May 2022 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning May GC'rs!

Well, lady luck was shining on me this morning, and I managed to get a £1.50 box from MrL.  I ended up going for a box that offered a mix of some fruit and a bit of veg.  It's immediately taken the pressure off how to 'knit together' what I already have into cohesive, satisfying meals, although we'll have to cross our fingers all of the cherry vine tomatoes last out until tomorrow to go into a buddha bowl.

To that end, I have revisited my meal plan for the remaining 7 days of May.  Breakfasts remain porridge/toast, and lunches are butties or leftovers/school meals.  (F) means it's out of the freezer.

Tu:  Bob Chorba soup and pudding
W:  Smoked Tofu Buddha Bowl - feat. smoked tofu, brown rice, shredded lettuce, tomato salad + one other veg
Th:  Puy Lentil stew (F)  and rice
F:  Black olive pizza and wedges
Sa:  Lentil Bolognese (F), baked potato or pasta + a green veg
Su:  Fish, Chips & mushy peas
M:  "Curry plate"  = leftover curry from freezer, lentil dhal & rice
Tu:  Omlette buddha bowl

The Bob Chorba soup recipe isn't the exact one I use (I got mine from a library book - I think of Eastern European food, which was a bit meat heavy, and the Bob Chorba - monastery style - was one of the few recipes that didn't contain meat), but it's very close to the ingredients in the recipe I have.  As there is carrot in this soup - and i don't have any left, I may well 'dollop'nswirl' [technical term....🤣] the last of the carrot pasta sauce from last night, into the soup - it'll add a bit of protein in the form of nuts if nowt else 😊

Greying X

EssexHebridean

PipneyJane said:

Afternoon All

A quick question for you on practicalities:  how do you track your Grocery Challenge shopping?  I'm just being curious.  I use a spreadsheet in the Numbers app on my iPad/iPhone.  Every month, I start a new tab.  (I have a keyboard for the iPad, which makes it easier to note things down.)  

- Pip

Almost all of our grocery/household goods spending goes on the credit card as we budget a set amount into a separate account each month for those things. So when the statement comes in, I just tot up the total for food related stuff and transfer it across - this also means that through the month I can work it the other way - subtract anything non food related from the CC balance and that, plus anything we've spent at the Farmers market - gives me my current spend. 

Wraithlady said:

FrugalHedonist said:

Might be a bit of an odd question but can you make houmous without tahini and subbing it for peanut butter or another nut butter. The child loves houmous but a jar of tahini is pretty pricey 

I use natural yoghurt instead of tahini, if that helps

I usually use a blob of yogurt in my houmous whether or not I've used tahini as I find it gives a creamy finish with far less oil being used. As our usual oil is a "good" British rapeseed oil the yogurt also means a cost saving. I actually want to try it with peanut butter now mind you as that sounds really nice! I also add a good splash of lime juice to mine - and sometimes things like coriander, chilli flakes etc as well. 

Doom_and_Gloom

OH went to get milk as we didn't get an A&C delivery. There went £3.47; the milk he got was £1.25 so there were a few added items. 

Dinners from yesterday to the end of the month for me are the following. 

M - japanese vegetable curry with tofu cubes and rice. 

T - ratatouille with rice. 

W - vegetable fried rice. 

Th - japanese vegetable curry with soya chunks and rice. 

F - vegetable sushi and tofu stir fry. 

S - mexican rice. 

Su - vegan fry up. 

M - pasta salad. 

T - vegan okonomiyaki. 

£227.71/170.50.

£57.21 over budget...... 

Greying_Pilgrim

I don't know if this is of any interest.  I tried to use some of the fruit that I got today to the best of my ability.  I had a lone navel orange in the box, so using the 'Spiced Orange Cake' recipe from Leon Bk 4 for inspiration, I made a version.  My cake was based on a traditional 4:4:4:2 sponge mix, but I used 1.5x mix and used 50g of ground almonds in place of 50g of flour.  I didn't boil my orange, I zested it and cut it in half, and blitzed the orange pulp with the stick blender (the other half of the orange became a 'cooks treat' 😉). the blitzed pulp went into the cake mix in place of 1 egg.  I didn't use cardamon as per Leon's recipe - not because I don't have it, but I only have the whole pods, and I couldn't be bothered to make up such a small amount of spice for a cake, so left it out.  The honey I used was just normal runny honey (cut down the sugar in the sponge in light of adding honey).  

The other cake i made used up 2 of the 3 pears I had in the box.  They were still quite firm, but both had 'grot spots' that were easily removed with a knife, but had they been left, I probably wouldn't have had useable pears by the morning. I chopped up the pear (left the skin on), and incorporated it into the sponge mix - to which I'd added spices - and incorporated it.  I then smoothed it out in the pan, and then dotted blackberries - gathered last August, by Team Greying 😊 - on top.  This cake pan was bigger, so I always do double the basic sponge mix.  And if you are not as old as me, and are wondering what 4:4:4:2 is, it's just the ratio of ingredients in ounces - so 4 oz fat, 4oz sugar, 4oz flour and 2 eggs.  if you translate to grams, you just need 100g of all the '4oz' ingredients and 2 eggs.  

I'm hopeful that the pear & blackberry cake will be moist and double up nicely as a 'pudding' tonight.  The orange cake will become 'tin' cake.  I have to say, it smells divine.  

I do realise that you're supposed to be more technical and measured about baking, and there is not so much room to 'wing' it.  My cakes look OK, hopefully they taste OK, and hopefully my winging it works - as you know as well as me, we can't finance 'experimentation'.  If all else fails, it will be liberally doused with custard and offered on repeat until it is GONE! 🤣

Orange cake to the fore, Pear and blackberry to the rear:


Greying X

joedenise

Cakes look lovely GP, well done thinking of ways to use up fruit that isn't at its' best!

A spend of £28.12 today in Mr Ts, also spent £4 in Morries but had a gift card to pay for that so not including in GC spend.  Now have £93.41 left for rest of the month, definitely very doable as we go on holiday middle of next week so only buying what is absolutely necessary.  Anything left in the fridge will either go with us or will get frozen.  All the food in the freezer will be bagged up and put in the outside freezer and going to turn off the inside fridge/freezer as we're away for a month.

DawnW

The cakes look lovely @Greying_Pilgrim

I really like cakes with fresh fruit in.

FrugalHedonist

My meal plan for this week is 
Tuesday - Chinese chicken curry (pinch of nom recipe)
Wednesday - Cheesy mash, breaded fish and vegetables 
Thursday - just me so probably egg on toast 🤣
Friday - hm cheese and tomato pizza with frozen chips plus veg
Saturday -sweet potato and lentil pasties and veg
Sunday - peanut butter chicken curry (out the freezer)

Breakfasts are porridge and fruit and lunches are hm veg soup with soda bread. Puds when we have them are fruit scones

K9sandFelines

Doom_and_Gloom said:

OH went to get milk as we didn't get an A&C delivery. There went £3.47; the milk he got was £1.25 so there were a few added items. 

Dinners from yesterday to the end of the month for me are the following. 

M - japanese vegetable curry with tofu cubes and rice. 

T - ratatouille with rice. 

W - vegetable fried rice. 

Th - japanese vegetable curry with soya chunks and rice. 

F - vegetable sushi and tofu stir fry. 

S - mexican rice. 

Su - vegan fry up. 

M - pasta salad. 

T - vegan okonomiyaki. 

£227.71/170.50.

£57.21 over budget...... 

Does the okonomiyaki require alot of fancy sauces to dress/top it @Doom_and_Gloom ? It sounds right up my street, as does all the rest of your meal plan (I love me some rice 💚). Also, what recipe do you use if you don't mind me asking, thank you 😊? 

K9sandFelines

@Greying_Pilgrim Cakes look gorgeous. I always used that method without the eggs, even as a vegan. Never fails! Everytime I experiment with a new recipe, they are too wet or too stodgy etc etc. Could be though cos I have no oven also!!
I really want cake now 😋. I dozed off on the settee and have yet to do my tea 😴

mumtoomany

Only milk since last on. No surprise there then! Keep wondering if we should have a cow. So £1.50 from local garage for one bottle and £2.04 for two more from shop. Total now £1017.17/£2640. Will be spending more tomorrow as OH has a dental appointment, so save on a journey and shop for groceries and animal feed too. Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx