June 2012 Grocery Challenge

jumblejack

I'm sorry to come on yet again but I had to share this:

I was determined to use up some parsley and there's no time like the present.
I knew the kids would come in hungry so I just cooked a lot of garlic in a lot of melted butter and added my finely chopped parsley. I mixed it into a pan of cooked and drained spaghetti and voila!

Dead easy, dead cheap and dead tasty!:j
I'm dead chuffed:T

tjp70

Please may I join in? May grocery spending has spiralled out of control so I need to get a handle on it.

Please can you put me down for £340.00.

Many thanks,

Tjp70

MrsCD

Florenceem wrote: »

Too exhausted by heat and 4 DGC to post last night.
NSD here.
We had roast potatoes, roast parsnips, gammon in Yorkshire, gravy, carrot, cauliflower and onion for dinner.

The dinner looks lovely Florenceem. Is the gammon in Yorkshire just like TITH and do you cut the gammon into pieces first?

We went to my parents for Sunday dinner so I didn't have to cook today. I was very, very thankful for that. :T My Mam insists on us going every other Sunday, which is nice for me and she enjoys feeding us!

MrsCD

I think I put my figure for June on the May board, but just in case...

Could you put me down for £75 per week please

Thank you

Florenceem

MrsCD wrote: »

The dinner looks lovely Florenceem. Is the gammon in Yorkshire just like TITH and do you cut the gammon into pieces first?

We went to my parents for Sunday dinner so I didn't have to cook today. I was very, very thankful for that. :T My Mam insists on us going every other Sunday, which is nice for me and she enjoys feeding us!

Cooked gammon steak cut into pieces then as TITH.

Florenceem

End of my first June GC week - had a good one - just £4.82 spent.
We had fried jacket potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon and baked beans with added freshly ground black pepper and a dash of peri peri sauce. Cooked in non stick pans with only a quick spray of a healthy oil.

Suffolk_lass

JIL wrote: »

I have a question about wine, please

Lavender Bees reminded me! Last year I bought a few meal deals from Tesc0 and MandS. I fully intended to use the wine over Christmas, but didnt. We opened a bottle the other day and it had a very musty and bitter taste to it. There are 8 more bottles!! Can wine go off if not stored correctly? Would it still be ok for cooking? I had stored it in the spare room so it could have suffered from temperature fluctuations.
I will open another bottle to test that but I had hoped to give them as gifts but wont now.

Thank you in advance of any advice.

Hi JIL, - Almost no wine is now stored in bottles with real corks (portugese is the possible exception) and so the liklihood of wine going off (corked is the official term) is relatively low. What you describe is however, consistent with wine that has gone off. You should check whether all the bottles are the same year (vintage) and try another of the same year. If it is the same, you should take both back to where you got it from because it is a faulty product (and covered by the sale of goods legislation :money:). Unless you were buying wines to lay down (store until they mature) - which from what you have said, was not the idea, they should be fine for 2-3 years - I'd aim to drink within 2 years of purchase and many will say this on the label. In terms of storage, they don't need to be horizontal but of course many wine rack designs date from the days of cork stoppers. I would store them in a cool place out of diect sunlight. From what you've said you've done nothing wrong, just got a duff bottle (or 2) :eek:. Out of interest, what are they, (country of origin, winemaker, type and vintage)?

There have been some counterfeit penetrations of SM stocks (there was a Ch4 Dispatches programme and T€sco had counterfeit on shelves in a metro somewhere in UK) so they may already know a particular wine had a problem. Even if they don't, they shouldn't give you a hard time for returning it. It is perfectly reasonable to buy for the future (look in my cupboards for the siege stores!:eek:).

Definitely don't cook with bad wine - you should only really add to your food what you are prepared to drink from a glass. It will ruin your food and could make you ill.

I'm reasonably knowledgable without being an expert because I ran a restaurant and the wine merchant would come in once a month for us to taste and discuss the wines we were selling. He used to advise on storage, temperatures for serving, and so on.


Good luck taking it back
SL

miffy257

Hi there, have not done well this month so please put me down for £500 for June as DD is moving back in after 3 years at Uni. Need to cut back somewhere so will be extra vigilant. Still I keep telling myself it is so much better than this time last year.:eek:

XSpender

I am burnt to a crisp after a day in the garden..silly girl:o Now slathered in aftersun and drinking lots of water.

Made a srawberry pavlova for the first time ever today and it was a great success. DM and DSD came for lunch and I also tried a new recipe for mini frittata. The recipe made 12 so I thought that there would be enough for mine and DH lunch tomorrow as there was a quiche for the gluten eaters but they were so good there is only 2 left! I've told DH I have first dabs on them!!!

I also made a chilli today using a new recipe given to me last week. I have been making veggie chilli for 25 years and this is the best one I have ever tasted but I did get a bit heavy handed with the lazy chillies!

I have £24 for a meal out on Friday and about £30 in Sainsburys to add to the total. My spreadsheet is at work so I will update my total tomorrow.

PennyGrabber

Well, today was a nsd, the first in a row of hopefully a lot!! Having seen the a!di super six (thanks op), I was tempted to go midweek, but I will resist - we can do without kiwis, and I'm the only only who eats lettuce!

I had freezer roulette for lunch, and then we had pork, new pots, carrots, runner beans, apple sauce and gravy for dinner. Not particularly suitable for this weather, but it was on the shelf in the freezer I'm using up, so that was that! Anyway, I did it all in the steamer, and then used the water to make the gravy, so very ms. And, it was either value, ys or free too, so the whole meal cost just over £1! I've already taken a chicken breast out of the freezer for tomorrow's dinner, sweet and sour as chosen by ds. The chicken was on a diff shelf in the freezer, but I moved something from the use up shelf into its place, so still ok!!

Finally, I'm disgusted with myself about my stocks. I thought I was bad before, and it was my aim to reduce this year, but instead it's got worse! I've given myself a stern talking to, and I will be using up majorly before buying anything else, obv except for fresh stuff.

I have an average of £3.37/day for the rest of the year now, which is very doable. I have 3 months' worth of cereal in, same of bread flour, 15 kg of pasta, 4 kg rice, 24 tins of beans, 12 tins tuna, 8 tins corned beef, 9 tins hotdog sausages, and the list goes on. I worked out part of the problem today after berating myself. Earlier, I decided it was because stress causes me to forget what I have in or buy extras 'in case'(please don't make me do an inventory, think I'd top myself!), but I've just realised something else too. I've got so much better at being frugal in terms of how much I use, but haven't adjusted accordingly in my shopping! For example, I know that I use 170g of pasta for the three of us for a meal, so I weigh it out, whereas the old me would just tip a load in and always have leftovers. Also, I make 1 chicken breast do us all for a meal by padding out.

Resolutions:
- lots more nsds (25 in June is the aim)
- no, and I mean NO, stocking up!
- continue to meal plan from what I have in
- not buying any 'bargains'. I already have too much!
- only buying in the basics each week, eg milk, fruit and veg, yoghurts, loo rolls, etc
- remember that I only feed the children four times a week (this has also been my downfall, buying enough for us all for the week)
- not buying any more meat until all used up in the freezer (including the lidl weekend deals!)

I feel like I'm starting the ms journey from the beginning all over again.

Still, at least the house is tidier... Look to the positives!!

PG x