£7.00 per week - menu ideas

Butterfly_Brain

skintscotslass wrote: »

Hi BB, how do you freeze celery? Do you blanch it? Or do you chop it first, then blanch? TIA, your posts on this thread are fab xx

Was wondering if the 4p mushy peas are because Tesco are rebranding? Looking at mysupermarket, it looks like the old red, white and blue labelling. Must stock up and get some. OH loves them!

I just give it a good rinse, chop it up and open freeze, then put into freezer bags. I never blanch fruit and vegetables.

Soworried

RuthnJasper wrote: »

Well, I could do with losing a bit of weight but, despite the irony of being something of a comfort-eater, I don't have much of an appetite, so a soup with extra veg/pasta/meat/mashed potato added is generally enough for me - my priority is to ensure that my dog has enough to eat as she shouldn't have to suffer for my past financial mistakes; they aren't her fault (she wasn't even BORN when I entered into my IVA! Bl**dy h*ll, that's only just occurred to me!! :o )

May I ask though - what is whoopies/whoopsies shopping? Is it things like tins which have lost their labels? My late great-aunt used to call her dogs when going to the lavatory as "doing their whoopsies"... An unfortunate but undoubtedly cheap and inventive (though probably unpalatable) ingredient is now hoving into my brain. Please don't tell me you are suggesting cooking with THAT sort of whoopsie?!

Here is a post I made yesterday on the reductions thread. I call it YS= Yellow sticker shopping, but all you do is shop an hour before closing. Any way here is what I got yesterday and I could of had a lot more.

I am being very selective due to space issues. I have just got 2x pineapples down from £2 to just 14p.
A packet of pancakes with lemon and saltanas down from 89p to 22p.
A tub of taramasalata down from £1.09 to just 15p.
4x french sticks down from £1.09p to just 22p.

The pineapples are being chopped up now to freeze in portions what we don't eat tonight. The french sticks are being turned in to garlic breads and frozen and the pancakes will be for breakfast.
The taramasalta we have never tried before so we will try on crackers for supper.

Full price £10.34, YS price £ 1.53.
I am loving the late openings on a Sunday, it has made for a much better YS shop. :j

RuthnJasper

Soworried wrote: »

I am so sorry that you are going through a rough patch money wise. Do you have a local allotments? When we were out walking a few weeks back we got talking to somebody at the local allotments and they gave us some lettuce and tomatoes. They were lovely as well.
You could try growing your own potatoes maybe in a bag?

Thanks so much sweetie. But, really, I'm much better-off than plenty of other people in the world and I'm grateful for what I do have rather than grumpy at what I'm missing.

You're so right; home-grown stuff is so much nicer. I haven't had much luck with spuds in my own little garden (flowers are ok - veggies less so, despite the fact that my mum and her father are award-winning gardeners... I think there must have been a mix-up in the maternity ward, hehehe...). Though I have a couple of tomato plants which are showing promise this year. My efforts used to be thwarted by my beloved Jasper (dog - who had an unusual penchant for eating plants and baby veggies), but he passed away in January and new-dog Gisele is more accommodating garden-wise! I live opposite the town allotments - if I felt cheeky, I suppose I could help myself to the odd midnight parsnip; but I couldn't live with myself for stealing!

If the tomatoes fulfil their promise this year I'm going to try other things next year. A new work colleague has also got an allotment with a poly-tunnel and he brings in anything of which he has a glut - home-grown cucumbers last week, VERY yummy!

Thanks again for your kind post and encouragement. xx

quintwins

RuthnJasper wrote: »

Well, I could do with losing a bit of weight but, despite the irony of being something of a comfort-eater, I don't have much of an appetite, so a soup with extra veg/pasta/meat/mashed potato added is generally enough for me - my priority is to ensure that my dog has enough to eat as she shouldn't have to suffer for my past financial mistakes; they aren't her fault (she wasn't even BORN when I entered into my IVA! Bl**dy h*ll, that's only just occurred to me!! :o )

May I ask though - what is whoopies/whoopsies shopping? Is it things like tins which have lost their labels? My late great-aunt used to call her dogs when going to the lavatory as "doing their whoopsies"... An unfortunate but undoubtedly cheap and inventive (though probably unpalatable) ingredient is now hoving into my brain. Please don't tell me you are suggesting cooking with THAT sort of whoopsie?!

:rotfl::rotfl::T i'm so ill today and my throats killing me but you did acually manage to raise a laugh, so thank you

Whoospie shopping is when you go shopping late at night for reduced items, it's named that way as asda yellow labels say whoops on them. i went last week and this week got loads (if you go look at my thread over in MFW you'll be able to see just how much i got and how cheap) i tend to go around half 8 and be prepared to wait around for them to reduce things, it means i can get enought food for a week for 5 of us for around £20 which includes lots of meat and veg.I've been slacking on it lately but getting 4 chicken breasts for 44p or 10p veg helps motivate me.


Can i ask what you feed your dog? we get 25kg bags of dog food for £10 they come straight from the maunfacter and have to be ordered in bulk so our whole family use them, we only feed our dogs meat if we think there getting abit thin or if there having puppies. lidl do massive tin for 89p (tesco do similar ones aswell i think) my mum says lidls own complete dog food is acually pretty good. I know that mean dogs can be fussy, but unless the food doesn't agree with them i'm one for persevering and they will come round. Our dogs love our food but our smallest one is abit fussy about people food and really needs encouragement to try it, also our old dog is dead greedy so i think she's just used to not getting much, she'll hopefully be having puppies soon so we will be seperating them at meal times so she gets decent amount of food (oh and they'll both get meat it's just mean to watch your friend eat meat while you have nuts lol)

Soworried

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4143903
Here is a link to the reduction challenge thread.

RuthnJasper

Soworried wrote: »

Here is a post I made yesterday on the reductions thread. I call it YS= Yellow sticker shopping, but all you do is shop an hour before closing. Any way here is what I got yesterday and I could of had a lot more.

I am being very selective due to space issues. I have just got 2x pineapples down from £2 to just 14p.
A packet of pancakes with lemon and saltanas down from 89p to 22p.
A tub of taramasalata down from £1.09 to just 15p.
4x french sticks down from £1.09p to just 22p.

The pineapples are being chopped up now to freeze in portions what we don't eat tonight. The french sticks are being turned in to garlic breads and frozen and the pancakes will be for breakfast.
The taramasalta we have never tried before so we will try on crackers for supper.

Full price £10.34, YS price £ 1.53.
I am loving the late openings on a Sunday, it has made for a much better YS shop. :j

Woah! Those are some serious bargains!! I must admit that I regularly look for the YS options these days - even on the odd occasion when I DO have a bit of disposable extra cash. Got a "posh" pizza for £1.49 last week - happy days!

My best bargain on the YS shelf was just after Christmas - the luxury Chrimbo cheese selection-board packs were down from £7 to 99p - I got 3! Kept me in cheese until well into February!

And I very rarely pay full-price for a loaf of bread. Getting the timing right for these things is a fine art. They should make it an Olympic sport, hehe!

quintwins

Please don't steal veg, for all you know thats some poor families dinner lol.

Try growing thinginsg in hanging baskets, peas are dead easy as are potatoes, get some string bin bags (i recommend lidls) and fill with compost and some seed taties, or wait for your normal potatoes to sprout and plan them, then keep topping the bag up when they sprout eventually it will be too tall for a dog to reasch in and too heavy to knock over.

You reallu need to go late for decent reductions, last thur i got

3 bags of celery for 12p each
bag of soup veg 11p
diced pork 80p
finest meatballs 70p
bbq chicken breasts 80p (i did have 2 of these in my trolley but one vanished)
value bacon 17p
normal bacon 22p
4 chicken breast 44p
tatie and leek soup 17p
steak pie 7p
2 blocks of cheese 9p each
sausages 17p
pate 22p
finest pork and red carmelised onion sausages 80p
coleslaw and tatie salad 10p
4 pork chops for 9p each
2x 2 packs finest cheese cakes for 28p each
12 value baps 9p


but on the same note this thur i got

watermelon peices 22p
cabbage 19p
chicken breasts 44p
finest pure orange-reduced to 27p
whipping cream- reduced to 24p
6 butter scones- reduced to 18p
3 finest lasagne's- reduced to 38p each

Soworried

Great bargins Quintwins. :j

RuthnJasper

quintwins wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::T i'm so ill today and my throats killing me but you did acually manage to raise a laugh, so thank you

Whoospie shopping is when you go shopping late at night for reduced items, it's named that way as asda yellow labels say whoops on them. i went last week and this week got loads (if you go look at my thread over in MFW you'll be able to see just how much i got and how cheap) i tend to go around half 8 and be prepared to wait around for them to reduce things, it means i can get enought food for a week for 5 of us for around £20 which includes lots of meat and veg.I've been slacking on it lately but getting 4 chicken breasts for 44p or 10p veg helps motivate me.


Can i ask what you feed your dog? we get 25kg bags of dog food for £10 they come straight from the maunfacter and have to be ordered in bulk so our whole family use them, we only feed our dogs meat if we think there getting abit thin or if there having puppies. lidl do massive tin for 89p (tesco do similar ones aswell i think) my mum says lidls own complete dog food is acually pretty good. I know that mean dogs can be fussy, but unless the food doesn't agree with them i'm one for persevering and they will come round. Our dogs love our food but our smallest one is abit fussy about people food and really needs encouragement to try it, also our old dog is dead greedy so i think she's just used to not getting much, she'll hopefully be having puppies soon so we will be seperating them at meal times so she gets decent amount of food (oh and they'll both get meat it's just mean to watch your friend eat meat while you have nuts lol)

Oh, sweetie, I'm SO sorry you're poorly, always grim but especially in summer, eh?! Hope you feel better very soon. Glad my post made you smile; that's my greatest pleasure in life (making someone smile)!

Thanks for explaining the label thing ("clearing up the whoopsie"...?), don't have an Asda near me, hence my ignorance!

Gisele was on ordinary dog food but is very prone to colitis (V-E-R-Y unpleasant. Google it if you must, but it ain't purrty) - didn't know this when I "acquired" her (she was left with me to 'look after for a couple of weeks' in May by a friend of a colleague. Said bod has now gone to live overseas. Anyway, not complaining. Was totally not coping without my Jasper - Gizmo is a little diamond and SO different from Himself that she's managed to save me without feeling like I've somehow "replaced" Jasper). So her colitis is appalling but I can cope with it. She can only eat plain cooked chicken or white fish with boiled rice, or the colitis returns...

BUT - my mum found some "Hill's Science Plan" dry dog-food especially formulated for delicate tums on special offer in Pets at Home - it was £22 for two 10kg bags (I think they're usually about £20 each) so she bought me four bags, as she knows things are especially tough at the moment. Giz is a very small Parson Jack Russell - basically a small collection of bones with a few tufts of fluff tacked-on - so I think £22 for 10kg actually works out cheaper (and less-messy) than tins anyway.

But - she's a feisty little'un (!) - so whatever SHE eats, she always appreciates a young male dog who has his nuts... :D;)

quintwins

RuthnJasper wrote: »

Oh, sweetie, I'm SO sorry you're poorly, always grim but especially in summer, eh?! Hope you feel better very soon. Glad my post made you smile; that's my greatest pleasure in life (making someone smile)!

Thanks for explaining the label thing ("clearing up the whoopsie"...?), don't have an Asda near me, hence my ignorance!

Gisele was on ordinary dog food but is very prone to colitis (V-E-R-Y unpleasant. Google it if you must, but it ain't purrty) - didn't know this when I "acquired" her (she was left with me to 'look after for a couple of weeks' in May by a friend of a colleague. Said bod has now gone to live overseas. Anyway, not complaining. Was totally not coping without my Jasper - Gizmo is a little diamond and SO different from Himself that she's managed to save me without feeling like I've somehow "replaced" Jasper. So her colitis is appalling but I can cope with it. She can only eat plain cooked chicken or white fish with boiled rice, or the colitis returns...

BUT - my mum found some "Hill's Science Plan" dry dog-food especially formulated for delicate tums on special offer in Pets at Home - it was £22 for two 10kg bags (I think they're usually about £20 each) so she bought me four bags, as she knows things are especially tough at the moment. Giz is a very small Parson Jack Russell - basically a small collection of bones with a few tufts of fluff tacked-on - so I think £22 for 10kg actually works out cheaper (and less-messy) than tins anyway.

But - she's a feisty little'un (!) - so whatever SHE eats, she always appreciates a young male dog who has his nuts... :D;)

Thank you, i think i just need to sleep it off but with 3 kids (one who's also sick) it's not happening.

Have you tried her on musli? if she can eat rice she may be able to eat it (it's added to our dog food along with sunflower oil hence me mentioning it) if she'll only eat chicken and fish i def recommend whoopsie shopping, i don't buy fish my hubby goes deep sea fishing a couple of times a year for £10 and brings home a good 20-30 fish a time, but it's more about him havinga good day out, fish are nicer straight from the sea and in the freezer anyway , sorry i got ditracted, my tesco regularly has fish from the fish counter marked down to 9p, there is another lady i regulary see shoopsie shopping who goes straight for the fish so i leave them for her or anyone else who may want them, as for chicken do you have a slowcooker?
big bags of 2kg chicken peices are around £4 (not as good as my whoopsie ones but a constant supply) and they can be slowcookered and then the meat can be ripped off the bone with 2 forks and little effort.Or if she'll eat prok should could do a pork shoulder roast there £2.99kg for a value one and could be cooked and made into pulled pork/slices and frozen, and you can even eat it aswell tis very nice