April 2008 Grocery Challenge

Sunnyday

mrssnowy wrote: »

Hi sunnyday,try use new unused J-cloth type,that will work.
yogurt sounds great I am going to have a go,but what is the wilco flask like?
I have a wide mouthed flask(not frog) and have made yogurt in that before.
Have now got £4 something left till Monday :eek:
I'll just have another NSD and clean the windows to take my mind off it.
Well done all

Hi Mrssnowy,

thanks for the jcloth tip i have some of these so i`ll give it a go with my next batch when i get some more milk.
The wilco food flask is about the size of a cereal bowl and it`s enough for 4 small pots of yogurt, i`ve only used it for taking porridge and soup and things to work in before this.
I put the long life milk in and microwaved it for 3 mins and gave it a stir, i tested it with my finger and it was just right, not hot enough to burn but too hot to leave your finger in for any length of time and i stirred in the greek yogurt and put the lid on, i just left it on the shelf until this morning and when it looked ok put it into the fridge. The food flask is green with a black lid and cost around £4 last year, it was a good investment and the instructions say to warm up whatever you`re putting in to it actually in the flask instead of preheating it first - saves messing about too.
HTH
SD

PS if not using long life milk for the yogurt you will need to boil it first and then let it cool to the right temperature - too much faffing for me and the long life is cheaper and tastes great

Sunnyday

mandy_moo_1 wrote: »

how warm did you make the milk? did you boil it or just warm it up a bit? ooh and just another quickie, whats a wilco food flask?

by the way, if you have a fabric shop, or market stall near where you live, they usually sell muslin, if thats any help to you x just thought of something else!! if you strain to make soft cheese, does it taste like plain Philly, or do you need to add anything? Fanx!!

EEk i`m slowly catching up, i`ve just posted a reply to Mrssnowy above and i think it`ll answer all your questions, if not let me know and i`ll try to answer, i`m still in shock at how easy it was to make

turbo5019

Looks like the fish pie will have to wait. Sister just rand got whole chickens on whoops for 30p and chicken breasts 6 for £2 getting 3 of them all from adsa she's getting 2 for me no room in freezer so look's like I'm bulk cooking tonight in a big way!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:T Thanks to everyone to do with fish pies will try tomorrow.:T

Sosh

Pay day tomorrow, so I'm officially joining. I'm quite confident. Having discovered the thread a couple of weeks ago, I've still got £5 left in my "shopping pot". That hasn't happened for about 6 months, usually, I have to raid some other pot to buy milk and veggies. I also have a full freezer and the top of my wardrobe contains enough toilet rolls to last at least until the middle of June.

I usually spend around £400 a month, so thought I'd try to cut 10% a month. That would give me a May budget of £360. What to people think? I don't want to cut it too drastically and fail miserably, I'd rather have a realistic chance of meeting it, that way I'm more likely to stick to the challenge.

Kaz2904

I think the jcloth was for cleaning the tea off the screen?
Think Bridget Jones blue soup!

Turbo what a lot of us have been finding is that we are padding things out with veggies and whatnot and ending up with a portion for the freezer (or a whole meal). This is meaning that we are taking something out and putting something else straight back in so the freezer space is becoming very limited.
I think that I'll get them to have lemon sorbet for pudding to try and run it down a little. The tub's stuffed and I need to liquidise it a little to mush it. Need some space first though in the tub!

Sunnyday

Kaz2904 wrote: »

I think the jcloth was for cleaning the tea off the screen?
Think Bridget Jones blue soup!
quote]
Lol, on re-reading it i think you`re right

I`m still tempted to try though, i can`t see me getting to anywhere that sells muslin for quite some time and i`m dying to try the cheese as i love it on MrsM`s tortillas with chicken/peppers etc.

If you see someone with a blue smile give us a wave
SD

savingfortravel

Hi everyone!!!

Payday tomorrow and we'd like to declare our April GC total at £56.99!!!

We are thrilled and plan to add the remainder of our £200 budget to our Central American Adventure bringing our savings total to £518.46 since January.

To be fair, before the GC, we bought whatever we wanted and often still had £10 a week left over from our weekly shopping budget (which we saved towards a treat) but we had no idea we could save this much....

My dream of seeing a Rainbow Billed Toucan in the Costa Rican Rainforest seems less of a dream each month.

OB thinks I'm obsessed with this challenge but I've loved it so far. Will finalise my May meal planner and shopping list tonight. Like others I'll have to start thinking of warm weather food... Can't wait to read any ideas...

Thank you to everyone for all your help and support.

Well done to everyone who reached their targets and big hugs to those who didn't .

I'm off to read your posts. SFT

candygirl

Bought bread , stardrops and crisps today, so spent £3.10.Still well on target for this month, so woo hoooo:j :j

MRSMCAWBER

Savingfortravel

What a cracking result :T ,, and what a lovely goal you are saving for... it's much easier to "try" and be good with the spends when you know that anything left over is going towards something so special.
OH might think you are obsessed with the challenge -but just wait until you see that Toucan then he wil realise;)

Anyhow folks.. i have stewed the rhubarb in the micro..and in an attempt to NOT add sugar :A i ended up using the 1/2 jar of apfelmus and 1/2 jar of cherries in juice...mixed it all up and "result":j 2 jars out of the fridge and sweet enough -just...and i have put it into 7 dishes and topped with SF strawberry jelly just had one topped with 1/2 a small pot of raspberry yogurt nomnomnom.. just like a fancy triffle minus the cals or the cost :A :rotfl:

Have a great evening everyone

bails

Congratulations SFT, that's a cracking result! :T Is that for 2 people? Well done to everyone else too, even if you have gone over budget I'm sure it's still much better than it used to be.
Due to a mix-up I have an extra fiver left so I think we'll make it :j I too get really excited about my shiny new budget and working out ways to spend even less each month; can't wait til Wednesday :rotfl:If my friends could see me now...:D