Preparing for Winter V

Laura_Elsewhere

I've been dutifully only buying one bag of bread or plain flour each week, to help not mess up the redistribution systems, but this coming week we are stocking up once again because the household is going into self-isolation for 14 days prior to someone having surgery, so I'll be buying several - for some weeks afterwards I'll have to be buying everything on foot, lugging it, with no being-driven, so I'm trying to remember all the heavy long-life stuff to buy this week!  

We try to buy British flour and sugar - Morrison's the cheapest by far for British sugar, Silver Spoon 2kg for £1.25, but we get bread flour from Sainsbury's usually - we have a rare Asda visit this week though and they list their British bread flour as being only 60p for 1.5kgs, so I'll look for some of that... 

Floss

Hope it goes well...have you thought about doing an online order for your non-perishable stuff?

Laura_Elsewhere

Thanks! We did think about it - we did this before a couple of months back when my Chap was driving his son to hospital for tests and then surgery, and decided to try and do it without the hassle of an online order, and managed fine. We are registered so could do an online order if need be, and lovely neighbours would happily get us stuff if we run out of something... 

We really struggle to get up to the minimum £40 for an online delivery, tbh! We do one or two a year when they have a special deal, and it always takes ages trying to think up things. We don't buy many brands, and we do a lot of shopping around so we don't buy everything from one place... 

boultdj

Bread flour is the only one our Lidl has had in all the time, was missing for the first 2 weeks, price wise plain and SR are 45p for 1.5 kg and the bread flour is 55p, was nice to see it back in the shop and I was able to fill my empty storage tubs back up.
Hope every thing goes OK Laura.

MrsCD

Our azda hasn't had flour for weeks on end, so I ordered some online - 16kg sacks of plain and self raising. It worked out at 91p and 97p per kg factoring in postage etc. A bit dearer than I would usually pay but needs must etc.  Seems like good flour so far, and the service and delivery were very good. 

Nargleblast

I am experimenting with chapati flour, both white and wholemeal available from Tesco in 5kg and 10kg bags. The wholemeal makes an excellent loaf of bread, and the white, with baking powder added made a passable cake. With a 10kg bag costing £5 it's a bargain.

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

My local tesco had bags of allinson flour (plain, self raising and bread flour) they were yellow stickered at £1.75 instead of £7 for 4kg. They still have next years date on. They had them in a roll cage by the bakery.

[Deleted User]

I had a bag of chapatti flour that had been missed in the store cupboard that was 3 years past it's best before date but was OK when opened and I've just used the last of it.  I've made yeasted bread, soda bread, crumble toppings, pastry, scones, cakes and biscuits with it and all of them have been fine and looked and tasted perfectly normal.  It makes good dumplings for stews too.  Chapatti flour is definitely a 'find' and something I'll not be without again.

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

Can anyone who has a dehydrator help me? I was thinking of getting one to help use the garden produce up. If you dehydrate berries like strawberries for example how do they compare in texture and taste to the freeze dried stuff you get in shop bought cereals and things. I would imagine they would be the same but wanted to ask someone who had experience. 

[Deleted User]

I dehydrate fruit m2cm but I don't buy shop bought cereals etc to be able to give you a comparison 🙈 all I can say is that dehydrated strawberries are one of the nicest things on the planet! 😍😊 worth the investment just for them in my opinion! 😂 
I harvested the rainbow chard and courgettes on Sunday so dehydrated the leaves of the chard, the courgettes and bloomed some wild rice while I was at it 😉 I was going to do the chard stalks too but decided to eat them instead! 😂 I also harvested another load of coriander so blitzed that with olive oil and froze it my silicone mini muffin tray, popped them out when done and put them into a bag so that I can use them over winter 😉 
I've invested in another mini muffin tray too - they are so handy for freezing herbs, pepper pastes, tomato puree,  haggis bites, mini pies etc I really don't know how I managed without one! I'll be doing a tray of basil today - I may also do some thyme as my plant needs a haircut and I'm not planning on wasting it! 😉 
Heating oil has been ordered - it should fill the tank completely so I'm pretty sure that I won't need to refill it again this year - I'll see how things are at the tail end of autumn though as I have no intention of running out in the early part of next year... 
Still waiting for the flat roof to be sorted 🙈 had someone come out yesterday who gave me such a ridiculous quote it's not even funny! 😠 thankfully I've already priced up the materials so I have an idea of what they should cost - not sure when a roofer thinks that 3k labour for 2 days work is okay!!! Got someone else coming out today - if they take the **** too, I'm doing it myself! 😂