Hello - Grocery help?

deepoo

Chris, Try making as much as you can from basic ingredients. For instance for the best tasting bread you'll ever taste bake it your self. It is so easy and costs 30p per large loaf:

You need buy (I get it from T*esco: (this should make around 7 to 8 big loafs
Value Plain Flour (1.5Kg 0.52p)
Strong Stoneground Wholemeal Flour (1.5kg 1.29p)
Tin Allinson Fried Active Yeast (125g 0.65p)
Sugar (I don't put salt in because it is bad for you and you should get used to the taste without it very soon).


So for each loaf:
Put 1 tsp sugar + 2 tsp yeast in a mug and mix in a small amount of warm water (half an inch should do), and leave that for 10 minutes until yeast has foamed up and doubled in size.

Mix 220g of plain and 220g of wholemeal flour together in a big bowl. When the yeast is ready add that and then add half a pint of warm water, a little at a time mixing it in well until you get a nice dough - you'll soon get the hang of when it is just right (like thick mud) - you may need more or less water.

Now put the dough in a loaf tin if you have one, or on a baking tray and leave in a warm place for 20/25 minutes - it should get bigger. Now put in the oven for 40 - 50 minutes at 200-220 degrees (sorry I don't know what gas mark that is). Again you might need to experiment for the timings.

When it is cooked, leave it on the side, then carve of hunk with some butter - I guarantee that you have never tasted bread that tastes so good.

Once you have got used to making that, you can start making them in batches - I do 4 at a time and store them in the freezer until I am ready to use them. Keep an eye on Lidl as they frequently do loaf tins for 1.99 each.

One other tip - for breakfast I have Holland & Barrett Original Muesli 2Kg 3.59. With milk I reckon that it costs 30p per day.

Over all, by cooking ourselves, eating well and drinking about 1 - 1 1/2 bottles of wine a week, we spend £3.50 per day on food and drink each (2 adults).

thevinternet

Some great advice here since my last post....I have even more ideas now, thanks guys! We aren't just helping the OP but each other too!!

Deepoo when I try and make bread it never rises properly, any idea what I'm doing wrong?

escortg3

This was my daughters menu from when she moved into her new home.

Obviuosly not every ones cup of tea
Menu

Breakfast.

Cereal
Toast
Jam/Marmite
Sausages (weekend)
Bacon (weekend)
Egg (weekend)
Beans (weekend)

Lunch

Sandwhiches - Ham ,egg, cheese, tuna with salad or pickle or mayonnaise
Fruit - Bananas, apple
Yoghurt
Crisps
Cereal Bar
Omelette & salad (weekend)
Cheese on toast (weekend)

Evening Meal

Sausage & Mash & onion gravy
Spaghetti bolognaise
Cottage pie with carrots & peas
Lasagna & salad
Pizza, wedges & garlic bread
Sausage, chips & beans
Chilli con carne, baked potato

Shopping List

Cereal
Butter/spread
Cooking oil
Oxos
Gravy granules
Bread
Jam
Marmite
Large bag frozen sausages (20)
1 pack of bacon
Bread
Ham
Cheese
Salad - Cucumber, peppers, lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes
Pickle
Onions large bag
Baked Beans x 3
Mayonnaise
Eggs large Box
Tuna
Apples
Bananas
Yoghurt x 6 pack
Crisps x 6 pk
Potatoes
Mince meat x 2
Dried spaghetti
Dolmio sauce
Carrots
Peas
Pasta sheets
White sauce for lasagne
Red sauce for lasagne
Pizza
Garlic bread
wedges

Horace

I can vouch for Delia's One is Fun book - I was lucky and found it in a charity shop, she also does one called Frugal Food.

When I have minced beef, I tend to make up a huge pot of bolognese sauce: chopped onion fried, then brown the mince in the same pan, add chopped tomatoes, black pepper, mixed herbs (this tends to be whatever I have in the cupboard), a beef stock cube, half a tin of water (needed to swill out tomato tin), I may put in some dried chilli flakes. I simmer for about 20 mins. I don't use garlic because I don't like it.

This sauce then becomes spag bol one day, bol with rice another day, and if I add carrots to it and peas and put in a dish and top with one of Delia's cheats - Aunt Bessies Mashed Potato (sometimes I don't have potatoes at home but I tend to have this as a standby) and bung in the oven for 20 mins or so until the top is browned (sometimes I sprinkle cheese on the top) and that's turned a cottage pie into a cumberland pie.

To find a good butcher look around your high street on a Saturday, if there is one with a queue in it then it is usually a good one. I know my local butcher does 2lb bags of bacon bits (£1.50) which are quite lean and these got turned into a quiche as well as bacon sandwiches. Mine sells chicken thighs in packs of 6 or 8 for about £2.99 - these are great and I will cook them all at once and maybe freeze some of them and eat the others either with oven chips or with spuds, veg and gravy. Meat from a butcher tends to be slightly cheaper than meat from the supermarket.

Don't forget to look at the whoopsie shelf in the supermarket (I know Co-op generally have a good one) and I know that Morrisons tend to discount everything close to closing time so you can pick up fresh food for 6p or something equally ridiculous.

timbstoke

Based on the recommendations here, I've ordered the Delia book - £2.75 used from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0340389591/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

Horace

timbstoke wrote: »

Based on the recommendations here, I've ordered the Delia book - £2.75 used from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0340389591/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

Her recipes work, I have often doubled the amount and made more than enough for one and still her recipes have worked unlike with other cookery books.

tronski

Lots of good tips here - mine is:

Try and find out what time your local supermarket makes its final reductions on an evening. Then pop in at around this time and see what you can get. We probably pop in once a week and stock up on mince/chicken/any meat really at a fraction of the full price. Have you got a freezer? We divide the packs up into portions, pop in a freezer bag and in the freezer. Then just get out a bag of meat in the morning so it's defrosted in time for dinner. You can freeze a lot of things - so not just meat but bread, butter, margarine, milk etc. If you get bread, then split it up so you just take out what you need otherwise it'll go off quickly.

deepoo

thevinternet - It's hard to know what your doing wrong without being there. Just use everything warm - they need a little warmth to get them going, but not too hot or you'll cook them before they've done their stuff - about the same as an airing cupboard. My oven has a special setting.

If you can't get the yeast to work for you, you could try soda bread - instructions here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/irishsodabread_67445 and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/soda_bread_41394

I use 250g plan flour, 250g wholemeal, tsp sugar, tsp lemon juice, tsp baking soda, 1/2 pint milk. Warm the milk, mix everything together then bung in the oven at 200C for 30 minutes. It's even easier than the other bread and tastes great too.

thevinternet

Thankyou deepoo....I have an airing cupboard so I could try that. :O)

Trajal

Mustard powder is also a good cheap buy. Can zing up any meat dish in the cooking (remember to always season with salt and pepper first) and can be used to make mustard to cover up any sins in terms of cheap sausages/burgers etc.

Oh and don't forget a dash of it into mash to make that a touch more interesting.

But, OP, I'd say that you should be doing batch cooking and I'd be looking at a lot of mince recipes if I were you.

That way you can end up with:

Night 1 - Spag bol
Night 2 - Cottage Pie
Night 3 - Chilli baked potato

All good tasty meals, just add a few different bits as you go along. If you make big batches of it you can freeze it.

Also keep your eyes out for the herb refills, and sometimes pound shops do cheap spice racks with a few basics in them that'll get you kicked off in the right direction.

Another good trick is to save a drop of red wine or cider or ale and chuck some of that into the cooking. Will give it a bit of a different taste, liven things up a bit.

On the subject of alcohol - I have to say that you should cut down from what I can guess about what you're doing. Talk to your doctor about the rule of quarters. When I came out of the armed forces myself I developed a serious drinking problem for a few years and it damn near ruined me - don't make that mistake.