Normal Food Shopping

ani_26

Shop for today, done. I've enough food to last me the coming week, and probably into eternity. I bought 2 reduced freshly cooked chickens yesterday, priced £2.50 each, although i accept i'm probably eating them well beyond their use by date.


Todays spends - 1 litre of ss milk 10p, 250g butter 10p, ( reduced from £2.65,) 3 fresh cauliflowers 10p, two large onions 10p, and a loaf of bread 50p, ( not value bread,) making a total of £1 spent on food today. However, break it up into how many meals i get from this. The mind boggles. I probably spend less than 50p a day on all my meals in total.

Just the odd 10p spend this week, now? although i concede, i'm extremely fortunate i'm able to purchase fresh items at such ridiculously low prices.

Mr_Toad

I love lentils. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Tarka Dhal.

I regularly cook a dish that started out as a side dish to curry. I like it so much I turned it into a main course and it's so easy.

1 chopped onion
250g yellow lentils
1 tsp turmeric
4 tomatoes - I skin mine in boiling water first
chopped garlic - as much as or as little as you like
300ml water
1 can coconut milk

chuck the lot in a pan and bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 25mins or until the lentils are cooked.

I always add 1 or more chopped fresh chillies as I like some heat but it wasn't part of the original recipe.

I turned this into a fairly healthy vegetarian main dish by simply adding raw cauliflower florets and french beans at the start or a few minutes in, timed so everything is cooked at the right time.

I tend to buy a 1Kgbag of lentils and make 4 times the quantity excluding the fresh veg and freeze it.

I then have a quick meal that only need nuking in the microwave. If I want to add the veg I cook that separately and add it at the end.

Gloomendoom

Mara69 wrote: »

Christ, why would you want to? My body is important to me and I don't want to fill it with cheap crap. Food is a joy, something to be planned, savoured and enjoyed. Tesco cheapie fish fillets are beyond disgusting.

Unfortunately, "Want to" doesn't come into it for many people. It's "have to".

ani_26

Mr_Toad wrote: »

I love lentils. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Tarka Dhal.

I regularly cook a dish that started out as a side dish to curry. I like it so much I turned it into a main course and it's so easy.

1 chopped onion
250g yellow lentils
1 tsp turmeric
4 tomatoes - I skin mine in boiling water first
chopped garlic - as much as or as little as you like
300ml water
1 can coconut milk

chuck the lot in a pan and bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 25mins or until the lentils are cooked.

I always add 1 or more chopped fresh chillies as I like some heat but it wasn't part of the original recipe.

I turned this into a fairly healthy vegetarian main dish by simply adding raw cauliflower florets and french beans at the start or a few minutes in, timed so everything is cooked at the right time.

I tend to buy a 1Kgbag of lentils and make 4 times the quantity excluding the fresh veg and freeze it.

I then have a quick meal that only need nuking in the microwave. If I want to add the veg I cook that separately and add it at the end.

Thanks for that. I was thinking of adding cauliflower florets to the green lentil stew, since i have an abundance of them, There's only so much cauliflower cheese you can eat.

ani_26

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Unfortunately, "Want to" doesn't come into it for many people. It's "have to".

Exactly, although i decided not to add that comment in my previous post.

FatVonD

Family of 3 (2 adults and a teenage boy) and 2 cats.

On a good month I spend about £80 on a shopping delivery twice a month and then around £30 each weekend in store. DH pops in during the week sometimes and spends about another £20.

So around £360 all in? Way too much really and a lot of it is ready meals as DH does the cooking midweek.

I try now to include my lunches in the main shop (DS's are always in the weekend shop) but I do buy on Monday mornings, say, butter and a pack of crumpets for breakfast at work.

tyllwyd

ani_26 wrote: »

Shop for today, done. I've enough food to last me the coming week, and probably into eternity. I bought 2 reduced freshly cooked chickens yesterday, priced £2.50 each, although i accept i'm probably eating them well beyond their use by date.


Todays spends - 1 litre of ss milk 10p, 250g butter 10p, ( reduced from £2.65,) 3 fresh cauliflowers 10p, two large onions 10p, and a loaf of bread 50p, ( not value bread,) making a total of £1 spent on food today. However, break it up into how many meals i get from this. The mind boggles. I probably spend less than 50p a day on all my meals in total.

Just the odd 10p spend this week, now? although i concede, i'm extremely fortunate i'm able to purchase fresh items at such ridiculously low prices.

So your food for the week is based around out of date chicken and cauliflower? I can't see my family going for that somehow, no matter how cheap it was!

ani_26

tyllwyd wrote: »

So your food for the week is based around out of date chicken and cauliflower? I can't see my family going for that somehow, no matter how cheap it was!

Such food snobbery?

Why do you think they have curry in hot countries?

Out of date vegetables. When do out of date vegetables become inedible? When they can no longer walk unaided? Because it says so on the supermarket pack? The amount of food which gets wasted, because of this.There's no such thing as out of date vegetables. Common sense tells you when not to eat something? Chicken, for that matter. Anything for that matter.

There's a difference between best before dates and use by dates. The shop where i buy fresh vegetables, doesn't have before dates on fruit, veg, bread,etc. Why? Because you don't need them. It's fresh produce.

In the ""olden" days, you could buy a bag of potatoes, carrots etc, which would last you all winter before they "turned." Something which doesn't seem to happen these days, whatever chemicals it is they put on / in stuff, to manufacture it to consumer expectations.


Everyone needs re, in fact educating, with regard to food.

BitterAndTwisted

I knew before I even started reading this thread that it would descend into criticism and competitiveness. Most unpleasant.

The "right" answer to the question is "whatever you can afford and whatever you think is appropriate to your own household's circumstances". I can appreciate that in some families where both adults are working full-time that there could be a reliance on cook/chill or convenience foods, and that's totally understandable. Some folk don't have the luxury of plenty of time to hunt down bargains or heavily reduced items, or to cook from scratch every day of the week even if they knew how to do it. Which very many do not. They really don't deserve to be criticised.

For my own part, as a working singleton I think I spend about £30 a week but I know I don't necessarily eat well on that. If I had a bit more time and energy I could probably eat better for less. I sort of envy those who can take advantage of economies of scale or hunt out the sort of truly fantastic bargains ani 26 has managed to secure. Lucky! I hope some of that cooked chicken has found its way into your freezer.

onlyroz

tesuhoha wrote: »

Therefore I find it quite difficult with everyone cooking their own meals. I have just subscribed to Tesco's delivery saver over 6 months. It works out just over £2 per week and you can have more than one delivery so I will probably have 2 at £40+ rather than one at £80+ as I run out of things.

If family members are refusing to eat the meals that you cook then why aren't they paying for their own extra ingredients?