May 2022 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

Ouch, ouch, ouch! A massive £118.16 spent today, between the butcher, Baker, market & supermarket! And I still have to do the non-perishables run to L!dls, sometime early next week; it'll be tight for the rest of the month. We have guests - different ones - for nearly every lunch & dinner this weekend, starting at lunchtime today, which I've just finished washing-up after; it's lovely to see them all, but the quartermaster in my head is muttering something about "eating us out of house & home!"

Off now to make chicken biryani & lentil Dahl for the Games Night tonight, which will be followed by HM strawberry ice-cream, made earlier from fresh Somerset strawberries...

Greying_Pilgrim

elsiepac - I hadn't noticed the rhyme!  🤣 The pea soup always seems 'better' than the ingredients that go into it IYSWIM.  Definitely just the job on a cold day, or if you've got caught in a downpour or something.

K9sandFelines said:

I've never made it before but thought it sounded nice. I bought kale for it, but have no celery😒, so might carry the recipe over or omit the celery. I had rice last night and forgot it had rice in it, so don't really want it again. @Greying_Pilgrim With having mostly paprika in, is it a bit like Goulash? 

Not really.  I should say if anything it's more like a pilaf style dish.  I think the original has meat in it - if nowt else, a ham hock bone would be used to make the stock that the rice then absorbs as it cooks, but i make mine veggie, so use a veggie stock cube.  Speaking entirely personally, I like the celery 'depth' of flavour, it and the parsley seem to give the dish something.  But I realise that some people are allergic to celery, and would leave it out anyway.  But I like celery as a base in dishes.  The recipe that I use to make my Hoppin John is from the Deal & DeLuca cookbook, and there isn't paprika in that version.  

Greying X

JingsMyBucket

Darn you @Greying_Pilgrim, now I want a cheese sandwich. I’m hungry while typing this up. 

Our £20 veg box came today. We haven't ordered it in a while because we've been all over the darn place. Mr. Jings wants to start having it again once a week or so. Their produce lasts so long it's insane. Here's what we got in this box: 

• Tomatoes
• Gem lettuce 
• Broccoli
• Cucumber 
• Cauliflower 
• Red bell pepper 
• Potatoes (in the brown bag)
• Scallions (what’s known as salad onions in the UK)
• Strawberries 
• Bananas 
• Tangeries 
• Pears 
• Mango
• Pineapple 

The strawberries are particularly gorgeous today! I deliberately requested no apples this time around because we almost never get around to using them unless I make a crumble. We also usually get onions as well as garlic but they were conspicuously absent this time around. Oh yeah, and carrots are missing too. Weird. I’m wondering if they either forgot them or they’re just running low between seasons right now. Nonetheless, this still helps with the veg intake for the upcoming week and helps me plan my shopping trip for tomorrow. 

£20/£250 spent

£230 remaining

Tomorrow I'll visit Tesco and Aldi for various items and doubling up on many of them. I'll try to keep myself to the £35 remaining for the week. 

• Eggs
• Ham cold cuts
• Greek yoghurt 
• Milk 
• Lemons 
• Berries
• Toilet paper 
• Cilantro (coriander)
• Carrots 
• Something else I don't remember because I'm hungry!

K9sandFelines

Greying_Pilgrim said:

K9sandFelines said:

I've never made it before but thought it sounded nice. I bought kale for it, but have no celery😒, so might carry the recipe over or omit the celery. I had rice last night and forgot it had rice in it, so don't really want it again. @Greying_Pilgrim With having mostly paprika in, is it a bit like Goulash? 

Not really.  I should say if anything it's more like a pilaf style dish.  I think the original has meat in it - if nowt else, a ham hock bone would be used to make the stock that the rice then absorbs as it cooks, but i make mine veggie, so use a veggie stock cube.  Speaking entirely personally, I like the celery 'depth' of flavour, it and the parsley seem to give the dish something.  But I realise that some people are allergic to celery, and would leave it out anyway.  But I like celery as a base in dishes.  The recipe that I use to make my Hoppin John is from the Deal & DeLuca cookbook, and there isn't paprika in that version.  

Greying X

Thanks for your reply. I can only find recipes online with paprika in, I guess maybe because of the omission of bacon, as they are Vegan. I think I will wait and do it with celery; as I'd like to do it properly, at least for the first time to see if I actually like it, and would make it again. 

ancientmum

I've had a spendy week, £15.18 at Waitrose ( reduced from £24.18 using money off vouchers), £20 at the butchers, £4.60 at the market and around £8 at Sains. 
The meat was a special offer, which when I added up the individual prices for two packs of mince, a pack of huge chicken legs and another of chicken breasts came to over £24, so worth the outlay and which will last me a couple of months.

Pinwheel

Hello,

Thank you @joedenise for the rice advice.  Unfortunately I won't be able to use it this week because the shelves of L**l were mostly bare tonight!  Saying that I managed to spend more than I wanted to then stopped at S*******ys  on the way home for some of the things I couldn't get, yoghurt, tinned plum tomatoes, passata, mozzarella and what I thought were tinned lentils.  I accidentally picked up chick peas which I had already bought for almost half the price in L**l.  So annoying!

Anyway I spent a massive £88.93 in total.  

mumtoomany

@Soontobeoap.  I don't buy everything for all eight of us. If son in law wants individual cheeses or reach cooked mini sausages, or blueberries in January, for example, for the children's lunch boxes, he buys them. If I'm doing the lunch boxes the children get, home made popcorn, carrot sticks, fruit in jelly, (fruit reduced, bought in season, last year and frozen). DD3 buys some of her own bits too. She eats a lot of veggie stuff, but eats veg, potatoes, etc and sometimes the meat we're having.  Most meals for most of us are included though. The budget also  includes toilet rolls, washing up liquid, etc. We, or should i say i, grow a lot of veg and some fruit, we keep chickens so have eggs, and never have to pay for lamb! 
I'm always on the lookout for bargains. This week I got a gallon of strawberry yogurt and a gallon of raspberry yogurt for £2. Yogurt for breakfast most days for a while! Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

Blackcats

tykemum said:

£41.95 at MrT - top up shop for the week, a few fresh bits and milk etc. Hoping to stretch it to Monday but will likely need more bread over the weekend. Does anyone else go through loaves of bread in the blink of an eye? 

Current;
Food - £52.19
Eating out - £51.24 (OH had a course and got lunch/coffee from coffee shop)

Tykemum - if there is a convenient olio food waste hero near you there is often lots of bread offered.  Last week I had a seeded wholemeal finest loaf and a packet of lovely flatbreads.  Yesterday I got a seeded sourdough loaf and a packet of wholemeal wraps.  It's been ages since I've bought bread. 

nannygladys

Thank goodness no spends at all today and none hopefully until later next week!

Hettyhound

@K9sandFelines just had to google hoppin John as I’d never heard of it.  Found a vegan version on holy cow vegan website; no celery or paprika.