January 2013 Grocery Challenge

XSpender

I have been really busy so I havent been keeping up with the thread as much as I like to also I have only had one GC spend, on Sunday, in Mr T for £77.23. I am also including the medicinal McDs (mild hangover) for sunday lunch. The Mr T shop included a lot of toiletries that had all run out at the same time but managed to get our usual shower gels for a £1 each, 2 to use and 2 to store and massive bottles of own brand shampoo and conditioner so should be OK for a while.

I also bought some frozen chicken breasts to use in casseroles. I have never bought these before but since I buy fresh meat and then freeze I can't see there being much difference.

We also bought 4 of the fresh ready meals that were on offer at 2 for £6. These were all 2 very large chicken breasts with a sauce or topping or marinade to cook in the oven. There is a bit too much meat for me in one breast. These have worked really well for us this week with added pots or rice and frozen veg and we still have 2 left for this week. Ideally I would make my own but I pay that for 2 chicken breasts and don't have a lot of time so this is a bit of a compromise for a couple of meals a week.

I have meal planned and have a smallish shopping list for this weekend. If the forecast snow arrives (I am in the NE) we could manage with what we have in but would have to manage without milk for tea/cereal or red wine for DH.:)

We have eaten a lot of the christmas goodies so I am going to defrost the black bananas I froze a few weeks back and make a doucle chocolate banana bread and I am going to try some GF bread rolls using a prescription mix and the dough setting on my bread maker

missmucksmum

well its a NSD day so far as ocado 1pm delivery cancelled and rescheduled to come between 6 and 9pm. I live on a bank and havent had a delivery from them in a couple of years so was hoping the driver would call when he got to my street and i could help him carry the stuff up the road but dont fancy doin that later when its dark, blummin snow was looking forward to a nice wkend with the kids with nice food, makes me even more p****d off that the ex took the landrover when he went 2 weeks ago!

Hollygym

Hi all, sitting under the duvet with dd1 feeling sorry for myself as the boiler has broken. Plumber came when I was at work and can't come back til Monday - weather permitting!! :mad: Had 3 sick children off school all week, and DS2's 5th birthday on Sunday. We have postponed his party as the flu bug has hit school as well. On a positive note' I've had 3 NSD's!!! Got plenty of food to last at the weekend. DH going to pick up fruit and veg on the way home!!
The chat and news has kept me going this week. Thanks guys!!

NickJW

Hello! £1.98 spent yesterday in Mr W on a bag of watercress, onions and chewing gum.

Found some bread lurking in the back of the freezer yesterday so defrosted that and made some sandwiches with the last ends of cheese in the fridge, with the last bit of cucumber.

Getting good at clearing some stock - the Teriyaki last night used up the last of a 2 year old bottle of rice wine (had to use a bit of cooking sherry to add since I didn't have quite enough), and the last of 4 year old (they were still okay) bag of sesame seeds.
Also managed to use up the last of the tonic water and the end bit of a bottle of gin (It was weak, but nice)

I WILL manage to get these cupboards emptier! :rotfl:

Making a Chicken and pepper cashew stir fry with hoisin sauce, red onions and rice tonight. I made an observation yesterday that a lot of my meals (especially the Chinese based ones) are very similar with tweaks here and there. Oh well...

Hope everyone is well. I'm not going to panic buy in this weather because I have frozen veg and meat, pasta, rice, couscous and plenty of spices/chopped tomatoes. If worse comes to worse I can simply walk five minutes down one road to the corner shop, or 15 mins down the road in the other direction to a Mr T express/a number of corner shops.

meg72

Am pleased I decided to shop yesterday as well and truly snowed in today.

Got another lot of whoopsie meat in Asda, spent 15.00 but over so 30.00 worth so stocked for the next month or so.

Just had a phone call from DG2 he cant come to stay as Taxi got stuck in the road. Taxis and buses now not running. I had roasted a chicken for him, his favourite, (bargain at 2.45) so I think I am going to have a play and see how many meals I can make from it.

lbnblbnb

Skilly, the spicy swede cakes were absolutely lovely, gave me a real lift! I think I will use the other swede I have for the same recipe on Sunday as a starter for our Sunday night curry. Thanks for the recipe.

skilly

lbnblbnb wrote: »

Skilly, the spicy swede cakes were absolutely lovely, gave me a real lift! I think I will use the other swede I have for the same recipe on Sunday as a starter for our Sunday night curry. Thanks for the recipe.

You are very welcome glad you liked them I have not made them yet myself I made a Stew instead for tea tonight with all the bits and bobs from the bottom of fridge ,thought I only had one swede in but no got three :eek: might try making some and see if they freeze ok .

MummyEm

Did shopping yesterday to take us through to next Wednesday. Total spend for Jan so far £126.86 / £250.00. Only have the one big shop left to do so fingers crossed I should be able to come in under budget.

A snow day for us, school and pre-school shut so a NSD here.

Need to figure out a meal for the kids for this evening though as they haven't had cooked lunch due to not being in school. I did buy some salmon to go in tomorrow's fishpie so may use a little of this to make salmon and broccoli pasta- one of their favorites.

Billie-jo

Has been snowing here since late last night and the roads are terrible. We must have at least 7 inches on top of the car and its still coming although not quite as bad as earlier. Most schools were closed early.
Made some soup for lunch with the odd bits of veg left from last week - potato, parsnip, celery and mushrooms. It was really tasty and warming.
Tea is going to be some home made lamb burgers - made them yesterday for lunch and have enough left as there is only myself and DH tonight. Took all of 5 minutes to do them.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and warm.

Kitchenbunny

Afternoon everyone. Thought I'd pop on to post what's been going on the last few days - which, while it hasn't been much, has taken up quite a lot of time doing so. Have been somewhat stressed because of the weather - ugh, hate driving in snow.

Anyway, I've managed a couple of NSDs and now it's the weekend I'm likely to have a couple more, unless we run out of milk. Will make it stretch as far as I can until Monday but we'll see. Might have to have a walk in the snow to Mr T. Other than that have managed a miniscule spend of 22p on 2 packets of instant noodles as I really felt the need for something hot for lunch at work. I'll update my sig now, and then I'm going to work on my shopping list and mealplan for the week ahead.

Have a good evening, everyone. Stay warm.

KB xx