I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

cheerfulness4

Glad you're in your house Quintwin.

Lovely all these pics of food. Yum!

Trying to wade through my fistful of receipts so I can update my accounts. Know already that I've horribly overspent but, worryingly, the freezer and cupboards are emptying.
What am I spending it on?????

Got my Lidls bacon packs stored away at least and hoping we get the chicken fillet deal this coming weekend as they will fit in greatly with my SWorld meals. (which have gone to pot in my greed of late.)

Reduced pork kebabs for dinner with savoury rice and I have some ham to use up so that will make a little salad tonight.

Must start getting more organized with this spending. I know how to do it I just must force myself to be more frugal instead of just threatening it.

I've worked out what I like about your posts Jane. You just have a knack of seeing meals out of all the bits and bobs that are so imaginative. You must be a great cook despite telling us of your little hiccups in the kitchen.

katskorner

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

Katskorner - just googled the Heston chicken and might give it a go - It seems a bit of a faff with the brine and all, but if its really nice it will be worth it. Must remember to get some salt for the brine - did you just use table salt?

we didn't even do the brine thingy as hubby forgot and wanted to try it anyway. We just added a bit of water to it and it worked a treat. He wants to do the whole shebang next time so I shall leave him to it. Regarding the salt, we don't have table salt so shall be using sea salt unless I remember to get some cheap stuff.


Dinner tonight has to be something I could get out the freezer without disrupting the intricate jigsaw so the first thing I spotted was a big bag of meatballs - tomato, garlic and chilli pasta bake it is then - might manage to dig out some little garlic baguettes that went in yesterday reduced from Asda and have a bag of salad so that should do it.

Tonight, hubby will have to dive for tomorrow's food cos I am not moving anything in there!

Florenceem

JayJay14 wrote: »

Love the idea of rhubarb crumble and custard for breakfast - much healthier than most cereals I'm sure. I have to admit to having strawberry fresh cream cake for mine yesterday - well I figured it was better to have it as a meal rather than as an extra (had got a huge 14 ptn one for 50p on Saturday) Come to think of it there may be a slice left

Using a jar of sauce up which was part of a christmas pressy with chicken from the freezer and a tin of butter beans and one of toms tonight - should also make enough for another meal as it is supposed to make four portions, just need to keep OH away from it.

Certainly - no salt in my crumble - why do they put salt in cereal?

VfM4meplse

Feeling rather smug today!

I defrosted my freezer this morning before work (2 weeks ahead of target), the contents now fit into 3 of the 4 compartments. The smugness comes from the realisation that apart from a bit of old cereal, a couple of bottles of Candia milk, 4 giant packs of old rye crispbread from Ikea and some bread in the freezer, I have almost no non-vegan or processed food in my house. Which means that from now on, anything I eat will be either fresh, or cooked from scratch (most likely to be added to the freezer). :T

I had planned this lifestyle change for some time, and now it's closer to becoming a reality . Of course I will have processed food (chocolate!!!) for a snack now and then, but I certainly won't be storing it at home! I'm still on track not to buy any more supermarket food until after the next BH, and I actually think that I can get away with buying a couple of bottles of milk and maybe some whoopsied bread from the supermarket until July if I concentrate on getting the freezer down. I've barely spent £5 at the stall in the last 4 weeks, it's amazing how far it goes!

My plan now is to buy fresh produce from the stall in the summer, and freeze in bulk to save me time spent in cooking over the winter. Am trying to get back to a 95% vegan diet but we shall see! Even by doing a big shop to restore some staples, with a bit of careful shopping and eating, I cannot see myself spending more than £500 pa on food from now on (it's just me).

And that ladies, is why I'm feeling soooooo pleased with myself today! xxx

ms_night_ryder

hey all

so i had a bit of a cooking frenzy yesterday, !!! i didnt cook the last pack of sausages in a pasta bake on sat, scoffed some treats from m&s then pronmptly fell asleep until 9pm lol too late for dinner, so had another treat instead.

so yesterday i cooked the oxtail as planned, never cooked it before, it is my favorite meal, but ususally only when cooked by my grandma, but i found some whoopsied and decided to use my sc to cook it, boy was it worth it! had that for dinner yest with some steamed rice and some of the lidl carrot and green beans, not sure about their veg, usually it takes 7 minutes to steam in the steamer, this time it was under cooked, so anyway i had thtt with a cheesey coleslaw i made, also made the pasta bake and added the carrots and green beans, a tin of campbells soup, half tin of chopped toms and the past and sausage, topped with mozerella from freezer and the cheddar, added bread crumbs, managed to get 5 portions.

had pasta bake and cheesey coleslaw for lunch, will have the oxtail for dinner, then oxtail for tomorrows lunch.

i did however make the apple and apricot crumble on sat, but didnt have enough crumble mix for both, will use some muesli as i have a small pack of alpen, gained from a hotel brekkie lol.

added 2 portions of sausage pasta bake and 2 foil containers of crumble to the freezer, still room for a bit more

Lynsey

VfM4meplse - you're right to feel "smug", you've worked hard of late and well done on not visiting supermarkets, well impressed.
£500 pa could take some doing, you will really have to be committed and focused.
I'm not too sure what to do next year as a budget severely restricts what you can eat, luckily I had and still have a good selection of food in the freezers, but still miss certain things I fear will eat into my budget too much. Hopefully the 2nd half of the year should be easier with £900+ to last 6 months, I'll be able to buy more prawns then. lol
Just hoping the "whoopsies" don't dry up, or I will be in trouble, budget only achievable with what I get reduced.

Lynsey

AlwaysHappy

VfM4meplse - wow to you and your spending - that would certainly be a fantastic achievement - £500 for the year!!! prior to MSE I could have spent that in a month (though there are 3 of us - even so!!! ). Its amazing what can be done with a bit of planning and a bit of determination.

Sofiaki

Wow Vfm4 - £500 a year? Good luck with that.

I love reading everyone's ideas but it's a bit like watching cooking programmes, I never do them. I don't know whether it's just me, but I don't like baked pasta for some reason. I must say I'm tending to go more and more simple the older I get - with food that is before anyone says anything :rotfl:

I managed to have three sausages and the final two bacon rashers today. A bit of a meat feast, but hey, I only eat meat about 2 or 3 times a week or so. I tend to use tinned fish quite a bit for salads.

ms_night_ryder - ox tail ... pwarrrk. I think that kind of thing is an acquired taste. :eek: Glad it turned out good though.

Lip_Stick - if your mom was disappointed with ys flowers, perhaps you're spoiling her a bit too much. I sent mine a magnolia tree this year for mother's day for the first time in years. She couldn't get over it.

Now pondering about dinner. I might find out some tinned salmon I bought a couple of years ago, with fennel and sweet corn ... Sounds alright. Good tinned salmon is very pricey here, probably cos they're big tuna eaters. I got that from my last visit to the UK (my suitcase is 5k or so on the flight in, 23k on the way back plus a heavy carryon. Thank God for some of the sites like AF and Rosspa (which I haven't tried yet).

Sorry, whittering on there ... thinking out loud.

I went down into the basement with bf on Friday to take down some books and came back with my 4 remaining bottles of champagne. Now wondering why. Bf doesn't drink and I barely do any more. They may make a return trip.

I just tried to reorganise some of my cupboard supplies - it's taking over the flat. Boxes of stuff everywhere. Wish I had a garage. lol. Got fed up and abandoned. Will try again later in the week when I have more patience.

ms_night_ryder

Sofiaki, you don't know what your missing.

Edwardia I came on here specifically to Say thanks, somethi g you said gave me a chuckle while on the bus, when you explained how to make tzaziki and you said no lidls won't do Loool, too funny!

On another note, I have been told I will be made redundant, which as you guys know I'm really happy about, try to act sad so they don't notice LOL, will be gone in 2 half months, gives me 2 months to plan yay!

ms_night_ryder

Sofiaki, you don't know what your missing.

Edwardia I came on here specifically to Say thanks, somethi g you said gave me a chuckle while on the bus, when you explained how to make tzaziki and you said no lidls won't do Loool, too funny!

On another note, I have been told I will be made redundant, which as you guys know I'm really happy about, try to act sad so they don't notice LOL, will be gone in 2 half months, gives me 2 months to plan yay!