I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

Lynsey

Spent £1.67 last night in Sainsburys and got a large pack of frying steak, a large gooseberry pie and some organic carrots.
Could have got loads of salmon and trout fillets/steaks etc, but walked away.
I'm never going to refuse the odd offers, so just going to continue with the challenge (long term) combined with a £100 monthly food and grocery budget.

Lamb cutlets for hubby and jumbo prawn stir-fry for myself. 2nd part of gooseberry pie to get through.
Cheese on toast for breakfast.

Lynsey

quintwins

morning all i got back from our trip away last night we spent a fortune so now it's back to the grind stone i had to get milk bread and yogurts on the way home but and i stocked up on tinned fruit before we left but it was 3 for 2 and i've put them away for winter puddings i'm still slowly using things up were having sausage rolls beans and chips for tea, pasta for lunch and breakfast was toast and rice crispies

VfM4meplse

gin wrote: »

My family are getting sick of apple and strawberry pie and apple and blackberry crumble!

I would go ahead and fill that freezer! Pulp it down first and save in cup-size portions, defrost when required. You can use applesauce when baking cakes, as a substitute for:

• eggs - 1/4 cup per egg, OR
• butter - 2 cups of applesauce per 400g of fat, upto a max of 3/4 of the shortening required.

Shredded courgettes can also be used instead of fat as they keep cakes deliciously moist, unfortunately they don't keep that long for the same reason, but you can't taste them in the recipe.

recovering_spendaholic

Determined to have a NSD today! I am going to make some lentil soup for lunch; I don't have any carrots but I have loads of mashed carrot and swede left from Sunday's lunch so I am going to blend that in with the lentils onion and celery once they are cooked. Don't know how it will turn out!!

Dinner tonight is chicken (defrosted) with korma sauce, rice and naan bread (got loads of naan bread on my approved foods order).

I also made a load of tiffin last night with stuff I got on my approved foods order. The biscuits were a bit stale tasting so I broke them up and mixed with raisins, mini marshmallows, crushed merringue shells (don't know how long they have been in the back of the cupboard!), rice crispies and melted chocolate (again from approved foods). Made loads and loads so have frozen about 2/3 and kept the rest for kids.
We have a load of blackberries growing on the top and down the side of our shed from the garden at the back of our house. I have never picked them before but the people in the house never ever do and they just go off, so I am going out later to pick them!! It was funny because I told the kids that there were loads of blackberries by the shed and they both said "PHONES?!!!" - I give up!!!

update - just went to pick blackberries and found that the lad who cuts the lawn for me has cut them all back and now there are none!!!!!

VfM4meplse

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

Did a meal plan for next 12 days (till payday) and have enough stuff in to be able to do breakfast lunch and dinner each day, although I will have to buy milk and bread so I may go out to Farm Foods later and get some Hovis bread on the 2 for £1.50 deal.

I don't share your taste in food but am very impressed with your discipline in meal planning! :T

mymerrywidow

we picked loads of sloes today and had to buy some cheap gin for it.

went to morrisons to get the gin and spent £48 :eek: but it was mainly on whoopsied stuff and fruit.

bramble1

I've made bacon and mushroom pasta bake from bits and bobs in the house, OH's lunches are done (even used the end of the bread instead of getting another loaf! - OH probably won't be pleased!) i'm going to make myself a fruit salad later and will have left over pasta bake for my lunch tomorrow.

dinner for tomorrow is again out the freezer, BBQ ribs for OH and 1/4 of a pizza for me (a huge one i portioned up a while ago)

Will need to get fresh bit on the weekend and still need to do 6 meals for the rest of the month - just don't have enough in the freezer! but will keep an eye out for whoopsied bits and bobs for that.

quintwins

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

It was funny because I told the kids that there were loads of blackberries by the shed and they both said "PHONES?!!!" - I give up!!!

:rotfl::rotfl:thats the best thing i've heard in ages

i was gonna make meatlaof and meatballs tomorrow but my freezer is so full i can't find the sausagemeat or breadcrumbs i know is in there so i'm going to make sheperds pie and i'll make meatballs/loaf when i can them

lynneee

evening all, everyone seems to have been very busy!

I'm pleased to say that my freezer is actually only half full now! I have filled the gaps with bottles of water and ice cube trays to increase efficiency and to make myself believe that there is no room for more shopping! (this actually worked well last month!)
So its just my cupboards now, have lots of baking ingredients still, the kids made mince pies with me last week, so will see what random puddings we can make on friday. Also have lots of tins of things (beans, spaghetti etc) so will start my way through those next. I plan to do a full stock take on sunday and meal plan to use up all the random ingredients!

[Deleted User]

Grrr...just lost a post! it was quite rambling tho!
lets try again!
seem to be doing ok on this apart from an "accidental" supermarket shop on Monday ....
other than that mainly freezer/cupboards eats everything from fish fingers and wedges to sausage casserole! Tomorrow's plan is h/m pizza, potato salad and salad to use up the veg lurking in the fridge!
have made a load of stewed apple tonite so thatll be made into crumble over next couple of days (already have topping and custard!)
also made a batch of rice krispie cakes which I will be eating sparingly as trying to lose weight!

We have limited range of stuff in the freezer- mostly bread, scones and either veg curry or chilli (there may be one or two ready meals whoopsied in there!) I find I often end up batch cooking the same thing over and over and only so much mince-based meals we can handle!! we only have a counter top freezer and I find every time I think Im getting there with emptying I start over again refilling it! I liked the idea of water bottles- often also buy cheap/whoopsied bread to fill up! We have loads of tortilla wraps, pasta, rice etc.. plus about a million tins of tuna, tomatos, pasta sauce and other random things like tinned mushrooms, potatos and water chesnuts! (possibly bought last winter or the one before in a panic about the snow!....)

Id like to get this stock down to something manageable and also so I can see much quicker what we have and need to buy! Plus Id like to get food shop back down to maybe £120 a month- was aiming for £100 but it might be a bit optimistic now everything has gone up so much and we both work full time so sometimes cant be bothered to cook when get in!

any suggestions/inspirations welcome- I find now I often pop to the shops "just incase" there are any bargains Ive missed- which of course is counterproductive if I 1)dont need anything and 2) dont have any freezer/fridge space to put it and it ends up going out of date before having used it!