March 2022 Grocery Challenge

nannygladys

Just coming in to say hi as I haven't spent anything for a few days.
Nannyg

Greying_Pilgrim

Made the Puy lentil stew with winter vegetable mash for tea.  I made it with what I had, so used brown lentils rather than Puy, used celery instead of courgette.  bay leaf, worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar in place of the tamari, miso and soy sauce and threw in a few bits of dried mushroom for added umami.  For the mash, I simply boiled the veg, rather than roasted.  I used some of the parsnips and half the butternut squash from the Lidl veg box, along with the lone (small) sweet potato from the same box, and a lone potato out of the fridge.  I cut the parsnips, B/nut squash. and sweet potato up small, and cut up the potato as normal.  They all cooked equally and mashed reasonably easily.  Having never made anything more exotic than potato & swede mash, I have to say, it was delish - sooooooo tasty!  i topped with a splodge of greek yoghurt, some chopped up roasted parsnips (left over from Sunday's 'roast' dinner), and sprinkled some red pepper flakes over the top.  Delish and can be made relatively economically, so a keeper of a recipe for me.  There are 2 servings of the stew left over to pop in the freezer.



Let me know if you'd rather I didn't clutter up the thread with pictures of us tea.

Greying X

Ginmonster

Please do show us pictures of your tea @Greying_Pilgrim. That looks yummy. I'll definitely give that recipe a go some time. 

Smoosh

Love the pictures @Greying_Pilgrim

goldfinches

I find the photos very interesting @Greying_Pilgrim as well as the feedback about taste, subsitutes and method etc. Those are all the sort of details that help when trying to decide whether or not to buy an unfamiliar ingredient or make a new to you recipe. This is one area that I find the internet really useful for and where it is better than recipe books alone. I also agree with you about brown lentils being the nicest tasting and don't really like puy lentils at all.

Anyway, I just popped by to claim a NSD after yesterday's extravagances, night all, goldfinches. 

nannygladys

Your dinner looks and sounds very tasty and not too difficult to make Greying_Pilgrim.

Doom_and_Gloom

£25.92 spent at Mr S.

This was mostly to stock up on items we were missing or low on.

8th - 14th plan for me.

Breakfasts -
Porridge with fruit.
Green smoothie.
Cereal with plant milk.

Lunch-
Quinoa salad.
Temperh stir fry.
Tempeh salad.

Dinners -
Pizza and salad x2.
Shepherdless pie and side vegetables x 3
Japanese curry, soya chunks with vegetables and rice (using the other half of the roux that I used before that is in the fridge) x2.

Snacks -
Fruit.
Vegetables with houmous. 

£93.12/£170.50.
£77.38 left.

mumtoomany

Had to go to town as we were running out of fruit. Ended up a huge shop. Morrisons had reduced sausages and pasta, as well as bread and crumpets. Had to buy OH some beer. So £49.78 spent in there. Cash and carry had loads of bargains in the reduced freezers. Spent £27.76 in there and got all this lot, and some cream. Included stacks of part backed rolls and  bagettes, six packet of crumpets, four kg of bacon,, a kg of sliced ham, pack of pastrami, 16 pizza bases and 16 half pound burgers. This lot from the veg shop for £6.50. Then Aldi for the shopping we needed. Will only need milk i think now for a few weeks. Total spent yesterday £101.85. Total for the year, £455.01/£2640. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

Greying_Pilgrim

Good haul there mumtoomany!  😊

I've nipped in to admit to a spend of £18.62, comprising 'main' shop in MrL and a couple of ys'd/on offer things from MrM.  No £1.50 boxes in MrL today 🙁

I have also bought a 10kg bag of basmati rice, which was on offer in MrM for £10.  £1 a kilo (or less) is the price I aim for with basmati, and it beat MrL (£10.99 for 10kg), so I bought a bag.  Will have to fiddle around with the other budgets as I'm 99.9% certain I am not going to be able to accommodate it in this month's extremely skinny spends!  However, we eat quite a bit of rice, it's coming to the end of 'old' potato season - indeed, I've almost finished my 25kg sack of tatties bought from the farm gate in October - so it will all be utilised.  Just not in one meal/one month!

Greying X

Ginmonster

I went into Aldi to restock on 2 bags of their blueberry and apple low sugar granola which is my son's fave and much cheaper than branded versions. I also needed cream crackers and burger buns and thankfully managed to find some that weren't brioche buns. I can't stand having a burger in what is essentially cake - bleurgh! The only deviation from the list was a bag of pears on special at 49p.

£4.85 spent so total now at £60.86/£200.