July 2020 Grocery Challenge

XSpender

£9.39 in Morries today on GF oats, GF bread, milk, GF biscuits and some sweeties for DS. I was hoping to stock up on the oats as I like the Morries ones and they come in big kilo bags.  There was only one left today probably because they were only £1.20/bag.

MrsSnowy

Hello elsiepac could you please put me down for   £150.......again....many thanks

Narola1976

Decided to pop in to Aldee today instead of Saturday as I needed to collect DD from work at 10pm so thought a good use of time as I would have gotten sleepy waiting until 9:30To collect her. These days I am in bed with the chickens lol.  So I got quite a bit of their pre- spiced stuff e.g bbq drumsticks etc. These are handy to just pop into the oven with a side salad. Spent £108.75 which I was pleased about as it is just under 2 weeks budget. I certainly got enough for a couple of weeks. I think weekly shopping wasn’t doing me any favours. I will still need a few bits of veg but nothing major. 

Suffolk_lass

joedenise said:

You've done brilliantly SL to reduce your budget so much.  Mine has actually gone up a bit as I now have separate budgets for bulk buys and alcohol on top of the normal budget.  Groceries are just stuff I buy in the SM apart from alcohol so includes things like toiletries & paper goods.

We can afford what we spend but I would really like to reduce it a bit but with DH complaining whenever we have anything vegetarian it's very difficult!  He even moans if there isn't much meat in a meal, even if there is protein in the form of pulses for example and I have no idea how I can get him to enjoy veggie foods a bit more!  He's fine with veggies on the side so that's something I suppose!

My starter in this direction was making chilli with just 100g of minced beef for 6 portions. I added finely chopped carrot and celery and then fell back on red lentils to pad it out. I nailed it when I added a YS pack of scraggy beef bits and left it all to go very brown over 24 hours in the slow cooker. That bit of scraggy off-cuts persuaded him it was full of meat, combined with spotting a bit of mince when he peered. The long slow cooking meant the flavour and texture matured nicely. I always make it like that now and add chick peas (I cook a pack of dried in the pressure cooker and freeze them), cheap baked beans and frozen borlotti beans (from the garden) instead of kidney beans. I sort of view it as weaning son off meat (rather than DH who eats what I cook!). Apparently it is famed with his friends now!!

joedenise

Thanks SL.  Think I'll have to give that a go!  If I can get 100g do 6 portions that would be brilliant!  I already add lentils and I use dried chickpeas quite a lot but never thought of adding them to a chilli - I just automatically add kidney beans!

There are a couple of veggie meals that DH will eat without too much complaining.  They are mixed bean goulash and chana masala.  I use dried mixed beans for the goulash (the ones I buy are from Waitrose and they contain 10 beans).  

When you do a whole pack of dried chickpeas do you have to cook them longer than you would for say 100g? or is it the same length of time?  I already use a pressure cooker to cook them but tend to only do 100g at a time when I need them, but if I could do the whole bag and freeze that would make life a bit easier sometimes.

Narola1976

Another small £7.85 spend at B & M. Total so far,  £116.60 of £275

PipneyJane

joedenise said:

Thanks SL.  Think I'll have to give that a go!  If I can get 100g do 6 portions that would be brilliant!  I already add lentils and I use dried chickpeas quite a lot but never thought of adding them to a chilli - I just automatically add kidney beans!

There are a couple of veggie meals that DH will eat without too much complaining.  They are mixed bean goulash and chana masala.  I use dried mixed beans for the goulash (the ones I buy are from Waitrose and they contain 10 beans).  

When you do a whole pack of dried chickpeas do you have to cook them longer than you would for say 100g? or is it the same length of time?  I already use a pressure cooker to cook them but tend to only do 100g at a time when I need them, but if I could do the whole bag and freeze that would make life a bit easier sometimes.

Hi @joedenise. Here's what I do. (I buy my dried chickpeas in the handy 2kg bag.)   I soak between 500g and 700g chickpeas overnight, drain them, dump them into a recycled bread bag and shove the bag in the freezer for at least 4 hours or until frozen.  Freezing them helps to break down the cell walls, reduces cooking times and gives a creamier texture to your humus.  When I'm ready to cook them, I'll take the bag out of the freezer, peal it off the lump of frozen chickpeas, dump that lump in the pressure cooker (mine's a 10L one), pour over a full kettle of boiling water and break up the lump with a wooden spoon.  I'll add enough additional water to ensure the chickpeas have an inch coverage, put the lid on and bring up to pressure.  I usually pressure cook them for 30 minutes.

HTH

- Pip

ETA:  I forgot to mention that I always cook at least a triple batch.  Once the pressure cooker is up to pressure, it'll take the same amount of time regardless of whether you're cooking 100g or 600g.

Nellbell21

Hi folks, I had every intention of doing this challenge a few months back then coronavirus happened.  With the kids at home the shopping has went out of control.  We topped £1000 in June and it’s just horrendous.  1 child is a great eater but my youngest is horrendous at the minute.  There is so few meals he will eat.🤷‍♀️  Anyway we are going for £800 this month.  Please don’t give me an ear bashing for June’s Bill, I feel terrible about it! X

Suffolk_lass

joedenise said:

Thanks SL.  Think I'll have to give that a go!  If I can get 100g do 6 portions that would be brilliant!  I already add lentils and I use dried chickpeas quite a lot but never thought of adding them to a chilli - I just automatically add kidney beans!

There are a couple of veggie meals that DH will eat without too much complaining.  They are mixed bean goulash and chana masala.  I use dried mixed beans for the goulash (the ones I buy are from Waitrose and they contain 10 beans).  

When you do a whole pack of dried chickpeas do you have to cook them longer than you would for say 100g? or is it the same length of time?  I already use a pressure cooker to cook them but tend to only do 100g at a time when I need them, but if I could do the whole bag and freeze that would make life a bit easier sometimes.

I soak them in a big jug until they expand to fill it and then do the whole lot for 45 minutes at pressure. When I strain them most of the skins come off (and I pick out any brown chick peas (nasty)) and fill take away-boxes that I have given a second life to (they often split when frozen so if you have room to put the open one in to freeze and then tip into a bag) and you have a portion approximately the same amount you would have in a tin. I just buy the bags from Morries but I think others buy the bigger bags. Don't forget the small lumps of meat or it really is spot the mince chilli! Mixed bean goulash sound lovely.

joedenise

Thanks @Suffolk_lass and @PipneyJane for the tips.  Will give both ways a go!  I'll use SL's way for when I want falafels and Pip's way when I want to make hummus!  That way I can try both ways and see what I like best!

The mixed bean goulash is based on Jack Monroe's recipe (www.cookingonabootstrap.com )