Eat Well For Less Series 3

maman

pelirocco wrote: »

Im not a great fan of ready grated cheese , I've not found with with a great deal of flavour , but I do buy it to take into work ( along with other stuff ) so we can making lunches up through out the week .
I have in the past used my food processor to grate large amounts of cheese , kept it in tub in the fridge , but find it goes mouldy pretty quickly.
But at the end of the day i, buying ready grated cheese isnt really a budget breaker

I keep grated cheese in the freezer. It defrosts really quickly and can be added frozen to sauces. It's likely in a packed lunch it would defrost long before you get to eat it.


I think you need to shop around a bit. Some grated cheese is hardly more expensive per kg than a block. But taking a quick look at Sainsbury's own brand: £5 per kg for block, £6.50 for grated. Interestingly mature, medium and mid are all the same price???

PasturesNew

I buy blocks of mature cheddar at Lidl (currently about £4.25/Kg). When it's time to open the pack I'll slice it into 1" wide blocks that will fit my Aldi £4 hand-grater, so next time I just reach in the bag for the next stick to grate. Once opened the bag is sealed with one of those clips, so it's air-tight.

I then hand-grate one stick into a plastic takeaway lidded box. I'll then use about 1/3rd of that with whatever I'm cooking right now - and toss the box into the fridge.

Right now I've 5 bags of cheddar in the fridge unopened .... and there's grated cheese in the box.

If I did want to freeze cheese, I'd cut it before I froze it, so I could take out just what I need.

A 1" stick of cheddar's usually about 70 grams or so as I tend to buy the 350gram bags. 70 grams of grated cheese is usually enough for 3 uses (most often sandwiches or cheesy chips).

pelirocco

maman wrote: »

I keep grated cheese in the freezer. It defrosts really quickly and can be added frozen to sauces. It's likely in a packed lunch it would defrost long before you get to eat it.


I think you need to shop around a bit. Some grated cheese is hardly more expensive per kg than a block. But taking a quick look at Sainsbury's own brand: £5 per kg for block, £6.50 for grated. Interestingly mature, medium and mid are all the same price???

I don't need to shop around at all , I was merely responding to someone else's post lol

pelirocco

slightly off topic , but plastic isn't the best wrap for cheese , you should use foil or waxed paper ....and apparently the vegetable / salad draw is the best place

catkins

pelirocco wrote: »

Im not a great fan of ready grated cheese , I've not found with with a great deal of flavour , but I do buy it to take into work ( along with other stuff ) so we can making lunches up through out the week .
I have in the past used my food processor to grate large amounts of cheese , kept it in tub in the fridge , but find it goes mouldy pretty quickly.
But at the end of the day i, buying ready grated cheese isnt really a budget breaker

I've never bought grated cheese and never would. I just grate it as I need it which isn't that often. If I used it a lot I would grate it in bulk and then freeze portions of it. It keeps for ages in the freezer.

No buying block cheese isn't a great saving but if people are trying to cut down their food spending it is one thing to look at. Also whilst value grated cheese can be around £5 for 1kg some of it is £11 or £12 for 1kg which I think is expensive and certainly more so than buying a block of cheese.

maman wrote: »

I keep grated cheese in the freezer. It defrosts really quickly and can be added frozen to sauces. It's likely in a packed lunch it would defrost long before you get to eat it.

I think you need to shop around a bit. Some grated cheese is hardly more expensive per kg than a block. But taking a quick look at Sainsbury's own brand: £5 per kg for block, £6.50 for grated. Interestingly mature, medium and mid are all the same price???

No, as I said above, some grated is not a lot dearer but a lot are. I think even a £1.50 saving is worth it personally and I don't buy much cheese as I don't really like it

Gigervamp

I buy the grated mozzarella sometimes as grating the blocks is tricky, but with cheddar, I just grate as it's needed.

PasturesNew

pelirocco wrote: »

slightly off topic , but plastic isn't the best wrap for cheese , you should use foil or waxed paper ....and apparently the vegetable / salad draw is the best place

And others don't care.

If we cared about everything - and read everything about those subjects to discover the latest thing to care about .... we'd never have time to eat and would die.

VfM4meplse

PasturesNew wrote: »

I buy blocks of mature cheddar at Lidl (currently about £4.25/Kg). When it's time to open the pack I'll slice it into 1" wide blocks that will fit my Aldi £4 hand-grater, so next time I just reach in the bag for the next stick to grate. Once opened the bag is sealed with one of those clips, so it's air-tight.

I then hand-grate one stick into a plastic takeaway lidded box. I'll then use about 1/3rd of that with whatever I'm cooking right now - and toss the box into the fridge.

Right now I've 5 bags of cheddar in the fridge unopened .... and there's grated cheese in the box.

If I did want to freeze cheese, I'd cut it before I froze it, so I could take out just what I need.

A 1" stick of cheddar's usually about 70 grams or so as I tend to buy the 350gram bags. 70 grams of grated cheese is usually enough for 3 uses (most often sandwiches or cheesy chips).

OMG you've turned it into an art form!

PasturesNew

VfM4meplse wrote: »

OMG you've turned it into an art form!

I also know that I use 20 grams of salad cream in a typical FF sandwich.

I have very complex behaviours, fears, phobias and whatnot I have to eat around

Nothing in a shop can be purchased until I have ascertained and compared the £/100g of every option and choice available to me .... and, even after doing that, I'll often walk off as I can't be SURE I'm paying the best price

JIL

I have a confession to make, a regular staple in my shopping is a big bag of Aldi every day grated cheese and a pack of Aldi everyday cheese slices.
I use the grated in cooking and toppings and the slices on toast and in sandwiches. It tastes ok to me.

If I was eating cheese with crackers, which I rarely do I would buy it in block.