May 2024 Grocery Challenge

LadyWithAPlan

wishus said:

 

Finishing the month at £249.63. Oh yes, for once, I made it! Squeaking under budget!

How I did it: as I'm mid-house-refurb, I had already packed most of my recipe books out of the way. I didn't want to trawl through loads of online recipes or think forever about what I was going to cook in the week. Also, I had stuff in the cupboards/freezer I needed to use. Well, I found one thing AI is good for. I fed some prompts into Copilot about what I wanted, how many recipe/meal I needed, level of difficulty/time, ingredients I wanted, ingredients I didn't want and it trawled the internet for me! I now have a few more in my To Do Meal plan notes that I can swing back into my week whenever I want. 

Some tips if you want to try this:

• Do specify the country you are in, and it may even source recipes you can find ingredients for in Aldi, rather than the US-stuff that dominates the internet.
• Do tell them mid-budget rather than budget if you want better ideas than pasta with peas and cheese.
• Do tell them any allergies/intolerences. Sometimes it finds recipes that have those things in, and suggests ingredient replacements or says you can have without. 

Here are some of my favourite recipe discoveries from this month:

Cajun chicken pasta: https://savvybites.co.uk/cajun-chicken-pasta/
Chicken cacciatore: https://cafedelites.com/chicken-cacciatore/
Chicken katsu with extra veg sauce: https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-katsu-with-extra-veg-sauce.html
Zesty lamb chops with couscous: https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/zesty-lamb-chops-with-couscous/

Next month may need to have a few more takeaways, so might need a few cheesy peas recipes to compensate. Right, June, then!

the ai recipe tips are great