November 2016 Grocery Challenge

t14cy_t

nsd yesterday, yippee!! xx

pamsdish

£54 on petrol, £21 tosco top up.

elsiepac

Morning all

No grocery spends yesterday. Had mum over for our weekly "girls night" - we watched Now You See Me 2 which was great, and for our dinner I tried a new recipe which was AMAZING! And really not very time consuming or difficult! It's Wedding Soup with White Bean Balls and Kale:


Here's the recipe - I can't recommend this enough!

For the bean balls:
1 large white onion, chopped (take 1/4 cup for the balls and put the rest aside)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tins cannellini beans (or 3 cups cooked from dry)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (for me about 80g)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (or flour) (for me nooch was 15g but flour is heavier so may be more)
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsps all purpose seasoning (I use Schwartz Season All)
1 tsp each of dried thyme, oregano and basil
1/2 tsp lemon zest

Mash up the drained beans in a large bowl - some whole ones are ok.
Add all the other ball ingredients and mix well.
Form into balls - you should get between 20 and 25.
Spray a baking tray with oil, lay them out spray the tops with oil.
Pop in the oven.

Now make the soup:
1 tsp olive oil
The rest of the onion
3 cloves garlic
2 carrots, diced
2 sticks celery, diced
9 cups (2.25 litres) stock
1 cup pasta (for me this was about 170g)
4 cups kale or whatever your preferred green is (I just used a whole 200g bag of black kale)
Juice of the lemon you zested earlier
1/4 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Saute the onion, carrot, celery and garlic in the oil for approx 5 mins, until onion is starting to go translucent.
Add the stock and pasta, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and leave simmering for 15 mins.
Add your greens, the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and parsley.
While the greens are wilting, take the balls out of the oven.
Put your desired number of balls in each bowl, then ladle the soup over the top.
When you are eating the soup, the balls start to break down a bit and release all that extra flavour into the soup - it's to die for!
If, like me, you are keeping portions for another time, I advise storing the balls and the soup separately.

Side note - for those who haven't heard of nutritional yeast - it's a common food that vegans use - it's deactivated yeast flakes. It has a slightly cheesy, nutty, salty flavour and is PACKED with B12. It's worth trying as it adds a lovely flavour to dishes like this. Or I make a parmesan substitute with it - raw hemp seeds ground with nooch and salt - yum!

Caterina

Good morning, planning a NSD today, at least a grocery one. A roofer is coming to check our gutter to cure a patch of damp on the wall, but if that's a necessary expense before winter makes it worse, hey ho.

I have a full freezer and lots in the cupboards too, so apart from the odd fresh veg, eggs and fruit we should be ok for the rest of the month, I hope.

Today meal plan:

Breakfast being cooked as I type, by Saint DH, is going to be mushroom omelette and oatcakes
Lunch salad with hummus, fruit
Dinner leftover veg stew blended with cooked lentils into a soup, probably roasted squash or Jerusalem artichoke, HM coleslaw in vinaigrette with the tiny bit of leftover red cabbage, nuts and dried figs.

I need to start tackling the freezer, but cannot be bothered to cook fish, it stinks up the house even with the extractor fan on, or windows open, and there is a lot of fish to cook. Going to have to face it, might defrost some tonight for tomorrow.

Have a good day.

Edited to add: thank you elsiepac for the recipe, it sounds scrumptious!

Soworried

I've lost track this month so I'm starting again. I'll set myself a new budget of £180 until the end of the month.

I have very little in so will need a big shop today.

JAMIEDODGER

Been to Tesco and Lidl today to buy what I had on my list. Mainly fresh stuff and the odd ingredient so I can continue to use up what I have in stores.

1st - Tesco - £44.18
2nd - Lidl - £35.45
3rd - Sainsburys - £8.70
3rd - Tesco - £51.67 (last online food shop delivery - have now cancelled)
4th - NSD
5th - NSD
6th - Lidl - £17.97
6th - Sainsburys - £7.94
7th - NSD
8th - One Stop - £1.00
8th - One Stop - £1.30
9th - NSD
10th - Lidl - £20.83
10th - Tesco - £5.68

So total spend so far : £194.72/£400 (£205.28 remaining) and 4 NSD's.

Hoping for NSD's for the next few days at least, although this may be scuppered by Sunday if I need to go and buy more milk and bananas.

I plan to have 'freezer surprise' for dinner tonight, which will use up leftovers/single portion HM ready meals, so probably some chicken nuggets/waffles, a portion of chilli, and a quiche. Tomorrow I am planning to make a lasagne (FRI NIGHT dinner) and a slow cooker beef stew (SAT NIGHT dinner), both of which should have enough leftovers to be portioned up for the freezer.

I am finding that planning roughly two days worth of meals, then having a use up night is working for me. There is always enough from a meal to save at least one portion for the freezer, and the kids like freezer surprise night as they can choose whatever they want providing it is from leftover stock and I like it because it is mainly reheating and very little cooking:D Win, win!:T

kkffoo

Challenges this week.
Hubby had a couple of spends while travelling, not much but we are adding all non holiday or special treat food buys to the food budget. He could take a flask, but a coffee pays for a warm place to rest, and a decent loo stop and these things are important.
I'm fretting about my son, as it's difficult to cook meals we will all eat. Whilst he is perfectly happy happy eating something out of a tin, I'm not happy if this is more than a few times a week.


Hubby's travel stops £12.75
A$da click and collect top up £24.26
Spend this month £121.04/£350

ab_saver

Reporting a £2.50 planned spend yesterday for milk and porridge - now up to £56.25 for the month and have plenty in to do me and OH for another week I should think!

Franalamadingdong

Kkffoo, is your son a fussy eater? Why not get him to help plan a couple of meals per week. Maybe even give him a cook book to peruse. My boy is the opposite of fussy and has been surprised by my not asking him what he'd like on the meal plan. Usually I know he'll ask for fish and for pasta and nanny sauce and sometimes something else.

Leftovers from the fridge are all eaten, but still plenty of ingredients. It was an NSD for me yesterday and it's likely to be another one today! Got an email from chococo with a voucher but I don't need to order yet... Maybe even not at all...!

Good luck grocery challengers, especially those who have had a woopsy and are trying again.

thriftwizard

Good luck grocery challengers, especially those who have had a woopsy and are trying again.

Seconding that! Been there, done that... picked myself up & started all over again, more then once!

£28.50 added; £12.50 yesterday at the market & £land, including a magnificent full tray of mushrooms for £2.50. Now mostly a large vat of soup, some of which will be frozen for later reference. £16 spent today at our local "past-its-best" emporium, on 15Kg of pasta - DD2's current favourite comfort food - 6 jars organic balti sauce & 8 pkts of oatmeal crackers. None of which is currently needed but I was going past anyway... the pasta should see us through until spring!