February 2022 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

joedenise said:

It's a bag of food which would otherwise be wasted.  They vary in price depending on where you get them from.  You need to download the Too Good To Go app to your phone and then check what time you can collect the bags and about 15 minutes later than that you can Reserve a bag for the following day.

You never know what you're going to get so it's just a case of going on the app at the right time (Morrisons is about 9.15pm) and if there are any bags available you need to Reserve it and pay.  You then get sent a code which you use to pick up the bag the following day from the Customer Services.

Morrisons bags are £3.09 each and Costa are £3.  Different shops charge different amounts; it also covers all sorts of shops - in a big town near us there is one of the Asian All you can Eat places and they always seem to have bags but you can't pick them up until after 10pm which is too late for us when we're in that area!

Thank you Joedenise. I will look into it to see if that works on the Isle of Wight.

joedenise

@Soontobeoap - there are a few places on the Isle of Wight - I just had a look on the app for you!  Morrisons at Lake is one of the places and also Sloop Pizza.  Don't know if either of those are any good for you but there were 2 or 3 more places which I didn't look at.

nannygladys

No money spent today, but did go the the food hub and got some fruit and veg for the weekend, includes raspberries, strawberries, kale and mushrooms, and a small pot of star anise that a lady encouraged me to try, shame I don't know where to use it!!!
Nannyg

joedenise

@nannygladys - I tend to add to things like stews but only use 1 to start with until you know whether you like the taste.  I've also used it in rice for flavour, particularly with Chinese.  You don't actually eat them as they are just for flavour so need to pick them out before serving!

goldfinches

@nannygladys - about the star anise, mine has kept for mumble mumble years in its jar in the cupboard and apart from savoury dishes I've used it very successfully to add to foraged blackberry jelly before the straining stage. 

Money_Choices

Hi Elsiepac

I would like my target to be £100. On 9 Feb I spent at our local Co-0p £15.48 which makes my target £15.48/£100.

Money Choices

weenancyinAmerica

Star anise also smells wonderful in Sprout day (in December) decorations and in potpourri.

PipneyJane

@nannygladys, as others have mentioned, star anise is used primarily in Chinese and south-east Asian cooking.  I use it in Beef Rendang, which is a Singaporean curry.  (The link is to the BBC recipes version, not the one from my ancient Oriental Cooking cookbook.)

On the sweet side, if you like the flavour of aniseed, I’m certain that I’ve seen recipes where it was used to flavour custard.

- Pip

Suffolk_lass

If you do use Star Anise, I recommend putting it in a small muslin bag so none escapes. I'm loving the idea of adding it to bramble jelly @goldfinches - that recollection reminded me of the Michael McIntyre spice jars sketch (says the woman who just threw out a jar dated 2008).

pamsdish

nannygladys said:

No money spent today, but did go the the food hub and got some fruit and veg for the weekend, includes raspberries, strawberries, kale and mushrooms, and a small pot of star anise that a lady encouraged me to try, shame I don't know where to use it!!!
Nannyg

Tom Kerridge has a great carrot recipe, he boils the carrots with a massive amount of butter and star anise, as the liquid is discarded I left the butter out.

Popped back to Aldi as fancied chips, picked up another whisky, may keep for stock, or, give it my neighbour for her birthday tomorrow. £14.39 added to sig.