November 2012 Grocery Challenge

katholicos

Gone off track this past 10 days or so, havent really done any 'proper' grocery shopping, but i reckon my small spends maybe added up to about £20 during this period.

Included are the 'goodies' i bought my son for when he stayed over to watch the dog while we were in London...also a special offer small fish and chips i treated myself to last ight, for only £2.

Did go shopping with mum but she paid for the few things i put in the trolley, bless her, so even that didn't cost anything.

Then after i took her home she filled me a carrier bag with veggies, packs of bacon etc to bring home.

Lucky me!

NickJW

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Our meal plan for this week is smaller as I am away for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and is based on a minimum spend week to get back on track.

Sat - corn on cob starter then a variation on NickJW's Prawn, celery and cashew stir-fry - I may use shallots thinly sliced instead of spring onions and add some chopped savoy cabbage and defrosted runner beans then I have everything in except mirin so will sub white wine and rice wine vinegar mixed

:j

Was it okay? I know that I'm quite picky with foods, so if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be offended.

Had a nice surprise yesterday - got £25 in the post for recommending a friend to T mobile - so used this towards a medium sized suitcase for holidays (would be £150 - as if anyone would spend that much - reduced to £36 - more reasonable - then £25 vouchers - so £11 - thats more like it!!! :T)

Hope everyone is well. I'm really concious that this month or so will be pretty expensive - partly because of Xmas, and partly because I booked a holiday towards the end of November when I really didn't need it because I had a holiday in September anyway. It's just that I didn't take many holidays earlier this year.

On that thought - am I the only one who finds it difficult to use up holidays? Sometimes I think I have too much, because I don't like being away from work for a whole week, so never take more than 4 work days off at a time, and then it makes it hard to use up my days and always lose some.

MrsCD

Same here Nick. I'm off next week because I had too many days to carry over to next year - we can only carry 1 week's worth over.

NickJW

Bluegreen143 wrote: »

No problem. I just invented it as I went along, so there was a lot of tasting and adding more of this and that, so take quantities as a guide rather than gospel. Also put in what I had to use up so it is a very flexible recipe

Asian-style salmon & squash salad
One cooked salmon fillet (I cooked mine the night before in a foil parcel in the oven with a little mirin & soy sauce)
A big handful of roasted butternut squash (I had roasted a whole squash earlier in the week to add to things)
A small handful of chopped skinned peanuts
A couple of big handfuls of salad leaves (I used half iceberg lettuce and half spinach)
One spring onion, sliced thinly into diagonal rounds
Two radishes, thinly sliced

For the dressing:
A tablespoon each of honey, soy sauce and Japanese vinegar
a teaspoon of mirin
one small finely chopped red chilli.

After mixing, I tasted it and added way more honey :rotfl: so I'd add two tbspns to start with and just keep tasting! It was pretty hot so you might only want half a chilli

Layer the salad in a big pasta bowl or similar - I popped the leaves in first, scattered over the radish, arranged the butternut squash in a circle and shredded the salmon over the top. Scatter with the peanuts and spring onions, then pour the dressing over.

If you are allergic to/don't like any of the salad ingredients you could easily swap them for something else e.g. beef, duck, tofu or prawns instead of salmon, skip the peanuts or swap for cashew nuts, use mixed salad leaves from a bag, add cucumber - whatever you want

That looks so lovely! Especially since my HM got a big pack of salmon from Mr T recently - need to get him to use part of the pack for it (or if not, watch out for another cheap £10 pack to come on offer to split up and use myself! Also uses my favourite, always in condiments/spices! )

NickJW

MrsCD wrote: »

Same here Nick. I'm off next week because I had too many days to carry over to next year - we can only carry 1 week's worth over.

I'm glad in a way that I'm not alone (but not in another - because we shouldn't feel bad taking holidays and should be able to just take them...). I'm just the sort of person who doesn't take a holiday unless it's a 'holiday'. My fault really.

donnajt

donnajt wrote: »

£249.37 - £60 = £189.37...omg that's only for rest of month - panic over there's only 3 weeks and 2 days until December, so that's £8.22 per day or £63.12 for 3 weeks...I should be able to do that surely, house is full of food!

Spent £13 in Tesco yesterday (and £9 on Cadburys Selection Boxes but this is Xmas Budget) which I am pleased about - as that's everything for week in hand (I hope)

£189.37 - £13 = £176.37...omg that's only for rest of month - panic over there's only 3 weeks and 2 days until December, so that's £9.28 per day or £70.54 for 2 weeks and £35.28 for 4 days...this is do-able

I am feeling quietly confident that I can do this![/

Suffolk_lass

NickJW - It was delicious but dut to my substitutions it was a bit different to your original - I had celery, carrot, onion, runner beans and some courgette, with chilli, garlic, not enough ginger (I had less than I thought).

And I nearly burned the cashews before managing to get everything else in! I added maybe 8 queen scallops (yum) as well as the prawns, and half the (cooked) rice to the wok to absorb the last of the sauce. Here I used rice wine vinegar instead of mirin. It was really good. Next time I get prawns on offer I shall do that again. Thank you very much.

SL

elly2

elly2 - well done on paying some of your debt off :T AS for the rest, could you transfer CCards to a zero interest one? There are threads with far more knowledgeable people to give you advice on reducing payments etc. Look in the money sections.

Morning all thankfully i only had the one CC mrs cd and i cleared that last week, the only thing left on i*m* account is a customers cooker (bnpl but she gives me the money monthly to ensure it will be paid for in time to avoid the intrest) so i dont need to make any more payments to that one. Feeling slightly rough this morning so deffo going to be a NSD here. Roast beef for dinner and may do some work on a meal plan for next week.

vanoonoo

I forgot that I got £3.00 back on something as it hadnt taken off a deal at the till so I am claiming it back on the budget! hope thats ok!

armchairexpert

Flubberyzing, do you have young children? I shamelessly use mine as an excuse to do homemade wrapping paper every year. Even if you don't, I believe that brown kraft paper and a nice ribbon is the fashionable way to do Christmas now.

Forgive me, GCers, for I have sinned. On Friday I had a sudden revolt against what I was experiencing as deprivation, thought sod it, and went and bought a burger meal for lunch. Second lunch, to be honest, but I'd eaten my sandwich at 10am. In my defense, I'm still breastfeeding and always ravenous. Er, and then a doughnut. It was all class, all the time, I tell you. Added to that was an emergency vegetable shop today because I suddenly decided to make chicken pad thai, and a snacks run Saturday because DH felt deprived at the lack of luxuries, and somehow my grocery spend jumped another $38 over the weekend. Oops. This is what happens when you have very young children and eating crisps and drinking wine substitutes for a real social life.

All is not lost! I have just done a batch cook and think I can get away with a really basic shop next weekend. It'll be a cliffhanger, for sure.