March 2012 Grocery Challenge

abitofhelp

just updated sig as we picked up some (and paid for) corned beef and some biscuits last night. made a huge pot of bolognese style stuff in the slow cooker yesterday, enough for chilli, lasagna & cottage style pie.
i whizzed up two carrots, two onions & a celery stick with 5 cloves(may be more) garlic and some fresh herbs. tipped into slow cooker & added a bag of quorn mince & some oats, salt pepper and mixed herbs & two tubs of passata couple of stock cubes and some water ( just a bit). left it on low took enough out to make a lasgagna topped with cheese sauce & a cottage pie topped with cheesy mash. i added to what was left in the slow cooker a tin of kidney beans chill, cumin & ground corriander powder. left for another couple of hours. the chilli we had for tea last night ( with a bit left over for nachos sometime) lasagna ready for tomorrow night & cottage pie living in the freezer (for now).

cat_smith

Oooh. Just unpacked my Approved Foods delivery. Hope DH can cope with the large quantities of couscous and spelt:D He's going to be living on it for months. :rotfl:That and Thai Red curry. £18.88 for an RRP of £75.11. Not bad. Off to load the freezer.

tigerfeet2006

Rosspa delivery today Very happy with the quality again.

£1.99 for a 10kg sack of carrots and £1.99 for 5kg of humongous potatoes and 50p for 4kg of onions was rather a nice price. £1.25 for 2lbs of bacon pieces seemed a good price to miss as well. Also got 2 rather large cauli's and brocolli, the biggest sweet potatoes I have ever seen, banana's and apples.

The only thing is what do you do with the polystyrene boxes?? Answers on a postcard please

Dinner yesterday was chili done in the SC. I used 500g of mince rather than my usual 700-800g and chucked in a handful of lentils and 4 grated carrots. Ended up with more portions left over than normal for the freezer and the gannets didn't notice any different and I got extra veg in them. Served as usual with rice and creme fraiche.

Ninno820

day 2 of the fiscal diet and another nsd here. Dinner tonight is same as yesterday - whoopsied neck of lamb, whoopsied msushrroms and peppers, an onion that was past its best and pilau rice (selling it well arent I?)

Off to rummage in the freezer and find the whoopsied chicken - will cook in the slow cooker tomorrow with a tin of mushroom soup ad add the rest of the whoopsied mushrooms at the end for a "Casserole". I have run out of most veg but have some broccoli in the fridge and some tinned carrots and peas - peas in the freezer as well so should be fine.

cleggie

Popped into Mr T today and got some value mince for £2.40, which will do us 4 meals:

-tonight we will have chilli con carne with rice and nann
tomorrow we will have leftover chilli con carne (with jacket potatoes if we fancy, instead of rice)

-I put the other half in the freezer and will make mince and sweet potato curry, which also lasts us 2 meals

ModestyB

Just a small spend of £4.65 in Mr S today. That was for dog treats and a loaf. Why do Mr S charge 5p more for my bread than anyone else? It really makes me mad. I'd stop going there all together except their basics baked beans are half the calories of any other beans. Plus I only drink their coffee cos it's cheaper than Nesc*fe.

Hugs all.

MunniMuncha

Had my meat order delivered today from Westin Gourmet (via kgbdeals) and got £145 worth of meat for the cost of £69 and there was loads.:j All portioned and bagged up and in the freezer.:p

The only thing is that I also got a 1kg of brie in the meat package, but said it would come in 40 x 25g but it has come as ONE big wheel. Just checked and not really good to freeze so if anyone has any ideas on what to do with it OH will be happy. I don't like brie but hubby does, but not sure he can eat 1kg in about 6 weeks:eek: (mind you, maybe HE could:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)

Suffolk_lass

MunniMuncha wrote: »

The only thing is that I also got a 1kg of brie in the meat package, but said it would come in 40 x 25g but it has come as ONE big wheel. Just checked and not really good to freeze so if anyone has any ideas on what to do with it OH will be happy. I don't like brie but hubby does, but not sure he can eat 1kg in about 6 weeks:eek: (mind you, maybe HE could:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)

1. If you portion some up and dip it in egg then breadcrumbs you can freeze these, ready to bake and serve with a condiment like cranberry jelly/jam as a starter.
2. You could melt some with gruyere to be a cheese fondue with veg sticks and croutons
3. DS's preferred sandwich is slices of brie with crispy smoked bacon, iceberg lettuce and cranberry jelly
4. Ask neighbours/ family if they would like to swap some now for something back later (maybe fruit or veg when they have a glut)
HTH
SL

elsiepac

cleggie wrote: »

elsiepac - do you mind me asking if there is any particular reason why you aim for a weekly shop of £9? Is it part of a challenge on here, or is it just what you have leftover from bills etc to buy food with?
Sorry if you think i am being nosey, just curious! No need to answer if you'd rather not

Hi cleggie

It's for no particular other than that I had a £70 budget this month and after deducting the £25 stock shop allowance (this is for all this to use over the month like coffee, tins, frozen stuff, baking stuff, breakfast cereal etc), when you divide the remaining £45 by 5 you get... £9!!! :rotfl: I always make my months into 5 weeks because I start my financial weeks on a Friday, so invariably that's how it works out. It's deceptive really because some of them are really half weeks at the beginning and end, but it's how it works for me!!!

LC

elsiepac

Hello again everyone

I had some spends today, not sure why but I've bought 2 loads of onions. Not the end of the world as I'll use them all but don't think I had my thinking head on!!!

Today I bought bananas and pittas in L1dl for £1.11. VERY impressed with the pittas, they do wholemeal or white, I got wholemeal and they were better than some of the branded ones! (and 10p cheaper than Ald1 too!)

I got a 3 pack of giant white onions, Mr T Value for 69p and a pot of reduced fat houmous for £1, so £1.69 in Mr T.

and this evening was waiting for my script so went to A1di and got their Amaretto which is lovely, (pocket money not groceries though!!!), onions on the super 6 39p and a bag as wasn't expecting to go in. Also got two packs of their Dairyf1ne Spirals as they are 49p from 99p at the moment. got one of each to try and I'll recommend the hazelnut but not the double choc (obviously had to sample one of each when I got home :rotfl: ), they are from pocket money too though, so 42p in there from GC.

Total spent from this budget today was £3.22.

Still haven't stocked up on Kara, turns out my local Mr T don't do it. Well, actually I couldn't find the dairy substitutes :cool:

But the big one by work will do, so I'll pop in on the way home one night this week.

Have a nice evening all, I'm polishing off a portion of my "Leftover Vegetable Curry" which I made last night, made 5 good portions:

2x onions
2x big potatoes, skin on
some carrots
a white cabbage ( I cut out the manky bits so worked out about 3/4 of a cabbage!!!)
1 broccoli
1 tsp olive oil
1 sachet creamed coconut
1/2 jar gone off korma paste
1 carton passata
some water

It's yum and 4 of my 5 a day

LC

Mar GC: £52.30/£70
Week 1: £14.47/£9 <-- over by £5.47 :eek:
Week 2: £8.40/£9
Week 3: £6.60/£9
Week 4: £0/£9
Week 5: £0/£9
Stores: £22.83/£25