From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

rtandon27

Awww - how loverly that LG is now a fan of polenta!

Cheery_Daff

That's a lovely thought about LG being a team player for Team Greying 🥰🥰 What a testament to your excellent parenting 😊 

Interesting about the halloumi - I eat a fair bit of it these days but have definitely never seen it as a cheap option! The supermarket own brand I bought the other day was £2.15 I think! 

I think back to my old 'vegetarian grub on a grant' days - a grant!! 😂 That was getting to be old fashioned even in my day. I remember one of the recipes was literally pasta, tomato puree, and a crushed garlic clove 😂😂 Not exactly nutritionally complete, although probably better than some of the alternatives. 

Anyway, thank you for sharing your family stories, and for making me think about that book again 🥰 I've still got my copy somewhere, must dig it out.

kayannie

Cheery_Daff said:

That's a lovely thought about LG being a team player for Team Greying 🥰🥰 What a testament to your excellent parenting 😊 

Interesting about the halloumi - I eat a fair bit of it these days but have definitely never seen it as a cheap option! The supermarket own brand I bought the other day was £2.15 I think! 

I think back to my old 'vegetarian grub on a grant' days - a grant!! 😂 That was getting to be old fashioned even in my day. I remember one of the recipes was literally pasta, tomato puree, and a crushed garlic clove 😂😂 Not exactly nutritionally complete, although probably better than some of the alternatives. 

Anyway, thank you for sharing your family stories, and for making me think about that book again 🥰 I've still got my copy somewhere, must dig it out.

@Cheery_Daff Grub on a grant - I bought that for my daughter when she went off to uni. She still uses it today nearly 40 years later! KA

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

Thanks RT, Cheery & Kayannie for popping in.

Cheery - I remember the title of that book!  I don't think I ever owned a copy, but I only got (slightly) adventurous with my cooking in the last year of university.  Well, if you can call lasagne and jacket potato adventurous 🤣  First meal I ever cooked for my (now) DH 🥰 Plus, thank you for confirming what I was thinking - supermercado versions of squeaky cheese don't appear to be a 'cheap' option.  The only thing I can think is that a) halloumi is a popular (trendy?) ingredient that people know of, and b) gramme for gramme, perhaps a £2.15 pack would be cheaper than chicken? beef? turkey? pork?  - I don't know the answer to that question, but it's the only reason why I can think halloumi is included in a modern recipe book with 'budget' in the title.

I do realise that my version of 'budget' is different to many people's use of the term.  My version is - and has had to be through necessity - closer to the frugality side of operations.  Whereas I'm fully aware that you can still be budgeting when you spend less on eg supermercado ingredients rather than simply dialling up the local takeaway.  Horses for courses. I hope my comments aren't seen as critical - the world is moving on - it's just that I have often tied myself up in knots wondering why I can't stretch my budget, but it's because prices have shifted upwards, even on the building blocks of 'frugal food' that I have formerly relied on. 

I need to go to MrL today to get some bits and pieces.  The available budget is getting tight - I really don't think I am going to be able to stay in budget this month - let alone have any leftover for 'C4C' 🙁 

Right.  Best shift-a-tail-feather.  The weather is too shonky to set out a wash - fingers crossed for tomorrow, otherwise I'm going to have to go to the launderette.

Ta for popping in and having a 'convo' with me.  Appreciated.

Greying X

rtandon27

Oooo - Grub on a grant - sounds like the type of sustaining fare I ate in university! My go to was spagetti noodles with sriacha and kraft grated cheese at midnight after studying or finishing lab work! Spagetti was cheap, sriacha gifted and kraft is poor (wo)man's parm and back in the day oh so cheap!  I've since learned that carb loading is good for brain power! 🔋 

themadvix

I've never understood the halloumi thing either - beans and lentils are much cheaper! It's also not something that until recently, I've 'had in stock'. (I recently bought some for the fridge because there were too many recipes that looked nice but need it - next time I come across one, I'll have a go.) It's all relative, I guess.

debtfreewannabe321

I used to like halloumi but I would often get headaches after eating it, wondered if it was all the salt.
Gave up dairy a few years ago now so haven't bought it recently. Happy with the on offer tofu or beans and lentils otherwise. 
I haven't even tried polenta it always looked weird to me, I think I might try it next month, see what we all make of it. Any particular brand you recommend? I assume instructions for cooking are on the back because I literally have no idea what to do with it or what to serve it with *feel all uncultured now*.

Greying_Pilgrim

Hello!

RT - do carbs help meno-fog????? 🤔

themadvix - I have to agree with you, and can only think that pulses are less appealing/sexy and unless tinned (although lets face it - tinned pulses are far more available than they ever used to be), can put off would be cooks.  LG isn't enamoured with halloumi, but if they were, I would have to buy 2 blocks for a meal, and I then can't see how that remains affordable.  Naturally the slices of halloumi in the pictures of these cook books look plump, and thick and luscious...... 🤣

dfw321 - polenta is a 'carrier' - it tastes of nothing, and is meant to be paired with rich, flavourful stews and the like.  Unless you do like the..... Alpine(?) regions of Italy and melt extraordinary quantities of cheese into it, and eat it on it's 'own'.  But then if you've been trudging through meter high snow, chopped firewood and are just trying to stay warm - you could probably use all the calories you could get!   But the way I make polenta is to buy the cornmeal grain (the bags in the 'world food' aisles are much more cost effective than the boxed products in the 'mediterranean' section of a supermercado).  You then boil up water and pour in the cornmeal and stir over a low heat. It can be dangerous as it quickly turns to 'plop' mode and looks like a hot mud spring.  If cooking polenta lands on skin, it can burn.  You can then serve the polenta 'wet' (ie it looks like porridge), or pour it out onto a dish and let it cool, and it will set.  You then slice up the cooled polenta and fry it.  You can buy precooked polenta from the supermercado (it comes as a yellowish block).  I don't think polenta is everyone's cup of tea - and you do have to work at either putting flavour into it (with seasonings, stock or cheese), or serve it with a mega flavourful stew.  If tatties weren't so expensive, I would say that mashed potato was a better option - as tatties can be naturally more flavourful.  I'm glad to have it as an option - and I'm doubly pleased that I now have it back as an option, as i know that if I put it on the plate with a (non-chillified) stew, LG will eat it.  

So we're back from MrL.  We took in HB and MrS too.  My grocery budget is severely depleted 🙁 I will tally up the damage just now.  At least LG got a free World Book Day book - using a voucher that DH had rescued from the bin of the works canteen - apparently a certain fast food outlet had been putting them on their packaging, and the colleagues who had take-out for lunch didn't value the vouchers......  

I think MrL is beginning to be a bit of a canary in the coal mine.  They didn't have the teabags I buy for weeks before news of the black tea issues broke, and now they haven't had chopped tommies - MrS didn't have any of their 'valoo range' (stamf0rd str33t??) ones either today - empty shelves.  I did buy a jar of dried parsley in MrL (75p), as HB hadn't had any in stock for ages - naturally when we popped to HB, they had parsley in stock 🙄 and the charge less.  There was also a load of reduced price wholemeal loaves in HB today - that didn't like they'd been in a soccer match.  Naturally I had bought bread at MrL........ 🙄 But I did get some YS'd mozzarella (only the simply ones) in MrL and I got 4 wholemeal baps (again the... stamf0rd Str33t ones) for 25p in MrS.  I bought 6 tins of pineapple for £3 from MrL as I think that offer is coming to an end, and certainly the stock has all but disappeared in store, so I decided to splurge, even thought it wasn't the best idea at the mo.  I also gave the mixed weight FR white shelled eggs in MrL a go. they are 99p for a carton of 6.  They are in those awful plastic cartons (boo!), and they are mostly joined together (double boo!) OK for me today because I was buying a dozen, but not good otherwise.  I therefore saved 35p on what I would have spent on 12 medium FR eggs - and I was careful 😉with the cartons of mixed weight eggs that I chose 😉

Right, off to find my receipts and tally up.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

£35.01 spent in total today across MrL, HB and MrS.  That brings February's running total to £177.22 - gulp!  And at least 1 more shopping trip needed before the month end - Gulp!  And February is a short month - gulp!  And I bought no alcohol in today's shop - gulp!

Greying X

badmemory

You are certainly right about prices.  I used to buy supermarket type ready meals for one day a week, but have now stopped.  It was mostly pasta bake type that were a pain to make & as big a pain to wash up after.  I have definitely found that recently there is virtually no cheese on top & any ingredient that wasn't pasta or tomato sauce was also almost MIA.  On top of that the prices have gone up over 30%.  I have also found that their own brand or their cheaper brand whilst on their websites are not actually on their shelves.  The cost of living of course has gone up by much less.  Whoever works that out obviously is not living in the real world that we have to.