From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MSE'rs

Gosh, time has flown.

EH - yes, good balsamic would impart sweetness wouldn't it?  the only slight downside I could forsee, although it's not a deal breaker, is that ordinary balsamic would slightly muddy the bright orange of the carrot. Not so much of a problem in a MSE'rs kitchen, I would be the first to say 😉 I think the thing with LG and carrot pickle was more that they're not totally enamoured with carrots, more than a fear that they would become a staggering drunk from a dollop loaded onto their burger 😁

Anyhoo, I have to add spends to my total as I have been shopping - quite extensively 😬 But I did pick up some rice wine vinegar.  I think I got the wrong thing - you all told me to get Mirin, which I didn't realise I didn't know what that was.  I thought Mirin was the Japanese rice wine vinegar, but it appears (if MrS is to be believed) that that is the Chinese product.  I checked the MrL  Japanese foods selection and that was 'rice wine lite', so I left that on the shelf.  In MrS there was a choice of 3 products - 1 branded, and 2 MrS 'inspired to cook' (or something).  The branded item was in the Japanese section, and again it seemed to be light on the actual rice/vinegar content.  I looked at the other 2 choices - one of which was called mirin, one of which was called rice vinegar.  I plumped for the more expensive rice vinegar........ but I suppose I should have gone for the Mirin as that had the alcohol content listed (the rice vinegar just said it was made from rice wine vinegar), as the rice vinegar is not especially sweet.  However the mirin had glucose syrup added - so would have been sweeter.  Anyhoo.  The moral of the tale is - that rice wine vinegar will be used in future carrot pickles 😁and I think that unless I drop lucky and have naturally sweet carrots, I will need to add a bit more sugar IF I am wanting the 'sweet pickle' ideal I have got in my head.  So thank you all for your suggestions, and i now need some 'OK' weather so that we can have a tea featuring salads 🤣

I will need to gather my receipts and add them to my grocery total - I know I have spent alot in comparison to what I actually 'got' for my money 🙁But mea culpa, nobody said I had to go shopping, did they?

Back into the swing of term time 🙁  Clubs are back up and running too, but at least expenditure comes from CHB, so that is all budgeted for.  

I can't think of anything particularly MSE to report.  I need to get my head into gear again about food prep as otherwise the grocery budget is just going to run away with me again this month.  Minor blips are allowed, but it's too early in the month to just throw in the towel and say 'too heck' with budgeting......

Right, gotta go. Snap is done, uniform on, but there's bound to be summat forgotten.......

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Right, the scores are on the doors, I have done my totting up and amended the totals in my siggie.

Gulp.

Right.  I am already over for my non-grocery spend for this month (double-gulp).  the only notes to make are; a) £25 was an arbitary amount, set for a new way of working and b) I bought shoe-polish last night which I haven't bought for years (hence why it was needed - the other stuff had gone to stink 🙁), and won't be a monthly purchase, but was bought this month, so.....  And other items bought last night won't be totally used up in this month (should last well into May), but you have to buy them when you see them, as the item/particular make is often oos.  Thinking about it, it is always going to be difficult to keep the non-food budget at a similar level each month - as you always need to buy 'something' that skews the budget.  For example, I don't yet need clothes washing powder, but looking at prices at the mo, that will 'skew' the budget the month I do buy a new box, so....... I'll give it a go at £25pm and may well have to adjust in the future.  You've got to start somewhere, right?

Food shopping expenditure now stands at £80.22/215.  This isn't too bad I suppose, as everything that I have bought recently has either been consumed, or will be consumed.  Other than the rice vinegar (which was a splurge) there was no frivoulous spending - it was all 'meat 'n potatoes' purchases, that had I not bought them over the last few days, would have been on my list for Thursday or next Tuesday or whatever.  I needed to buy milk on Monday as DH had been at home so tea-drinking levels had sooooaaarred over the Easter period 🙄

Tomorrow's shop won't be cheap as although I now have some things in stock, Olive Oil has already made it onto my list....... 

Greying X

teapot2

Olive oil is one of the many things that seems to have really shot up in price

redofromstart

I have just looked and the first ingredient on my mirin is glucose syrup.  

I tend to roast bland carrots for sweetness - my mum taught me to grate, and then oven baked in a covered dish with a little sugar, butter and water which really sweetened them up. Makes the worst 'horse' carrots edible. Cashews and carrots go really really well together too.  I still like the fried rice with grated carrot, cumin and cashews. Perhaps you could let them sit in the liquid for longer for sweetness?

I cracked and bought some sesame oil, and some sesame seeds, as they are needed for one of the Sat Bains Heart book recipes that I want to try. I think all of the oils have gone up hugely. Veg oil I paid £6.50 for 5l in T, which makes it £1.30 a litre, but it's a big lump out of the monthly budget. Olive oil has gone mad, £7.80 per litre for a bottle of T cheapest. I now only  buy in L or Al currently where it was closer to £5 a few months ago. I remember my Dad saying about butter being sold by the ounce as people just couldn't afford half a pound post war and I think olive oil is going that way. We were talking about making focaccia earlier (used to make a lovely salt and rosemary version when the boys were little) but the thought of all that olive oil makes it a real luxury option.  

Greying_Pilgrim

redofromstart said:

 I still like the fried rice with grated carrot, cumin and cashews. Perhaps you could let them sit in the liquid for longer for sweetness?

Ay up redo - totally agree with giving the carrots mucho more time to marinade.  I didn't the other night because I changed my mind about having HM carrot pickle over using my purchased kimchi. But you're right, a bit of a longer soak probably would have made all the difference.

I made Parsnip Curry today, using up the parsnips that were part of....... MrS's Easter offering. It made a pot for a curry plate (comprising other curries), plus enough for the three of us if we had dhal and rice. 

I am going to put on some black-eyed beans on to soak just now.  I want to make another curry to use up the last of the spinach i have, and other than chickpeas, have no cooked pulses in the freezer 😱

T'ain't a lot, but it's a start to build up meal and ingredient stocks a bit. 

Tea was just swede and lentil morroccan stew and boiled rice.  Natural yoghurt and chocolate buttons (don't ask) for pud.  

I managed a nsd today.  Wasn't trying, but certainly welcome.

I'm hopeful that I will be able to catch up with my washing tomorrow, if the weather just calms down.  The breeze is useful, but the near constant rainfall sure as heck isn't.


Today I think I am just grateful to have done the day.  There's nothing wrong happened, it was just one of those times when a few distracting niggles seemed to want to derail progress.  I don't think I let them today.  Today I tried my best to deal with the niggles head on and sort stuff.  Oh, and I was grateful to see the sunrise this morning - I caught it at the red/crimson/gold stage, it only lasted a short time, it was different and much more washed out by the time I got downstairs even.  Oh, and thinking about it, LG did some good work for their homework today - it wasn't a battle, they just got on with it and did well.  

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Squeeee! Andi Oliver just made carrot pickle for her Lobster Po' Boy, AND Staffordshire oatcakes look like they are making an appearance next week too!  Squeeeee!  I suspect I had better put the veggie version of Staffordshire Lobby on the menu for tea next Wednesday night 😁

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

Washing machine is on.  

Black-eyed peas are soaked and all plumped up.  I put the whole packet on to soak, so have 2 bowlfuls.  Will PC them later.  

Shopping today.  List mostly made.  Nowt fancy sitting on it, just know it will easily breach the £40 barrier 😕 which is crazy, as for the most part it is made up of basic ingredients - yer 'bread,milk,cheese' equivalents.  Ho hum.

Can't think of anything else to add MSE wise.  Best go pack snap,

Ta for popping by.  

Greying X

beanielou

The costs are just getting so ridiculous. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Right, back with the scores on the doors.

In raw 'spend' terms, I did better than I anticipated, as my expenditure was £35.32.  However, that masks the fact that I didn't get coffee (OOS) and I baulked at paying £6.79 for Olive oil.  I just couldn't bring myself to, so bought British seed oil instead.  I would have been at £40.00+ had I got all I wanted.

No £1.50 boxes - past being surprised by this.

I did benefit from 2 packs of 60% discounted mushrooms - one pre sliced, one button, which will form the basis of my Staffordshire Lobby.  There was a family pack of mushies discounted by 60% too, but they looked a little too battered and bashed, so I left them.

I made hay with the PoTW, and got a lovely looking cauli, an 'OK' cucumber (they were like they are normally, not huge, but at least they were 20p less than normal) and I bought some of the lettuce, as it was the stuff with roots, so in theory should last a little longer if put in water (I think).  I did have to dig through the lettuce packs though, as it was difficult to see how some packs met the 'trio' criteria.

Although I got quite a stack of veg today, I didn't get any fruit, I had to compromise on the eggs I bought (don't ask) and other than wine, can't think of any 'luxury' items that made it into my trolley 🙁

Washing (2 loads) is out on the line, flapping nicely 😁 Hopeful I can get it all dry as that would represent  a monumental leap back towards being up to date.   I'm away to cook the black-eyed peas now in the PC, once I've updated my siggie on here and put the very last of the shopping away.  

I forgot to say, I was mostly a little underwhelmed by the Andi Oliver episode last night - it felt a little 'too' contrived - however, the one stand out for me (was not 'why send a presenter/cook with a seafood allergy to promote local lobster'), was definitely the 'up for it-ness' of the young people from the chippy and the local skate park.  I was so impressed that they all 'gave everything a go', even if there was an initial reluctance, and when they all tucked into the toasties at the end, it was just joyous to see them all enjoying being part of it all. Bravo to them - what a credit to themselves they all were, irrespective of whether they now go on to be masters/mistresses of their own fleet of fishing vessels or not.  You don't have to like everything, you don't have to continue something that you really hate, but bravo for 'pitching in' and having an attempt.  And I'm sorry, but as the wonderful musicians had been bussed in from Wakefield, could we not have had a pud that featured rhubarb?  Lovely and creative tho that vegan tart was, it didn't scream 'Bridlington' to me - despite the 99-esque topping.......

Right, siggie.

Greying X

Paspatur

Hi GP, I was also not as impressed with the latest episode
As the daughter of a fisherman who grew up eating lots of fish and seafood, including lobster, I learned that the less you do to it the better it tastes
Dipping good lobster in breadcrumbs and putting it in a bun is for me sacrilege!