September 2022 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

Crazycatlady2 said:

N

Crazycatlady2 - I realise that this is a slightly daft question, but did your neighbour actually tell you what these were?  Because whilst I'm thinking the squash on the left is probably a butternut - and therefore the flesh would be dense, so good for use in curries and stews etc I'm not sure what the one on the right is?  But I am wondering if it is a spaghetti squash?  In which case the 'insides' are completely different to a conventional squash, and sort of 'string up' (hence the name), usually with baking.  I only ever got given one many years ago - and speaking entirely personally - couldn't really justify the cost of baking it at that point, and was seriously underwhelmed with the taste/texture so have never bothered with one again.  But a) it may not be, and b) other people do rate spaghetti squash, and may have fabbo recipes.  If it is a spagetti squash, you may have to cook it differently - if it's a 'conventional' squash, then recipes are pretty flexible and you can probably make curry/stew etc with that one too.  

Sorry for the daft question, I just looked at the pic and thought, "I wonder......"

Greying X

mumtoomany

Hi, @Crazycatlady2. As someone who has and does grow squash. I'd say greying is right about the one on the right being butternut. The one on the left I think could also be butternut, but not as ripe. I often have butternut that shape, the spaghetti squash I've grown are more rounded, like a melon in shape. It does however look as if it may be on the turn, see the brown on the side. I would definitely use it in the next few days, or peel and cut it and freeze it. The other will keep for weeks as it is. HTH, hugs, mumtoomany.xx

PipneyJane

@LadyWithAPlan please, what is the title of the Kate Berry book?  Also, a thought on being gluten-free: can you still get gluten free flour on prescription?  Might be worth investigating with your GP.  (17+years ago, the team I was in at work had a member with Coeliac disease.  For our weekly team meeting, on rotation a team member would bring in baked goods.  Most of the time, she couldn’t eat them.  When it was my turn, I asked her what she could eat and she gave me a packet of GF flour, so I made baked donuts with it.  She used to get it in bulk, on prescription.)

I have three spends to declare from this week:  £5.84 in Sainsbugs on Monday, when DH popped in to get a large tub of half-fat crème  fraiche and some loose broccoli (the rest was chocolate); £26.47 in L!dl on Tuesday, when I stocked up on nuts while on offer with 10% off  (8x200g packets for £12.12, mainly cashews); and £8.89 in L!dl yesterday, when we stocked up on fresh veg, eggs, and scored two YS fish products (YS Haddock fish cakes £1.52, and YS seasoned cod £2.09). 

Was very pleased that L!dl had loose carrots bu still disappointed that they didn’t have any Chocolate Oaties, although the plain ones are now back in stock.  It’s been months.  Also, we couldn’t get our free “bakery item” because, at lunchtime, they’d already sold out of almost everything in the bakery!  We’ll be going to a different L!dl today - going to our local “market town” to watch a film, so hope to get the largest sourdough loaf we can from there, for free.

The above brings our total GC spend for September to £84.74/£144.90, leaving £60.16 in the GC purse for the rest of the month.

On the meal planning front, I’m still only thinking a few days ahead but it does make things easier to have a vague plan.  This is what I have so far:-

• Today:  Lunch, leftover soup from yesterday’s dinner, made with the last of our previous batch of potatoes (they had sprouted), chickpeas, chorizo, and frozen spinach.  Dinner will be a roast chicken with roast veggie accompaniments (4lb in weight from our previous butcher, who has now retired.  It’s been in the freezer since March).
  
• Monday:  Brunch, possibly homemade Black-pudding McMuffins (uses up frozen muffins).  Dinner will be Chorizo and Broccoli pasta, using the aforementioned crème fraiche.
• Tuesday:  breakfast = cereal; lunch = lunchboxes (2 portions of Monday’s dinner, since every recipe feeds 4).  Dinner will be Chicken Fajitas, using some of the leftover chicken plus mushrooms and red peppers.
• Wednesday:  breakfast = cereal; lunch = lunchboxes.  Dinner, depending on how much chicken is left, either Chinese-style chicken curry OR chicken risotto.
• Thursday:  breakfast = cereal; lunch = lunchboxes.  Dinner:  time for something totally different, so am thinking of defrosting the cod purchased yesterday and serving it with sweet potato wedges.
• Friday:  breakfast = cereal; lunch = lunchboxes. DH will be away for the weekend with work, while I’ve got a “leaving meal” for a colleague who is moving to a different team.
• Saturday:  no idea yet.  May make a quiche, since I have plenty of onions and cheddar in stock.

Regarding “lunchboxes”, most of the meals in my repertoire make a minimum of 4 portions, while there are just the two of us to feed, so I dish up the other two portions into lunchboxes, at the same time as dishing up dinner.  This is primarily portion control since it is easy to overload a plate and eat too much, if I don’t do this, with the subsequent ballooning in weight.   I know DH can easily eat double portions - I’d swear the man has hollow legs - even though I always give him about 50% more food than than I give me, and he’ll go back for seconds, if I don’t do this.  It also helps to keep our costs down, since we don’t have to buy lunch each day.

- Pip

Crazycatlady2

Greying_Pilgrim said:

Crazycatlady2 said:

N

Crazycatlady2 - I realise that this is a slightly daft question, but did your neighbour actually tell you what these were?  Because whilst I'm thinking the squash on the left is probably a butternut - and therefore the flesh would be dense, so good for use in curries and stews etc I'm not sure what the one on the right is?  But I am wondering if it is a spaghetti squash?  In which case the 'insides' are completely different to a conventional squash, and sort of 'string up' (hence the name), usually with baking.  I only ever got given one many years ago - and speaking entirely personally - couldn't really justify the cost of baking it at that point, and was seriously underwhelmed with the taste/texture so have never bothered with one again.  But a) it may not be, and b) other people do rate spaghetti squash, and may have fabbo recipes.  If it is a spagetti squash, you may have to cook it differently - if it's a 'conventional' squash, then recipes are pretty flexible and you can probably make curry/stew etc with that one too.  

Sorry for the daft question, I just looked at the pic and thought, "I wonder......"

Greying X

It’s not a daft question….they didn’t and don’t speak English so didn’t want to cause a fuss trying to ask via Google translate or look rude…plus I felt stupid for not knowing 😂

I asked 3 family members and got varying answers so was non the wiser…my mum said thin one was a marrow so I used some to make a cake. It small lovely cooking but had no taste but will get eaten 😂

the rest hasn’t been touched yet so no progress made 

Soontobeoap

@goldinches that's very kind of you but I am just a novice getting most of my tips from other GCers.

Unfortunately DH wanted some treat shopping so I went with him to try and exercise some damage limitation!!! 😭. We got the bread and oxo cubes in sainsburys as well as some reduced sausages that I didn't really need but grabbed them anyway as the price rises are scaring me. DH threw 2 pkts of haribo tangtastics into the trolley (yes he is 66 and not a child) which cost £2.00 more than I would have liked to spend!! Sultanas were £1.89 in sainsburys so I suggested taking our shopping home and then I would nip to Aldi alone to get sultanas. (we had already discussed his need for chocolate and jointly decided that I would make cake instead. Can you believe that then he thought it would be a nice idea if we went to Aldi together!!!!! He decided that he fancied a ham and coleslaw sandwich for lunch and at the check out I discovered £1.11 worth of chocolate bars!!!! The raisins were 90p cheaper but if I had paid the extra in Sainsburys we would not have bought all the other extras.
We are now dangerously nearing our budget with 2 weeks to go. Hoping to have a week of NSDs

Signiture updated

PipneyJane

Greying_Pilgrim said:

FrugalThymes said:

@Greying_Pilgrim looks like my afternoon will be binge watching Southern Frugal Momma, thanks for the recommendation! 

Hang on a minute........ when y'all have got a pressure canner in your online basket, and are poised to press 'buy' I didn't introduce you to that site, ok? 😂

Brooke is going from strength to strength with her subscribers, so she must be doing something right/that's needed.  The new opening titles are a bit loud, but that's possibly my lack of experience using the toob..... I particularly admire her cheerfulness, and certainly with her 'emergency budget' videos, admire her 'fed is best' ethos, as unfortunately she has received nastiness about her ideas - naturally, from people who don't offer alternative suggestions, using the same financial constraints 🙁  Brooke is full of ideas, provokes thought/discussion and has a 'can do' attitude.  There is usually some 'take-home' from her videos, irrespective of whether you eat meat or no, live in the US or no, pressure can or no........

She has got her sons trying to complete their own $5 challenges - buy ingredients for 3 meals/buy shelf stable pantry staples etc - and although some have sought to criticise, they miss the point that if you start to 'think' about matters, and see what you can do, then sometimes you find what can be done with the resources available to you.  Brooke homeschools her children, but I don't think this type of thing is taught in any schools - in the US or UK - and yet we all gotta eat each day........

Greying X

Ooohhhhh Pressure canner…..!

@Greying_Pilgrim, it’s not your fault.  Honest.  I won’t blame you.  I have a confession to make:  I have lusted after one for years, ever since I first read The Tightwad Gazette.  Haven’t seen any for sale in the UK, but I did my own investigations and settled on a 10L pressure cooker that reaches 15lb of pressure, which is the level of pressure prescribed in American cookbooks.  (It was a wedding present in 2003.)  I have successfully canned a few things in it:  stewed apple when my friend had a glut; tomato sauce; chutney; crab apple chilli cheese…. Most of the time, though, it gets used for kidney beans and chick peas.

- Pip. (Must remember to watch Southern Frugal Momma)

LadyWithAPlan

PipneyJane said:

@LadyWithAPlan please, what is the title of the Kate Berry book?  Also, a thought on being gluten-free: can you still get gluten free flour on prescription?  Might be worth investigating with your GP.  (17+years ago, the team I was in at work had a member with Coeliac disease.  For our weekly team meeting, on rotation a team member would bring in baked goods.  Most of the time, she couldn’t eat them.  When it was my turn, I asked her what she could eat and she gave me a packet of GF flour, so I made baked donuts with it.  She used to get it in bulk, on prescription.)

Regarding “lunchboxes”, most of the meals in my repertoire make a minimum of 4 portions, while there are just the two of us to feed, so I dish up the other two portions into lunchboxes, at the same time as dishing up dinner.  This is primarily portion control since it is easy to overload a plate and eat too much, if I don’t do this, with the subsequent ballooning in weight.   I know DH can easily eat double portions - I’d swear the man has hollow legs - even though I always give him about 50% more food than than I give me, and he’ll go back for seconds, if I don’t do this.  It also helps to keep our costs down, since we don’t have to buy lunch each day.

- Pip

The book is 30 days to a clean and organized home (American spelling) - Katie Berry - its on kindle and I have it on pdf - if you want to dm me your email  I can email  it over to you

I have never thought about gf flour on prescription - I pay for mine so maybe it'd be more than the cost of gf flour? Or maybe its big bulk - I will ask

Your portion control idea is very sensible.

NSD yesterday so 8/16
- I went to a friend's memorial Friday and did buy a pack of crisps whilst there and a glass of prosecco. 
I went to a comedy gig this evening - just bought a round of drinks and a pack of sweets - crisps and sweets are part of my treat budget along with the alcohol.
No new grocery spend though

El_Scot

Hi, I'm thinking of joining this challenge but just wondered if there's any other gluten free people in here to help give me a realistic idea for my food budget?

Right now my typical spend is around £85-90/wk for 2 people. The difficulty is, our gluten free requirements often dictate which brands we can buy and can make it hard to drop a rung on the brand ladder (e.g. we have to buy premium sausages because budget are never GF), so I need ideas for how to cut back.

Auti

El_Scot said:

Hi, I'm thinking of joining this challenge but just wondered if there's any other gluten free people in here to help give me a realistic idea for my food budget?

Right now my typical spend is around £85-90/wk for 2 people. The difficulty is, our gluten free requirements often dictate which brands we can buy and can make it hard to drop a rung on the brand ladder (e.g. we have to buy premium sausages because budget are never GF), so I need ideas for how to cut back.

GF and vegetarian and a food sensory driven child here. Tend to make cakes etc as cheaper and we both eat them. Bread is the thing I find hard so only have it sometimes. Eating nuts for protein and also bulking out Quorn mince (chilled) with kidney beans, veg and tinned tomatoes to portion up and freeze then can use as I want - can add flavourings to each portion as I reheat. I also like the tortilla chips as alternative to bread and also find Old El Paso either do gluten free versions or some kits naturally gluten free. Have you been on FB gluten free groups as they have lots of ideas and products they have found in supermarkets that are GF.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning GC'rs

A £5.46 spend to own up to from Sunday.  The highlight was 2 x 2 packs of avocados in MrAl at 75% off so 4 avocados for 60p.  We called in at a MrAl on the way home from a trip out to a natty trusty place.  We ate our picnic lunch with a gorgeous view and had a pootle around on a footpath that we'd not walked before.  

Tea on Sunday was one of those meals that used up 'bitsa', but worked so well.  I only had 2 veggie sausages and 2 quorn filets left, so I cooked them and then thinly sliced them up, and put them out with tortilla wraps, and some other bits - shredded lettuce, sliced cucumber, caramelised onions (frozen leftovers from last time we had hotdogs), and some rice etc etc and we had a 'build your own wrap' party.  LG loves buffets!  And everything got munched.  I used half a tomato and paprika stock cube in the rice (kA110 brand), and although it wasn't 'red-red', it made it sort of salmon pink colour and flavoursome - and LG munched it up.  So win 👍

Spends for September now stand at £170.47/200.

Greying X