December 2012 Grocery Challenge!!!!! REALLLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

njk2125

Thank you for all the replies re iceland. I managed to stock up on meat I bought a fair few chicken breasts, chicken portions, pork and lamb mince, frozen veg, prawns and a few large joints including the christmas turkey. Came to just £3.50 after the vouchers which was included in yesterdays total.

I thought it would be a no spend day today however I was informed at short notice that I had to provide a bottle of wine for the football team hamper raffle prize and that my son needed mincemeat for cooking at school tomorrow. So ended up adding another £5.00 to my total.

Had a roast chicken dinner yesterday so today it was chicken curry and vegatable rice to use up the leftovers. Not sure what time I will be home tommorow so might be something I can just bung in the oven from the freezer.

Good luck with your interview mossy! x

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Sorry, haven't posted in a few days. RL getting in the way lol!

Have had a fair few spends. MrT Sunday and today and Co$tco on Monday. Freezers are full, quite a bit of Christmas party food which I've picked up ys/rtc over the last few weeks. Went to MrT this evening to get f&v and packed lunch bits plus some bits for the meal plan. Fully expected that on a frosty night at 8pm they'd have some ys meat, but no luck. Did strike lucky on the ISB tho and got 4 x 4pks of puff mince pies at 25p a pack and two large fruit pies for 25p each. All now in freezer for the coming weeks

Have a day at home tomorrow as waiting in for two deliveries. Have fresh soup and rolls to look forward to nomnomnom.

Coxy

Bluegreen143

minicooper272 wrote: »

Bluegreen143 - do you mind sharing the recipe for carrot lentil and ginger soup? I have a lump of ginger I need to use up (leftover from alcohol infusing adventures) and I have a big bag of carrots and lentils just waiting to go with it!

No problem - I make it all the time, and it is also one of those soups you can easily vary quantities of and don't really need to measure.

I generally use:

1 onion
5 large carrots or more little ones
1/2 cup to a cup red lentils
Thumb sized piece of ginger or more to taste!
Vegetable stock to cover
Dash of soy sauce

I grate the carrots, onions and ginger in the food processor, which you can do by hand but is obviously more time consuming. Then gently fry in a little vegetable oil for a few minutes. Cover generously with vegetable stock and pour in the lentils (half a cup will be more carroty, which I prefer, a full cupful is a bit more lentily, but either way is good). Cook for 20 minutes until the red lentils are tender and all mushed up. Add a good dash of soy sauce to taste.

I find I get four decent lunch portions if made as described above, five if I've added more lentils. It is really tasty and you can really change any of the quantities!

liz-paul wrote: »

Hi, I'm just wondering what other people do about meal planning. I definately think it helps me to keep on budget if I plan but I'm not sure of the best way to do it. So far I have been planning meals approx a week at a time (I work on a calendar month) but up to the whole month in one go. I don't usually decide what meals to have on any given day too far in advance, just shop for a few meals at a time. But I'm wondering if it wold be cheaper to plan my meals around special offers on things like meat...? In the past (waaayy in the past!) I used to just wader around the sm and pick up stuff which seemed like a good deal and then figure out what to cook with it - I don't want to go back to that as I used to waste a lot. But what way do you meal plan? I want to bring my monthly budget down from £450 pm to £400 pm by the start of April. Then maybe see about reducing it further......

Sorry for waffling - any suggestion much appreicated

Hey, I meal plan weekly, usually on a Thursday/Friday night when I also do my shopping list. My meal plans run Sunday-Saturday as I either shop on a Sunday or order my delivery for then. I do meal plan pretty rigidly - sometimes I miss the spontaneity but I find I waste food without the plan. I am reasonably flexible about which days we eat it though.

No spends today or yesterday. Made homemade chicken kievs last night which were lovely and went down VERY well with the OH



Tonight made a very quick stir fry with home made hoisin sauce, peppers, courgette, beansprouts, noodles and cashews. before you get too excited, it tastes NOTHING like hoisin sauce but was tasty nonetheless

mossy

njk2125 wrote: »

Good luck with your interview mossy! x

Aww bless ya, I don't actually have an interview tomorrow it's xSpender who has the interview, but thank you for being kind.

njk2125

ooopsy! think I need more sleep, either that or new glasses.

Bluegreen143

AHHH just realised I spent £3.88 yesterday on value cocoa pops and coffee, whoops! Also got email confirmation of refunds for Mr A delivery so will update sig to reflect both spends.

rosieben

Bluegreen, your Carrot Lentil and Ginger soup is in the index :beer:

mummyyof5

Asda shop delivered,only one substitute..better pasta than I actually ordered so will use that when OH is around...hes a picky so and so when i comes to rice,pasta and teabags..ok on most other stuff though...£47 including delivery and got all the heavy stuff as OH is away...NSD tomorrow as i NEED to do some wrapping

armchairexpert

Meal planning: I plan for the week, but then if I go to the butcher's and find that something else is on super special, I can switch things around in my head (Ok let's substitute those cheap pork chops instead of the planned chicken burgers, which also means that I don't want a pork roast the next day so I'll buy a roasting chicken instead which will give me an extra meal actually so let's also abandon the lamb shank casserole and I'll make a chicken soup for the end of the week). If you get used to meal planning, you tend to have a set number of meals you use in rotation anyway, so I find it easy enough to do substitutes now. I agree it makes no sense to stick rigidly to a plan if you get to the shop and find that your planned ingredients are premium priced and there's other specials.

The alternative, I guess, is to keep a 'reserve' amount of money for specials and buy them for the next week. So stick to your plan this week but also buy the specials and freeze. Next week, plan around those things you have in the freezer, and also buy specials for the following week...so your meal plan is one week behind your base ingredient purchases, does that make sense?

(I have lost the plot this month, have to add up all my food bills and see where I am, but that's not going to stop me offering advice!)

tigerfeet2006

Morning folks.

Just thought I would check in with you and see how you were all doing.

We are now settled in to a house out here and I am getting used to shopping. I haven't set a budget at the moment but will probably look at doing something in the New Year as I want to take driving lessons so will have to sort budgets out.