May 2017 Grocery Challenge

Happy_Kitties

My May budget (running from 1st to 31st May) is £190 which includes groceries, pet stuff, cleaning products and toiletries for 2 people.
Welcome e4rly
Good luck everyone:j

PennyGrabber

Hi all,

I made my monthly meal plan yesterday, basing it around what is in the house already. Will hardly made a dent in the stocks...! I then made a list, and shopped really carefully. I did my main shop in aldililly, then a ys shop in morries. Spent £18.14 overall, which means that I am under for the first week. Long May that continue!! I need to change the meal plan already, as there was a lovely ys chicken on the hot counter, so that is meat for the next few days!

Any good (by good, read sw friendly!) recipes for using up a whole chicken?! I overused my syns at the weekend, so need to be good now! I've got chicken salad, chicken and hm wedges and risotto so far, but I always have those!

PG x

Suffolk_lass

How about chicken and veg soup? you could add a bit of potato liquidised into the cooking liquid as the thickener and leave the rest as chunky/hearty stew. Add some lentils and you won't anything else with it, and if you cook the onions in water mixed with a tiny bit of oil it's just the oil and potato to count, if I remember.

We are having hm ratatouille today - just bought the fresh bread, peppers, red onions and aubergines, and a pot of basil (as ours is not plentiful enough yet) using my £5 Morries points voucher so only 67p to pay. Not bad for dinner. We will eat the left-over sausage meat burgers we made last night, cold for lunch with the end of the french bread. Naughty but nice!

mcculloch29

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Hi all,

I made my monthly meal plan yesterday, basing it around what is in the house already. Will hardly made a dent in the stocks...! I then made a list, and shopped really carefully. I did my main shop in aldililly, then a ys shop in morries. Spent £18.14 overall, which means that I am under for the first week. Long May that continue!! I need to change the meal plan already, as there was a lovely ys chicken on the hot counter, so that is meat for the next few days!

Any good (by good, read sw friendly!) recipes for using up a whole chicken?! I overused my syns at the weekend, so need to be good now! I've got chicken salad, chicken and hm wedges and risotto so far, but I always have those!

PG x

I've used cooked chicken instead of chickpeas in Jack Monroe's Peach and Chickpea Curry
That's quite low calorie and uses storecupboard ingredients.

Stir cooked strips/scraps of chicken through a stir-fry.

Chicken noodle soup with the carcass.

Use as part of a tortilla but with low fat cheddar, that works well.
You could try a terrine if you can find gelatine easily.

I have some higher calorie suggestions, mostly involving puff pastry, or cheese sauce, that you probably won't thank me for.

zafiro1984

Totally blew my April budget. I need to get things under control, the year started off quite well but now I'm slipping back into old habits.

Can you put me down for £175 for this month, that's to cover groceries and household things, thanks

Doom_and_Gloom

Thanks for those that make this thread possible. It really is a huge help.

May goes from 1st (today) until 31st. Our budget is £155. This is for two adults, food and drink, not alcohol, only.

Bulk buy purchases have been added from previous months into this (offers to save money) so we are already down £52.13. We have plently in the freezers, the cupboards are also stocked well. I'm hoping we will manage in budget.

£52.13/£155.
£102.87 left.

Florence_J

Thank you Armchairexpert and Cappella for your suggestions, that does seem like a logical solution, until you take into account the fact OH doesn't 100% trust my cooking as I don't pump it full of salt/sugar and I try to throw in some lentils or pulses to spread the cost. But I have remembered there are a lot of meals I cook that he loves that can be adapted for that, so will give it a go

elsiepac

Hi all, no spends at all for me over the weekend and my fridge is still stuffed!

Yesterday I made some amazing little Lebanese chickpea pasties! They are not at all technically difficult, just require some planning in advance. I'm going to have them for my lunches at work this week with salad.



The day before:
150g dried chickpeas - put them on to soak in plenty of water

3 hours before you want to eat them:
400g wholemeal bread flour
1 sachet yeast (2 tsps)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps olive oil
Mix the above together, adding warm water until a smooth dough is formed - mine was somewhere around 250-300ml
Knead for a few minutes and put somewhere warm for about 2 hours - until doubled in size

Make the filling (I did this straight after I put the dough in the airing cupboard, while I was in prepping mode!):
Drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas
Blend them in the food processor until they are chopped up - like large breadcrumbs - don't get carried away and make them tiny or even into a paste!!
Heat 50ml olive oil and fry 150g chopped onion until golden
Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cumin and 1/2 tsp salt, and fry for a further minute
Mix in the chickpeas and 30g chopped coriander and cook for a further 5 minutes
Put to one side until the dough has risen

Make the pasties:
Get the oven preheating to 240C (I know, this is very high. It scared me so I did 220 and used the top shelf!)
Roll out the dough very thinly and cut circles 10-12cm in diameter (I found I didn't have one lol so used a big cup - no idea how accurate the diameter was!)
Put a dessertspoon of filling in the middle of each one, fold over and press the edges to seal, and use a fork to crimp.
Put on an oiled baking tray.
Bake for about 20 minutes until they are golden brown.

The original recipe says that the uncooked pasties can be frozen for up to 4 months.
I got 27 plus a little leftover dough bread heart out of mine!
They are REALLY yummy

Lauralozzle

Trip to Asda - spends on yellow sticker items and wine, mostly.

For May Im now at £23.06/£250

candygirl

elsiepac wrote: »

Hi all, no spends at all for me over the weekend and my fridge is still stuffed!

Yesterday I made some amazing little Lebanese chickpea pasties! They are not at all technically difficult, just require some planning in advance. I'm going to have them for my lunches at work this week with salad.



The day before:
150g dried chickpeas - put them on to soak in plenty of water

3 hours before you want to eat them:
400g wholemeal bread flour
1 sachet yeast (2 tsps)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps olive oil
Mix the above together, adding warm water until a smooth dough is formed - mine was somewhere around 250-300ml
Knead for a few minutes and put somewhere warm for about 2 hours - until doubled in size

Make the filling (I did this straight after I put the dough in the airing cupboard, while I was in prepping mode!):
Drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas
Blend them in the food processor until they are chopped up - like large breadcrumbs - don't get carried away and make them tiny or even into a paste!!
Heat 50ml olive oil and fry 150g chopped onion until golden
Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cumin and 1/2 tsp salt, and fry for a further minute
Mix in the chickpeas and 30g chopped coriander and cook for a further 5 minutes
Put to one side until the dough has risen

Make the pasties:
Get the oven preheating to 240C (I know, this is very high. It scared me so I did 220 and used the top shelf!)
Roll out the dough very thinly and cut circles 10-12cm in diameter (I found I didn't have one lol so used a big cup - no idea how accurate the diameter was!)
Put a dessertspoon of filling in the middle of each one, fold over and press the edges to seal, and use a fork to crimp.
Put on an oiled baking tray.
Bake for about 20 minutes until they are golden brown.

The original recipe says that the uncooked pasties can be frozen for up to 4 months.
I got 27 plus a little leftover dough bread heart out of mine!
They are REALLY yummy

These look delicious, thanks for the recipe