February 2014 Grocery Challenge

debtdawg

£5.74 in lidl and home bargains today, on weetabix, crumpets, a pizza for tea (forgot to take meat out, slapped wrist! We'll have it with wedges and beans for a really slovenly unhealthy tea) some reduced chocolate bars and mouthwash.
I've just made lots of little sausage meat patties/mini pasties with a small amount of sausage meat bulk with onion, carrot, breadcrumbs and an egg, plus a lidls block of pastry. Plus I have a yummy banana loaf baking away, I can't wait for it to finish cooking so I can have the end piece whilst it's still warm mmmm.

First_Trouble

FrugalLina wrote: »

Two temptations were avoided - the bakery section at Lidl has cheese twists that I LOVE, but refuse to buy now they have gone up to 75p (I gave them the side-eye at 69p as it is). I must get some puff pastry and make my own. The other temptation were giant bags of peanut puffs - I LOVE those too, but at £1.99, I decided to give them a miss (sob).

I have to ask .. what are peanut puffs???

Ches

NSD for me today as its dark, dismal and pouring of rain here and I am not going out in that. OH has gone to the pub for a drink with a friend and the rest of the old boys so a nice quiet day for me. Beef casserole in the slow cooker.

First_Trouble

cw18 wrote: »

If they've only been finished in the last few days, my kids would have been told to use something else up first (especially if it was something else they asked for or used to eat regularly). But if I'd not had any in for a couple of weeks and it was a firm favourite I'd probably relent and pick some up.

Growing up my Mum refused to buy new cereal if there was still cereal left even if it was cornflakes or branflakes leftover from when grandparents came to visit. Also as there were three of us we each took it in turns to choose a cereal so there were no arguments and it also meant that she wasn't buying three different types of cereal.

Make-it-3

Feel like I am falling back into old ways as have had several trips to the supermarket since last week.

Still having problems with milk going off, which resulted in throwing 2 pts away and buying anew. Need to figure out a way round this, as my aim is to try to go to the supermarket just once a week but if milk doesn't last this long and I've been told whole milk doesn't freeze well.

Anyway the results of all my purchases and today's weekly shop means my remaining budget for Feb is £160.96/£200

Meal plans are:

Prawn korma & rice
Pan fried salmon with cous cous & roasted veg
Fri - I'm out/OH requested chicken to cook with
Sat & Sun : lunch out both days so will just have leftovers/snacks in evening
Cheese, mushroom & broccoli pasta
Italian veg sausage bake

icontinuetodream

Have been doing pretty well this week....although dh going to get milk and salad tonight so who knows how that will turn out!!:o

Food wise so far this week:

Saturday, dh went out to a friends house so we just had a 'put together' from the fridge meal (bacon, pasta, a few tomatoes, garlic and some basil)

Sunday, I cooked a pork roast on a bed of celery, onions, garlic and carrots.... we had roast dinner with the pork

Monday, I made the veg into a soup which we had with hm bread

Tuesday, I used the remainder of the pork, cooked it with ginger, cinnamon, garlic, quinoa, green spelt, risotto rice, puy lentils, almonds, figs and apricots and served in a bowl with spinach wilted in garlic butter, leaves and an avocado with a balsamic dressing....sounds bizarre, but lush!!:D

Wednesday, I have boiled potatoes in stock, lemons and garlic which I have then sliced and placed in a cooking pot with chopped green beans and an onion, the remaining stock and olive oil - I will serve this tonight with some chicken breasts which dd's bf brought over last night (I have a load of shake & serve bags of spice which dd brought back from her house to use up) along with a salad

Thursday, I am going to do hm pizza - stuff already prepared and ready to go....

Friday I am out for dinner so the kids will fend for themselves from the freezer

Saturday - I will probably make salmon fishcakes from the freezer and serve with chips and salad

As long as dh doesn't go mad tonight..should remain under £15 this week!!:D

First_Trouble

For anyone with pets that shop at Pets at Home.

Just discovered that for first time online orders you get 15% off the whole order (I think you have to change you password first for some reason). Also orders over £29 get free standard delivery and the wainwrights big bags of dry dog food 15kg usually £39.99 you can subscribe and save which brings price down to 31.99 (or if you buy the rabbit and rice £16.99 for 15kg) and the fifth one is free. This is really handy for me as this is what we feed our pooch on anyway so we are quids in and that bag pretty much lasts him the whole month! Quite pleased with myself.

Ali-OK

After the Morries YS trip last night, I've done the main weekly shop in Ald! today and spent a whopping £26.26, so am up at £31.90 for Week 1, with 3 shops to go :eek:

£10.05 was dog food/treats
£1.49 was honey for my Mum

On the food side, some of it was stock items, so they will last past the week. I haven't added anything in extra budget wise for Half Term, so not sure how this month will pan out.

Talking of cereal, DS has been eating his way through that during the evenings, as I've not bought much in the way of treats or biscuits. It's all leftover breakfast cereals that he has had fads on (and now has bagels and marmite)! My cupboards are looking very empty these days! :rotfl:

Sat - Chilli, rice and garlic bread (from batch)
Sun - Braising steak and veg
Mon - Cheese & Onion potato cakes and veg (from batch)
Tue - Sausage casserole
Wed - Spaghetti bolognaise (from batch)
Thur - Cottage Pie and veg (from batch)
Fri - HM Pork burgers in buns and chips (from batch)

This challenge is really focussing me on batch cooking and our meal plan is beginning to reflect that nicely. Just got to watch the spending

Ladyluck1

NSD today, spaghetti and meatballs for dinner with some HM garlic dough balls x

kayester

just bought the bbc the good food cookbook for nearly £17.00 on ebay, hopefully e able to try some new recepies to batch cook in here, have bought a lot of cookbooks lately this will be the last and hopefully the best