June 2022 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

Good evening All

First spend of the month for us.  £2.79 in the Co-op on 1 litre of YS skimmed milk, YS feta & red pepper sausage rolls (£1.15) and YS blueberries £1.65. Yes, that doesn’t add up to £2.79. The milk was marked down at 24p, but we had a voucher for 25p off, so it was free and we got 1p off the rest of the shop!

This brings our total to £2.79/£140, leaving £137.21 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening June GC'rs!

Well, I haven't got around to working out my menu plan for the rest of the week, but I ain't been twiddling me thumbs neither 😊

I have made cake!  I made a lemon & raspberry sponge using some VERY squished, squashed and sullen raspberries that were buried in my MrL box.  Any sane person would have composted them, or not bought them in the first place! 🤣 And I made a cherry and almond cake with the 14 and a half cherries that were also in the box.  LG helped so there is ❤️ baked into every slice too 🥰🤣  



Cherry & almond sponge to the left, Raspberry swirl sponge to the right.  

For tea, I tried something new.  I knew I would end up short of time, but I have to admit that, on reflection, trying something new, whilst trying tag-team wresting with lengths of bias binding in a breeze ain't to be recommended 🤣  However, I thought that I would make something with my YS mushroom bounty, and had initially decided on mushroom pasta.  But then a thought wandered through my head - BECAUSE of listening to the PC podcast that goldfinches recommended - could risotto be made in a PC???  Again, because of listening to the podcast, I had picked up a book on PC cooking from the library in the nearby market town, yesterday.  It wasn't the book/author featured in the podcast, but I thought I would take a wander through the recipes, see what I could learn.  Anyhoo, it appears you CAN cook risotto in a PC.  Who knew?  And please could any Nonnas of Lombardy - look.away.now - because I certainly ain't claiming any authenticity, but do you know what?  You can cook risotto in a PC.  You kind of start it off as usual, and then add in the rice and stock and bring the pot up to pressure.  The recipe in the book was for Butternut squash risotto, and I figured that as BNS is a bit denser than mushrooms, perhaps mushrooms wouldn't need 5 mins??  Anyway, I set the timer for 4 mins, but then got distracted with my wrestling activities (a gal's gotta strike whilst there are hands and bodies around to help.....🙄), so I didn't de-pressure immediately, and the pot was allowed to depressure naturally.  When I'd had my fun.......   I returned to the pot, and took the lid off......... I was pleasantly surprised.  The rice was cooked, but it looked more like a pilaf dish, and less like a risotto.  I guess that is where the lack of stirring shows......  However, with my focus returned to tea, I added a bit more (hot) water, and stirred.  Whilst there is no way I would claim that it was creamy and unctuous, it was good enough.  And for the saving in time and power, I think it is good enough for home consumption (I would expect better in a 5* restaurant.....).  Certainly the mushroom flavour packed a punch - definitely a good side effect of PC cooking.  And no, there is no pic 🥲 because we munched it up quick smart.  But heck yes, I would use the PC for a risotto again 😊

Pudding was strawberries (from the box) and yoghurt.  Again, the strawberries looked like nowt, but with minimal trimming, and the rejection of only one I think - we enjoyed them for pud. It was like a slice of summer.  They really did taste of strawberry - well lush.  

Greying X

otb666

277/600 Not quite sure how we managed that but after fluffing up the aldi collect on line decided to just go in shop. First time for me since lockdown, lots of gaps on shelves. could not find hardly any breaded chicken. Had to go for a spicy one but DS  said he likes that. Had dominoes as well so will have to be really strict now for remaining 3 weeks 2 days til 24/6

MissRikkiC

Strawberries, blueberries and liquid smoke purchased yesterday and a loaf plus toilet rolls purchased today. 

I also took advantage of the 6 bottles of wine with 25% off at Tesko as I can now drunk again (hurrahhhhh) but this was from my own personal spends. 

jumblejulia

Single woman. Aiming for £120 this June. 
Today spent £0. We had a work event so I got a free lunch and took home 4 portions of lentil dhal which I have frozen so I'm really happy. 

Desperadoo

Day 1 for me is tomorrow as payday Is Thursday...spare money left in grocery account transferred to savings and raring to go.

gill5blue

Can I join please, 2 adults 2 dogs and a tortoise £200
cheers
Gill5 Blue

wishus

Good morning everyone!

Please can I set my June budget for £180 please?
This is the amount not including the milk bill for 2 adults, 1 cat.
Got a pretty empty freezer and fridge so might be a bit of a challenge, but I need to reserve money for our trip to Cornwall camping mid-month. Unlike last month, I need to stretch to the full month too. 

Okay, good luck everyone!

DawnW

Shopping yesterday, and £58.84 was spent, quite a big shop this week. Managed to include a fairly decent Lidl box. Also paid the milk bill of £5.10. So £63.94 / £230 so far.

There were lots of tangerines / satsumas of whatever in the Lidl box, pretty ripe but nothing wrong with them. I will be turning those into marmalade today. The juice is squeezed and in the fridge, and the peel / pulp chopped and has been soaking in water overnight. I just need to cook it to soften, add lemon juice, the squeezed out orange juice and sugar, and boil it up this morning.

PipneyJane

MissRikkiC said:

Oh that reminds me!! I managed to cook the beans tonight using a video on YT although I did check the beans 4 times which probably extended the cooking time! 

Still not really sure what I’m doing but they were cooked which was good! 

@PipneyJane I think it was your recipe having spotted liquid smoke at the local market today (£2.70 …. I was expecting double this price!) however probably due to not precooking anything (other than the beans) and bunging it all in the PC I felt it lacked depth of flavour for my own tastes. I think I’ll also add lime to the leftovers too. Thank you though Pip, it’s such a great base for adding extras to. 

@MissRikkiC, understood.  Adding liquid smoke is the only way I’ve been able to fix this.  The quantity needed varies depending on whether the bacon is smoked or not. Also, once it’s all cooked, you may want to add extra salt, too.  (Not before, it’ll harden the beans.)

When I first had Cuban Black Bean Stew, it was cooked in Miami by a Cuban American friend.  He used smoked ham hocks, smoked peppers and a couple of other ingredients that are difficult/impossible to get here (smoked garlic IIRC).  Stupidly, I didn’t get his recipe from him at the time.  Instead, when I got home, I went onto Google and read a few of the published recipes and started experimenting.  A couple of years later, I cooked it for him when he came to visit and got his seal of approval.

- Pip (I really must ask my friend for his recipe)