2018 £50 February Challenge

PipneyJane

In my far too short lunch break, I went back through my subscriptions and found a couple of threads re feeding a family on very little, which I thought might help.


Meal for Two for 50p. Suggestions? https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/326929
Feed a Family of four for £20 a week challenge: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4148389
£7 per week - menu ideas: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4084527


A tiny note on my "meal philosophy"...When planning meals, the focus has to be split equally between nutrition, filling you up and eating something tasty. As a child of the '70's, I always start with fibre - hence the bran cereal padding in my breakfast - and then focus on whether I'm getting my Five-A-Day. (Most of my recipes contain onions, carrots and mushrooms, so at least 2 portions of veg are covered in one meal.) After that, I think about protein - you don't need massive amounts (around 100g/day) but each meal should contain something protein rich, if only because it keeps you feeling full for longer. After that comes rice/bread/pasta/potatoes, whatever fills you up...

purpleivy

This is an interesting thread. My excuse for not doing this kind of challenge is that it would take me too much time to organise. I thought I had got on top of my food spends. But the freezer would tell you otherwise. I am easily swayed by the Flash Sales and getting tasty 'stuff' at 50% off. I really need to concentrate on using the things we have and shopping from home.

Of course one problem is that you take something out and what's left takes up more room when you have done your recipe. I"m going to be doing my online shop less often. More or less weekly up to now, but going to try and reduce first to 10 days then a fortnight. I will have to think about the things that I get there that I can't get at Aldi, which is the other place I go.

I have a monthly outline that I put together in order to remove 'decision fatigue' so ultimately I will be stashing according to the list. Some of the days have three lines, so more than 31 choices over a period of time. Hopefully it will mean that I am ultimately shopping to the plan and using the stuff planned from the freezer.

I have only been through the month once so far in this iteration. Had a previous one that didn't work for various reasons, so have tried again.

PipneyJane

Good evening All

(Partially cross posted to the February 2018 Grocery Challenge.)

Today was our first spend for February, £7.73 at MrT!!!8217;s which included tortilla wraps, £3 on yoghurts (2 x Yeo Valley plus a huge, 1kg tub of plain yoghurt for £1), some YS sliced ham, YS salad leaves and YS hummus. The only unnecessary spend was 99p for chunky chocolate chip cookies for our game this afternoon (which didn!!!8217;t get eaten because one of the players brought along cake for their birthday).

Anyway, the spend so far for February is £7.73/£50, leaving £42.27 remaining.

It!!!8217;s nearly 9pm and I haven!!!8217;t had dinner yet. I am shattered. This last week has been extremely busy. Tonight is the first time in a week I!!!8217;ve been alone. (DH has gone to his best mate!!!8217;s to watch the Super Bowl). Dinner tonight comes from the freezer - I!!!8217;ve just defrosted an ancient box of Sophie Dahl!!!8217;s Dhal and cooked up some rice. If I hadn!!!8217;t needed something that!!!8217;d generate enough for lunch tomorrow, dinner would be a cheese toasty.

Even with my current brain-addled state, there are a few things I!!!8217;ve forced myself to do before I finally collapse on the couch. This morning, I soaked 500g of dried kidney beans, which are now drained, bagged up and in the freezer, to be cooked in the pressure cooker later in the week. (I always freeze soaked beans before cooking - it helps to break down the cell walls and make cooking faster.). I am also going to portion up the lunches that I!!!8217;ve made and, once I!!!8217;ve eaten I will wash up, so that tomorrow morning I can spend my 10 minutes !!!8220;kitchen time!!!8221; preparing dinner for the slow cooker. (Dinner tomorrow will be Cuban Black Beans made with half a packet of cooking bacon, an onion, a couple of green peppers and 500g package of black turtle beans from W8trose. All items we already had in stock in the pantry/fridge/freezer.)

- Pip

PennyGrabber

Ok Pip, walk me through this revelation... You soak the beans overnight, then split into portions and freeze. Then when needed, cook them? From frozen? Boil for a bit before slow cooking? Can you tell I'm a novice?!! I have lots of beans etc, just not confident enough /organised enough to use them. Would be great to have an idiot (me)-proof system!!

Tia
PG x

PipneyJane

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Ok Pip, walk me through this revelation... You soak the beans overnight, then split into portions and freeze. Then when needed, cook them? From frozen? Boil for a bit before slow cooking? Can you tell I'm a novice?!! I have lots of beans etc, just not confident enough /organised enough to use them. Would be great to have an idiot (me)-proof system!!

Tia
PG x

Almost, PG, but I don!!!8217;t portion up the soaked beans for freezing. It takes as much effort to cook 3 portions of beans as it does to cook 1, and about the same period of time. Only when the beans are cooked will I portion them up - usually into 500g boxes - and refreeze the beans that I!!!8217;m not using !!!8220;tonight.

FWIW, when I cook the beans, I!!!8217;ll do it for 30 minutes in the pressure cooker at 15lb of pressure (aka !!!8220;high!!!8221; on my pressure cooker). That!!!8217;s possibly overkill time-wise, but it works for me. If you don!!!8217;t have a pressure cooker, then use your very largest pan - something that holds at least 6 litres of water. Bring the beans to the boil, boil them for at least 10 minutes and then simmer for the time recommended on the packet. The boiling destroys some toxins that are present in kidney beans.

HTH

- Pip

tessie_bear

great challenge I have read through and now feel more positive about my own don't spend feb...some great ideas thankyou for sharing hope it goes well

PipneyJane

Oh, I forgot to add that I learned the "freezing soaked, dried beans" trick from the Complete Tightwad Gazette. Even though only 20% of its content applies directly to me, that book is still my bible.

tessie_bear wrote: »

great challenge I have read through and now feel more positive about my own don't spend feb...some great ideas thankyou for sharing hope it goes well

My pleasure. Thank you.


Today's meals are cereal for me for breakfast, leftover dhal and rice for lunch for me (DH has "freezer surprise"), and Cuban Black Beans for dinner, which I set up this morning to cook in the slow cooker. The recipe is on my blog. With rice costed in, the recipe works out at about £2 and feeds 8.


I actually hate our current slow cooker - it is big (10L) and cheap (£20-ish on Amazon) but the lid doesn't seal, so everything dries out. Because of that, I completely screwed up Saturday's dinner. We had a friend staying for the weekend and were out all Saturday afternoon/early evening. In the morning I dumped home made tomato sauce, a tin of tomatoes, a tub of cooked kidney beans, some red wine and 500g of stewing beef in the slow cooker, turned it to "auto" and hoped for the best. I even put a layer of foil under the lid, in the blind hope it would prevent too much steam leaving. Not a hope. I didn't put in half as much liquid as it needed whereas, in my old slow cooker, those quantities would have been fine, if not a little runny.


DH is at home this afternoon and keeping an eye on the Black Bean Stew. Otherwise, when I got home tonight, I wouldn't know whether I'd find soup or something desiccated. As it is, I have to cook it on high or the beans just don't cook. < sigh >


- Pip

tessie_bear

with regards to the slow cook could you cover the contents with a piece of grease proof paper then put on lid....might keep a bit more of the liquid where you want it to be xx

purpleivy

Surely the pressure cooker doesn't get to pressure if it doesn't seal?

joedenise

purpleivy wrote: »

Surely the pressure cooker doesn't get to pressure if it doesn't seal?

If I've read it correctly it's the slow cooker, not the pressure cooker, which doesn't seal.

Denise