From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

LotsOfTea

Just a quick thought about the gift card - are you absolutely sure it can't be used to part-pay for something? Most gift cards or indeed normal debit/credit cards can be. The till operator just uses however much you have on the card and then you can pay the rest in another way. You might just need to know how much is on the card to tell them how much to enter but that's the only thing I can think of that might make it slightly more of a faff. I've certainly done this with gift cards before both online and in shops.

Greying_Pilgrim

LotsOfTea - I was just going by what was in the T's & C's that flashed up on the screen - presumably it is a M'stercard stipulation? I have definitely paid part cash/part card, or somesuch arrangement in a shop - I suppose it may be a bit more difficult online, but clearly not impossible if you've managed to do it.

So dentist visit over. I've only ever had one dentist in my life that has been nice, and they took early retirement due to poor health ☹️ The current dentists have their hearts in the right place, but they don't really give a fig for their patients, you very much feel you're in a sausage machine, and the throughput p/h is getting quicker, and quicker……

No matter. Done and paid for, for the next 12 months.

I called in at the little MrL on the way there and got some YS'd wholemeal wraps x 2 and some milk, £3.23 spent. On the way back, I ducked into fArmf00ds. I hadn't intended to buy much, but ended up spending £14.13 (which is really weird, I very often spend £14-something in FF 🤔😬). I was happy with my purchases, I got a 12 tray of chopped tommies (looked carefully this time!) for £3.99, 6 x cannellini beans (3 for £1 FF own brand), 3 x 220g pr1nces fruit cocktail tins - 3 for 99p. These tins were the same price as one 'conventional' tin of fruit cocktail, but actually yield 125g more (drained weight) fruit than buying one bigger can. I bought 3 x jars of roasted red peppers for 99p ea. as that was the cheapest price I have seen in an age - BB July I think. I also bought some frozen garlic and edamame beans (99p ea), 2 x Caw$t0n Press cranberry juice at 2 for £1.70, and a pack of soba noodles for 49p.

It's all stuff that we will eat, I'm not going to take it out of bulk, because there's a chance we'll make a dent in much of it before the month end. When we were on holiday, I looked at the menus for a couple of restaurants, and got some inspiration for cooking similar at home. The one dish was white beans and artichokes, and whilst I realise they might not be as good, I have some jarred artichokes to use-up, so today's white bean haul will help me do that - plus as the weather warms (?), I want to get better at making things like bean salads. My upbringing of a salad being a webbs wonderful (flat) lettuce leaf, a piece of tomato and a homegrown spring onion, has been no help in expanding my salad horizons 🤣

£17.36 spent on groceries.

I'm away to amend my siggie figgie, and update my GC challenge report.

Greying X

peb

I've come across edamame beans but I really don't know what to do with them. Can they be added to salads/stir fry? Are the frozen ones suitable for eating once defrosted?

I heartily dislike peas unless raw so I'm nervous of edamame.

Greying_Pilgrim

Yes peb - as far as I am aware, they can be used from frozen in a stir-fry and if I was using them in a salad, I would steam/boil them first. EDIT - I don't think I've ever eaten them defrosted but raw, and won't suggest that, unless someone with far more knowledge said it was OK - I'd cook and cool, rather than eat raw. A momma from the southern bit of the US who is Frugal 😉 pops them in with her rice in the rice cooker when she's making a 'beef rice bowl' or whatever. I will just check on my packet what it says re cooking……Microwave - 4 minutes, stir halfway through (doesn't give a wattage), Hob - place in boiling water, bring back to boil, simmer for 3-4 minutes. If I (personally) was making a salad with them (which you can do, and I've seen pre-prepped salads in the supermarkets with edamame in), I think I would cook them, and allow them to cool (or rinse under a cold tap).

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

peb - I like edamame because they don't have tough skins like broad beans (unless you grow your own, and then you can time picking better), so they are actually lovely in salads, stir fries and rice dishes. Although I'm not sure about allergies, so if you have a soy allergy, they are best avoided.

Greying X

Blackcats

the salads of your childhood sound just like we used to have for Sunday tea. We also had sticks of celery displayed in a beer glass - how frightfully posh eh? When we had visitors we had a tin of red salmon, when it was just us we would have hard boiled eggs or cheese. When my paternal grandparents visited they would bring cockles, whelks and jellied eels to accompany the salad 🤢

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81962472#Comment_81962472

Are you related to me? Are we family? 🤣 Yes, tinned red salmon was on the cards for visitors, and if we were on our own, it was hand-sliced ham (off the bone from the W00lworths deli counter), or hazlet/stuffed pork roll if it was the end of the money/month. I only recall having celery once at my grans - yes, in a beer glass, or it may even have been a flower vase 😱 and my gran's Sunday tea was always packet ham - sopping wet from injected water 🤢 and packet cake - victoria sponge if the money was low (I only ever remember my grandparents as pensioners), and MrK's french fancies if there was cash to spare after the fags and cheap sherry had been purchased. I have to say, I was incredibly lucky that we didn't live in a location where seafood was in anyway in abundance. My paternal grandmother was from an extremely poor background, and it mattered a great deal to her to use packet mixes, boxed cakes and processed foods - to illustrate she'd "made it" - not only to buy 'convenience', but also to not have to cook the food. My grandparents also all ate a slice of buttered bread with their Sunday pudding - whatever it was. I can see my grandad now, putting a slice on a side plate, before the mains were taken off the table to make way for fruit salad (tinned), or apple pie.

Greying X

VintageHistorian

Interesting how people with similar upbringings see different items as luxuries. My Nan grew up very poor as her Dad died when she was 10, leaving her Mum widowed for a second time with 6 children of various ages. But Nan became a school cook so I have a lot of memories of her cooking from scratch, I think too much pre-made stuff would have somehow been "letting the side down".

I also remember her enjoying kippers for breakfast but never opening the window when cooking them, even though the whole house would smell for hours afterwards, because in her head kippers were food for poor people and she didn't want the neighbours to think she couldn't afford something better.

Greying_Pilgrim

Yes, I agree VintageHistorian - it's like some people who worked in agriculture before WWII, were absolutely sold on the value of oil based fertilisers and pesticides in the post war era, and yet it also coincided with the biggest expansion of the organic movement, communes and the punk/artisanal movement, and the 'hippy' (sorry, I don't know if that's the right label), movement, which was very against artificial fertilisers and chemicals….. well, spraying on them apples, anyhoo. An aunt on my mother's side was a school cook - in the 1970's. She was a bit of a groundbreaker working outside the home in that area (small farms, very rural location), but also worked in the school meals service when there was a little more autonomy, and plain, simple cooking was the order of the day, to fuel the kids. She got alot out of 'making summat out of nowt' and there was a tiny bit of leeway, as I'm sure i had a conversation with her where she was saying they were able to use some donated produce to put into the school meals. Mind, it was in the early 70's (might have been a bit earlier), and life was just different then. Not better, just different.

So I went off-piste for tea, and didn't stick to the 'soup&pud' genre. I made creamy potato lentil stew, which is a new recipe for me, but I was taken with the simplicity (I made mine in the Prc), and I had virtually all the ingredients in some format or other. It's gone so cold here this afternoon, it was just the warming, rib-sticking meal that we all needed. LG cleared their plate, and DH commented that it was 'very nice'. So I will have to write out the recipe, as it's a keeper.

I managed to get through the afternoon without spending anymore money (YAY! go me 🤣). We've had rain off and on, so washing wouldn't have got dry.

DH has now become very interested in spending the pre-paid card, as I queried whether we could purchase the bracket and fixings to put the TV up on the wall, which we've been considering, as it would free up some space in the living room. I don't know if we will go in that direction, but it could be a 'useful' spend on something that we've been considering, but seems to always get sidelined by other needs. It's in the 'maybe' pile. Although maybe this isn't the right telly to do it with - it's a flat screen but not 'smart'. Trouble is, it works perfectly fine, it would be a pity to replace something that is working. It's something like 18-20 years old. DH saved so diligently to buy it…… But then we experienced a smart TV on holiday, and it is quite a boon to be able to watch series off eye-player etc……

Ta for popping in. Greying X

KajiKita

Thanks for that recipe - that looks lush. I will be trying that one 😊

KK