May 2012 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

craigywv wrote: »

Hi all, need HELP here pls, my mum has just given me 4 lbs of mince from the butchers as she says she cant take anymore of me complaining that the sm stuff cooks like hard brown worms my personal opinion) what do i do with it.....i was told to not freeze it raw by someone ages ago pre os days as it does something to it????? i would like to make say a quarter of it into burgers so how do i make them, also do i batch cook the rest with an onion as a base dish for spag bol, chilli, etc...any help would be appreciated i will also do a few shepards pies for freezer and a mince and onion pie, i intend REALLY bulking these out with veg so .....come on girls and boys ideas pls..........FLO if your there i NEED YOUR inspiration

Hi Craigywv!
Whenever I buy mince, I freeze it raw, in the amount I know will feed the three of us. Currently that's 125g (a quarter of a 500g pack). Then, if I want to batch cook something, I just get out the right number of packs of mince. I use the cheapy sandwich bags (£1 for 500 in £ shop), and put those into a nice one, as you're supposed to double bag frozen stuff.

abitofhelp wrote: »

Hi all, updated sig to reflect a spend of £11. It was meant to be a nsd but oh finished his fishing early so of we went, popping to home bargains tomorrow for toilet rolls and also need prunes. No comments please!!!. I will go over budget but not by more than £15 (i hope).

Really?!?! You say this and expect no comments!! Is the prune to loo roll ratio a good one? Less prunes less loo rolls?!?!!!!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

jumblejack wrote: »

The top 2 cakes are FAR from MSE though.

The top one is a boozy coffee n baileys cake (My own concoction!) Coffee sponge layers, cream is whipped with icing sugar and baileys for the filling, the frosting top is made with icing sugar, butter, coffee and baileys!!

The middle one is a very fiddly, orange and poppy seed cake. The difference with this one is the texture. The poppy seeds make it really unique in texture and it is made with only sunflower oil. No marg or butter at all! This makes it really moist but not oily.
The filling is my own orange curd (when I used to keep hens and had a glut of eggs to use up!) It takes hours to make though so I rarely make it! The orange slices for the presentation have to be simmered in a home made syrup for aaaaages, etc.:eek:

I prefer micropuds now!

On the subject of micropuds, my folks presented me with a microwave yesterday when I went to get dinner prepared for today!!

They said they knew that i would accept no money so bought me a microwave instead and they wrote 'To ...(JJ)......., with love' on the box so I could not return it to reimburse them!!

I will now go wild with experimentation on the micro puts. I have an idea for a sponge using peanut butter n bananas!!!!!! I kid you not. I am sure it will work well. Maybe a banana sponge and butter cream using smooth peanut butter to top/layer it?? Something like that?

Could call it a cool name like 'Crazy cake' (...'nuts' and 'bananas' ) or 'Nuts n 'nanas cake'!!!!!

Will try and see!

Mmm, Baileys!!!

I look forward to pics and recipes of your various concoctions!

I've now made your syrup pud twice, the second time last night when my mum was round for dinner, and she said she liked it, and polished off all of her piece! (She's normally quite fussy about what I make her, so well done you!!) I was really impressed with myself actually, as she ate all of her dinner and all of her pudding, which is a real pat on the back for me. :j

NSD today, not need for anything, and no wanting to go. Bonus! Up to £20 of my May spend, so not too good! Oh well, £40 was a notional idea, and completely unachievable, but I'm having a damn good go at it!! I have everything in for breakfasts and dinners, it's just the stuff I have to get every week, like milk, fruit and veg, and lunchbox bits. It adds up a lot quicker than I thought it did!

keencomper

Mr T had YS cooked chickens so we bought 4, mustard & cream so thats a spend of £9.89, hubby has portioned them all up for dinners & put them in the freezer.

Almost time for our sunday roast. I will head of & update my sig. Hope your all having a lovely Sunday!

DundeeDoll

Now updated April board and May's spreadsheet. Wondering where £124 has already gone this month :-( but fridge full of left over party food from Friday Back from day in Queensferry. Passed a nasty multi-car pile-up on the way. Hope all were safe if not (and in some cases most definitely not!) their cars.

craigywv

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Hi Craigywv!
Whenever I buy mince, I freeze it raw, in the amount I know will feed the three of us. Currently that's 125g (a quarter of a 500g pack). Then, if I want to batch cook something, I just get out the right number of packs of mince. I use the cheapy sandwich bags (£1 for 500 in £ shop), and put those into a nice one, as you're supposed to double bag frozen stuff.



Really?!?! You say this and expect no comments!! Is the prune to loo roll ratio a good one? Less prunes less loo rolls?!?!!!!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:



Mmm, Baileys!!!

I look forward to pics and recipes of your various concoctions!

I've now made your syrup pud twice, the second time last night when my mum was round for dinner, and she said she liked it, and polished off all of her piece! (She's normally quite fussy about what I make her, so well done you!!) I was really impressed with myself actually, as she ate all of her dinner and all of her pudding, which is a real pat on the back for me. :j

NSD today, not need for anything, and no wanting to go. Bonus! Up to £20 of my May spend, so not too good! Oh well, £40 was a notional idea, and completely unachievable, but I'm having a damn good go at it!! I have everything in for breakfasts and dinners, it's just the stuff I have to get every week, like milk, fruit and veg, and lunchbox bits. It adds up a lot quicker than I thought it did!

thank-you PENNYGRABBER for your advice i didnt know freezer stuff had to be double bagged, great advice on here ty:)

tessie_bear

i love the look of those cakes and i love the look of the plates they are on.....we made the trip to stoke and i am the proud owner of x6 dinner plates x6 side plates and x6 big bowls...a lovely range of flowers in the botanical range....all £2 eachthere is a site on the grabbit board if anyone else likes a bit of portmerion
hth tess

chelseabun_3

Just a quick check in to report £4 spent at the car boot on cups of tea :eek: Next time we'll take a flask! We cleared a reasonable profit though, and made more space in the garage! I'm proud to say I didn't even look around!:A Far too tempting, so I made myself stay at our stall. The tea money came out of takings, so hasn't affected the GC total.

I've made Tigerfeet's slow cooker chilli for dinner, there will be loads of portions left which I'll freeze. It looks and smells gorgeous!

Have a good bank holiday, everyone!
CBx

supersally01

Evening all,

Done my big shop today using my £6 off £40, £3 off veg and various price flop vouchers at Mr T's.

£39.50 the total, and plenty of meat and nice fruit & veg too.

Spent £7.67 in LIDL yesterday, I like the pasta sauce so stocked up, and the curry sauce, and took various baked goodies into work.:D

Total, £47.17.

Got another £6 off £40 for next week, but also got The Sun, with the Morrisons MOC, so may do a extra 'stock up' shop on household/tinned/dried stuff, as the store is looking bare. Will see how things go.

Night shift last night, so a freezer tea, and have been degassing my wine. Hope to bottle up in a couple of days!!!

Those cakes look the buisness!!! :T
Happy Bank Holiday all!!

Sally.

quintwins

hi all i have a £6.75 spend on a 20kig bag of spuds yesterday, also spent £95 on meat however i'm treating it as a 2nd purse kinda thing as it was an investment, i've been craving steak and it makes more sense to buy 13 for £45 than 2 for £10 (thats my excuse and i'm sticking to it) also since it's 2 towns over i needed to get my moneys worth from the fuel, we had steak with the inlaws last night so 5 steaks at £3.50 each means a £17.50 spend.

for my £95 i got

a 2.7kg gammon (wow it's massive i'm used to wee supermarket ones
a full rack of really meaty ribs
80 sausages
2kg southern fried chicken
2.2kg bacon
3 packets of pork and leek sausages
and half a sirlion which we cut into 13 steaks all 10-12oz

abitofhelp

Evening all, had a lovely baking session this afternoon. One tray of brownies, 20 choc chip cookies & one of flo's syrup sponge cakes. The cake tastes great, thanks for the recipe florenceem. Big oven on again in the morning for hm rolls and maybe some of twinks hobnobs.Greenhouse was cleared out and tomato plants are in, have left my fig tree in there along with the tarragon & lemon verbena. I will see how the weather is over the next couple of weeks.They can spend the summer outside then.

fozziebeartoo

jumblejack wrote: »

Well I guess it's kind of MSE.
In special cakes, I usually use home made butter using YS cream.
The baileys is actually shops own label Irish cream. Usually around £4 a bottle.

In Southampton city centre yesterday on a cake stall, a slice of gataux type cake for £2.00 a slice to take away, so your lovely cake would give at least 8? 10? More slices?

Very MSE when you look at it that way