April 2022 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Wicked_Lady said:

Once they're fully ripe I just eat kiwi fruit as they are. Can be peeled, chopped and added to other fruit for a bit of fruit salad as well. They are full of Vitamin C so very good for you!

True and I love them that way.  I’m just not certain that I can get through 8, plus all the satsumas and bananas, before something starts to wilt.

The only dishes I can remember containing kiwi fruit are cheesecake and pavlova where, in both cases, one would be thinly sliced and arranged on top.

pamsdish said:

Something I noticed is that they’ve reduced the size of their packs of cooking acorn, 750g cooking bacon for 99p instead of 1kg for £1.49.  One pack bought. 

@PipneyJane that`s cheaper. 3/4 the size, 3/4 of £1.49 = £1.12 ish

Very true, @pamsdish.   Thank you for doing the maths.

- Pip

ragz_2

Oh I spent just over £30 on low carb bread as there was a 35% off offer, so I bought enough to fill the freezer but it will last for months. Helps to have rolls in for when DH does things like burgers for dinner and if I really really need a bacon roll! At the offer price, they're not much more than his GF breads, so I feel like that's okay but don't really want to take it off the month's budget. Should probably have a bulk buy fund, like others do - Lidl have an app coupon for 15% off the coffee I like, so I'd like to stock up on that too if possible.

Will be a bit of spending tomorrow as I've offered to cook a roast for SIL, her DH and their DS for her birthday on Sunday as we're going out with them for an activity and she suggested fish and chips afterwards, my budget really can't stretch to that this month. I reckon cooking a roast for 8 of us will cost me considerably less than fish and chips for 5... I've also offered to make a cake.
Will get as much as I can prepped tomorrow evening so we can still come back at 4pm and get on with it. 

Greying_Pilgrim

kayannie 

GP - I'm not an 'official' contributor to this thread, but love reading about you & your recipes. Regarding the burgers - if you have a tin of kidney beans, an onion & a carrot, you can quickly make some good burgers - it's a recipe from one of those eating well for less programmes. Chop onion, grate carrot & fry in oil for just a few minutes. Meanwhile drain beans & rinse to remove the 'gunk'. Blend beans with hand blender, or mash with fork, they'll just be a bit chunkier. Mix everything together, season well & form into burgers, using a bit of flour on hands. This makes 5 good sized burgers. Any kind of beans will do, I have used butter beans but they look a bit colourless.  Good to see someone else using The Bean Book!
KA

Ow, hey sweetie - you are so right!  Absolutely concur - 100%, HM beanburgers are simple and (relatively) inexpensive to make.  I use Jack Monroe's "9p burger" recipe as a default, but have others too.  However, I shall be honest, I'm not sure I've made many HM burgers/sausages since LG came on the scene.  Initially, when they were weaning, I did get them to eat HM falafel, but they fell by the wayside as 'fussiness' kicked in 🙄However, we're making progress (albeit slowly.......) with broadening tastes again, so certainly HM beanburgers will (hopefully) one day make a re-appearance!  😊  And as tea has just been munched INCLUDING HM wedges, which have routinely been sniffed at and refused...... *whispers* times they are a-changing......... 😉 However, the appearance of a particular 'brand' of burger on a meal plan may - in this instance - have something more to do with celebration, and sometimes the cost has to be absorbed if you can be certain the product will be enjoyed - and munched - by all 😉 

I made a 'new to me' soup recipe for lunch - I'm afraid I can't find a link, but it was from Judy Ridgway's book - " Quick and delicious vegetarian meals", and it was Spanish Lenten soup.  It featured onion, garlic, tinned chickpeas, tinned chopped tomatoes, veg stock, saffron (but I had none, so subbed, turmeric and paprika instead), and 2 cubes of frozen spinach.  It cooked in next to no time, and benefitted from an improvised teatowel 'haybox' arrangement, and just tasted... more than the sum of it's parts - if you see what I mean?  I love it when food does that for you........ 😊

Greying X

pamsdish

pamsdish said:

Something I noticed is that they’ve reduced the size of their packs of cooking acorn, 750g cooking bacon for 99p instead of 1kg for £1.49.  One pack bought. 

@PipneyJane that`s cheaper. 3/4 the size, 3/4 of £1.49 = £1.12 ish

Very true, @pamsdish.   Thank you for doing the maths.

- Pip

Once an accountant always an accountant.

PipneyJane

pamsdish said:

pamsdish said:

Something I noticed is that they’ve reduced the size of their packs of cooking acorn, 750g cooking bacon for 99p instead of 1kg for £1.49.  One pack bought. 

@PipneyJane that`s cheaper. 3/4 the size, 3/4 of £1.49 = £1.12 ish

Very true, @pamsdish.   Thank you for doing the maths.

- Pip

Once an accountant always an accountant.

What?  You too?  That makes two of us and I’m a Pam as well IRL.

I must admit that I was bemoaning the fact that they’ve reduced the quantity when I wrote my post, and hadn’t considered the increase in value.  It’s all rather arbitrary but 1kg of bacon seems to stretch much further (4-5 meals plus HM pork scratchings) than 750g, which only gets 2-3, once you trim off the fat.

- Pip

pamsdish

£22.80 In a1d1, veg mostly, needed butter and a 2.2 k leg of lamb with 30% off, going to try to cut it in half.

Suffolk_lass

Collected a TGTG bag last night. The lovely woman on customer services remembered I prefer F&V and I got an absolute bumper haul. Burst packaging only on in-date Strawberries, black grapes, 3 packs of (4) pears with one missing (11), 2 nets of large onions and a bag of red onions, a pack of two pak choi, some wonky potatoes, a pack of trimmed leeks and some organic mushrooms (which DH had for breakfast omelette). £3.09

Unable to use my offer for butter - none in store except Lurpak spreadable stuff (mixed with oil). That is the third time running that there has been no butter available in store.

I also splurged and bought some big square pizzas and we shared one last night.  Keeping the second one for DS who will be cat and house sitting for us.

That will be it for us this month as we are off on Hols on Tuesday until May. £129.96 this month including subscriptions and stores. £37.5% of my annual budget spent so still above what it should be for 1/3 of the year gone (actual over spend is £125.68 for this stage of my annual budget).

thriftwizard

£78.35 spent yesterday, between the supermarket, the butcher, the baker & even the greengrocer, bringing my total up to £346.23. Needless to say, everything has gone a bit pear-shaped; my brother, who was coming for the weekend, decided to postpone until next weekend as my little grandson tested positive on Wednesday; I'd spent a couple of hours cuddling him on Tuesday. (Still fine here!) So we're down one in numbers; I'd already sorted the catering, but that just means more leftovers. But Ds2 & family (all now positive) are clearly unable to trot off to Wales to visit Ds1 & partner, so I may end up dropping roast beef & all the trimmings down to them instead! Ah well, still within budget, but catering for much hilarity next weekend too may push us over...

OrkneyStar

I have now decided how I am going to do shops this month - once a week to bigger town 13 miles away (Lidl/Tesco/butcher/diesel), and smaller top up shops locally (Coop, which is more expensive but I do find we top up on things from there that run out more than once a week, such as bread/local rolls, local eggs, sometimes milk, sometimes fruit - especially if the money off offers come up). With that in mind I withdrew £60 cash today, spending £40 on diesel and a Lidl 'atypical shop', leaving me with £20 for throughout the week. Future weekly withdrawals will be £50 - £40 to do bigger shop/get diesel and £10 for 'through the week' top ups. It will be tight but it's doable and I am already much more motivated to keep within a budget than I have been in a while. This weeks 'through the week' money is more than it will be other week, so I might see if I can snap up any yellow bargains in the Coop, it will be in the evenings and it's nice to get a walk in the summer nights. Thanks for reading and good luck all.

pamsdish

pamsdish said:

£22.80 In a1d1, veg mostly, needed butter and a 2.2 k leg of lamb with 30% off, going to try to cut it in half.

Got a piece roughly 50% off boneless,  frozen, the remainder, with the bone sticking out I will cook for lunch tomorrow and Monday.