February 2009 Grocery Challenge

belfastgirl - I'm just about neck and neck with you at the moment, £82.43 (as far as I can work out!) out of £120. And that included dominoes and wine on my flatmate's birthday, and a big bottle of Southern Comfort for last saturday, yum!

I've mealplanned and I seem to have enough food in for me to last into March... just need to buy lots of veggies for the guineas! But then I am always tempted when I go into food shops. We'll see how that goes...

scotsaver wrote: »

elizabunny - could you please post your Oxtail Stew recipe, I've started shopping at the Butchers and noticed that they sell Oxtail so would love to give this a go, especially if I can turn the leftovers into Oxtail Soup as this is OH's favourite Soup but too expensive.;)

Have a good day everyone.:D

Hello everyone


Hi Scotsaver -this is my receipe for Oxtail stew:-
4 Pieces of Oxtail
About 4 Med. Potatoes peeled and cubed
About Quarter Swede peeled and cubed
1 Parsnip peeled and sliced
1 large Onion peeled and sliced
About Half to threequarters Pint of Boiling Beef Stock
1 Half Tsp. Dried Rosemary
2 Bay Leaves
Salt & Pepper Seasoning

I layered everything into my slo-cooker with the Oxtail pieces evenly spaced around the dish, added the herbs and seasoning and then poured the boiling Beef stock over the top.

I cooked my Stew in the slo-cooker on high for about 6-7 hours, but I'm sure you could achieve the same result by cooking slowly in the oven (just keep an eye on the liquid)

When everything is thoroughly cooked this way you find the Oxtail meat just falls off the bones. I was able to reserve some of this meat and also some of the veggies and stock for Oxtail soup (Although I will need to add more stock to this as I used some of the liquid to make a rich gravy for the stew by adding a few granules to thicken it)

I think when I make the soup, I will bring to the boil the reserved meat, veggies and stock and then simmer everything for about 15-30 minutes and then liquidize it.

Hope this helps

Sadly up from £13 .64 today - got some treats from M & S - cranberry & orange hot cross buns, fairtrade hedgerow jam and a roast chicken pie for dinner tomorrow and spent another £12.22 in Tescos which included a lot of value stuff and I note their value pancake mix at only 8p... Curry sauce has gone down now to 13p! but still no stocks of pasta, rice or stock cubes..

was feeling soooo good at holding at £13.64 til today and for a long while was Zero spend until 15th still that includes stockpiling of value tea, curry sauces, pancake mix and other bits to take advantage of price cuts on value items

actually EDIT to recalculate as the candle is not what I count as groceries...

Did a big £20ish shop at the weekend, got to the till & realised I'd left my money off voucher at home! That's the 3rd time I've gone shopping without it! Good thing it doesn't expire until November!

Must remember it next time. Although not sure when I'll be going shopping again as my brother has moved back home so left me a whole bag of food he wasn't going to use before he left.

Still doing very well, have had several nsds but will have to shop to-morrow as things keep running out....might manage to make it the last shop of the month though, so if I can keep it to around €100 I'm still winning....we'll see, as OH will be with me!

Good luck everybody

Marie