August 2012 Grocery Challenge

greent

KatyReed+5 wrote: »

Morning everyone.

Just been through my fridge and i have a mass of mushrooms and 2 courgettes that really need using up. I hate them on their own so they need to be used up in something where we can't see or taste them, any ideas? I could only think of using them to make pasta sauce with some tomatoes and herbs etc, HELP.

Katy, X

Grate the courgettes and freeze for now - add a chunk into bolognese/ chilli/ lasagne

Mushrooms - if you can cope with eating them in something tehn chop and freeze and (again) add to chilli/ lasagne/ bolognese..

KatyReed+5

Wasn't sure if i could freeze them, thanks greent.

Katy, X

greent

The mushrooms will be a different texture after freezing, hence why they are better added to a saucy dish rather than something like a stirfry (just my opinion, of course - no doubt some people will find them ok in a stirfry )

pajama

:eek:OMG This GC is not going so well. Had a spend in Aldi of £30.83 and a small spend in Tesco of £3.99. Have updated my signature and only got £76.45 left :eek::eek: Time to start living out of the freezer and using up my stockpile of food. I have plenty of food in so really I should be fine with the amount of cash I have left. Need to do a menu plan sometime over the weekend once I've checked what's in my freezer.

Off to do a quick tidy then I'm in the garden to potter around in this glorious weather

Enjoy your day too

Suffolk_lass

Been MIA for a few days; been to the Olympics and stayed away overnight but managed to get a 2 bed apartment 1 min from Liv St on Lastsecond.com that turned out to be the penthouse - DS v impressed!

My word they can charge in Olympic Park for food and drink - £18 for 3 beers and 3 pretzels!! Different budget fortunately.

Got gargantuan amounts of runner beans in the garden. DH has been stringing, slicing, blanching and freezing for a week now and has now dug, cleaned, cooked, crushed and frozon the remaining "new" potatoes! I know we are winning as DH looked up frozen mashed potato on the forum.. :T the conversion continues!

All for the cost of some seed potatoes/seeds and some farmyard manure in April! So far so good this month...

Suffolk_lass

Just caught up with others' posts and I wanted to offer some of my things I do

Fozzie - if you are cooking with sultanas I soak them in fruit juice to plump and add flavour and then dust them in flour to stop them sinking to the bottom of cakes.

KatyReed+5 - I freeze cheese grated as blocks go crumbly when defrosted. If I get a bogof I grate in my food processor then freeze in a plastic bag so it doesn't stick together and then when it's frozen I put it in a plastic (old ice cream) tub to use a handful at a time. I know others portion it into bags but I make things for 1-8 people so no set sized portions and sometimes I dredge and other times I sprinkle..:rotfl:

barkingsavingmad - It's so hard isn't it, trying to do things perfectly - the ultimate savings , best bargains and so on but I have realised, after eight months of doing this, that there are marginally less perfect ways that give me back time in other ways.

I only buy a few processed foods now so coupons don't work for me generally but we have reduced price or smaller portions of meat, padded out sauces with chopped and frozen veg and lentils and I do loads of slow cooked stuff. I don't serve it all as stews and casseroles - I add a pastry lid for a pie and only need to cook the pastry when I get home from my 12-14 hour working day.

Bargains and stocking up - I do stock up but I have done this by having more months in my GC year than 12! The extras are for stock-ups - so currently I am trying 14 but this isn't enough as I over-bought (18 month's supply of some things). I believed the reductions were once in a lifetime but they come round again and again. Lessons learned eh!

I don't actually stock up twice a year, I do it when the bargains come up and I am running short but I try to get them from my 13th and 14th month's money so the pressure is off a bit in the other months. It's easier for me than remembering to reimburse from 2nd purse but I don't build up a fund for treats. It works if you have an idea what your annual GC is.

I HTH someone
SL

GreenFairy

I'm all over the bloomin' place this month, which I'm largely blaming on the bank holiday! Two invites to dinner last weekend, which was nice, but involved buying two bottles of wine as gifts. Another birthday bbq this weekend, so another bottle for that. Lots of guests around as well at the moment. It's just all go here!

Does anyone else find that they tend to go through a large chunk of their GC at the very beginning of the month, even if targets are met at the end?

KatyReed+5

Kids we're playing nicely, i put this down to the older 2 coming back from their mums yesterday and everyone missing each other a bit. Well that didn't last long and they're back to normal now and driving each other mad, so i've decided we're going out. I've just packed up a picnic from what i can find in the kitchen, this consits of

2 x leftover flapjacks.
2 x bags of mini cheddars.
4 x packets of crisps.
1 x packet of strawberries.
1 x tub with ham in.
1 x tub of cheese spread.
4 x bread rolls.
1 x tub of cucumber and home grown toms.
1 x tub of tuna and cucumber salad.
5 x oranges.
5 x bananas.

This should easily feed all 6 of us and do snacks for them for the rest of the day. Kids can make their own rolls up when we sit down for lunch.

So as today is going to be a NSD we're going to meet their dad after he finishes work and he can buy them an ice cream.

Katy, X

Caterina

My NSW/end with DH has started in earnest, kids off to festival, I did my Friday babysit in exchange for a fitness session (looking after the trainer's client's kids). Back home, found DH had tidied up the kitchen, lovely! So we went off to the allotment and did a good hour weeding. Picked up salad for lunch and dinner, lots of runner beans and a pot of blackberries. Too hot to do much more work, back home and made gazpacho and salad, followed by blackberries with cream.

Now DH is having a nap and in a minute I shall make myself a cup of tea and go to the garden with a mag (bought the other day but no time to read it yet, just as well!), then we are meeting DH's cousin to view a flat he wants to buy. Then later in the evening when a bit cooler, back to the allotment for more weeding and watering. Then home and dinner, probably runner beans in sauce with vege sausages. Free DVD viewing for the evening, or a bit of Olympics, but if we feel energetic we might even go to the big screen, it is free and in the open and you can bring your own drink, so DH can have his beer, bought the other day in my stock up shopping in preparation for this weekend.

I just realised that people include pet food in the GC so I shall update as I just bulk-bought some wet cat food online.

Will update on how the weekend proceeds. Have a good Friday all!

russetred

Just found a block of puff pastry I took out the freezer the other day. Ant ideas on using it up? I havnt got any pie filling for it so snack type thing would be better.Cheers.