June 2022 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

weenancyinAmerica said:

I was told to avoid items with soy in them as a take Thyroid pills and the soy counteracts the medication. I never thought to check what works with the medicine and doesn't. 

I’m also on Thyroxin and had a long session with the pharmacist a couple of years back, coming away with the stern admonishment to only take my thyroxin with water and at least 20 minutes before I had anything else.  Definitely not with coffee.

- Pip


ETA:  @FrugalHedonist - I use aubergines all the time.  They’re great for bulking out mince-based meals, e.g. chilli or bolognese sauce.  Stab the aubergine a few times, zap for 10 minutes, then cut in half and scoop out the flesh.  Chop the pulp roughly and stir into your meaty sauce at the “add tin of tomatoes” stage.

Greying_Pilgrim

Vanlady said:

GP, love the sound of your Tanzanian soup, thankyou for the link. I have all the ingredients except the black eyed peas (wonder if I could sub for red kidney beans, mmm) and the fenugreek.
But particularly LOVE the name of the author if the book👍.
X

And apparently, it is her real name 😊The blog I linked to is an old blog - she has updated, and has a newer blog, and is the author of a number of books - cookbooks and children's books amongst them.  A very interesting lady.

And yes, I think most varieties of beans could be subbed.  I should imagine that Crescent would actively applaud utilising what you have.  She authored a book about cooking in a commune in the 1970's, so make-do and mend is very much her bag, I feel.

Pinwheel - let us know how they turn out 😊

Greying X

Suffolk_lass

@Vanlady I wonder if you meant Crescent Dragonwagon or Culinary Cheapskate? (both great names!) The new link from CS returns a Chinese 404 error for me 
 
I planned to buy a couple of treats for the weekend so I booked a TGTG bag from Morries last night. It was all F&V (yay!) with three nets of citrus fruits (I might make orange cake again), five bags of herbs, 2 swede and one net of three large mild onions - Oh, and 650g of strawberries. I may have to pick more rhubarb from the garden and make a strawberry and rhubarb compote to go with the scones I plan. The punnet of strawberries in the treats plan may be had on top of orange cake, not sure yet. Anyhow £3.09 for the TGTG and £2.15 for the strawberries (plus the treats and entertainment stuff which totalled £14.50 but is instead of a dinner out). Added to my total this is now £108.72 for June. Hopefully with another fruit top up it will be only milk and eggs until July. I really need a low-spend month

Soontobeoap

Change to meal plan. I have practically lived on pasta this week and Mr Soontobe who was out bowling a couple of nights this week chose to have cereal one night and a ham toast ie on another. It has been a really cheap week and we have used up all leftovers. I have also rediscovered marmite and cucumber toasties which I loved as I child and still do now and we had 2 mornings of porridge made with water. Love that too and it makes a nice change. 😊. Next week will be using up odd bits from the freezer. We did have to go to Coop and buy milk and bread today. £5.35 as I have lactose free milk. I have officially gone over budget again but do plan to try to stick as close as I can to it.

Not food related but went to B and q today and discovered that they are doing a 10%off weekend when using b and q card. I have never understood use that card is but today it paid off £4.70 saved.

Have also just read that iceland/food warehouse offer for 10%off for over 60's is only for 2 months so will definitely be popping in there to stock up before end of July.

Ginmonster

On my way back from a lovely week's holiday which featured lots of walking, cycling and lovely scenery and have done my first official shop of the month at the motorway services! £12.60 spent on milk, bread and pizzas for our tea tonight as we'll be tired. 

I have a big shop booked for delivery on Tuesday and we'll be using stuff from the freezer until then along with the bits of long-life veg left from before we went away. I'll make a meal plan once we've got home and taken stock of exactly what we have but potatoes will definitely be involved.

I've been reading along and taking note of all the great recipes so a big thank you to everyone for sharing them. I'll definitely be trying a few out over the next few weeks. 

£12.60/£200

Saffasaver

Not to bad a week for the e budget. Spent £70 for the weekly shop. Hubby spent £20 earlier in the week. So still have £10 left if we need anything before friday as my weekly budget resets. 

Spending for the month £200/£400.  
Anyone have a recipe thats tried and tested for Halloumi. Never had it, got it from a friend. 

PipneyJane

Saffasaver said:

Not to bad a week for the e budget. Spent £70 for the weekly shop. Hubby spent £20 earlier in the week. So still have £10 left if we need anything before friday as my weekly budget resets. 

Spending for the month £200/£400.  
Anyone have a recipe thats tried and tested for Halloumi. Never had it, got it from a friend. 

@Saffasaver, there's a couple of halloumi recipes listed in the Vegetarian Recipe Collection.  I've not tried them but it's worth a look.

I have two shops to declare. Because I was working late yesterday - I didn't finish until after 7pm - I asked DH to pop into L!dl on his way home from work to pick up something for dinner.  He spent £11.37 on two YS pizza's, two packets of chicken Kyivs marked down to 90p each, a YS cheesecake, some potato salad, a green salad and a bag of fresh noodles marked down to 20p.

This morning, we headed back to L!dl to do a proper shop.  £40.04 spent, which included stocking up on coffee to take advantage of an offer (4 packs ground plus 1 jar of instant), an 800g block of extra-mature cheddar, feta cheese, a 450g tub of Greek-style yoghurt with honey, 15 free-range eggs (£1.99), breakfast cereal, mixed seeds, and all the usual fresh veg (potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers).  In a separate spend (Booze Fund), DH spotted that they had his favourite beer, Hoegaarden, on offer 750ml bottles for £2.49, and stocked up for the summer, spending £60 for 24 bottles.  He went to the till while I was still shopping, which meant that we triggered the voucher for a free "Bakery Item".  I chose the largest sourdough bloomer I could find, costing £1.39.  This was the most expensive bakery item they had available. today.

The above brings out total spend for June to £58.59/£240, leaving £81.41 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

goldfinches

@Saffasaver - this recipe is absolutely delicious and very easy too. My top tips are that any honey is fine and any mild chilli flakes you've got will do instead of the urfa ones. Halloumi with Black Seed Honey Recipe - Great British Chefs
PS if you haven't got nigella seeds, poppy or onion seeds or any others you like the taste of can be subbed in.

There's also this Marinated halloumi with honey and thyme recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (sainsburysmagazine.co.uk) which I've had my eye on for a while as being almost the same but most of the work is done in advance rather than at the last minute like the method above so that might suit you better.

@PipneyJane - thanks for the tip about the Hoegaarden which I'm also a fan of, I might just cycle out to my nearest branch this week.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening GC'rs

I've just amended my GC total in my signature - as for some reason it had diverted back to my March GC figure.  As someone pointed out, the colours are back in signatures, but they seem to have old info in them too.  Luckily I found the piece of paper I had used to total how much I have spent to date, as my sig is the only place I record my expenditure.  

Have achieved a NSD.  Tea was pulled out of the freezer and ended up being Baigan bharta, and turnip and red kidney bean curry with dhal and rice.  LG had a good portion of dhal with some rice and ate every scrap.  Greek yoghurt and a satsuma for pud.

Lunch was Greek Lentil soup (Fakes) for those that like soup and peanut butter sandwiches for those that don't. The soup was cooked from scratch in the PC and took 10 minutes.

Greying X

Saffasaver

@goldfinches both recipes sounds delicious. Going to try both. Thank you!