February 2024 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

@Soontobeoap wow that is so cool! Congratulations to your son and your entire family! I hope you had a lovely time in Antigua too 🙂

Soontobeoap

@pipneyjane just read back through all of the grocery challenge posts I have missed. So sorry to hear about your diagnosis. As others have said I am cheering for you. You are an amazing woman. Stay strong and keep posting we are all thinking of you. 

SausageDogSandwich

Small spend of 4.94 by husband during last week and sains delivery last night for £89.49 here. 

£217.64/350.

London_1

joedenise said:

JackieO - can I ask what recipe you use for your Chicken Provencal please?  I thought it might have been in the recipe thread at the beginning but can't see it!  I have quite a few chicken thighs in the freezer and could do with some different recipes to the current ones I use - curry, tagine etc!

I used to have a really good one that my late brothers partner used in France where they lived, but I lost it last year and sadly now they have both passed away I can't replace it, so I was in my local big Tesco's at Christmas and spotted that Schwartz had brought out a range of Slow Cooker sauces and they were doing an offer of .95p per packet, or 4 for £2.50.

I tried one packet to see what it was like, and its lovely, so I returned and bought four more packets they do I think 4 different slow cooker recipes, but the chicken provencal is so nice and very simple and easy to do literally just one red and yellow pepper chopped up a tin of tomatoes chopped up a tablespoon of tomato puree and chicken legs or thighs I used a combination of both as I did have a lot in the freezer I also added a good dollop of lazy garlic and some more dried mixed Herbs de Provence from my herb shelf, which has oregano and thyme mixed in

I put in on low in my slow cooker around 9 in the morning and by 5 it smelt and tasted gorgeous Around an hour before I cut in half some tinned new potatoes from the tinned cupboard ,mainly to use them up, and diced up a couple of carrots and chucked them in for good measure, and they cooked in the delicious sauce ,

When I portioned it all up I had about 7 take-away boxes full of chicken, veg and the sauce .which once cooled I froze. roughly a thigh and a couple of drumsticks per box I removed most of the bones before boxing up as the chicken just fell off the bone so I was really pleased with the result.  

A bit of a cheats meal but well worth it, took me about 10 minutes to prepare then literally just left it to cook on low all day. The next lot I cooked a week or so later was just as nice and I added almost any veg I had that I wanted to use up so a box full for dinner was full of chicken and lots of veg and because its nice and spicy I had some boiled rice to go with it A really tummy warmer in the cold winters days If you manage to get the special off in Tescos the sauce only works out at 62.5p a packet and it helps to use up all this odd chicken bits that seem to not get used up in the freezer. 

Hope this helps, I wish I still had the recipe from France as it was a lovely one but its lost somewhere possibly in the paperwork I have been decluttering for my house move
I know one of the ingredients was a finely diced shallots and some white wine and a few crushed black olives but as I was out of those I made do with what I had

  JackieO xx


 

joedenise

Thanks Jackie.  Will look out for mixes on special offer!

lovemula21

Hi everyone, I’ve topped up my totem pre paid card with £175 to last the rest of the month. This is a little more than I have budgeted for but unfortunately I could only top up in multiples of £25. I received some cashback too which added approx £3 making it £178. 

I spent £93.97 today. Leaving me around £84 for the last shop of the month. 

I also popped into coop because I’d forgotten a few items. So another £6.67 spent there. I didn’t use my pre paid card for these. 

In my main shop I bulk bought butter because it was reduced (nectar price) and bought a big jar of coffee which accounts for the overspend. 

No snacks this week other than things we can make ourselves like cookies and cupcakes. Along with fruit and Greek yogurt. Hopefully the kids won’t miss the usual highly packaged and processed snacks they are used too. I’d love it if this week could be the norm. Fingers crossed! 🤞 

Mamaofmanybudgets

£339.29 / 400 

Ouch 😑

PipneyJane

Soontobeoap said:

@pipneyjane just read back through all of the grocery challenge posts I have missed. So sorry to hear about your diagnosis. As others have said I am cheering for you. You are an amazing woman. Stay strong and keep posting we are all thinking of you. 

Thank you, @Soontobeoap.  I’m on day 9 of my second round of chemo and, so far, don’t feel too bad.  (I have been warned that day 10 is usually horrible.). Only main side effect is that my tastebuds are currently up the spout. For example, I can’t taste coffee or chocolate and some proteins are completely tasteless too.  Guess who woke up this morning dreaming of the smell of coffee?

I have some spends to declare from yesterday.  Monday is my regular day for treatment/blood tests/dressing changes, so after my appointment we did a trip round the shops.  (I say “we”, DH did the shopping.  I stayed in the car.).   £13.60 was spent in MrT’s on 2 x 1kg bags of risotto rice (£3 a kg) and 4 x 500g bags of bulgar wheat*, which has gone up to £1.90 each from £1.30 a year or so ago.  

Our next stop was L!dl, where £8.42 was spent on 3 chorizos, utilising their 40p off offer, and a tub of Custard Cream.  

Final stop was C0stc0, where the Bulk Fund spent £54.69 on 6 skin-on salmon fillets (£20.63), a triple packet of smoked mackerel (£6.49), a bulk box of DH’s favourite porridge breakfast cereal (£8.79 less an 80p offer), some tissues (£6.29) and one of their Chicken Enchilada ready meals (£12.04).  The fish is now in the freezer.  We’ll have the enchiladas for dinner tomorrow night.

The above brings our total GC spend to £92.87/£165 leaving £72.13 for the rest of the month.

- Pip



* We use bulgar wheat regularly instead of rice.  It has 8 times the protein and 4 times the fibre of brown rice, but only takes 15 minutes to cook. To cook:  combine 1 cup bulgar wheat with 2 cups boiling water in a saucepan, add a dash of salt, bring back to the boil, cover and switch off.  Leave for 15 minutes.  This will comfortably feed 4 as a filler alongside a curry or chilli.  Bulgar wheat bulks up more than rice does - for the same cooked volume, I’d have to use 1.5 cups of basmati rice.

Suffolk_lass

Good to hear you are still doing well, despite the treatment Pip. Thanks for the bulgar wheat explanation. I know my DH is not keen on brown rice (which I like) so might give it a go. With the exception of bringing the water to the boil and simmering for a few minutes before covering and turning off, the cooking methods are the same.

I've just been to the local Coop and bought a few potatoes and some milk, so our spend is just tipping over the 15% for the year now.

Crazycatlady2

Think I'm at 380 ISH need salad tomorrow and 1 Tesco delivery to do plus a freezer junk stock up from Iceland