March 2018 Grocery Challenge

Glenda wrote: »

Could you please put me down for £150 again . That is for all meals for myself and my daughter. Toiletries and cleaning products.

I have been given a lovely slow cooker Mexican style recipe and last month I bought tinned kidney, black and cannelloni beans to use in the recipe. I was thinking it maybe more cost effective to buy dried?? Has anybody any experience using dried beans in cooking? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I cook dried beans all the time, usually doing three or four meals worth in a batch. It takes as much effort to cook 3 portions of beans as it does to cook 1, and about the same period of time. When the beans are cooked will I portion them up - usually into 500g boxes - and freeze the beans that I am not using tonight.


My method for most types of dried beans is the same. Soak 750g of dried beans overnight. Then drain them, bag up the beans and freeze them for a few days. This helps break down the cell walls so decreases the cooking time. I normally use a recycled bread bag or old freezer bag.

Often I dont bother defrosting the beans before cooking, just ease them out of the plastic and dump them in the pot. I have a pressure cooker so cook for 30 minutes at 15lb of pressure (aka high on my pressure cooker). That is possibly overkill time-wise, but it works for me. If you do not have a pressure cooker, then use your very largest pan - something that holds at least 6 litres of water. Bring the beans to the boil, boil them for at least 10 minutes and then simmer for the time recommended on the packet. The boiling destroys some toxins that are present in kidney beans.


For black turtle beans - aka black beans in American recipes - you can cook them straight from dried in a slow cooker if you use the High setting and plenty of liquid. I've tried cooking them on low and they were still hard 20 hours later. There's a Cuban Black Bean Stew recipe on my blog if you are interested (we aren't allowed to link).


HTH


Pip

Hi

Can’t believe we’re in March already.

My target this month is again £390 for the full calendar month. This covers all food (in and out of the house), cleaning stuff and toiletries plus food growing gubbins for three of us. Need to really stick to it now because we’ve just booked a big holiday for this summer - we normally rent a caravan but all of us have ‘big’ birthdays this year so we’re pushing the boat out. Eep!

Thank you to elsiepac for the thread and to lynnejk and Coxy for all your work. And special thanks to zippychick - hope everything is ok.

Sorry to hear about your friend PennyGrabber - that must have been an awful shock. Hope you are feeling better.

Good luck everyone! x

In for another month - i have 3 spend days left until end of lent . Hoping for a a scrimpy month as i am a bit over budget for year due to my stockpiling "bargains" problem. I have enough cereal to do at least 4 months solid with variety in what i eat lol .32 tins of soup etc . My only needed buys are things for dinner - the only area i don't stockpile is freezer and milk to go with the cereal lol. non essentails will be fizzy juice (use up the alcohol in house) and snacks for on the go etc

I'm going to aim for £200 please.

Hi, I'm going to reduce my budget by £1 a day this month, although the way I've split the months I have five weeks in 'March', so please can you put me down for £560. Thanks!