January 2012 Grocery Challenge

LavenderBees

elly2 wrote: »

Afternoon all and happy new year to you all (a bit late sorry) my new years eve was spent nursing our female degu so basically i was sat nursing her in a tea towel sobbing my heart out sadly we lost her on new years day along with another 2 of her babies. The other 4 remaining babies are coping well with daddy degu taking over the care of them...........lets hope 2012 improves.

I have so far spent £30.50 of my budget and plan on buying nothing else till at least thurs (new week starts on weds) so my question is what do other people do with any left over pennies ? do you save them or keep them for bulk buy offers (not sure which way to go as i have my £10 a week pot for savings so dont want to confuse myself with another pot).

Really sorry to hear this Elly. I looked up Degu on the internet - they're cute little furries, aren't they? Hope you feel better soon, and the rest are happy/healthy.

As for your query about left over pennies...somehow, I never have any ......yet, anyway...give me a few months on the challenge and we'll see...but keeping them for bulk buying sounds a good move to me :T

smitty2702

Can I join you all please. We are a family of 4 plus dog,cat, guinea pigs and chickens.

Im going to say £350 for this month but will need to collect reciepts to get a better idea for next month.

LondonDreamer

Pixie_Fairydust wrote: »

Do any of you make your pastry in a food processor?
I bought myself a F.P before Christmas and its still in the box!

I always do. I weigh the flour (and sugar, if sweet crust) straight into the bowl, add cold butter cubes and pulse until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then switch it to low speed and start adding water in a slow stream until it comes together in a ball. So easy.

cheekychipmunk

Pixie_Fairydust wrote: »

Do any of you make your pastry in a food processor?

Yes! Dead simple. Just put your (cold) diced butter and flour in and pulse until looks like breadcrumbs. Add a little cold water through the funnel and pulse until it just starts to come together. Scoop out, gently form a disc, wrap in clingfilm and pop in fridge for at least half an hour. And then do with as you please!

Never make it the old fashioned way now

quintwins

JIL wrote: »

Depends what you are looking to do, if it is the minimum of fuss and we have done this ourselves at work. Buy cheap ready made sandwiches, cut up into triangles and arrange on a plate. 79p per pack in Aldi. Buy some pork pies, cheese and onion rolls, indian snacks, quiche etc and arrange on a plate. A cheeseboard with a pack of grapes and a jar of pickle. a few crisps and some fruit. Garnish with a salad bag and some baby tomatoes.



.

surely this is really expensive? that works out at £15.80 for 20 sanwichs, you could buy 2 loves of bread for £1.10, 6 eggs for 80p, value mayo for 80p, cheese slices for £1.50 (or even grate a block of cheese) and some ham for £1.50, this would easily make a good selection of sandwichs for less than £5 with leftovers for your fridge, altho nice sandwich filler is diced pineapple mixed with philly you can use value ranges of both

you could buy a tomatoe and use any leftover eggs and some store cupboard items to make mini quiche, buy a bag or 2 of cocktail sausages and do a few mini toad in the holes aswell as sausages on there own, and some sausage rolls, breadsticks and carrot sticks with dips is nice aswell

i'm sure i'm teaching my granny to suck eggs but it's justa few suggestions

tigerfeet2006

sistercas wrote: »

certainly

how to make butter from double cream

1.tip the double cream into a mixer using the balloon whisk

2. whisk ( it will go through the whipped stage - keep whipping it goes to a yellowy looking stage , then into little balls of yellow )
keep whipping it will eventually separate into butter and buttermilk ( if you dont have a cover on your mixer use a towel to cover as the buttermilk will splatter all over )
the final stage the butter will collect in the balloon whisk and the buttermilk will be in the bowl

3. rinse the butter under a cold tap ( its important to remove the buttermilk from the butter otherwise it will go rancid within 24hrs)

4. squeeze the butter to remove any moisture

5. you can season the butter with salt , garlic anything you like and thats all there is too it - took about 5 mins in total

edited to say : it will freeze for up to 3 months

Cheers m'dear I think I might give that a try.

kersplatt

Can I join please?

Tried before but I get distracted with reading threads rather than joining in!

Myself and two small children - 3 and 7 are in the household. No pets. Kids go to their dad 2-3 times a week and they get dinner at the childminder's 4 nights out of 5 so I'm setting a budget of £125 a month for us all. I eat mainly veggie during the week, don't drink much alcohol at all so hoping that this is a pretty reasonable budget. I'm aiming to clear 10k of the debt my ex left me with this year so it's all hands to the food processor and freezer tetris for sport!

ragz_2

Went to Aldi and Tesco today. Got all the food in Aldi, so much cheaper than Tesco for the fruit and veg and managed to get two packs of chicken breast at 30% off, which is great for free range.
Total spend £38.98 at Aldi (for a trolley load) and £2.34 at tesco on nappies and nappy sacks. Need to get to Asda for their nappies as they are cheaper but no worth the 40 mile round trip unless I need other things in Eastbourne!

Total so far £53.13

Kittenkirst

Had a spend at Sains' today, so ££22.61 now gone but stocked up on lots and didn't veer too much from the list :0)

We did however use our nectar points as had £25 saved up so made it much cheaper! Woooop!

Steak for tea tonight (from the freezer; bought from M&S when whoopsied yayness!)

bupster

Thanks guys for suggestions! Waiting to see if I can get a better idea of how many I'm catering for - and if I have the use of a kitchen on site or whether I'm cycling it all over :eek:

Spent £25 so far for the basics for three hot dishes:

Leek and borlotti bean stew (with mozzarella if there are no vegans) and rice;
Lemon, garlic, tomato and feta spaghetti;
Chicken and chorizo jambalaya with rice

Those will feed 10-15 easy; if there are more I will add:
Chicken drumsticks with homemade coating thingy (about £3-4)
Roast potatoes (dead easy, cheap, everyone loves them)

Also, depending on numbers/whether they're starving:
Sandwiches on white and brown (possibly homemade if I can be arsed, otherwise about £1.20 a loaf)
Possible fillings:
Mature cheddar and tomato (£2 for cheese)
Tuna, sweetcorn and mayo (already have ingredients)
Ham and mustard (maybe - ham £3 a pack)
Ham and cucumber
Egg mayo with pepper (80p for eggs)

I have a cake mix (I have a cake, but it's a bit elderly) so might make that up. If there's any money left over (i.e. lots of people plan to turn up and pay the £3 ) I'll get some fruit too.

That should hold 'em, right?