I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

cazj80

Well, I went to Lidl, and bought 6 packs of the turkey steaks, there were 3 in each pack, so I have portioned them into bags of 2, which will be enough meat for me, OH, and my daughters who are 2 and 1, as I don't use a huge amount of meat in each meal, really try and bulk them out with veg and potatoes etc.

Got my trout out for lunch, and going to do fishcakes for tea for the girls, with homemade chips.

I have got some sweet potatoes in the fridge and a butternut squash that need using up, will make a soup I think, and some fresh bread rolls.

blackandwhitebunny - I also have mainly meat and fish in my freezer, hardly any bread, or veg. A bit of frozen fruit though, that I freeze when I can get it cheap - I have rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries at the moment. I dont think I have any cherries left, but I need to check.

Also 4 pots of chicken stock that I made with yellow stickered roasted chickens that I got from Tesco, after stripping the meat off and freezing it in portions.

I really need to make a list of everything that I have in my freezers... maybe a job for the evenings when OH is at work and kids are in bed.

recovering_spendaholic

Hi everyone - not been on the site for a couple of days as I had a terrible throat/cold/bug thing and then yesterday I was out interviewing all day. Just speed read through - welcome Cazj80! you will get loads of good ideas here.

lip_stick if I remember correctly, you can hire a pushchair in Legoland for about £6 (might have gone up now). Might be worth considering.

I have been using up stuff as haven't been out to the shops when I wasn't too well, but went out today and spent just on £15 on sausages (the half price cumberland (Riverford or Riverway or something) ones are actually really nice), Cravendale (had 50p coupon), butter, chicken chargrills, bread, burgers, Hunters chicken breasts (had 75p off coupon), CLover (had 50p coupon) and Cathedral City cheese (half price and I had a 75p off coupon).

Tea tonight is home made pizza for DD2 and her friends - the dough is proving now, and hunter's chicken for DD1. Don't know what I will have yet. I had a tin of Scotch Broth for lunch and both girls were out for their lunches. Think I might have salad and tuna.

Well, best get back to it - I have to type up the notes from yesterday's interviews, plus send out 61 no letters to the people we didn't interview!

Lynsey

Got most of what I needed and paid full price for carrots in Aldi (69p kilo)!!!
£3.20 spent in Aldi (got some strawberries) and £4.90 spent in Asda and only "whoopsie" buy today was a small bashed tin of peaches for 10p.
Total so far = £8.10, I'll do the weeks spends later, but around £23 so far.

Need to put the lottery on and may pop to Sainsbury's, but may just do it online and call it a day.
I only want to go to Sainsbury's for some L'Oreal wipes and use some £2.50 coupons - but it could wait until another day.

Took out a small piece of pork tenderloin for tomorrow and have in a blue cheese sauce (again!!) with veg (still need a swede, Aldi sold out).

Jane - well done with the coupons.

Lynsey

dasophster

I'm making a (kosher/halal) smokey kabanos casserole with cheesy dumplings on top, the only recently bought item was the smokey kabanos which I couldn't resist as they were awol from the local Waitrose for well over a year and then suddenly reappeared to my joy, everything else is from last week's food shop or cupboard and freezer, including one of the many packs of pilgrims choice I still have knocking about in the fridge. Trying to avoid actually going in person to the shops for a bit as no really good coupons around atm and ended up spending too much money; so I am getting a sensible shop from Waitrose every 10 days so I can take advantage of their £75 off over 5 shops deal

Lip_Stick

Er... hello again lol. Proper post now!

Had scrambled egg on muffins this morning, didn't bother with dinner as had a late breakfast. Unsure what to have for tea.

Today has been glorious, so a bit of a shame we spent most of it in the cinema! Went to see Spider-man. Ds was getting a bit bored.. asking where was spider-man. He's just interested in the action. The positions he got into on his seat were funny, upside down, back to front.. etc etc. Soon as the action started he was on the edge of his seat eyes wide open.

Bought a couple of things from M&S on the way home with my Living Social voucher. Didn't realise that the pocket it was in had got soaked yesterday. Luckily it scanned ok. I'm now drying off the remaining £50 Disney vouchers. A load of coupons I printed myself are a write-off. Hoping my face cream vouchers weren't among those.

Jane - will think about hiring that push chair if ds seems tired! Thanks for letting me know!

cazj80

This afternoon I have made carrot and coriander soup, using some ys carrots that I got the other day, and my homegrown coriander (that I'm really pleased with!). I also made some scofa bread using one of the Wrights mixes that I got at the beginning of the year using their 80p coupons to eat with it. It's really tasty, will definitely be making again, and my toddler loved it as well!

Dinner for my girls was tuna fishcakes (ys from the freezer) and potato cakes, that I made and froze when I had a lot of potatoes that needed using up. They enjoyed them, gobbled them up.

I'm going to make steak and mushrooms pies tonight for OH, using steak from the freezer and ys mushrooms. I normally make my own pastry, but have a bag of pastry mix to use up that I bought from AF or BigBrandsForLess, when it was still running. It makes a decent enough pastry though.

However, I did pop to Tesco Express and got 3 bags of Albert Bartlett potatoes for £1.50 (they were reduced from £2.08 to 75p a bag, but were buy 3 for 2, which still kicked in). I did need potatoes though, we normally get a 25kg bag from the farm shop and that is nearly running out, so it is something I'll use. I'm trying to only buy things ys that I will use, rather than just because it's cheap. However, we have been having some nice bits of fish etc that I wouldn't normally buy at full price and it's good to give the girls something new to try I think.

:-)

cazj80

oh, I've been reading about these L'oreal vouchers, and wondered if anyone could point me in the right direction to find them? Ta!

Lynsey

No further spends, so weeks total was £22.89 and considering I have a weekly average now of £35'ish, I'm pretty pleased.
Not much went into the freezers this week, but no real gaps as yet!!
I was looking forward to the 2nd half of the year with the bigger budget, but I'm still going to be frugal in July and try and clear a bit of freezer space - especially some fish.

Next week I'll need cheap fruit and veg from mid-week on and just going to "play" with what I have.
Plenty of milk for porridge and froze a few slices of bread tonight for toast during the week.
If the Lidl weekend meat offer is not wanted next week, spends should be around £20 - the more I save now, the more I'll have to spend later in the year, if wanted ...................... though I may just get that holiday after all (hubby has booked some time off for early October) if there are any cheapies.
Son's birthday in October, so we might pop down to see him and we may get a better bargain holiday flying from Stansted or Luton??

cazj80 - well done with the bargain potatoes.
L'Oreal?? You need to register HERE

Fantastic coupons every month and 2 of each per pc.

Lynsey

Lip_Stick

Caz, what's the recipe for your potato cakes? I'm always having potatoes that need using up.

Lynsey - you're popping to see your son on his birthday? Tell him to get round in his new car! lol

Think I'll have the salmon sandwich stuff I bought from M&S for tea. Not keen on it in a sandwich so just eat it out of the tub lol.

cazj80

Lip_Stick - when I made them last, I used this recipe:-

1 egg, beaten
425g mashed potato
1 onion, finely diced (but I used a ys bunch of spring onions, including all the green parts)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil.

I made the mashed potato (I've started using a potato ricer, and it does make really smooth mash, and you don't need as much milk/butter in with the mash either), then mixed in the egg, onions, salt and pepper.

I then fried them on both sides in the olive oil, in about 10cm circles, about 1.5 cm thick.

When they were cool, I just froze them with greaseproof paper between the layers so that I could just get out the amount that I wanted. They were really nice.

I did find it helpful to make the potato cakes, and then leave them in the fridge for a bit to chill, otherwise they were a bit soft when frying them and they fell apart.

The salmon sandwich stuff sounds nice. I had a friend come over this afternoon, who got back from america this morning and bought me a bag of peanut butter m&ms as he knows that I love them, and I have just demolished half the bag and am feeling a little bit sick now!! I think I might have some soup later on, as it's not too heavy.

On to pie making in a bit for me, now that my diced steak has defrosted...