
Used some peas out of a new bag in the large freezer - now need to fit in some of the crumbles I cooked tonight. :eek:

Florenceem

I made some crumble mix - added some OOD muesli mix - for crunch and texture - plus I want it out of my cupboard!
Mr F came home with free rhubarb -

Before sugar and cinnamon added. Out of ginger!
This is a big dish - 99p shop.

Ready for oven.

Lynsey

lil_me wrote: »

I wonder if I spend as little as possible can I afford an extra week away with the saved shopping money

I'm in Durham too

Welcome to the thread and same idea as myself regarding extra holiday. Can't book as yet as don't know if son will be coming home for Xmas, but savings intended for holiday.

I chuckle at the term "in Durham", used quite a bit to describe someone in jail or "just came out of Durham", done their time. lol

Edwardia - pure simplicity really and got some packet mix cheaply sometime a few years back after a Greek holiday, used to make Beef stifado quite a bit also - hence OOD cinnamon sticks. lol
Tzatziki does vary enormously in taste and just finding one that suits. Holidays do influence your taste buds, for a time anyway.

Jane - give those cookies to the birds!! Put it down to experience. lol
I use my steam cleaner for defrosting freezers, quick and simple.

Florenceem - you'll have to teach me how to post pics, post some of my bread successes. lol
I need some cheap fruit to make some more crumbles, might get lucky later in Sainsbury's (fingers crossed).

Took out a chicken lattice from freezer for later, no breakfast as not hungry and just pick through the day, just had coffee and choc digestive.
Bottom freezer drawer is almost empty and could easily re-arrange now and have an empty drawer. Need the space for next Saturday though if Lidl have the half-price chicken fillets on offer.

Have a great day, looks a little better today after all the rain yesterday!!

Lynsey

Penny-Pincher!!

In my defence, our freezer in the office is a HUGE chest freezer and is only a quarter full and the other small one in the kitchen is half full. TBH, I thought the freezer list was actually quite small for I usually have in..lol.

PP
xx

Lip_Stick

Morning all

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. For tea on Friday I had chicken wraps. I fried chicken breast pieces with a nando spice my sis gave me from B&M. Had that with baby spinach, rocket and watercress salad and a splodge of mayo. Was really nice. Ds had luke warm chips from a chippy, ok for him as he didn't have to wait to cool them down, but I wouldn't have been happy. Will go back to the other chippy next time.

Yesterday ds was at the folks so I had steak with wedges, onion rings, sweetcorn and mushrooms, with black pepper sauce. Really enjoyed it.

Went to B&M yesterday to get some more of the nando's spice and it was reduced to 10p a pack as it's ood so got 10 packs. They're not big, one pack does a chicken. Also bought mayo, sweet and sour cuppa soup and a tin of sardines. Hope they're better than the mackerel fillets I had. Also spent £70 on a pair of boots for wearing with jeggings. :eek:

Just been watching 'My life as a turkey' about a guy bringing up a group of wild turkeys. Hopefully I'll have forgot about it by the time Christmas dinner is served.

Sofiaki - There's a cookery programme on bbc2 called 'The Little Paris Kitchen', only managed to watch one episode but it was good, nice simple recipes. Hopefully you can input things you've picked up over there into the thread.

Flo - you're making me hungry with that crumble, one of my favourite puddings.

Lynsey - I used to use my hairdryer to defrost my freezer before I got my new FF one.

blackandwhitebunny

Hi everyone and welcome to the new joiners
There's nothing like being back at work and having an ofsted visit next week to spoil your reading and posting time. I'm taking a quick break whilst updating lesson plans.
I've been really good most of this week and the only thing that's gone into the freezer was a biggish load of reduced bacon and we've had chicken breasts, a little rack of lamb and steak out of it. We've also had two meals out this week as it was our wedding anniversary.
Pennypincher that list looks fantastic, I wouldn't dare start as I would have to completely unpack the chest freezer:eek:
My cupboards have definitely changed as I now tend to buy items in larger quantities when they're a good deal. I've bought 3 litres of olive oil and five jars of gherkins this week and yesterday we bought cheap appeltis*r and some other cloudy lemonade stuff from sainsbugs as we're running out of that and it was on offer. I only have one packet of rice left though so will have to go and look for a good price on that and then I'll buy 6 months supply. I'm definitely saving money, we still have £80 left in our budget and will only need fresh stuff and milk next week.