June 2012 Grocery Challenge

Florenceem

Bikingbint wrote: »

Hi

I am looking to save money on my food bill, (aren't we all) and I would like some advice.

There are 3 of us me DH and elderly mother, me and DH are pretty much sorted but elderly mother drives me nuts regarding food.:mad:

She has a very limited range of things that she likes and she prefers the cheap manufactured c**p from the supermarket to homemade which she will just move around the plate for half and hour then leave. but she always has room for pudding if there is one. She rarely eats veg (including salad) except potatoes and will not eat anything considered foreign (pasta, rice, noodles etc) or spicy (chilli, curry, etc).

I am hoping to create a meal plan for her with approx 2-3 weeks meals on and just pick from it on a daily basis.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated before I hurt my head banging it on the wall.:D

Here are some of the things i already do

Small tin of spag bol with a jacket potato (dont consider this pasta)
roast dinner
fish and chips
egg and chips
egg and bacon with tomatoes and black pudding
soup (will only eat tomato soup)
individual cheese and onion quiche with tiny bit of salad and jacket.
Could I make a large quiche and portion it up? no one else in the house eats it.

meat pie and potatoes
cottage/shepherds pie
fish pie (usually picks out the fish):whistle:
boiled/poached eggs on toast

Regards

Bikingbint

Unusual - normally older folk are keen on home cooking. My dad loved coming to me for dinners after Mum died. He did cook for himself other days but it was mostly Icel... stuff.

Florenceem

recurrent-ostrich wrote: »

Hi folks, newbie here. Am interested in this thread, currently we spend £400 a month on our family (2 adults, 3 kids -12,11 and 8- and one dog and two cats). I'd like to get this down but wondered if it's doable as my hubby works shifts and I work fulltime so don't have time to trawl supermarkets for bargains. I guess that batch cooking might be my friend? My kids are also a bit fussy, frankly!

Any helpful tips would be much appreciated. Oh, and i'm a huge lardy!!!!! (:o) and need to lose weight. Thinking of WW.

thanks!

Portion control, no take aways, no ready meals, no processed foods/ no alcohol are the way to lose weight. Mr F was 22 1/2 stone when we met - now - 14 stone. No WW.

Florenceem

NSD here.
We had roast potatoes, roast parsnips, HM Toad in the Hole, gravy, roasted beetroot/onion/yellow pepper & asparagus for dinner.
I take a photo of my dinner - Mr F has more than me on his plate - not too much more though! He is actually 13 stone 12 lbs when he last weighed - getting near to his ideal weight.

PennyGrabber

NSD today for the gc, but had to have four new tyres on the car!!:eek::eek:

Re planning meals for fussy MIL: I quite often do a cheat's roast. I have a steamer, so I put spuds in the water (new, old for boiled or mashed, whatever), veg in the first basket and then previously cooked, frozen and defrosted meat in the top basket. Then, when it's all done, I use the potato water to make the instant gravy. A one pot wonder!! The meat is a roasted joint, which I slice and freeze in three-slice portions, then bung in the fridge the night before I want to use it. It's basically an easy way to do meat and two veg...

fozziebeartoo

little_miss_moneysaver wrote: »

Ok my question....do you guys use value/cheap mince or buy the leaner mince? My mum always said that buying cheap mince is false economy, but looking at some price differences I wonder if there's really much difference once the mince is cooked?

I now use Donald Russell minced steak (when on offer and free P&P) and there is no comparison in the taste between that and cheap mince.

There is hardly any fat, no grey liquid, no nasty smell when cooking and it tastes delicious - I also find it much more filling so eat less.

I have never liked very cheap mince, too grey and likely to have bits of bone in it for my liking.

I used to use a "good" SM mince but DR is wonderful

Bluegreen143 wrote: »

Popped into Mr M on the way home to get razors (which were out of stock when Mr A order delivered yesterday) and dried porcini mushrooms (forgot to order).

Didn't pick up anything else so I am pleased! But now I'm doing the GC I do feel a bit miffed at only getting two items for my £5.48 (OH likes expensive razors), even when it was a planned shop! :rotfl: Have updated signature.

Feeling very happy as my job was at risk of redundancy and I found out today that I'm not going to be laid off :j:j:j

Got a real fright though and am serious about beefing up the savings so think I will be aiming for a lower GC target next month!

Woohoo!! Very pleased to hear your good news!! :T:T:T

Dipndo

£38 spent tonight on weekly shop.

Bluegreen143

Florenceem wrote: »

NSD here.
We had roast potatoes, roast parsnips, HM Toad in the Hole, gravy, roasted beetroot/onion/yellow pepper & asparagus for dinner.
I take a photo of my dinner - Mr F has more than me on his plate - not too much more though! He is actually 13 stone 12 lbs when he last weighed - getting near to his ideal weight.

Looks delicious and a very sensible portion as well

Don't know how to quote more than one person but thanks Fozzie :j agreed about cheap mince not being worth it as well!

PennyGrabber

Bluegreen143 wrote: »

Don't know how to quote more than one person

It took me ages to work this out too! Right next to the quote button is a speech bubble button. This is the multiquote button. You can quote up to three people at a time. You do this by pressing the bubble-button for two, and the quote button for the last one.

HTH

XSpender

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

XSpender - You sound a bit nervous around meat. I thought it might help if I suggest a starting point for you.

If you buy meat that has already been removed from the bone it is easier to work with - turkey breast slices or steaks or breast of chicken are good to start with. You can buy the chicken fillets in packs (these come from the inside of the chicken breast (next to the bone)) and they come in handy strips but are slightly more expensive than buying a breast and slicing it into strips yourself.

An easy way to start would be to cut the meat into long 1cm strips (if this is too revolting you could ask the butcher (or butchery counter in the sm) to prepare it for you (no charge) and then use tongs to "handle") then sprinkle with oil, salt and pepper and then dry fry - they only take a couple of minutes on three-four sides and are delish with salad and a spicy sauce. We often have them with minted buttery new potatoes (or pitta bread which is no good for coeliacs).

The same strips cut into 1cm cubes and you've got the basis of a stir-fry. I generally start with meat and garlic, then chuck in the veg and then the sauce and finally a bag of egg noodles (I generally get the bags of noodles, veg and sauce on an offer) - you would need to check for gluten or make your own sauce.

Best of luck
SL

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this for me. I don't mind handling meat as I cook it for DH and DS and can even strip a chicken to rubberise it! I just don't know what to buy and how to make it into meals. I like the sound of your dry fried chicken strips with salad and sweet chilli sauce or a ceasar style salad for my lunches at work:)

I have managed to cook/eat roast chicken, gammon, bacon since last wednesday and have turned left over chicken into a chicken, leek and bacon pie tonight with GF pastry which is wierd, not like normal pastry at all, but tastes OK, even DH liked it. I used to make this pie with Quorn and it feels odd making a recipe 'meaty' instead of making it 'veggie':rotfl:

The rest of the roast chicken should make 2-3 portions of madras for DH and 3 portions of tikka masala for me. Is 9-10 adult meals out of a 1.8k chicken good?

NSD today, didn't even have my usual cups of tea at work:eek:

craigywv

well thats me folks for 2 weeks i hope you all will do very well in being thrifty while i am away. I will update my signature in a mo spent 11.00 today in mr t on nice things for holiday:rotfl:we have been eating the most horrible dinners the last 2 days as have not got ANY meat in the 2 freezers as i have ran them down they are filled with butter, frozen veg and bits and bobs managed to defrost BOTH freezers last week and have a list the length of your arm for restocking when i come back. so FLO look forward to coming back and seeing all your lovely dishes i shall catch up on the thread and july will have started. bye for now xxx:)