August 2019 Grocery Challenge

[Deleted User]

Suffolk Lass - Thank you for the recipe. Like the sound of the sweet potatoes in there. Assuming the courgettes are unpeeled ??

Fairie - liking the sound of the banana bars. i have a ton of seeds. i don't eat eggs or have barley, but will try making with apple puree to bind and extra oats.


No spends as such. Bought some bits from bulk fund as month starts today. Will need to grab some bits today though.

PipneyJane

Fairie wrote: »

Banana Breakfast Bites (makes 12)

1 Banana
2 eggs
3-4 table spoons of seeds ( I used hemp, Chia and poppy)
Handful of barley flakes
2 handfuls of oats
1 chopped apple
Sprinkle of cinnamon

Mash banana and add eggs, whisk together. Add all other ingredients and mix together. Spoon mixture into oiled muffin/cake tin. Bake at 180C until lightly browned[/B]

I've just whipped this together as I've been using a similar method to make pancakes, but couldn't be bothered to stand at the hob for an hour. Came out really well and have gone down a hit with my girls. I've eaten 3 and I'm full. Saving the rest for tomorrows breakfast, hoping they taste good cold ��

Thanks for the recipe, Fairie. I'd use sunflower seeds instead of the mix you've specified - I always have them in stock. From where do you get your barley flakes?

PipneyJane wrote: »

Afternoon All

It's payday today, so I'll be taking my GC money out of the bank tonight - that purse is empty - and doing a small shop. We harvested almost all our loganberries the other night, so I'm after some good vanilla ice-cream to serve with them. (Our two-year-old plant only has one fruiting stem; our "harvest "was about a mug full of berries.)


Menu for most of this week:

Monday's dinner was Saag Gosht, made with leftover roast lamb from Sunday and some kale gifted by our neighbour.
Tuesday's was a pasta bake, made with a jar of sauce, a 500g packet of pasta quills, a can of sweetcorn and a can of pilchards in tomato sauce, with cheddar on top. (More to say about this in a moment.)
Tonight (Wednesday) Toad in the Hole, made with GigglyPig Wow-Wow Sausages, broccoli and, possibly, some of the green beans gifted by our neighbour. (I rarely eat green beans. Not my favourite.)
Thursday I think I'll make a White Fish Curry, using frozen fish from the freezer, with an elderly tub of plain yoghurt forming the base for the sauce.
Friday Some sort of Chinese stir-fry, using either a chicken breast or a pork chop from the freezer. I have to use up the glut of spring onion somehow.
Breakfasts Cereal
Lunches leftovers from the night before.


Now, about that jar of sauce. We always have a couple in stock for nights when we're too knackered to cook or when we're uninspired. Normally, they're own brand. At some point, Homepride Pasta Bake sauces were on sale, so we picked up a jar of their Creamy Tuna Pasta Bake. I used it last night because I thought it'd go well with the pilchards. Imagine my surprise when read the label and discovered that IT DOESN'T CONTAIN ANY tuna. Instead, the instructions say to add the drained contents of a 185g can of tuna to the sauce. Misleading to say the least!

(This was after I'd dumped the contents into my baking dish with the other ingredients. I'd wondered why I couldn't see any obvious bits of tuna.)

I am not impressed. It'll have to be considerably cheaper than MrT's own-brand for me to buy ever again.

- Pip


PS: If anyone has suggestions for making green beans into a dish, rather than just a boring side vegetable, please share them. I don't like the taste of frozen green beans, but fresh are fine. They're definitely a vegetable that tastes different when frozen.

Slight change of plan. DH is working from home today, so I've asked him to make a stir-fry and have taken a pork shoulder steak out to defrost. I've also suggested he adds the green beans.

I'll make the White Fish Curry tomorrow night, to use up the elderly plain yoghurt from the fridge. There's a thread around here about eating out of date food. If that yoghurt was any older, it'd be able to drive. Still, while I was in Lidl last night, I took the precaution of purchasing another tub, just in case the existing one is growing fur. (I've been caught out before.)

Including the yoghurt, I spent £12.32 in Lidl last night. I didn't get everything on my Lidl shopping list - it's quite obvious that our local branch doesn't restock every day, the shelves were half empty - but I didn't get anything extra bar the yoghurt. The list was 2 jars of their freeze-dried, instant coffee (I'm restocking the store cupboard), 500g butter plus several bars of their cheapest dark chocolate (it's my birthday on the weekend, so I'm making chocolate brownies to bring into work), and a tub of vanilla ice-cream (to have with our loganberries last night).

The above spend brings my total for August to £12.32/£120, leaving £107.68 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

Save_Dosh wrote: »

Suffolk Lass - Thank you for the recipe. Like the sound of the sweet potatoes in there. Assuming the courgettes are unpeeled ??

Fairie - liking the sound of the banana bars. i have a ton of seeds. i don't eat eggs or have barley, but will try making with apple puree to bind and extra oats.


No spends as such. Bought some bits from bulk fund as month starts today. Will need to grab some bits today though.

Yes.

Sadly i have just had to bin a complete week's batch. DH dropped one of those tiny 2-pin GU4 bulbs while trying to replace it in the extractor hood. I have just found glass in my mouth so the whole lot has gone in the compost heap I had used my stick wand to liquidize it all and heard a funny noise. As soon as I felt it in my mouth I realised where the bulb had ended up.

Doom_and_Gloom

So we have officially started August. One big shop later and we are already down £90.31 of our £200 budget :eek:.

Veggie stir fry with peanut miso sauce for dinner tonight.
OH will be having soup with toast.

£90.31/£200
£109.69.

Suffolk lass that is really unfortunate. Hope it doesn't hit the budget to much.

[Deleted User]

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Sadly i have just had to bin a complete week's batch. DH dropped one of those tiny 2-pin GU4 bulbs while trying to replace it in the extractor hood. I have just found glass in my mouth so the whole lot has gone in the compost heap I had used my stick wand to liquidize it all and heard a funny noise. As soon as I felt it in my mouth I realised where the bulb had ended up.

Wow, that's scary. Thankfully you're all ok. Couldn't find sweet potatoes in market on way back from appointment and then got distracted (like you do) and went blackberry picking, such a beautiful day. They are out so early this year. Will maybe make blackberry liqueur.

zafiro1984

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Yes.

Sadly i have just had to bin a complete week's batch. DH dropped one of those tiny 2-pin GU4 bulbs while trying to replace it in the extractor hood. I have just found glass in my mouth so the whole lot has gone in the compost heap I had used my stick wand to liquidize it all and heard a funny noise. As soon as I felt it in my mouth I realised where the bulb had ended up.

Scarey, glad you are all OK

I haven't spent anything of the budget today even though I was out and about shopping for our business and had the opportunity to spend as one of the 'stop offs' was for petrol at Sainsbury.
I've made myself a spreadsheet and can now add my daily £12.86p to tomorrow's spend which means if I need something I have a total of £25.72 to spend and not a penny more.

Food today was lastnight's leftovers for lunch and things that needed eating up out of the fridge for tea.

FoxFace

Hi everyone!

Can I throw myself in here please? I haven't managed to complete a full month in ages, but I'm determined! Things are going well, but wasting money on food is one of our biggest downfalls, as I sometimes run out of energy to make a meal and we end up grabbing something convenient instead

So I'm here with a strict £80 per week this month. And I'm reverting back to cash only and stashing my receipts so I feel more accountable.

Thanks to those running the thread and good luck to everyone

Cheapskate

After months of not properly budgeting, I've started in earnest this week - NSD yesterday, and the only planned spends today are non-food items, although I'll have the kids with me so I'll have to resist their wiles!! :rotfl:

Tomorrow's jobs include a complete food stocktake and meal planning - the cupboards and freezers are groaning, so I should be able to feed us all for weeks with minimal extra shopping - it's just bad habits and fatigue due to a chronic health issue that stops me from being organised.

Today we'll have a sort of salad for tea - veg to use up, got cooked meat and cheese, enough spuds to make a potato salad, tinned fish, and then bananas and custard for pud.

A xo

Fairie

PipneyJane wrote: »

Thanks for the recipe, Fairie. I'd use sunflower seeds instead of the mix you've specified - I always have them in stock. From where do you get your barley flakes?

- Pip

I got them from our local plastic free loose shop. It's a little more expensive for the basics, but they have sourced some interesting ingredients that make our diet more varied, and it means that I only need to get what I need rather than a whole packet. And of course there is no plastic so good for the planet too.

As an update, I have just finished eating the last batch, will make another batch with some chopped nuts as well as seeds I think. I have been enjoying them warmed with a tiny bit of jam on. They taste fine cold, but Im enjoying the luxury of being able to have the time to warm them! 😊

Good thing you noticed about the glass SuffolkLass! 😮

We had hm vegetable vegan lasagna for tea, I experimented with making a vegan chesse sauce substitute with cashew nuts and nutritional yeast. Was very yummy. Served it with a salad and used some balsamic vinegar that has been lurking at the back of the cupboard for an age.

Hm fish pie tonight using reduced price fish mix and mussels from the freezer. Shall have to experiment with making a white sauce from oats or nuts so dairy free partner can eat it. Off to search the interweb for recipe inspiration.


Strangely, I have noticed that I have conflicting feelings of enjoyment of saving money and also the draw to go shopping, even though we don't need anything. Sigh, the psychology of limits, even if they are self-imposed. 🙈

[Deleted User]

Fairie wrote: »

We had hm vegetable vegan lasagna for tea, I experimented with making a vegan chesse sauce substitute with cashew nuts and nutritional yeast. Shall have to experiment with making a white sauce from oats or nuts so dairy free partner can eat it. Off to search the interweb for recipe inspiration.

Sounds lovely. You can make a white sauce the same way as usual, just swap out the ingredients. Make a roux with flour and dairy free spread. Flora Buttery dairy free is my current fave, and add milk, soya is probably best as it has a neutral taste. If you wanted to then make the white sauce into a cheese sauce, just add nutritional yeast, or dairy free cheese, makes it a lot more cost effective than using nuts and just as tasty imo.