June 2024 Grocery Challenge

goldfinches

PipneyJane said:

@goldfinches your walking group friends must love you.  Those cakes look lovely.

We found an excellent gluten-free bread in Sainsbugs last week for my sister, who has coeliac’s disease.  It’s called “Promise” and is a granary loaf that has the look and feel of regular bread.  You really can’t tell the difference.  (DS and her husband are over from Oz for a few weeks.).

- Pip

I'll keep an eye out for that in my local branches, thankyou for the info. 

@Auti - sadly I don't have an Asda branch within reach here but do have some friends who occasionally travel to an area near one so I've made a note of your loaf too, thankyou for the info.

I was in bed on Tuesday evening mulling things over and had a brainwave about adapting the vegan ginger slice recipe to make vegan gluten free muffins so had a trial run yesterday morning and these were the result. 



As you can see I put the apple on top on some and added an extra spoonful of mixture on top of the apple for others. I also baked them at a lower temperature and didn't include the preserved ginger and swapped the ground ginger for ground mixed spice. I haven't got all the variables sorted out yet but think I might be on the verge of developing a basic vegan gluten free muffin mixture that can have various fruits and spices added to it so will keep on experimenting and let everyone know what I arrive at finally.

WickedLady4

@goldfinches: I have a coeliac friend and she highly recommends the Promise bread. I sometimes get her some from my local large Sainsbury's as she likes the quinoa and chia one. 

Pennypincin

The cakes look good.
ive misplaced the Tesco receipt, so can't accurately say how much I've spent today.
I've also restarted doing the receipt scanning apps, so a slight blow there.
I've £15.06 left, I think I had £35 in the budget, so £20 approximately spent in Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury's and Tesco.
Plus a £3.55 gift card for Sainsbury's, used in Sainsbury's, so only took 20p out of the food budget.
I bought salad, fruit, vegetables, vegan/vegetarian protein including several packets of Linda McCartney burgers at 75p a pack that I couldn't resist in the freezer department.
I will have to keep persevering in running the freezer down.

thriftwizard

I've done the supermarket & butcher element of the week's shopping, which has added £70.15 to my total; I'll have to behave at the market tomorrow but I don't think we'll need very much, just fruit & veg. There may be a small spend on Saturday for picnicky stuff too, as DS2, DDiL & DGS have mooted the idea of a Father's Day picnic at the local miniature railway's annual fete. However the weather may force a change of plan, in which case I'll just stretch what we already have & fit them in too, and we'll get the Brio & Hornby set up here!

SausageDogSandwich

Another £6 spent here, have ordered big shop for tomorrow to include everything for a fry up for husband for Father’s Day. Will call to farmfood tomorrow to get milk as it’s only £1 there, the problem is being able to stop ourselves buying other stuff while there 

£103.10/320 spent. 

goldfinches

@WickedLady4 - thankyou for the Promise variety tip which I have made a note of for the future.

I had to go back to M*rks for milk as I was only able to buy a 2 pint of the type I like the last time I did a shop and the shelf was bare of 4 pint containers again so I gave up trying to stick to my commitment to buy the organic one and just bought normal green milk instead for £1.45. I also have a spend of £4.40 at Mr T's on Wednesday to add to the awful total.
That makes my new GC total £85.49/£150 which is an average daily spend of £6.10. 

thriftwizard

£32 spent at the market, on fish, fruit & veg - moderate, but not moderate enough! A little under £80 left, so I need to go cautiously for the rest of the month, but it's do-able...

Soontobeoap

I have completely lost my GC mojo. Thank you all who sent best wishes for hubby. He is recovering well but still eating what he fancies and I have not got back to meal planning again. He came shopping with me today. It was a bit tiring for him but at least he could choose what he wanted rather than me trying to guess. We have come a long way and I hope to be meal planning again next week. Ds and family are coming on Sunday for fathers day which is lovely. Dd came to island last Friday on my birthday. I seem to have been like a duracell bunny for the last 5 weeks since DHs op and have now done an exhausted slump as he is getting more energy and in less pain.
Result of me taking a step back from normal household duties is that I only have £18.00 of my budget left for this month. Still I am counting my blessings.

Lots of crafting has been done to calm my nerves and allow me to spend lots of time with DH. 🤣

Pennypincin

£4.63 spend to declare in Tesco.
On more salad plus 2 pots of budget cottage cheese.

goldfinches

@Soontobeoap - I think you deserve a medal and a fortnight's holiday with pampering. Never mind the budget, you and your OH can see the light at the end of the tunnel and he's feeling able to get out for a shopping trip which is real progress. Well done to you and internet hugs from over here ((())).

I only really popped my head around the door to tell everyone about this Which blind taste test of olive oils which says that one from Aldi is excellent value for money. Best cheap extra virgin olive oil revealed - Which? News