Family of 5 'shop from home'food storage challenge...

Cottage_Economy

Morning all

What a dark old morning. Just started raining. No surprise there then.

Decided last night I have to start doing a meal plan. I've never planned meals really, more gone with whatever I fancied doing based on the time available and how tired I was but I've realised that has left me with some foods in the freezer that never seem to get touched. I know I won't be able to stick to a rigid meal plan so I think I will do one based on broad categories of beef, pork, lamb, poultry, fish and vegetarian.

Yesterday I was making up for the sugar splurge the day before. Poached egg on toast for breakfast, cheese and biscuits for lunch and a spanish omelette for dinner with beans.

Breakfast will be porridge and bananas for me, lunch cheese and crackers (or the leftover leek and potato soup if DH doesn't want it) and sausage and mash for dinner tonight.

We're out of cake at the moment but DH is on his leave days at the moment. I don't want to bake one until he goes back to work because he doesn't seem to eat it on his days off (no idea why) so I'll bake up some cookies instead.

Later on I'm going to tot up how much we have spent on food this month and decide whether I'm going to join the grocery challenge thread.

Hope you're all ok out there and keeping warm and dry.

xxCExx

joedenise

I've always meal planned as I am absolutely useless deciding what to have if I haven't done one. I do a month at a time and try to use at least some of the meals already cooked which are in the freezer. As there are just the 2 of there is nearly always a couple of portions to go in the freezer for the following month or occasionally we might have it again later in the month.

I really couldn't work without a plan!

Good luck we using up some of your freezer stash.

Cottage_Economy

JD - I've been thinking on what you said about more detailed meal planning all weekend and I'm going to try and do a similar thing to you, a meal plan one month in advance and use that as a default for every month if possible (with a little bit of fiddling at the end of every month depending on how many days there are). If something happens and I don't cook one night I'll just carry on with what I planned for the next night.

I've realised I don't really need to do the grocery shop challenge if I stick to the meal plan, as the majority of what we eat will already be in the house. We've worked out that we have around £130 in vouchers split between Morries, Tesco and Sains'y so any additional food we get over xmas will be bought with those.

I'll still look out for yellow sticker bargains on fish, as I have the least of that (about three mealsworth) and I don't want to pay full price for it. Ditto GF bread.

Cottage_Economy

Morning all

Not such a good start to the day here. Went out to supervise Miss Fluffy on her brief foray outside first thing and slipped over on a wet leaf I didn't see in the gloom. Managed to chin the patio. Luckily nothing worse, no chipped teeth or broken bones, just a hell off a bang and a chin scrape (plus lost cup of tea but at least my favourite mug didn't break). Neck and shoulders are a bit sore but that's to be expected. Gym has been cancelled for the day. So, sat wrapped up in the duvet drinking tea and finished the meal plan for the next month up to December 26th.

The main parts of every dinner on the plan except the xmas lunch are in the cupboards and freezer, only fresh fruit and some veg will be required each week. We are out every Sunday from this Sunday until xmas visiting friends and relatives for lunch so I might be taking along a dish to help out but otherwise will be fed.

:T I'm pretty happy with the meal plan. It's achievable. I've told DH that with xmas approaching we won't be getting any takeaways but I plan to do a fakeaway out of The Takeaway Secret. He's on board with that.

I ended up not doing the big gammon at the weekend. I realised that I would probably do it and then Dh would ask for something different as he was fed up with ham so I didn't bother

Dinner over the last few nights have all been out of the freezer or cupboards though; Spanish omelette and beans (the chickens are still laying), sausage and mash, homemade chilli meatballs and spaghetti, chicken fajitas (yellow sticker battered box in the reduced section) and swineherd pie (would have been shepherd's but I got the wrong mince out )

From now on I'll probably only report on dinners and DH's lunches, as the rest is pretty samey.

Breakfast is usually either eggs, toast or porridge for me with a banana, DH has cereal and MIL takes care of herself.

Lunches are usually leftovers or cheese and crackers for me, DH has wraps with some kind of filling in there and MIL takes care of herself.

Keep warm and dry everyone and watch out for rogue wet leaves.

xxCExx

Cottage_Economy

Morning all

Hope everyone is ok?

Tuesday didn't turn out such a good day. I started getting drowsy a couple of hours after the fall and ear pain so ended up speaking to 111 and then went to a+e for a check-up. Everything fine but I came back and went straight to bed so DH and MIL foraged for themselves. They both had beans on toast but at least no takeaways were ordered so that's a win.

Yesterday was pork chops for MIL and DH with the last few roasties out of a bag in the freezer and broccoli and cauliflower in a homemade white sauce. I decided to use up some stock and half a butternut squash from the fridge and made some soup. I found some ancient onion powder in the cupboard so I used some of that instead of a fresh onion. It was too thin after liquidising so I used some yellow sticker GF maize 'couscous'. Only two years out of date but it thickened it up nicely. Accompanied by a couple of slices of yellow sticker GF bread (9p for the loaf:T) and the last bit of the sauced up broccoli and cauliflower sauce. Lovely.

DH ended up buying his lunch yesterday as he forgot to do it when I was asleep. Last night I did him ham wraps for lunch using up some leftover fajita tortillas from the weekend.

So, a bit more gone out of the cupboards, fridge and freezer.

Tonight is leek and potato soup for dinner.

Cottage_Economy

Morning everyone

DD&D Hoping you're busy busy and nothing bad has happened to keep you away from the forums? Finger's crossed that Rosie is still recovering well.

A beautiful sunny and very crispy Friday morning. Happy to see the weekend, although not so happy to hear about the impending weather. might get out and sweep up some leaves later if the sunshine lasts.

Had the soup for dinner last night but instead of making fresh I realised there was enough butternut squash soup in the fridge leftover from the day before for DH and MIL to have so I did that. Bonus meal :T I had a cheese wrap and a few tortillas crisps (yellow sticker wrap from freezer).

Tonight is yellow sticker indian tikka chicken fillets with rice. Will also do my own bombay/sag aloo using spinach from the garden, pots from my 12kg bag and some of my frozen toms. I have plenty of curry powder in the cupboard.

Had to go out to get cat food yesterday so decided to go to morrisons armed with discount and points vouchers. I'm using the series of weekly extra points vouchers that printed out for us a few weeks ago. The spending limit is £20, which isn't that hard to achieve when you have to buy cat food and household stuff.

In addition to the non-food stuff, I bought milk, bleach, teabags for DH and MIL, carrots, bananas and grapes for MIL, tortilla crisps, a pack of chocolate and caramel biscuits and coffee pods that were on a 50p and £1.00 offer on Shopmium (down from £1.25 and £3.50 respectively). I also got a couple of yellow sticker puddings, one big caramel and pecan one reduced by 2/3rds to £1.12 so that went into the freezer for Boxing day and two limoncello desserts reduced from £1.72 to 52p. DH and MIL had those after the soup. Also bought a red cabbage to make up for xmas side dish - I have everything I need to make it, including the bacon lardons which I fished out of the freezer yesterday.

By the time I came to pay, I used a 1500 extra points on a £20 spend, got an additional 200 bonus points after activating two deals on my More card for stuff we already use, used a £1.50 off voucher a £20 spend (a generic open voucher someone had left behind in the machine last time I went to Morrie's and which I snuffled) and £15 worth of discount vouchers I have been saving. DH had also filled up the works van yesterday for more points. So I have a £5 voucher waiting to be printed off, we're only 85 points away from another £5 off voucher and I still have £15 off vouchers to spend. I'm pretty happy with that.

I also have a £5 off a £40 spend in Lidl by 11/12 but thanks to my price book I know the latest bulk deals on meat that I was considering are not really deals. It's either just their normal price/kg bulked up or I can get equivalent elsewhere. There's only so many toilet rolls you can buy and I'd just be buying for buying's sake, so I'm not going to spend this.

We still have £60 of Tesco vouchers and about £40 of Sainsbury's vouchers, but I'd like to keep hold of those for January if I can in case it gets a bit lean. Still not entirely sure whether DH is coming out on strike. We don't think so but wary of union curveballs at the last minute.

Take care all. Keep warm and dry.

xxCExx