January 2011 Grocery Challenge

Gracie_1827 wrote: »

Hubby was off to Mr S's so I asked him to get me 2 x 4 pints of milk...Mr A is 2 for £2...Mr S charged him £3.10...grrr. Updated siggy.
Tonight's meal is HM veg chilli & either rice or Jacket potato and HM guacamole, bought 2 avocados for 50p at Mr M's at the week-end. (mashed with finely sliced onion, tomato, lime juice, crushed garlic, sliced red chilli pepper) mmmm

Yum! That sounds really nice!

Recipe for Chollah: I bake by hand but you could pop all of this into your dough programme on your bread maker but I find hand making it easier

Makes 1 large loaf, or six big rolls

200ml luke warm water
3/4 tsp easibake yeast (I use doves farm)
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
a good squidge of honey (about 60g)
55g melted butter
450g strong white flour
egg wash

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and with one hand mix together until you get a dough and all of the ingredients are combined. Turn out onto a floured work surface and grab the dough with your left hand (if you are right handed). With the heel your right hand (or vice versa) push the dough away from you, then using the fingers of the right hand pull it back (if you find it is too sticky, add a bit more flour) to make a mound again. Turn the bread 90 degrees and repeat.

Repeat this for ten minutes until you can stretch the dough without it breaking and it feels silky and smooth.

Shape the dough into a round and with a small amount of unflavoured oil or some more melted butter cover the dough

put it back into the bowl you mixed it with (wipe it out if there are any bits left in the bowl beforehand) and cover with a black bin bag. The black absorbs the heat and radiates it back to the dough.

Leave in a warmish place until the dough is risen to double in size

shape the dough either by plaiting it, making two rounds and putting one on top of the other or by dividing into six rolls.

Leave again to double in size again ad brush with egg wash

Bake in a preheated oven as high as it can go for the first ten minutes. When you put the bread/rolls in, have a baking dish of boiling water at the bottom of the oven to allow for oven spring (the final rise)
after ten minutes check the dough and reduce it to about 170 if no browning has taken place
160 if it is browning well
150 if it is noticably dark and bake for about 15-20 mins

once the bread is cooked, the top should be a dark brown (but not burnt) colour and the bottom should sound hollow when you tap it.

Enjoy

Hi all

Another 7.50 spent in Iceland today mainly cheese, ham & bread for packed lunches.

Realised when I went to put together one of my 'planned' dinners that I had forgotten a few rather important ingrediants. Opps. Still, refusing to give up on 'the plan' I threw together a delicious stir fry that was heavy on vegetables, dried chillies and garlic and light on sauces and chicken. And it was absolutely delicious

10 days into the month and I'm still sticking to 'The Plan'.

brodie Well done you at having so much of your budget remaining and your challenge ending sunday :T

zcrat41 wrote: »

In Dec my boyfriend proposed and became a fiancee!!! I moved in with him at the end of Dec

Congratulations :j

wssla00 wrote: »

It's called doussy softcare (the white one). It's good as my skin is really sensitive but smells super dooper! It's £1.99 I think for 1.5l but it's concentrated so it's the equivalent of the massive ones you get from comfort and the like, so saves a bundle! I really like their cleaning stuff. The smells on them are pretty good!

Thanks for that wssla00 I might give that a bash too. At the moment I'm using Da!sy which I'm happy with, but I love to try new things.
I've been watering my fabric softener down by 50% for the last 4 months since reading about it on here,and one bottle is lasting me aaaages, and I can't notice any difference to my washing - so I'm very happy with that.

Is it your birthday tomorrow? If so HAPPY BIRTHDAY :bdaycake:
What kind of tree are you getting?

scotsaver Great bargain of 7.5kg potaotes for £2.49!

Welcome to cat04 & velbels :hello:

poohbear59 - that's a really tough budget - well done on how little you've spent so far, and good luck for the rest of your month

SilverCo your Sausage Casserole sounds lush

Tip for newbies: I have a long old list of regular meals I cook at home.
They are organised by price, so when I'm at the end of my GC budget,
I choose from the cheaper end of the list!! HTH someone.

That's an excellent idea PennyGrabber :T

Rebelle I don't think many of us came in on budget on our first attempt I certainly didn't, in fact, in 6 months I've been trying, I've only managed it 3 times! lol - and I've reduced it this month for the first time.

Well done cat_smith on only buying what you went into Te$cos for

Linda32 you may still make your budget. Mine is £250 and I'm at £85.90, but I'm still hopeful :-)

dumpling I'm the same about having full freezers and cupboards, it freaks me out when either get low, which they are at the moment
as I'm waiting for £idls to pull their finger out and have offers on chicken breasts and thighs, as after tomorrow nights Coq Au Vin, I wont
have any of either left.

XSpender Embarrassingly, I don't know or understand how to do a spreadsheet, but I've created a very basic document in Notepad
with headings like CHILLED/DAIRY, BREAD, FRUIT & VEG, HOUSEHOLD, MEAT, STORE CUPBOARD, TOILETRIES and so on, and everytime I buy anything, I enter it under the appropriate column and then add each column up at the end of the month - it soon becomes apparent where your biggest expense lays - something like that may be helpful to you maybe?

Sorry to hear about your oven Missus Aka - that's a bit of a blow I'm sure you could have done without