March 2008 Storecupboard Challenge anyone?

MSHAWX

This challenge really appeals and should fit in well with my other ones.

The bit I like most is that DawnW keeps hens and grows veg and fruit - so do I, but not that well, I swing between famine and glut with my home grown produce. I try to freeze my surplus but sometimes not too successfully - what do you do with defrosted soggy french beans? It would be nice to share recipes and ideas. You don't need a garden to grow things, my friend only has a balcony and she grew toms and chillies last year - enough chillies to last her the year. She also grows salad leaves on her windowsill to put in her sandwiches, saves her a fortune over the prepacked stuff in the supermarket.

The hens are brillient, all eight have names. I give then ad-lib layers pellets but also cooked outer peelings from the vegs, spare rice and pasta, and any left over bread. They are almost like little dustbins. I sell any surplus eggs to the neighbours which means the hens pay for their own food and I get my eggs for free. Sorry to go on about the girls but they are such characters.

Back to the challenge - My freezers need empting before this years fruit and veg go in it, my cupboards are full of tins, packets and jars - some of which are seriously wierd. So count me in, it would be interesting to see where this challenge goes

dinx1972

Don't have a lot in, but must join. Posted my March GC target as £310 an hour ago, then realised car needs service and MOT:eek: . Now booked in for Wednesday, sooooo March's GC target will now be whatever is left from £310 after we have paid the garage:( . Pasta and cheese for tea anyone:rotfl: .

mumzyof2

Morning all, im about to make sausage casserole for tea does anyone know if i put the sausages in the casserole dish from frozen,,,or do i need to part cook them first? I hate cooking sausages

FrankieM

mumzyof2 wrote: »

Morning all, im about to make sausage casserole for tea does anyone know if i put the sausages in the casserole dish from frozen,,,or do i need to part cook them first? I hate cooking sausages

I tend to brown mine first cause they like nicer...but you can just bung them in...they don't look very appertising though, IMHO

angie_loves_veg

Day 1 has started in earnest. The milkman failed to deliver overnight , so although we have coped fine for today, next delivery is Tuesday (we get three deliveries a week) so unfortunately I will have to buy some before then

Breakfast - still as usual - bagel for me, fresh fruit for hubby and cereal for DD. we will have to start thinking of alternatives by about Tuesday I think - the fruit will have gone, and the bagels too.... I will start looking at recipes for 'fancy breakfast bread' - anyone ever made brioche?

Lunch - delicious! 3 rashers of bacon from freezer jazzed up a lovely cauliflower cheese with breadcrumbs on top. DD had leftover crumble for pudding from last night.

Dinner tonight we are out at friends, so they will provide breakfast also!

Lunch currently mysterious, but could be soup from freezer, or something egg based (omlette etc)

For tomorrows tea we have decided on sea bass (the bottomless freezer) with mushrooms, potatoes and salsa verdi (storecupboard and herbs from garden)

Hope everyone else is doing well!

lil_me

dinx1972 wrote: »

Don't have a lot in, but must join. Posted my March GC target as £310 an hour ago, then realised car needs service and MOT:eek: . Now booked in for Wednesday, sooooo March's GC target will now be whatever is left from £310 after we have paid the garage:( . Pasta and cheese for tea anyone:rotfl: .

Yummy one of my favourites see suppose that's my only problem, I can eat cheaply all the time as I like it, rest of the family are parky pests!

angie, how annoying, similar thing happened to us recently when milkman was on holiday someone else was supposed to be covering, instead of being there in the morning it was 3pm when he delivered.

Well I didn't have to buy ham as I found some when getting the chicken out of the freezer for tomorrows dinner. Haven't had the time lately to completely empty the freezer and list everything, I had a list I was working through crossing off until someone binned it! Anyway that's saved spending anything this weekend as I have everything else we need. I'm finding it a bit tricky not to do a big shop psychologically but not trying to figure out where I can stash everything when it arrives/I get back is a relief. Think I will stick with shopping at the Coop, Chemist (great for cheap cleaning stuff inc vinegar etc) and F&V shop until I need a lot because it's saving me on petrol aswell as time which I don't have much of at the mo. They are a bit more expensive than other places I can use but with petrol on it's not worth it for bits and pieces

Been making some rolls, something I have failed badly at in the past, I have finally made rolls everyone likes which is a miracle, really soft and everything so my overstock of bread flour etc will be handy for that. So impressed the second batch is on rising now weekends have become baking days as with studying I am short of time during the week.

DawnW

Well, I'm afraid I spent far too much at the supermarket, as I couldn't resist some of the special offers. This is why I need to do a storecupboard challenge! I know from other threads on here that other people have this 'problem' too. Mumzyof2, you have a pretty impressive list there, (even though you lost another post presumably with another lot listed?) I do go through my kitchen cupboards every now and then and write everything down, but I am scared of my freezer:eek: It is a huge chest one, and is absolutely stuffed. It lives in the garage. I just grab something off the top and shut the lid up again quick! I also have a small freezer on top of my fridge in the kitchen, but that is really small, not too much in there. I have loads of preserves on shelves in one of the bedrooms too, some made by me and others by my daughter and daughter in law, so I need to go through them to see what is there. I have been quite good about using up cleaning products and toiletries recently though.

My chickens don't have names as they all look the same:rotfl: I couldn't tell them apart, so they are collectively known as 'brown chickens'. I only have 3, and they eat more or less anything except for citrus fruit and big hard vegetables (no teeth :rotfl: ) though they will eat these if I grate them first - don't often have time to do that though. OH and I put in our first vegetables of the year yesterday, shallots, broad beans and parsnips. He got about half the veg plot dug over, as it was a lovely day. We only have a smallish plot these days now the kids have left home (though they do come back pretty often). We still have kale to use up, and a few more leeks, and the purple sprouting broccoli is coming along nicely. I am really looking forward to that as it is my favourite!

Jamie's fish bake was absolutely lovely btw, and there is enough for Monday as well. Roast turkey today, left over from Xmas. We had a turkey ordered from a local farm and when my OH picked it up it was like an ostrich :eek: ! It weighed about 28 lbs and we had to cut the legs off to get it in the oven. So it is one of the legs we are having, roasted with roast potatoes, and steamed kale and carrots, and it is so big it will feed 4 people (or at least the other one did), especially if I do a quick pudding as well. Microwave treacle sponge and custard I think, as my daughter and her boyfriend are coming for dinner and it is his favourite. It only takes about 7 mins to cook. I used to steam them, but they take hours done that way and they are more or less the same done in the microwave.

I have to go to London 3 days this week for work:mad: so probably won't get to do much cooking as I will be late back. Lots of jacket spuds and the threat of OH cooking (a bit mean, he does try but he has a limited repertoire, and he is the first to admit he much prefers when i do the cooking).

It must be the month for car expenses, as lots of you seem to have them coming up as well.

Well, I can breathe ok again now (had a bit of asthma, and when I get it at night, I just have to get up and take inhaler), so will go back to bed for a while I think.

MSHAWX

Hi all,
I'm out for the day today - but just thought I'd post first.
I'm afraid its tea out of the freezer today, I'll have to put something in the slow cooker plus those soggy french beans which I froze last year - I obviously did something wrong when I put them down in the freezer last year.

Dawn W I used to have a small freezer attached to the fridge in the kitchen - then we moved and left it behind - but I used to 'go shopping' once a week out of the larger freezers. Anything bits I had left over from cooking would always be put into this small freezer as well. When it became full the challenge was to use up all the bits before I could 'go shopping' again. It worked very well for me but alas I don't have a little freezer now so you can imagine the state of the large freezer, open the top 'grab and go'

Looks like lamb, french beans, artichoke mash, probabaly peas, - I'll see whats lurking in the fridge when I get back.
followed by marrow cream and custard - I need to add lemon and eggs (I'll maybe put some oats in as well) to the marrow cream but that doesn't take any time once defrosted.
Then it will be the all important glass of the red stuff.

mumzyof2

I have wrote my meal plan down on grocery thread if anyone wants to have a look..got 27 meals out of it

angchris

i think i`d best join in this month, although oh had a fabulous wage this month because he had holiday pay added we have decided to stick to our budget for the month and stick the excess dosh away for our wedding i also have a chest freezer rammed with little tubs of hm this and that all unlabelled and i havent got a clue whats in it :rotfl: i also have loads of reduced stuff that i have grabbed because it was cheap but none of us ever fancies it for tea. i have decided its time for a good clearout because some of the bits have been lurking in the depths of the freezer for well over a year and its not really a bargain if you aren`t gonna eat it! i also have two hugeeee bin bag size bags of pork n leek sausages leftover from when we had a catering trailer but we sold it 2 1/2 years ago, we have literally sickened ourselves of the darn things and cant face eating them anymore and they have a bit of freezer burn now so i have decided enough is enough and they are gonna get used as dog food, im gonna have the best fed rottweiler in town!:rolleyes: at least it should save me buying dog food for a few months as they are either going in the bin or the dog.