March 2022 Grocery Challenge

pamsdish

I too followed a couple of your links @elsiepac,
spent £27 in A1d1 this a.m. including a bottle of whisky.

Need2bthrifty

It's been a pricey week for me with costly items from the supermarket like coffee, toilet rolls and I treated myself to a deli pizza from @sda along with the usual top-up of dairy, fruit and veg. S/m spends = £17.35 and a visit to the fish shop = £3.20. Total = £20.55

I chopped and changed around with my meal plan this past week; didn't get around to some things and made some convenience subs so for the next few days I'll be in use up mode but I usually try and plan on a rota of

Fish/Seafood (includes fresh, tinned and frozen)

Meat (includes beef, pork or lamb as well as gammon, bacon & sausages)

Veggie (includes beans/lentils/ as well as vegetarian pasta & rice dishes)

Chicken (includes turkey & eggs)

 

So far the plan includes teriyaki salmon and stir fried vegetables for tonight.

I have some puff pastry to use up so could be sausage rolls tomorrow.

 

Running total so far = £66.45/80.00

mumtoomany

Hi all, retrospective meal plan for the week.
7th. Shepherds pie(HG mutton) cabbage, HG.
8th. (Hidden) vegetable and chicken curry, chicken from Sunday. Chippaties, YS.
9th. Sausage YS, mash, peas, corn on the cob YS. cabbage, ( for the two who won't eat corn!)
10th. Chicken and bacon pie, chicken from Sunday, 21 portions from it, plus stock, carrots, broccoli HG.
11th tortellini YS, pasta sauce, home made.
12th. Having chicken kiev, potato wedges, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, carrot and Swede mash.
13th. having Breaded fish, probably, don't know what with yet.

Spent £3.40 on for bottle of milk, total to date £458.71/£2640.
Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

Greying_Pilgrim

elsiepac you do sterling work on this thread - THANK YOU

I've spent the morning baking.  I wanted to have a bash at Spiced Parsnip & Apple cake, which is off the RebelRecipes blog, and I also made MemoryGirl's Jamaican Ginger Cake because ginger cake usually gets better for leaving a day or two after making and before eating. 

I'm afraid I can't find a link for MemoryGirl's recipe - does anyone else remember Elaine from MSE?  I'm reasonably sure that the recipe was on MSE, but I know that it was also on MemoryGirl's blog, so she may well have taken it off here to avoid copyright issues.  I'm not sure if MG has a blog anymore......

Now, despite me wanting to have a bash at the spiced parsnip & apple cake - to use some of the parsnips/apple I got in the MrL box, I didn't have; neither can my budget sustain, a bag of buckwheat flour.  Undeterrred, having seen some spelt bread flour on special in MrM (£1 for 1kg), I researched to see if bread flour could be used in place of cake flour.  Now, the cooks amongst you will be shrieking at the screen that bread flour is completely different to cake flour as they have to have different properties to perform differently in the creation process.  But I found reference on the internet to adding cornstarch to breadflour to make it 'more' like cake flour.  I have cornflour in my cupboard, so thought I would give it a go......It worked.  Kind of........  Have I got a 'cake', well yes and no.  I would liken it more to a pudding.  If anyone has ever eaten bread pudding from an independent baker, then it's MUCH more like that, than like fruit 'cake'.  

But it's edible and more importantly LG ate it and liked it...... (no dear reader, I did NOT mention the presence of parsnips....).  So i'm glad I had a bash.  I followed the recipe for inspiration, but I didn't follow the recipe ingredients.  I used spelt flour (with cornflour), used cows milk rather than plant milk, white vinegar in place of cider vinegar, sunflower oil in place of coconut oil and pitted ordinary dates soaked in hot water rather than medjool dates.  The guidance for 'cutting' bread flour with cornstarch is 1 cup of flour to 3 tablespoons of cornstarch.  My 150g of spelt flour was 3/4 cup, so I used 2 tablespoons of cornflour.  I also had whole linseeds, so blitzed 3 tablespoons up in my blender.

I made both my cakes in flat tray pans.  I think I will write up Memorygirl's recipe to use 1.5 x the ingredients list, in future, as it would make a nice 'slice', with a bit more batter.  It is slightly thinner than I wished.  The parsnip cake was too, so I would make that in a smaller tray if I made it again.  If I made the parsnip cake again, and if i was using the cheaper dates, I would make sure I pureed them first before blitzing the other ingredients.  As they were slightly harder, it took longer to blitz the ingredients - which I should have realised was a no-no given I was using flour with gluten in it.


Spiced Parsnip & Apple Cake


Memory Girl's Jamaican Ginger Cake

Greying X
  

Smoosh

84p yesterday on a big tub of yoghurt (YS), a vegan "fish" and chip ready meal (YS) and a malt loaf (YS).

£2.90 today on 20 coffee pods.

£94.67/£200

Ginmonster

@Greying_Pilgrim The blog was Mortgage Free in 3 I think. It's still there but she doesn't update it anymore and has let the security certificate on the site lapse so your browser will give you lots of warnings telling you not to go there but if you override that you can access it. Is this the recipe you used?
https://www.mortgagefreeinthree.com/jamaica-ginger-cake/

Greying_Pilgrim

Ginmonster - You're a star - that's precisely MG's blog - I had totally forgotten what it was called.  But that is also the same recipe quantities.  The only difference, with the cake I made was that I used half and half treacle and golden syrup - I think that is because I always think of ginger cake as darker in colour, rather than a certain brands rather famous 'golden syrup' cake.  But I do have treacle and syrup in my store, so am able to do that.  And yes, the small amount of black pepper is what I remembered and prompted me to want to make the cake, as I finally have a (cheap) black pepper grinder that produces nice small flakes of pepper, rather than great huge pebbles of fiery pepper.  I haven't made the cake for years - don't think I have in LG's lifetime - so it was nice to revisit.

Thank you for searching it out Ginmonster, much appreciated.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Well, the pasta bake went better than anticipated last night...... LG ate most of the portion on their plate.  They moaned about the mozarella when it was hot and stringy, and then moaned about the mozarella when it had cooled and gone squeaky......... 🙄  However, all other parts of the bake were eaten, as was the accompanying broccoli.  So a win in my book.  I have one tub of YS'd pasta sauce left, so I think I will use it to make lentil bolognese this week.  

This weeks meal plan is going to be heavy on things we either have in store, or using frozen portions of previous meals.  

M - The Royal Marsden's Chickpea and sweet potato stew with bulghar
T - Cinnamon Apple Turnip Soup
W - Black bean chilli and rice
Th - Staffordshire Lobby (vegetarian version)
F - Lentil bolognese and pasta
Sa - Curry plate with rice
Su - Quorn filet, mash potatoes and veg

Tuesday's soup is a new recipe that I have not used before, but I've a turnip, and I'm gonna try it! 🤣 I have made the Chickpea & sweet potato stew before.  I originally got the recipe from the recipe book that the Royal Marsden hospital published (you will know it is a specialist cancer treatment centre), but I have found a link for the recipe online BUT it is published by the dAilyWail, and I know that we all have our own ideas and values about MSM, so I will add the link, but please be aware, that it is posted on a newspaper website.  Please don't click on the link if it will offend.  Thank you.

The Royal Marsden's Chickpea and sweet potato stew 

I've some Staffordshire Lobby already made in the freezer, so will be using that on Thursday.  I was going to make a stew with some of that rather famous 'black liquid' that hails from Dublin, as it is St Patrick's day, but a) it's a 'school night' and b) it's without my budget at the mo.  My lobby doesn't have beef/meat in it, I make it with chestnut mushrooms.

Saturday's curry plate will be made up of l/o curries out of the freezer.

Greying X

_Moving_On_Up_

Morning all

@Greying_Pilgrim I've never heard of Staffordshire Lobby before so had to google it, love reading through these threads and finding new or local recipes. Your mention of ginger cake has made me want to make a ginger loaf, and I think I've got everything in I need to do it so think I'll do a spot of baking this afternoon 

Been to Lidl today and spent £38.39. Didn't think I needed that much but then I always end up spending more than I thought I would. No bargains to be had today, £3.82 was spent on my food stores (cereal, a couple of tins, 1kg of pasta, teriyaki sauce and a bottle of ketchup, getting a nice little stash now). Rest was on fruit and veg, milk, bread, the usual really! Meal planned through to Wednesday so shouldn't need anything else until Thursday now.

Meal Plan
Today - leftover Chicken Pasta Bake
Monday - Toad in the hole with mash and veg
Tuesday - Veggie stir fry for us, Turkey burgers and chips for the boys
Wednesday - Spaghetti Bolognese

Total spends £188.42/£460

DawnW

Spent £10 at the market this morning on bargainous gammon steaks and cheese. 5 packs of 2 gammon steaks for £5, 3 packs of posh branded vintage cheddar for £3. Left one pack of gammon in the fridge, froze the rest.

Start of this week's menu plan:

Today: leftover frittata with salad and chips

Monday: Jacket potatoes with tuna mayo and salad

Tuesday: Fish with ratatouille (both from freezer) with new potatoes and vegetables

Wednesday: Gammon steaks, not sure what with yet.

Lunches are usually sandwiches, soup or something on toast

OH usually has toast for breakfast, sometimes with an egg, other times with HM marmalade. I generally have porridge, fruit and yogurt.