June 2012 Grocery Challenge

System

Hello, thanks for the new thread, please put me down for £200 for this month.
I have a question - if you were planning to use the tomatoes that you got from lido in some kind of pasta sauce, what would you add? I can't stand chilli but I thought some onions & herbs maybe?
Sorry folks I'm trying to thank posts but the site isn't registering it. I've never had that happen before, I'll try again tomorrow
Rx
mrsCD thanks for the directions, found you all!

Florenceem

XSpender wrote: »

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.

Oh dear! Bosssy Florenceem will have to do a telling off about sunburn on this thread too! :mad: Sunburn is avoidable. My eldest DD is a Doctor - Consultant Clinical Oncologist - skin cancer is on the increase! :eek:

MrsCD

Florenceem wrote: »

Cooked gammon steak cut into pieces then as TITH.

Thanks Flo. I have some pork steaks in the freezer, so might give them a try.

XSpender wrote: »

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

XSpender - Naughty, naughty. Hope you get some sleep

rosyq wrote: »

Hello, thanks for the new thread,
mrsCD thanks for the directions, found you all!

You're welcome. Good to see everyone back again.

elsiepac

Hi everyone

Firstly a big thank you to MrsCD for the excellent suggestions, and hi to *the all-new psychic * PennyGrabber!

I have big news! Somewhat randomly I moved out last night! Early! The place is lovely and the people are fantastic... the ones I've met so far anyway!!! I DEFINITELY have way too much in stock food-wise though, and most of it isnt even food, it's condiments, herbs, spices etc! I am most worried about fridge space - I think eventually I'll get a small fridge for my room as one shelf in the shared one isn't cutting it! And I'm on a self imposed spending freeze on EVERYTHING GC except fresh stuff but only allowed to buy if I'm planning to use that day in a planned meal... this is going to be tough for a bit till my stocks go down!!! And I'm not even in June's budget till Friday! GAH!!!

LC

JIL

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

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

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, they are Californian reserve Chardonnay. I will open another bottle, but the half full/empty one in the fridge will go down the sink. I will do some googling of the despatches programme.

Thank you again I really do appreciate it, husband just wants to bin it but I will have no qualms about returning it.

Mrs_Cookie

jumblejack wrote: »

I was determined to use up some parsley and there's no time like the present.

Re using up your parsley glut JJ... You've already done a variation on one of my ideas which is to make a pesto with it using the parsley where you would use basil. Lemon balm pesto is also nice! Add it to your herb bread (trying that today), I'd chop some and freeze it in ice cube trays or small yogurt pots then bag it when frozen for making your own parsley sauce to go with fish or gammon, making more parsley pesto or adding to dumplings etc, not much use as a garnish after freezing though.


I'm in for the month of June our budget will be £300 for all food and cleaning/toiletries, meals out come out of a separate budget How well it will go is anybodies guess, but I will try, I've dropped the usual spend by about £150, but looking at what we have in and the meal plans done it shouldn't be that difficult if I stop getting distracted by end aisles and 'special' offers that I don't really need!


Picked up some super YS this weekend a nice chicken from Mr S for £2 reduced from £4 and a big block of mature cheddar down from £5 to £2, cheese sarnies are on the meal plan for the next few weeks so the cheese has been grated and frozen ready for future use and the chicken was roasted whilst we were out yesterday and I did 1/3 of it with garlic pepper potato slices, Moroccan cous cous and salad, another 1/3rd will be curried with homemade wedges and spiced rice for tea and what's left will go in soup or sarnies and scraps go in the cats! Not bad for £2 feeling really pleased with myself. Bread to bake this afternoon and scones and muffins assuming I can face the oven being on! Looking forward to the challenge and learning from everybody here's to a good month for us all :beer:

cat_smith

I'm in for June. £200. Lost the plot April/May. Must do better. Have lots of store items in, and freezer is still full so should be fairly basic. We're away for Jubilee weekend and I'm away for a week later in the month so I plan to come in under.

meg72

Morning all, Another lovely bit of Sun here, have just hung washing on line and sorted out pots to sow some more lettuce and raddish. I put some of the reduced onion sets in a pot last week as I like to use these instead of spring onions in salad, These are sprouting nicely now.

Need to make myself do a bit in the kitchen now, its not so appealing as the garden though.

slowlyfading

:hello: please may I join?

I'm normally really good with our grocery spend, but it's beginning to get out of control :eek: there's only two of us, me and my DH, so please can I be put down for £150? It probably sounds a lot for two people, and I'm hoping to come in less that that, but I really need to bring the food bills down!

Thanks

hm71_2

ok going back to £320 for this month off on holiday on the 20th though so hopefully be under. xx