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Family of 5 'shop from home'food storage challenge...

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  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    edited 11 November 2019 at 8:44PM
    NoahsPennilessMummy - just came across some slow cooker recipes. Though they might be useful.

    slow cooker the recipe collection

    More links at the end of that thread as well.
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    edited 12 November 2019 at 3:33PM
    Afternoon all

    Just a quickie one for today.

    Breakfast and lunch was the usual but running out of cheese now. Might be able to stretch it until Thursday.

    Managed to have a bit of a freezer rearrange and found four large pieces of leftover gammon from slow cooked joints. They're quite large so I've decided to defrost one and make up a pasta sauce with it for dinner tonight. Just a basic roux-based white sauce flavoured with a veggie stockpot. I'll do standard pasta for DH and MIL, and then GF for me.

    Then tonight is a treat; to the cinema to see Midway using a couple of discounted tickets and with a £1 bag of sweets between us!
  • D&DD
    D&DD Posts: 4,405 Forumite
    Thanks so much for the egg info I never knew you could do that!!!
    I've always got room for a few pucks in the freezer so that's going to be a real help for me CE :)


    I made DS3's cake for his 21st yesterday and it tasted lovely but my icing is a disaster area lol thank god for buttercream!
    I used the chequerboard tins I got cheap from hobbycraft,right ole faff but totally worth it for the effect they give but took me nearly all day.
    Tea was a takeaway as his birthday treat but making up for it today as we've got pork and beef koftas with couscous,homemade bread/pittas and roasted veggies all from stores.


    I've still got lettuce etc growing well so will only have to buy the usual strawberries and some tomatoes this week I think plus milk.
    I've done a rough meal plan for the rest of the week as it's full week of hospital appointments tomorrow and Friday for Mum,Rosie has her stitches out Thursday morning and GP this evening with OH..
    Having the family round on Sunday for a belated birthday tea as we were all busy last weekend so need to get baking.


    NPM I love sausage and bean casserole in the slow cooker and I also use it for strawberry and rhubarb cobbler..or any flavour cobbler haha


    Just watching some xmas baking programmes I recorded last year to get me in the mood for a bit of cookie making.I have made some room this last week in the freezer although most things I removed were replaced with cooked dinners eg a large pack of mince made lasagne for dinner plus two singles to freeze and today I made enough koftas for dinner plus a spare batch for the freezer :) I do love having a freezer cooking day but it's not possible at the moment so having to make do with doubling up.


    Hope everyones weather improves it's just the usual cold and wet here no sign of the white stuff thankfully and no floods like some are having XX
  • purpleivy
    purpleivy Posts: 3,573 Forumite
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    D&D we just had a few days in Rome, where we did a food tour. One of the stops was a biscuit shop, where we tried a couple of things. One I liked was Brutti ma bueni or 'ugly but good'! They're a kind of hazelnut macaron and flour free. We went back on our last day to buy some for MIL and DD to bring home. I couldn't resist asking whether they had any other flour free, so treated myself to a bag!

    We are going to be living out of the freezer I think for a couple of weeks, having some tiles replaced on the kitchen floor tomorrow which will make a (nother) massive mess and DH is going to be digging out cracks and sanding skirting boards before decorating. A good excuse not to do proper cooking and good to empty the freezer. Last night got out the leftovers from the night before we went away and some soup. Not sure about tonight yet, but there will be something I'm sure.
    [SIZE=-1]"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad"[/SIZE]
    Trying not to waste food!:j
    ETA Philosophy is wondering whether a Bloody Mary counts as a Smoothie
  • joedenise
    joedenise Posts: 16,560 Forumite
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    Using up some tins of stuff from the cupboard for tonights dinner - a mixed bean goulash with brown rice. This is a recipe based on one of Jack Monroe's recipes from her website cookingonabootstrap.com
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    Evening all

    Hope everyone is doing ok?
    purpleivy wrote: »
    One I liked was Brutti ma bueni or 'ugly but good'!

    That sums up what most of my cooking looks like :D

    JD - thanks for the link. I've been thinking to go to Jack's website and have a look at some of the recipes for quite a while so you've given me the push I need.

    D&D - I can't ice to save my life. Got all the equipment in the drawer but my efforts are horrendous. I'm full of admiration for those people that can just whip out a lovely bit of piping.

    Beautiful sunny day here. Got lulled into putting washing on the line and, of course, it didn't dry so hanging it up around the place at the moment.

    The film last night was very good. We ended up having a bag of sweets each at the cinema. Not sure why I thought we could share one - we can share just about anything but sweets are a different kettle of fish :rotfl:

    The ham pasta was good, especially as I added some leeks and ground pepper to it. Noms. Unfortunately, I defrosted a big chunk of ham only to find that a third of it was more than enough so tonight I am going to try and knock up something with the rest of it. I'm wavering between either ham and potato cakes or shredding it and adding BBQ sauce. Leaning towards the latter with some airfry chips and beans.

    DH will be in shortly with some butter so I can do the filling for the middle of the cake I made the other day. We were too tired when we got in yesterday to sort out his lunches so today he bought a cheapie sandwich at the village shop on his delivery. I suspect if I go the BBQ ham route tonight there'll be a nice lot left to put in a wrap for his lunch tomorrow.

    My mother sent me a £10 off a £40 shop at Lidl from her weekend paper so tonight I will be doing a list to go and shop tomorrow morning. I've been running the cupboard/fridge down a bit so need quite a few bits and pieces and have decided to bulk up the shop to get to £40 and help fill the gaps in the stockpile a bit (you can never have too many toilet rolls :D). Depending on the price in Lidl, I might have to pop to Aldi to stock up on some of the unwaxed lemons on the Super Six offer, as I want to do some lemon curd for xmas. My sister and I have been exchanging some of our preserving efforts this year so I thought I'd do some curd as part of her xmas present. Also want to dry out the peel.

    Yesterday I admitted defeat with a packet of tea leaves I had been struggling through - it was a bit stale and not that great tasting. Rather than throw it out, I yanked out all the other packets of (yellow sticker out of date!) tea leaves I found a while back (darjeeling, assam, standard) and mixed everything up in a big bag. Now it tastes fine! Just 1lb 4oz to make my way through :D
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    edited 14 November 2019 at 6:48PM
    Hi everyone

    Hope you are all doing ok in this appalling disgusting weather. Was upset to see what this weather has done to those beautiful historic buildings in Venice.

    I was up at the crack of dawn to start work early. Occasionally I have a big shop day, when I have enough points/discounts/offers to stock up cheaply and get rewards back on what I shop. Today was that day and it normally takes about 3.5 hours, so I got my morning's work done before I went out.

    I'd got all my lists written using mysupermarket to get the maximum amount of food for the cheapest price possible and then hit the food shops one after another; Iceland, Poundstretcher, Sainsbury's, Lidl, and then finally Morrisons on the way home. Picked up a prescription and some chicken and cat food at the pet store on the way too. It's so handy to have virtually all our food shops in one small area.

    Got just about everything on my list, the vast majority of which was cupboard stores, along with a few yellow sticker bargains and non-edible xmas bits. Decided not to do Aldi and lemons in the end as I think it is a little too far away from xmas to do lemon curd. As it has butter in it I should really do it closer the time.

    I was gasping for a (yellow sticker!) cuppa by the end of it.

    Anyway, breakfast was a banana and a flapjack, lunch was a leftover bit of chilli salmon fillet from the other night in a (yellow sticker) GF wrap with some tortilla crisps while DH had his usual cereal and two BBQ ham wraps. Dinner this evening will be a yellow sticker steak for DH with new potatoes and red onion gravy, a solitary piece of breaded haddock with new pots for MIL and some toast for me. That salmon has been repeating on me ever since I ate it and I really don't feel like eating a big meal this evening.

    As a treat the chickens got some leftover jacket potato this afternoon - they looked so bedraggled they needed something to cheer them up.

    Managed to find two large white storage baskets in Poundstretcher for £1.39 each, which will be used for food hamper xmas presents for a couple of friends. I've pretty much finished the shopping for those, having been picking things up since August when I've seen them discounted half price.

    I'm going to laze around and read tonight I think.

    Take care all,

    CE
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    Morning all

    Didn't update over the last few days as it has all been a bit of a blur. Ended up with a migraine on Thursday to let me know I had overdone it and the mussiness lasted all the way through until Saturday. I gave up Saturday afternoon and went to bed early with pills, leaving MIL and DH to do their own dinner. Cue Dominos visit. At least they used an online voucher though and DH took the leftovers into work today for lunch.

    Yesterday we all met up with DH's niece and fiance for lunch and it turned out to be at the pub where DH and I had a our first date! Our table was still there in the corner by the fire and we were a bit loved up throughout the meal. :heartpuls The food was very good value for money and were still stuffed come the evening so no-one bothered with dinner.

    Today I have a chicken carcass to go in the slow cooker to make the base for a leek and potato soup this week. Tonight's dinner is going to be fish pie made up with yellow sticker fish.

    Hope you're all ok

    xxCExx
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    edited 19 November 2019 at 6:48PM
    Evening all

    What a lovely sunny day. Bloomin' cold though!

    Had the heating engineer in today to do the boiler service, and he stopped to admire my stock in the slow cooker. He's been thinking of getting one as he does like a stew but they can take too long to do once he gets in and wondered if a slow cooker would help. He is now a convert :D

    Breakfast was a tea and a banana, lunch usual crackers and cheese. DH had ham and pickle wraps.

    Dinner last night was gorgeous. Never used kippers in a fish pie before but it was lovely. So I had a yellow sticker haddock fillet (99p), two yellow sticker kipper fillets (99p) plus a leek, carrots, peas and a simple white GF roux-based sauce with a fish stockpot in it topped with mash. One portion leftover, which I will put in the freezer for another day.

    Was going to do leek and potato soup tonight but DH offered to cook a chilli so I jumped at the chance. Yellow sticker mince that I bought a few weeks ago is out and defrosted, ready for his fiery concoction. Everything else is out of the cupboards. I will do the soup tomorrow. I have some butternut squash to put into it as well just to use it up. That will be a cheap and filling dinner.

    Was desperate for a snack around 4pm but didn't want to scoff naughties. Had a search and found the last couple of bags of GF Happy Snack chickpeas and fava beans. Good to use those up, as they have been hanging around since before last xmas. The chilli ones were particularly spicy.

    Off now to sit in front of the fire with a hot chocolate and knit.

    Keep warm everyone.

    xxCExx
  • Cottage_Economy
    Cottage_Economy Posts: 1,227 Forumite
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    edited 20 November 2019 at 9:44PM
    Evening all

    Hope everyone's ok out there?

    Just finished up a tasty dinner of leftover fish pie (for me) and a leek and potato soup for MIL and DH. Breakfast was a banana and tea for me, while lunch was a mug of hot broth, some chocolate and biscuits :rotfl: It all went a bit pear-shaped there!

    Had to go to Lidl today to get some ham for DH at his request (after which the chocolate and biscuit disaster occurred on the way home). He's got a but fed up with tuna wraps and is getting into ham and pickle. This weekend I will bake up a big gammon from the freezer, slice and portion it up for the freezer so I don't have to buy it ready-prepped again. It'll take 2-3 days to defrost in the fridge. Might squeeze a roast dinner out of it Saturday night.

    In addition to the ham I also bought some fruitbake bars for DH's lunch, bananas, a bar of chocolate, some GF biscuits and a crusty baguette to go with the soup. DH came in with a 12.5kg back of spuds for £5, as I used the last of our last bag for the soup this evening.

    Good job as well, as we got a £200 bill for the boiler servicing and fitting a new stopcock to replace the seized one under the kitchen sink. I sense a lot of meals based on potatoes over the next couple of weeks.

    Take care all. Keep warm.

    xxCExx
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