May 2022 Grocery Challenge

pamsdish

£23.55 in L1DL, had a £5 off £40 spend, needed to stock up with chicken for new dog, pet exes separate, 

elsiepac

@pamsdish lovely to meet Ebony! Hope you're keeping well

@Greying_Pilgrim I do love the Cookies and Kate website - lots of fun ideas

@Suffolk_lass thanks for doing the breakdown.  I had come to a similar sort of conclusion using rough figures to be honest so it's good to see it written down!

The delivery came yesterday...

My extra bits - exactly what I was expecting so I'm happy with that.  Tried a chickpea flour omelette yesterday morning as it came early and it was very nice - this is something I'll try and source non organic and locally as I feel like it's a good staple for me so I'm glad I tried it.  The Worcester sauce was bought from them for convenience - I know where I can get it but not locally but this will last ages.



Next, the free gift! Happy with this! I will save this olive oil for "good stuff" like salad dressings so it doesn't go to waste!



Now, the med veg box.  Very pleased that there were 2 aubergines, the shallots are gorgeous, the tomatoes smell AMAZING and the round courgettes look delicious.  The peppers were a little soft and I used one last night and it had black bits in it - cut them out but wasted probably a 1/4 of it!! Disappointed with the amount of mushrooms and the peppers had been on them so a couple were a little squished so I used them yesterday.



Finally the medium veg box.  Leeks and pak choi - excellent and the salad bag looks good too.  The red pepper feels about a week fresher than those yellow ones!  Carrots and potatoes - fine, they are what they are.  Aubergine - good. The cherry toms are very disappointing compared to the med ones - look at the colour difference!!! Spring onions - very very thin and filthy and one at least has manky bits.  They are going to be a lot of effort for little reward to use annoyingly.



So in summary: all very much as expected - better veg overall in the med box but seemed less fresh.  Medium veg box ok but not "wow".  

I've pressed skip for next week's med veg box, and kept the medium one as there's some nice bits in there that aren't potato or carrot.  I still get 50% off the 4th box of each so I may alternate them each weekly until I have that and then cancel.  Or I may cancel before as it is expensive.

Oddbox isn't in my area sadly - I have looked at them before.

There is a veg place in Nailsworth that delivers to my area but the choice is a bit limited. So silly that I live in the country and yet cities get more options for the veg that comes from the country lol

SausageDogSandwich

Afternoon everyone, NSD yesterday, not feeling great today so had my grocery delivery today while I’m home all day anyway. Spent £60.63 but as I mentioned in previous post had £20 off. I wouldn’t of got my shopping cheaper from anywhere else I don’t think. Included some fruit, fresh veg and salad, frozen veg, frozen potato products, cheese, milk, 2kg of lentils, instant noodles, some baking stuff, dental sticks for the sausages and a princess cup cake kit for my little one, she loves to make these with no help. And a few other bits. No missing items or substitutions, unfortunately it was packed in to many paper bags though, there was no option for bagless. 

My new total £129.97/£150 with 9 days to go. I have reserved a TGtG bag for later, as I’ve wanted one for weeks as it has great reviews but kept missing it, finally got one today. Aiming for 4 NSDs for the rest of the week now. 

Vanlady

£144.29/£200

Hello everyone, 
A spend of £14.11 today, not planned but couldnt resist some of the offers in Mr M,s, as I was passing in the van. SR flour and plain flour cheaper than Aldi,  plus 4 pack tins of own brand baked beans at £1.09 instead of 35p per tin in Aldi, so 2 packs bought. I'm trying to be  a bit more savvy and compare prices, time consuming I know but it seems there are savings to be made. Plus I feel that sm's are in more than normal competition at the minute??? 

Next shop planned on Friday at Aldeees.

Elsiepac, love the sound of that green harrisa paste - sadly none in mr M's, but I will keep looking.

EssexHebridean - thankyou for your offer of a code for ODDbo*, trouble is, I just dont think wed get through it all.  

And a big woofy welcome to Ebony, she/ he's a beauty Pamsdish x


Edited as I forgot £8 today was spent on household goods which I dont include in my GC, so.....
£136.29/££200
Phew, that's better

Vanlady

Meant to add, Jingsmybucket, I also like to see my fridge half empty, or even almost empty,  it makes me feel more organised and less pressurised in having to do mammoth cook-offs then to make sure nothing is wasted. 
X

joedenise

Forgot to buy peppers so popped into Mr Ms while I was in the next town for my SW group and bought a pack of 3 for 99p - cheapest I've seen anywhere.  One of the peppers had a small mould mark on it so I contacted customer services and they have refunded the 99p onto my More card so will get that off my next shop in there.  Also have a £10 voucher to use at some point but no desperation as there isn't an end date.   Have spent £72.46/£200.  Doesn't look a lot but don't think I've missed anything off, although quite a lot of things have been included in the bulk fund, eg UHT milk which we use all the time I always buy from the bulk fund but some gets used during the month so probably ought to be included in the GC but it's easier for me just to include it all in the bulk fund - hope that makes sense (well it does to me!).

Wraithlady

JingsMyBucket said:

Wraithlady said:

JingsMyBucket said:

Naturelover22 said:

Will be making up breakfast and lunch for next 2 days at work tonight. Friends are visiting next weekend and I think I'll bake something, needs to be lactose free so will do some research and trial baking this weekend.

@na@Naturelover22 try a cake using almond flour. Usually olive oil cakes are good for this and you can add various fruits to them as well.  

Jings, that's gluten allergy not lactose - for some reason, it's always assumed that if you have one, you will have the other (no idea why).

I assume your friends have been, Naturelover, but I find substituting own-brand 'baking' margarine  is fine - basically, make sure there are no milk-derived ingredients in it, and use your normal (milk-free) recipe. Stork in tubs has whey /milk ingredients, whereas the stuff in foil doesn't.

(Go figure)

@Wraithlady I had actually meant what I said. A lot of almond flour cakes especially from the Mediterranean and the Middle East don't have milk in them at all. I was directly addressing the lactose free request of @Naturelover22. 

Fair enough, the almond flour led me to assume you were talking about gluten-free only.

DawnW

Lidl shop today, plus I paid the milk bill. A small Lidl shop today as I bought loads last week. £24.94 spent on groceries and some cans of beer for OH. The milk bill was £5.26. So £161.34 / £250 spent so far this month. I also bought a few tins for the food bank trolley, but don't count these as part of my grocery challenge.

Also had to buy fuel for the car, so just as well it was a small shop this week!

Spent the batch morning cooking - I am determined to use up freezer stocks, plus the usual fridge stuff. I made a large pan of bolognese type sauce, enough for at least 2 meals for both of us, and another of a vegan sweet potato and butternut squash curry (we aren't vegans or vegetarians, but I do sometimes cook vegan - and often vegetarian meals). We had some of the curry for dinner

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening GC'rs

Apropos of nowt, and I realise that it may be of no interest, but I did buddha bowl for tea, and for once, it really did meet the criteria of using nothing that I hadn't already got in and/or needed using up.  I used the 2 gem lettuce that I got for 10p from MrA - shredded up.  Used the last of the MrL box; vine cherry tomatoes, a piece of red onion, and a piece of red pepper, with some of my cooked black eyed beans, and made Senegalese black eyed bean salad - I didn't have any cucumber, so chopped up gherkin instead.  I boiled up some basmati rice. And then I was looking out for 'something' else to fill up the gap on the plate, and stumbled on a recipe I have for Parsnip, yoghurt and date salad, that I know I have made before, but clearly from my notes, last time I steamed chopped parsnip and then let it cool.  Well, I had 2 parsnips left over from several of the MrL boxes (made a batch of parsnip curry with most of them- and no, I didn't roast the parsnips first.....), so I thought..... why not?  I must admit, my recipe for the parsnip salad came from Casa Moro by Sam & Sam Clarke - I realise that the recipe (which is identical) that I have linked to is from a different source.  I don't know who is the original author, but Sam & Sam Clarke identify the salad as Lebanese in origin.  I have to say, it worked - grated raw parsnip is fine, the dates (mine were cheap and cheerful and definitely NOT medjool!), and the yoghurt really worked. My lemon was small, not very 'yellow' and didn't yield much juice, but it seems to have brought out a wonderful flavour in conjunction with the parsnip & (greek) yoghurt - think lemon posset/mousse/meringue pie type flavour - YUM!  I used mint sauce rather than fresh mint, and I chose to add in a pinch of cumin, as I thought the earthiness would work well to counter the sweetness, although I chose NOT to add honey to my salad.  

Topped off with some toasted sunflower seeds and grilled pear (last of a bag that were on special in MrM a few weeks ago), it made a plateful.  I must admit the parsnip salad was the real star of the show.  Even DH who is usually pretty hot on tastes/flavours and ingredients had no idea that it was parsnip. All to use up 2 scraggy parsnips. Don't you love it when stuff like that happens?


Senegalese salad on the left, parsnip, yoghurt & date salad on the right.  

Greying X

MissRikkiC

Sent hub to the shop Monday for LOs yogurt, milk and a lemon. He came back with the wrong yogurt despite me sending a picture of it so is paying for this himself 🤣 that’ll teach him. Therefore Monday technically wasn’t a NSD. Tuesday I had to then pick up the correct yogurt for my daughter so another day of technically not being a NSD. 

I did say that having the baby would be easier than having 9 NSDs 😂