March 2018 Grocery Challenge

Happy Saturday night everyone. I hope folks have been able to keep warm and dig themselves out of the snow today. Today was the first day I went officially shopping and I stocked up on a lot.

€27.82 at organic store - for bars of soap and bulk shower gel, the latter of which will last me several months.

€16.35 at Delhaize - strawberries, carrots, 2 blocks of halloumi, ground pork, and gruy!re.

€9.48 at the organic market - mushrooms, onions, celery, and a couple of cheeses. I decided to replace the Babybel I was going to buy at Lidl with one of these cheeses for snacking.

€29.41 at Lidl - chicken thighs, pork chops, salmon fillets, mozzarella, frozen spinach and leeks, red peppers, more strawberries (cheaper and looked better!), cheddar, and finally some tomato sauce for baked pastas.

€7.04 at halal store - parsley, ground beef, 2 small beef shins, and some short ribs cut into pieces for soup.

€3.40 at market in our square by OH - he bought garlic, ginger, and fresh turmeric.

I really wanted/craved an acorn squash but I think the season is over for that, coincidentally enough. I'll see if I can possibly get it another store later this week.

Totals So Far:
€93.80 / €400.00
2/10 NSD
£0/£150 UK stock up

Meals / Sunday Batch Freezer Cooking planned in no particular order:
Tomato sauce, spinach, and pasta bake - for OH to have in the freezer (and uses up ricotta)

Pork/Beef and ricotta meatballs - for freezer - easy meals for me (uses the rest of the ricotta)

Beef and vegetable soup

Chicken stock with skins and bones from the thighs

Roasted aubergine and zucchini with feta

Gratin of grains, leeks, spinach, and cheeses - freezer for OH and uses up cream and ricotta - I'm trying to recreate this dish that OH loves.

Mediterranean marinated chicken thighs - for freezer - using this recipe.

I also might stuff the red peppers with mushrooms, grains and other random things later this week.

Tomorrow I'll try to get through as much of the list above as I possibly can. I can feel myself getting sick, especially with an ear/sinus infection that's moving to my throat. I want to have some easy meals/resources to pull from this week where I can just feed myself. There's also some spicy pumpkin soup in the freezer that I'll pull out for eating this week. I feel like diving into soup the next few days. I need to make room anyway for all the chicken, pork chops and salmon I bought today.

Just managed to update February with final total of £439.52 out of £600 budget!

Really pleased that I kept it under control last month as I know this month will be more difficult so fingers crossed I can do it again!

Spent £24 at Aldi to get the food in for the week, although there were a couple of bits they didn!!!8217;t have so will have to pop to Asda for those.

£83 remaining

Meal planning:
Tonight: left over curry
Monday: homemade fish goujons with Cajun wedges
Tuesday: dinner at friends
Wednesday: spaghetti bolognaise
Thursday: sausage and lentil stew
Friday: halloumi and cashew nut curry
Saturday: pizza

Plus I!!!8217;m planning on making some breakfast bars for DP and some black bean brownies to take to our friends on Tuesday.

my sister comes to stay (week-days) from sunday so as a treat I've ordered a leg of lamb with my morries delivery. it was rather expensive but I thought as a one off it would be worth it. i'm hoping there's plenty of meat on it to get a couple of shepherds pies from it.
the whole order came to £79!!!! tho luckily for this challenge a lot of it doesn't come out of this budget.
while I remember douwe egberts coffee is on special offer there again, most of the reason the shop is sooo expensive, I swear dad just eats spoonfuls of it.
this afternoon I want to sit with my soup cookbook, cos she likes that for lunches, and I tend to stick with the same few.
dinner today is roast pork, I found a joint i'd cut in half before cooking and forgotten about, that should leave leftovers for a few dinners. i'm thinking it'd work in the 'chicken Glamorgan sausages' recipe I have and will make egg and pork fried rice tomorrow.
hope everyone has the bright sun this morning like we do here snow is nearly all gone

So my target is £304 this month and I didn't do too badly for the first few days, but its been a spendy morning today. Popped into Mr T's and managed to see off over £45, which was amazing considering the empty shelves. But almost £30 of that was for reduced price skin care products in the yellow sticker box.

Then just under £6 in c0op including 160 pg t-bags for £3, some mayo and bin liners - needed tho not essential, but I wanted to take advantage of the 'spend over £5 offer' using my H@lifax card and of course I just had to use my 10% discount.

And have finally completed my A$da order for next week for £71. Again another £23 of non-food items in there for MrSS. So I have around £110 left on the card and £25 in cash for the rest of the month - its going to be a challenge. Just one spend needed for next week, which are chicken breasts for Monday evening. I'm sure they will be back in stock tomorrow. I'm really please I have lots of ingredients for baking, including some date bars - they do look yummy.

March is going better than February so far, but I've some work to do on recording and being a bit more precise about food/non-food etc.

BTW Congratulations to everyone last month, I was just looking through all the declarations for Feb. Amazing to be so on it, knowing what you have spent, even if its been over what you planned. That would be a real result for me. :beer::T