July 2019 Grocery Challenge

Morning y'all! First morning back in London and thank goodness it's cool. I can actually get a bit of work done in the place I'm staying versus having to rush out to find a caf! immediately. @thriftwizard thanks for explaining the jam sugar. I never knew they sold sugar with pectin included. I'm guessing I can make my own lower carb mix with a sugar replacement + pectin. I always want to make jams but can't have all the sugar.

Yesterday afternoon after dropping off my bags at the AirBnB I went out for lunch and then to the Waitrose in the neighbourhood to buy some food to last me the next couple of days.

£21.08 for 2x big bottles of water, strawberries, shredded ham hock, a small bottle of olive oil, a net of easy peelers/clementines, jarred tuna, can of sardines, can of beans, lemon, YS salad onions, bagged salad, parsley and some yoghurt.

TOTALS SO FAR:
£215.16/£300 and €0/€200
5/12 NSD

Soon after returning I made a salad from half the tuna, half the beans, some parsley, olive oil and salad onions. It'll be nice to have something cold to snack on the next couple of days; I ate some of it for breakfast this morning over some salad leaves.

Something that slightly annoyed me yesterday in the grocery store was the inability to buy just one of something. I couldn't buy just one shallot for my salad because they only sold them in bags. Same thing for the clementines; I only wanted 2 or 3 to carry with me around town for snacks and put in the fridge like CRANKY40's wonderful idea. I had to buy a net of them for £1.50 and will probably have to lug half of them to my next destination on my trip.

I also bought a £4 plastic lock and lock plastic food box there because I forgot to bring one from home. It won't count toward the GC for now. I cursed myself when I realized I'd forgotten it because I need another plastic container like I need a hole in the head! Oh well, this will see me through the trip whenever I want to take lunch or snacks out with me during the day or to have a picnic. Alright, back to work and have a good day everyone!

CRANKY40 wrote: »

Pip
Thank you to the folks that have commented on my intentions. It's about helping others see how to keep the grocery spend low while eating as well as possible I think. That's why we have the recipe index. In days gone by Pip's recipe would have been added to the index but I've no idea how it was done.....

Elsiepac maintains the recipe index, just as she does the thread. I think she's moving house at the moment, which is why she's rather quiet on the thread.

The rules re recipes are to put the name+"Recipe" in the post's title and then highlight the name of the recipe somewhere in the text, in an eye catching colour and text size. (Red usually works.) That way, Elsie will spot that it's a recipe and will add the recipe by linking post to the index.

- Pip (Hope that makes sense.)

It makes perfect sense thank you Pip. This thread used to be maintained by at least two people so I wasn't sure if it was too much for Elsipac on her own to be updating recipes as well. It doesn't all have to be recipes either. It's just as interesting to see what people are doing with what they buy - the post by JingsMB is a great example. Obviously nobody has to do that but I'm there are some great ideas out there that are just begging to be shared. I work in a cafe and we talk a lot about food during the working day

Today's food :-

Breakfast - cereal for HT and toast for me

Lunch - school dinner for him and a beef and tomato (tomatoes grown by me) sandwich and a satsuma for me

Dinner - sausages from the butchers with hash browns and baked beans for HT, the rest of last night's chicken with hash browns (lazy) and cauli for me.

I would normally have broccoli with mine but the HT's best friend took the frozen broccoli home with her this time last week as it's her favourite thing and she said her mum had no money until Friday. I haven't replaced it yet as there's other stuff in the freezer that will do. I really wanted to make Save Dosh's mushrooms for lunch but I ran out of time due to having to go to work so that'll be tomorrow's lunch instead.

Thanks for updating the budgets, etc, Elsiepac. I hope your back eases up and stops hurting, and that the move goes well.

I have a couple of spends to declare from Sunday: £6.40 at the Farm Shop for fresh veg (carrots, potatoes, spring onions, broccoli and broad beans), and £8.55 in MrT's.

These bring our GC spend so far to £96.08/£120, leaving £23.92 for the remainder of the month.

I will have a spend to declare for last night, but I don't have the details with me. All I know is that DH scored two Gammon Roasts in MrT's, at £1.25 each (down from £4).

Dinner last night was my version of the BBC's Cheesy Ham and Broccoli Pasta, using leftover gammon, a tablespoon of English Mustard Powder and 300ml of low fat creme fraiche (instead of the double cream). I also used an entire (500g) bag of Value penne, so it made 6 portions instead of the advertised 4.

Somehow, I managed to get tonight's dinner into the slow cooker before I left for work this morning: a half-shoulder of lamb, accompanied by the aforementioned broad beans, half-a-dozen wizened carrots (chunked), 4 potatoes (halved), some ancient green peppers (sliced), 3 dodgy looking courgettes from our garden (I think they had blossom-end rot, which I cut off), mushrooms, a sliced onion and a sprinkling of pearl barley. Oh, and about a pint of chicken stock, made with boiling water and a stock cube.

Lunches are leftovers for both me and DH, while breakfast for me is my cereal mix (half bran flakes, half "Maple and Pecan Crunch") plus skimmed milk, over which I scatter a tablespoon of sunflower seeds for the protein. DH eats porridge when he gets to his office.

- Pip