March 2014 Grocery Challenge

lushlifesaver

I have been to a supermarket but the spends are to be taken from my personal budget as I went to buy bits to decorate the cake pops I will be bringing in to work tomorrow - bought a few bars of cheap white chocolate and then remembered its pants for covering cake pops with I think I will dip them in milk chocolate and then use the white to decorate over that with swirls/use it to stick the little decorations etc on with


Rough plan for the next few days:
Mon: chicken topped with bacon and cheese served with wedges, beans and poached eggs
Tuesday: I'm thinking cod with rice and tomato and basil sauce for bf, salmon with rice and salad for me
Wednesday: Pasta and meatballs
Thursday: breaded turkey steaks with wedges
Friday: I'll be eating out with work peoples, think I might also treat bf to lunch out so his tea will be something light/with the team at the tournament (I'm not going 'too pregnant' apparently!)
Saturday: only myself to please so a meal from my freezer stash
Sunday: gammon dinner I think maybe


For all that we should only need a pasta sauce and a ready to roast gammon, oh and apples!


We have plenty in the freezer so it maybe a case of mixing a few days around/some other freezer meals thrown in but fingers crossed I won't need to shop for much

Franigan

Lyndach - this is the link:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10035/golden-veggie-shepherds-pie

If you don't want to open the link, the recipe is on bbcgoodfood and is actually called Golden Veggie shepherds pie, not cottage pie . So yes, to answer your question, it is basically 500g of lentils instead of meat.
When I prepared it for the freezer I had quite a bit of potato mash and "lentils sauce" that would not fit in the tray so I took them to work and had them unbaked over 2 days. Just warmed up in the mw. It was very nice and that was even before baking it properly with cheese on top! Way to go!

marris

£26, 27 spent so far this month. meal plan is made up for a week.

Lyndach

Franigan wrote: »

Lyndach - this is the link:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10035/golden-veggie-shepherds-pie

If you don't want to open the link, the recipe is on bbcgoodfood and is actually called Golden Veggie shepherds pie, not cottage pie . So yes, to answer your question, it is basically 500g of lentils instead of meat.
When I prepared it for the freezer I had quite a bit of potato mash and "lentils sauce" that would not fit in the tray so I took them to work and had them unbaked over 2 days. Just warmed up in the mw. It was very nice and that was even before baking it properly with cheese on top! Way to go!

That looks really good! Thank you for the recipe, I've never cooked with lentils before but I definitely want to try this.

Frugalsod

4 NSD so far and hoping for two more. I will need to get some more milk but am doing well. Looking at my food stocks and I am hoping to put off my big online shop for another month. :j

Crowdpleaser

4.47 in mr l this morning on milk grapes bananas crisps and sone ginger nuts for work. All getting a bit scary already. Am hoping to dig round the freezer for rest of month... x

Franigan

About lentils -
I've just found last week's receipt. I thought the lentils were something like £2.79 but they actually were only £ 1.09 for 500g (Tesco). Even better!

smokies

Looks like another NSD here for me - so love doing this challenge, it really brings home to the rubbish used to buy.


Now I before I buy I


1 look in the cupboards to see if I already have it !!!
2 make a list and stick to it
3 look in the beauty box (daughter gave me a load of showers/bath gels) that she can't use...
4 think do I really need it - if not sure don't get


What do you do before buying anything ?


Smokies

mags50_2

Well I've had 4 NSD's in a row can't believe it!

Will have to go and get milk etc. tomorrow but I'm so pleased with how things are going this month.

Had a lovely day out with friends in York yesterday. Beautiful weather, had breakfast at Betty's and a lovely pub tea on the way home. All out of another budget

Keep safe x

dizzy_lizzie

Lyndach wrote: »

Might sound stupid but how do you do a veggie cottage pie? Is it just as simple as leaving out the meat?

Hi Lyndach hope you don't mind me offering another alternative.
We use Mr As meat free mince. It's 74p a sachet and once made up you can add extra veggies to it, if you want to. Will serve approximately 4.
You can also use it for lasagnes as well.
Daughter is a vegetarian and she loves it. Her partner is a meat eater and he likes it too.

mags50 that sounds like a great day. I love York. And York in the sun...even better

smokies I don't normally do it but yesterday I emptied my freezer (defrosted it at the same time) and my cupboards, and wrote down everything I had.
I was actually quite shocked at how much we had in the freezer for meals.
I'm going to do that all the time now. There's no way I need a 'biggish' shop for a while. So it definitely saved me money.