January 2017 Grocery Challenge. NEW BEGINNINGS!

GreenFairy

Some more bits bought yesterday. Under €50 but need to tot up my receipts to make sure I'm not missing anything, and update my total.

Bought veg, milk, cream, yoghurt, some fuel for the fire and a yoghurt maker! Have been after one for years, but they're always too expensive for a bit of kit that does one thing! €15 in lidl

FurryBeastOz

NSD:D Forgot the tablecloth I needed to take for dry cleaning. Went to gym. Didn't even poke nose into shop.

lynnejk

Afternoon all

Spends of £35.23 for the main shopping in Al*i today. Should be enough basics for the week now.

Hope you all having a super weekend
Lx

Caterina

Exactly £10 in Farmers Market, includes fruit and veg for the rest of the week. Of this, £2.50 is a gift of fruit to a friend who is in hospital so I am not counting it in the GC. Going to update sig now.

pavlovs_dog

Another week of only topping up, spent just over £20. I've just spent a very productive hour in the kitchen with OH to help chop and slice.

We have made:

*Veggie chilli for tea tomorrow (and leftovers for lunches for a day or two).
* Broccoli & stilton soup (using the Christmas Cheeseboard stilton and a 40p head of broccoli. More packed lunch fodder.
* a giant fritatta using up odds and sods from the fridge and freezer (eggs, onion, pepper, mushrooms, courgette, spinach, ham, and a smoked cheese truckle that was frozen after Christmas 2015 ) which will do brunch or snacks during the week.

Tea tonight will use up crispy duck pancakes and veggie spring rolls which I bought YS ages ago. Bought a Chinese curry and chicken chow mein ready meal to bulk it out. Substantial chinese fakeaway for two for less than a £5, and a night off proper cooking.

Rest of the week will involve

* frey bentos pie (guilty pleasure ), frozen left over mash, veggies and gravy
* sausage and tomato pasta (using up some 9p YS chipolatas)
* chicken in white sauce, rice and veg
* YS quiche lorraine, chips and beans.

I made a double batch of banana and whatever-dried-fruit-needed-using-up muffins last week and froze half so have taken them out to defrost. I need to do this more often as it is no extra work to make double the volume but it is fab having the option of not baking snacks. I used to goodtoknow banana bread recipe which is very easy to use and very forgiving.

Feel like an accomplished grown up!

elsiepac

medsdemon wrote: »

just had to say how proud I am that I've brought up a girl who actually cooks real food esp since she has turned vegan. She sent me pics of her hm soup and her veggie bolegnese she batch cooked today ready for the next week.

That's really lovely :happyhear All I get from my family Parents/sister I mean - I'm 32 and live alone thank god!!) is grief about being vegan! Except when they eat my food lol

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Elsiepac, I'd love your salad recipes please, they look so good!

Well, ladies and gents, i've only gone and stuck to my weekly shopping budget for THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS!! :T :j :beer:
I know its because of the support I've received here, so thank you all so much!
Less than 24 hours to go, and I've got about £2.40 left.

That's amazing! Well done you! So pleased for you :dance:

OK, recipes! As mentioned before, these are all taken from Thug Kitchen: Party Grub recipe book. Here we go:

Italian Pasta Salad
Salad
1 pound pasta (I just used a whole 500g bag which I know is slightly more)
1 small crown of broccoli chopped into little florets (I saved the stalks for soup)
1 red pepper, chopped up
1/2 a cucumber, chopped up (1 cup)
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved if too big for bitesize! (1 pint - IDK what this means in UK measuring lol)
1/2 a red onion, sliced small (1/2 cup)
1 pack fresh basil, sliced (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup black olives, sliced (optional but really good)
1/2 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste

Dressing
1/3 cup olive oil (80ml or just over 5 tbsps)
1/2 cup white wine vinegar (125 ml)
2 tbsps lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced small
3/4 tsp dried basil
3/4 tsp dried thyme
3/4 tsp onion power (granules)
Black pepper to taste

1. Put the pasta on to boil.
2. Chop up the veggies
3. In the last 30 seconds of pasta cooking, add the broccoli
4. Drain pasta and broccoli and run under cold tap to cool and stop cooking
5. When cool put in giant bowl with all other veggies and mix well
Put all dressing ingredients in a little pot and shake to mix
6. Mix dressing over and in, enjoy!

Four Bean Salad
Salad
1/2 pound of green beans (225g, cut into 1 inch pieces)
1 tin each of chickpeas, kidney beans and cannelini beans (or whatever you've got - I had to use butter beans instead of chickpeas)
1 1/4 cups of celery, chopped small (about 5 sticks)
1/2 medium red onion
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped up small
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp celery seed (I couldn't find this easily so I used celery salt and didn't add extra salt)
1/4 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste

Dressing
1/2 tsp dijon mustard (I used more like 1 tsp because I love it)
1/2 tsp liquid sweetener (I used agave nectar, but use what you have - maple syrup or whatever)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsps lemon juice
2 tbsps rice vinegar
3 tbsps cider vinegar
1/4 cup (4 tbsps or 125ml) olive oil

1. Boil the green beans for a few minutes until JUST cooked and run under cold water
2. Mix all the salad ingredients together in a big bowl
3. Add the green beans when cool
4. Make the dressing by mixing everything together
5. Add the dressing to the salad and mix well - it's best left for at least an hour before serving and mix well again before serving

California Citrus and Almond Salad
Salad
4 cups kale (I used black kale)
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups romaine (gem lettuce is a good substitute)
1/4 cup spring onions, chopped up
1/4 cup fresh coriander, chopped
2 cups orange segments
1 cup toasted flaked almonds

Dressing
3 tbsps rie vinegar
2 tbsps toasted sesame oil
2 tsps fresh ginger
1 tsp agave nectar (or whatever liquid sweetener you want eg, maple syrup)

1. Slice the kale finely and put it in a big bowl. Massage the salt into it with your hands for a minute to break it down a bit (trust me it works). Leave it for 10 minutes
2. Make the dressing by mixing everything up together in a little glass
3. Slice the romaine thinly and mix it with the spring onions and coriander, and add to the kale
4. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix really well
5. Add in the orange and the almonds and fold in gently
6. Enjoy!

WantToBeSE

Thank you so much Elsie! I cant wait to start making them I have pretty much all of the ingredients for them all, except for Kale. So i will add that to my shopping list. Thanks so much.

A NSD today. Dinner for the boys was omelette and chips. For me, i batch cooked a huge vegan red lentil and vegetable chilli, then put some avocado cilantro cream that i made.
There is loads left, enough for at least another 4 meals. So I'll freeze those.

Lunch was super frugal, i mixed leftover mexican bean soup, with leftover rice and leftover fennel, and heated through. It turned out to be amazing! I did this last week too, and it was just as nice. To make it more frugal, i want to make my own mexican bean soup, so am on the hunt for a recipe. Or i might just make one myself, by looking at the ingredients of the one i usually buy from Morrisons.

Pavlovs Dog, those muffins sound really nice. I have lots of dried fruit that i want to use up, and those sound like a good way of doing that. Plus the boys would love those!

Hoping for another NSD tomorrow too. My son has a medical appointment so has the day off from school, and i know he'll moan about wanting junk food. So maybe I'll make the muffins tomorrow.

Franalamadingdong

Well done everyone. You all seem to be doing great. No spends again, but the fridge is looking pathetic! Tomorrow is supposed to be a red kidney bean curry if I can find the recipe again. New recipe for us, so I hope it's nice. Will probably be helping mum and dad tomorrow as the skip is due to arrive. Made scones today, but you reminded me I want to look up using the prunes I have soon.

Mrs_Cheshire

lynnejk wrote: »

To multi-quote just click on the little symbol that looks like a couple of coloured balloons - remember you will only get three at a time. If you want more you have to go back and collect the rest for another post. You don't have to click on anything else HTH

Another NSD here today and hope t/m as well fingers xd

Hope you all have a frugal Friday
Lx

I had clicked on the coloured quote button a couple of times but nothing came up when I came to type, will have a go clicking that then the regular quote button

Mrs_Cheshire

lifebegins wrote: »

I spent nothing on food today- yay!
I've started to work through the freezer this evening and made a mustard and maple syrup sauce to go with the pork loin steaks I found. I did mash with the remains of an old bag of potatoes (which I'd usually have thrown away) and peas from the freezer so I'm feeling quite pleased with myself.

Thanks for your suggestions on using leftover egg yolks- I went for lime curd in the end. It was my first time attempting a curd but I had some limes left over from Christmas and thought it felt a bit decadent so I don't feel too deprived starting my challenge. Much cheaper than the Tiptree version.

Need to work out how to do signature again.

I'd love your sauce recipe, a friend bought me back a bottle of maple sauce from Canada and I've yet to use it!

chirpychick wrote: »

Hi
Is it too late for me to join in?
We only have 11 days until payday but I'm absolutely broke due to a bill I wasn't expecting with the car's MOT.
This week I have taken stuff to CEX, sold a couple of things on ebay (got more listed but nothing's sold) and used the coppers from the copper jar.
I get carer's allowance on Monday (my 4yr has SN) so my budget needs to be

£50 for the week.

The thing is, I have realised how, even though it's unpleasant sometimes, we do survive on very little when we have to. It has made me think that if we can do it when we have to then we should do it all the time. Not necessarily as bad as it has been this week where myself and husband have lived off noodles and baked potatoes but if we were much more careful with our food budget we wouldn't have to live like that because we would have more money in the bank for when emergencies crop up.

We are fresh out of an IVA so just re balancing things, we have come out of it with a view to saving what we paid because we have other things that need to be done and possibly a house move in the future. We also never want to get into that situation again. So even though going forward we could afford to spend more, we'd rather not.

Our food budget has been creeping up for some months now but i want to achieve £50 a week from now on.

My biggest struggles are snacks for my son. He is in preschool now and has started coming home with requests such as "can I have packet biscuits like the other kids" and "can i have crisps like the other kids" or "can i have box drinks like the other kids" and I find this a real challenge because he already has issues which set him apart from others and I know he really wants to be seen to be like everyone else but on the other hand all of those easy lunchbox packets cost a small fortune!
He has also got issues with main meals due to his SN which means his options are really limited - I try to add in a new thing each week for him to try and get him into eating more variety but so often even things he likes can end up not getting eaten.

On my budget I also buy food for 2 dogs and all toiletries/cleaning products.

Sorry for waffling i wont do it every time, just so you know a bit about us

It's a really good idea to put some money away each month if you can for when car problems/unexpected bills turn up. What things does your little boy normally have in his packed lunch?