August 2019 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

Morning all! Thanks for the well wishes!

Did a shop last night for fresh fruit and veg - took ONE reusable bag in (the bag for life £1 ones, not the the 5p ones) and I used it to put my shopping in as I went around to try and limit myself. Managed to fill it to bursting but it did keep me in check!

Now have £42.39 left but a full fridge and cupboard.

Spent £23.55 and got a load of salad stuff (just one bag of leaves though as they seem to go bad quick in this fridge), 2 bags of cauli and broccoli prepared - these were on offer at 2 for £2 and were big bags and as there were NO fresh broccolis that weren't minging I got them instead as I love cauli too, also 2 bags of prepped leeks and cabbage again 2 for £2 - quite big bags and easier to store in current fridge - I don't like prepped veg really, I have a bit of an idea it's really bad for you, but it's not my usual so I think I'll survive! Also got blueberries and nectarines, plus 6 tins of beans (not going mad and stocking up, just literally like to keep a couple in as they are very much my staples and I only had 2 tins of chickpeas left), a bag of pasta, jar of peanut butter... nothing too exciting.
Also spent £6 this morning on 3 packs of the new Eat N4tural vegan bars - I am so pleased they brought these out, they are really good and actually satiating because they are a decent size unlike many other vegan snack bars - they work out pretty good value compared to other options!

Sooo.. before I got home yesterday with my shopping, what was left in my fridge was half a bag of very dubious carrots and a pot with leftover roasted veggies and smoked tofu from the night before. So I used the carrots in a carrot and red lentil soup for my lunch today, and I made the veggies and tofu into a new thing for tea last night which I now have leftovers for tonight!

MONDAY I had:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, 1.5 nectarines, 1/2 mango and blueberries

L: Salad leaves, topped with chopped up leftover crudites from Sunday (celery, radish, carrot, mixed peppers, cucumber) and leftover antipasti from Sunday (marinated olives, sundried tomatoes) and 2 blobs of different houmous's leftover from Sunday - caramelised onion and the other was smoked houmous with chilli harissa - LUSH

Roasted smoked tofu, courgette, aubergine and peppers with wholemeal pasta

TUESDAY I had:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, 1.5 nectarines, 1/2 mango and cherries

L: Same as Monday - that finished up all the leftover snacks from Sunday

Homemade potato wedges seasoned with Chip Seasoning, then fried off a bag of the leek and cabbage mix, added a tin of kidney beans, plus all the leftover tofu and roast veg from Monday night and a tin of tomatoes, served with the wedges (have lots of wedges and veggie mix leftover)

TODAY I have:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, blueberries and kiwi

L: Carrot and red lentil soup (flavoured with stock, garlic and cumin and lots of fresh parsley and coriander)

Leftover Wedges and tofu, veg and bean stew from last night

THURSDAY and FRIDAY I haven't planned yet except I have enough yoghurt and fruit to keep doing overnight oats and obviously I now have plenty of ingredients in. May do soups for lunches if the weather stays rainy. I have some nice jacket potatoes too so that could be my carb for teatimes.

Luciecat63

Mt T delivery yesterday so spent £53.23/£200. There doesn't seem to be much, but I have desserts for the month (fresh fruit and tinned fruit to make fruit jellies) and plenty of nuts and seeds for snacks. I also have cat food for the month, meat/fish/mushrooms to last at least two weeks for main courses and fresh vegetables for at least a week. I am going to dig out my slimming world and weightwatcher books at the weekend and plan some meals using what I have. There will probably be a few top-ups to come but I hope this will be the bulk of my shop.
I love meat and fish, but I find I want smaller portions of both - and restaurant meals which consist of huge chunks of meat with few veggies really put me off.
Now I need to reduce my tea consumption - I think I use at least half a pint of milk a day in tea and perhaps more.

Mrs_Cheshire

Fairie wrote: »

Mrs Cheshire, you could definitely make it without the seeds, or indeed the barley flakes. Just add in extra oats. I added the seeds to add extra protein as it keeps you full for longer, ground or chopped nuts would also work. 😊
Fairie x

I asked about barley flakes in my local zero waste store, but they didn't have any so I got Wheat Flakes instead. Hopefully they'll work just as well. I avoid seeds and nuts due to IBS so will give the recipe a go without and report back.

elsiepac wrote: »

Morning all! Thanks for the well wishes!


Sooo.. before I got home yesterday with my shopping, what was left in my fridge was half a bag of very dubious carrots and a pot with leftover roasted veggies and smoked tofu from the night before. So I used the carrots in a carrot and red lentil soup for my lunch today, and I made the veggies and tofu into a new thing for tea last night which I now have leftovers for tonight!

MONDAY I had:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, 1.5 nectarines, 1/2 mango and blueberries

L: Salad leaves, topped with chopped up leftover crudites from Sunday (celery, radish, carrot, mixed peppers, cucumber) and leftover antipasti from Sunday (marinated olives, sundried tomatoes) and 2 blobs of different houmous's leftover from Sunday - caramelised onion and the other was smoked houmous with chilli harissa - LUSH

Roasted smoked tofu, courgette, aubergine and peppers with wholemeal pasta

TUESDAY I had:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, 1.5 nectarines, 1/2 mango and cherries

L: Same as Monday - that finished up all the leftover snacks from Sunday

Homemade potato wedges seasoned with Chip Seasoning, then fried off a bag of the leek and cabbage mix, added a tin of kidney beans, plus all the leftover tofu and roast veg from Monday night and a tin of tomatoes, served with the wedges (have lots of wedges and veggie mix leftover)

TODAY I have:

B: Overnight oats made with 200g A1pr0 Plain With Coconut yoghurt, 40g oats, blueberries and kiwi

L: Carrot and red lentil soup (flavoured with stock, garlic and cumin and lots of fresh parsley and coriander)

Leftover Wedges and tofu, veg and bean stew from last night

THURSDAY and FRIDAY I haven't planned yet except I have enough yoghurt and fruit to keep doing overnight oats and obviously I now have plenty of ingredients in. May do soups for lunches if the weather stays rainy. I have some nice jacket potatoes too so that could be my carb for teatimes.

Thanks for this meal plan, always forget about potato wedges, will add them to this week's plan.

PipneyJane

Elsiepac, I'm glad the move went well and that you love your new home.

I have a couple of spends to declare. We went to an open air concert at the weekend and the GC purse contributed £1.20 towards the cost of the wine we took with us. (The balance was paid for by clubcard vouchers.)

Then we spent £9.78 in Costco on marinated/pickled anchovies - not the salted ones - and a bottle of Wing-&-Rib sauce. The anchovies were £4.99 but I've divided the contain er into 4 portions (froze 3). They were for a French-style "warm" lentil salad, which I made for us to take to work for lunch on Monday and Tuesday. I'll put the recipe below.

Monday evening was a bit chaotic, so DH dropped into Lidl on his way home and bought a salmon en croute for dinner and some white chocolate. £4.59 spent. (In the meantime, I'd washed up the entire contents of the dishwasher - which broke on the weekend - and made chocolate brownies for a colleague at work. (The white chocolate was melted to decorate the brownies.))

Finally, the last spend was yesterday evening: £0.27 for 2L milk rescued from the condemned food aisle by my DH when he popped into MrT's at 11pm to use their toilets. I've frozen 1.5L of it for later because, while we did need milk, we're away for the next few days and I didn't want to waste any.

The above bring our GC spend to £29.05/£120, leaving £90.95 for the rest of the month.

French Warm Lentil Salad - makes 4-6 portions

Ingredients

2 cups small whole lentils (either brown, black or puy)
2 spring onions sliced thinly
1-2 radishes sliced very thinly (or you can use a sweet red pepper, it's for crunch)
100g marinated anchovy fillets (not salted) or use pickled herring
A bag of rocket or watercress leaves
Dressing:
50ml extra-virgin olive oil
50ml white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

method

1. In a deep bowl, soak the lentils for 1 hour.
2. At the end of the hour, boil the kettle.
3. Meanwhile drain the lentils in a sieve, rinsing them well under the tap. Decant into a medium-sized saucepan.
4. Cover the lentils with boiling water, bring back to the boil and simmer for 20-ish minutes or until cooked but not mushy.
5. Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables and make the salad dressing. (To make the dressing, combine the oil, vinegar and mustard in a deep jug and blend with an electric wand wisk/blender.)
6. Pour the dressing over the hot lentils, cover and leave for at least 15 minutes or until the lentils are lukewarm.
7. Stir in the spring onions, radish slices and anchovy fillets.
8. Put some rocket or watercress on each plate and spoon over the lentil mixture. Serve.

- Pip


PS: The dishwasher repair man came today and a replacement pressure sensor is now on order. It was overfilling.

Doom_and_Gloom

So we have spent £9.21 today.

My meals for today go as follow
B : Porridge (with banana, cherries, apple, sunflower seeds and hemp seeds).
L : Umeboshi onigiri, easy peeler and red grapes.
Tofu and vegetable fajitas.
Snacks : Strawberries, celery with peanut butter.
Drinks : Coffee, green tea, water and I will be indulging in a couple of screwdrivers later tonight (vodka and orange juice).
As always OH drank loads of coffee and has snacked for most of the day (he will eat bread with margarine or do a pack of noodles most days as snacks).
OH will be having pasta with cheese sauce for dinner.

£125.25/£200
£74.75 left.

thriftwizard

Happy for you, elsiepac!

Another NSD here today, but yesterday I spent £29.86 on tea, coffee, sugar, cream & a few fresh bits - I hasten to add that the tea & coffee were on special offer, so I stocked up, and that the cream & sugar were needed after using up all my supplies making 4 batches of ice cream so I didn't need to throw out any of the fruit bought the weekend before last & as-yet-uneaten!

Emptying & defrosting the freezer is becoming an urgent mission; there are so many apples ripening that the branches are being weighed down. Not to mention the avalanche of runner beans - another big bag full picked today. (I might have to try to find another (secondhand) chest freezer) So I need to "shop" in the freezer before going out & buying anything at all, really...

elsiepac

Thank you for all the kind words everyone!

PipneyJane the salad sounds lovely - I should think I could substitute the anchovies for a mixture of capers and olives to get a similar effect? I'm going to go through and try and update the recipe index with everyone's lovely contributions this weekend when I have a minute to think!

Gah though! down to £34.74 left in the budget, for exactly 2 weeks now.
HOWEVER, I still have enough fruit and veg to at least get me well into the weekend.

Slight change to meal plan as yesterday went down the drain - was going to have my carrot and lentil soup for lunch but did not feel good and everyone went to Subw4y at work, so I caved and got one of those with the new vegan patty and vegan garlic aoili - they are really really tasty in fairness so I don't mind as a one off! For dinner I ended up staying late at work and wanted to get a B0urnv1lle bar at Mr T as I like to keep them in my fridge (Sl1mming W0rlders - they are 1 syn a square) and ended up buying a ready meal I love which was on offer, which is in the frozen aisle - it's by Itsu and it's Miso Mushroom Ramen - really tasty and takes 5 minutes to put together.

Upshot is I have soup left for lunch today and LO veggie stew and wedges for tea tonight and lunch tomorrow. HOWEVER work are doing a BBQ at lunch today and they are catering for me plus a couple of other non meat eaters so my soup may wait till tomorrow and I'll have the rest of the stew and wedges tomorrow for tea. Hopefully they'll still be good.

This will still leave me with a load of veggies in so I can make some new stuff over the weekend.

zafiro1984

This challenge is proving harder than I thought. I'm being sabotaged.

I've made a spreadsheet and allow myself 12.86 per day. It works out my allowance to date minus anything I've spent. On the sixth of Aug I had 48.70 in the kitty (77.16 allowance - minus 28.46 spent)
Then DH (but I now feel it should just be H) went and ordered 375g of tea costing 32.80 from a posh shop and announced we had 2kg of smoked salmon arriving today. :mad: I love smoked salmon but that is just a step too far - he's been banned from ordering any more food this month and told he's having egg on toast and leftovers until I come back into credit.

Cheapskate

Another NSD today, 5/8 so far this month!

Lunch was pizzas made from wraps for the littlies, a cheese and pickle sandwich for me. For tea, we've had fish fingers, fish in parsley sauce, random potato things, and green beans, followed by tinned fruit & cream - not wonderful stuff but that's 5 things used up, and I can see space in the freezers!! :rotfl:

I cleared out ALL my kitchen cupboards today - what a haul of OOD stuff I chucked, so cross with myself! Wouldn't mind if it was just a bit OOD, but some of the things were 2 years over! :mad:

Lots of meal planning tomorrow around the stuff I've re-discovered!

A xo

LIzzieM

Had my first grocery spend of £53.40 today but that include my freezer supplies so £46.60 for the rest of the month (my abdominal surgery site has been playing up so I haven't been able to do a great deal on my own). But everything is organised and in there (plus written down in my 'storecupboard' book) so hopefully I'll be able to get through the month with what I've got and save a little as it's my niece's birthday next month

Good luck to all, and hope the weather is staying ok where you are (I'm in the West Midlands and we're forecast for T&L + rain both tomorrow and Saturday....:(

Lizzie