I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

Kirri

dasophster wrote: »

vx (said like 'vee cross') and various other shops in London, just search for vegusto or vegourmet. In general I prefer vegourmet, its cheaper, tastes nicer and melts better but the vegusto is healthier and the classic variety is the best vegan blue cheese substitute I have tried. Vx do some items mail order but the postage is :eek:. They also sell the vegan chorizo though the one they have currently contains soya as well as wheat gluten and one of my sons and I are intolerant to soya to an extent. Shame as the old brand they had as well as being soya free was a lot more realistic. Thankfully these days there are lots of non-soya vegan foods; both the brands of cheese mentioned are completely soya free (aside from the vegourmet cream cheese which is soya based).

Edwardia tofu is vegan but its made from 100% soya so something I tend to avoid, though I can get away with having it once or twice a month. However I am very excited as I have discovered there is a burmese variety of tofu made purely from cooked and set thick gram flour batter and its meant to be very easy (and cheap!) to make at home as well as being very tasty even on its own (whereas regular tofu tastes of nothing without seasonings et al).

I've been using up my baking bits in my cupboards, the night before last I made 'halfway bars' which are an American thing halfway between a cookie and a bar or traybake, the original recipe had a brown sugar meringue topping and while it can be replicated with orgran no egg recipes from the book where I got this one from are cloyingly sweet so I decided to give the extra topping a miss and just put the chocolate chips on instead. Then yesterday lunchtime I made American gingerbread with wheatgerm, I also used half wholemeal flour and instead of buttermilk I used coyo (entirely coconut based) yoghurt mixed with a bit of kara/koko coconut milk and again the 'no egg' incredibly it tasted and looked exactly the same as the old version containing dairy and eggs. The coyo was free because a few weeks ago I had three pots go mouldy on me long before the date, the company have very recently changed their packaging to avoid this and so they refunded me the money lost and sent me 4 packs of yoghurt in a branded cool bag too :rotfl:xx

I'm up near Vx next week, I had that on a list of places to visit purely from the cake side of things! I've had Vegusto too, thought i was really good, not seen VegGourmet yet. Very interested in the Burmese Tofu as I have half a pack of gram flour to be used up (was going to make another lot of pancakes with it). I tried a Coyo yoghurt the other month but maybe it's something to get used to, I wasn't keen on first try but useful tip on using it in baking - they are very expensive though per pot..


Not decided on food today yet - something based around the veg box though..

ms_night_ryder

Cheers Lynsey and Edwardia, sadly I'm not feeling better and have to head out to a fashion show later.

Popped out to Mr s anf got mini muffins, most are in the freezer, biscuits all half price or more, I refuse to buy much full price, did however but a lemon full price and a jar of.value honey, but i paid in points. Also half price.satsumas.

Have had biscuits and satsumas for breakfast, took out sweetcorn chowder for lunch will have pork for dinner.

Lynsey I have given up crisps for lent, good luck, crisps are my go to food.

Edwardia

Hi y'all !

Ms_Night_Ryder.. a fashion show ooh have fun

dasophster back when OH and I were really skint, in an effort to avoid Tesco's value burgers with mechanically recovered meat, we ate a lot of soya mince. I've read since that it's really high in gluten and a doctor gave me a whole spiel on the amino acids that went over my head mostly but he thought soya to be pretty bad stuff. Eating so much of the stuff (5 nights a week) was probably a big factor in developing diabetes Don't blame you for avoiding it.

Thanks for mentioning Vx as I found the website and ooh they have vegan bars made with mostly organic ingredients eg CLIF Luna and Builder's bars. The reason this has me :jis because OH does like snacks in his lunches. There's so little organic that I've been buying him organic toddler snacks from Organix and Plum :rotfl:I'm sure he would feel happier with something called a Builder's bar

OH walked into town centre to buy kitchen towels 6 for 99p at 99p Stores but other than that NSD for both of us.

donnajt

Hi everyone - hope the veggie week went well, been spending a bit too much of groceries, so am really thinking about what we buy and why we buy it - so I am on a mission to use up all the things that i woulnd't normally buy - I am concentrating on the free tins of Campbells Soup - I had over 30, have used a few in home made soups and the chicken one in a mexican chicken casserole but still got about 17 to use up, my plan is to get down to a decent amount of food - I don't want bare cupboards but a sensible amount for a family of 4. Have made a few cakes to use up lots of flour that i went crazy when tesco had 3for2 on home baking - god knows why!!!

Have loads of sprouting potatoes so rather than throw then away I have been very naughty and gotten the deep fat fryer out (for the first time since april last year) so cheeky chicken and chips tonight...can't wait

Lynsey

Afternoon.

Not spent much and got a few things for the TCB "Shop and Save" (not deducting cashback, that will go into savings fund) .
Split petrol into 2 and claimed £2 on both accounts. Also bought Snickers, Mars Bars and bananas (well bananas are healthy - lol).

Morries - 50p potatoes, 50p pineapple, 50p parsnips and £1 Snickers = £2.50
Sainsburys - £1 Mars Bars and 60p bananas = £1.60
£4.10 so far and might pop to Sainsbury's later.

This weeks spends have been low, but only 1 NSD.
So far:
Sun - £3.75
Mon - £2.62
Tue - £0.58
Wed - £0.65
Thu - NSD
Fri - £ £5.23 (salami 24p, not 25p - lol)
Sat - £4.10 so far.
Week so far = £16.93
Feb so far = £59.10
Year so far = £117.48 (Jan £58.38)

I only need bread and was going to go to Asda, but out of the way as missing Aldi and Lidl today. See what Sainsbury's have tonight or tomorrow.
So a cheap week and not much needed next week. Hoping to follow Florencem and stay steady/ish with £25 weeks for the time being. Well £25 averages and probably until the end of March.

Lynsey

Kirri

^ Good low spends, Lynsey, but I'd never have the patience to go shopping so much just to spend 58p etc lol.

My spends are £80.02 so far


Today, nothing out of the freezer, 1 meal so far:

Omelette with watercress/lettuce salad with garlic mushrooms on top

No idea re dinner yet. May take something out of the freezer and have it with veg or poss a jacket potato with hm bean burger, cheese and salad

Lynsey

Kirri wrote: »

^ Good low spends, Lynsey, but I'd never have the patience to go shopping so much just to spend 58p etc lol.

Lol
The 58p was my £6.50 worth of mozzarella. Save quite a bit and not much reduced I fancied. 65 was just bread buns.
On the way home and almost my corner shop, but wouldn't go out of the way.
You need patience.

Lynsey

Kirri

I'm enjoying home delivery far too much more than I should!! I have to be quite desperate for things to actually go out for something!

Lynsey

Weird isn't it?? I could never go for home delivery. I like to look around and see what I'm buying. Always something reduced and nice finds.

Lynsey

zafiro1984

Quote:- from Mrs TM What kind of dehydrator do you have? I'm thinking of adding one to my 'want' list for when I make enough from my crochet dolls to get the items on the list!
It's one from Lakeland but I got it as an unopened unwanted Christmas Present on eBay for £25.00, I believe Lakeland list them at £48.

Skilly:- paddle not yet found, must google it, breadmaker is a Panasonic and I've only three loaves left!!

Lynsey:- try googling 'RealAge' wesite, they have long lists of user friendly cholestrol foods, I also got a cheap book from Amazon on my ipad of 100 top cholestrol friendly foods, I've found both really helpful. Hope your DH' cholestrol drops.

Out of freezer:- probably some pork mince for pork burgers tonight. I'm having baked beans on toast - I just love baked beans
Going in:- a teabread I cooked this morning.

Must get a gammon joint out and slow cook it as I need to do sandwiches tomorrow as we may be off to Wales to look at a new baby horse I want. My DH thinks it may cheer me up after losing my ancient stallion of 29 last week. Shhhhh and dont't tell him but I've a new mare coming in from France in about 10 days, it's a surprise.

Didn't make any effort to do liquear chocs for the 14th - just not in the mood. So DH drank the brandy and ate the chocolate, same ingredients just a different presentation :rotfl: