September 2013 Grocery Challenge

MrsCautious

Spent £7.09 early this morning on Tesco finest bacon, fresh croissants and rolls, was totally a comfort eating urge as was feeling down.

Feeling more positive now though and kicking myself!

icontinuetodream

unexpected friends turned up yesterday so had to nip to the shop to get a few beers and wine.....another £10 spent so up to £47 this week...also had a great time losing grip of the sugar jar which then catapulted the butter dish on the floor so will need to replace both of those tomorrow too!!:rotfl::mad::rotfl:

she_who_can_not_cook

malamay wrote: »

Small spend of £6.50 today at Heron, but came away with a lot for my money. A NSD yesterday, so not a bad week so far.

Not sure what to do for dinner; there are too many choices. I'm trying to make room in our freezer, but it's not working!

Well you will go to herons:D I love their frozen curry packs

CH27

NSD for me today

she_who_can_not_cook

Another cash user lol. I have found a use for my junk mail envelope s though I put by cash along with the royalty card I am taking I then write the shopping list on the outside fold it over hey presso my card wallet.

lovefullshelves

£12.87 of food that wasn't pet food today!

Peggybabcot

£72.49 at Aldi and £6.75 at Iceland today. Got to go to Sainsburys on Friday for the branded stuff we can't live without on staff discount, Sheba, diet Pepsi but other than that we're fully stocked. I said to my hubby that we're buying less and less in Sainsburys as nearly all our shopping is coming from Aldi with the odd bargain from Iceland next door. And to think we were spending £170 a week before I started the grocery challenge last month! I set a budget this month similar to last month's spends as this would mean a reduction in real terms as this included food for a party too but hopefully we'll come in under that too so feeling better that our spending on food is decreasing and getting under control. And if I'm honest we are eating just as good as ever. I put this down to a combination of reasons. Firstly meal planning, not rigidly but I plan 7 meals, we eat meals that use the perishables first and the rest as and when. Secondly, we started shopping at Aldi doing their swap and save challenge and thirdly, bulking out meals to make the one core ingredient (ie the meat) stretch to two meals (more with rubber chicken) instead of the one meal it used to do. I'm a happy bunny and hopefully a few more months like this my bank balance will be happier too x

WantToBeSE

CH27 wrote: »

I always use cash as I find it easier to keep track of.
It also makes me think twice about buying stuff.

Same here. I find it much easier to track/keep and eye on how much i am spending. I also cant go over budget then.

K9sandFelines

MissRikkiC wrote: »

Ingredients

1 Onion
1 Medium carrot
2 Cloves of garlic
1 Medium potato
1 Medium tomato
1 cup of red lentils
1 tin of butterbeans
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Tomato Puree
1 tbsp Paprika
1 tsp Allspice, Ground Coriander, Parsley, sugar/honey
1/2 tsp Chilli flakes, tarragon, rosemary, sea salt
2 chicken/veg stock cube
Dash of lemon juice
water to cover


Finely dice all vegetables, chop tomato into large chunks
Fry onion and carrot in olive oil in a saucepan, on low heat, with a tight fitting lid for 15-20 minutes
Add all other ingredients besides water, to a casserole dish or into the same pan as the onions and carrots if you used a big pan anyway.
Stir paprika into onion and carrot mixture, add to casserole
Add water to just cover everything
Cook at 170 C for 1 hour and 20 minutes, stirring occasionally or on the hob simmering for 40 minutes.
Add extra water if casserole is dry and serve with rice.

There is lots of spices but that's why my cupboard always look full as I seem to have 1 of each! The only thing I missed was tarragon but it's still delicious.

I used extra carrots and used sweet potatoes and 1 white as they needed using up and a handful of halved cherry tomatoes as I didn't have any big ones.

Hope you can make something delicious

RC X

This was delicious. I used sweet potato, omitted white and used tinned chopped tomatoes. A bit of beef gravy from yesterday's tea added to veg stock, coriander as had no oregano and season all instead of all spice. Everything else was the same. I left it all in the slow cooker for four hours on high and it was beautiful.

Florenceem

Spends added to sig total.
We had roast sweet potatoes + chicken/mushroom pastie + brocolli, carrots, onion for dinner.