April budget, COMPLETE!

Total spend £50.00

Shopping list - 1st April 2014, Lidl, total spend £30.04p

I've had a break from the freezer delving this week. Will be back to it next week!

Closed cup mushrooms £0.85

Potatoes 2.5kg £2.09

Aubergine, 1 £0.69

Mixed peppers (pack of 3) £0.89

Bag onions £0.69

Celery £0.69

Carrots, bag £0.75

Frozen peas £0.99

Whole milk 2x 4 pints £1.90

Sausages, 12 £0.99

Ham £1.69

Butter £0.98

Honey hoops cereal £1.15

Spaghetti £0.95

Easy yeast x 4 £0.56

Raspberry jam £0.99

Chickpeas x 3 tins £1.17

Apple juice £0.65

Pepsi max, 3x 2ltr bottles £2.97

Go cat big bag of cat food £3.75

Chicken thighs, 1kg £2.65

Beef mince, 500g £2.00

5th April 2014, the village shop, total spend £0.99p

Tin of pineapple £0.99

6th April 2014, Lidl, total spend £1.96

2x butter £1.96

9th April 2014, Lidl, total spend £8.09 

Milk x 2 £1.90

Butter £0.98

Ham £1.69

Pepsi max x2 (if I wasn't addicted, I wouldn't waste my budget on it!!) £1.98

Pack of 3 peppers £0.89

Apple juice £0.65

16th April 2014, Lidl, total spend £0.95p

Milk x 1 0.95

Dad gave me some leeks, purple sprouting broccoli and carrots from his garden! Yay!

Stayed at mother in law's for easter weekend. 

22nd April 2014, Lidl, total spend £7.97

Butter x2 £1.90

Baked beans x4 £1.00

Milk £0.95

Lemons x3 £0.89

Potatoes 2.5kg £1.89

Cherry tomatoes £0.65

Tomato ketchup £0.69

My neighbour has given us some excess milk that she has too. 

That's me done for April now. 1 week to go and feel confident that I can work from the storecupboard and freezer for the rest of the month. 

And I'm, unbelievably, right on budget. Not a penny over! 

I did a full cupboard and freezer stocktake on Monday so I'm going to plan the next few weeks around what I have already. 

Ok, off to be frugal and feel smug ;-) 

What I ate/ bought this week....

Hi,

So, I'm nearing the end of my £50 budget and thanks to inventive cooking, no waste and a backlog of ancient food in the bottom of my freezer, I have managed it! 

Here's what I ate this week!

Monday:

Breakfast

We always have cereals/ homemade bread/ eggs

Lunch

Husband (Ian) and I - sandwiches

Kids always have school dinners (i don't include those in the budget). They will hopefully be FREE from Sept! 😄

Supper

Chicken and chickpea curry

(Leftover chicken and gravy included. I also made stock from the chicken carcass and loads of soup from the stock!)

Tuesday

Lunch

Ian - sandwich 

Me - Linguine with homemade wild garlic pesto 

Supper

Everyone except me: Linguine with homemade wild garlic pesto (I wasn't very hungry so I just had a bowl of soup)

Wednesday 

Lunch 

Ian and I - leek and potato soup with homemade bread (leeks and pots from garden, stock from last week's chicken)

Supper

Toad in the hole (frozen cocktail sausages from freezer, eggs from our hens)

Strawberries (from bag of frozen), boudoir biscuits and condensed milk (both store cupboard) Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Thursday

Lunch

Ian - leek and potato soup

Me - leftover toad in the hole 

Supper

Roast lamb (tiny joint left from when we bought a lamb in march 2011, found at bottom of freezer!! I struck gold!)

With Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes (both from garden), roasted carrots and Yorkshire pudds (eggs from our hens). 

Friday

Lunch 

Out - I know it's not frugal but it was a treat!

Supper

Linguine with lemony prawns and wild garlic pesto (I always have a big bag of raw prawns in my freezer) with a crunchy, cheesy breadcrumb topping

Saturday 

Breakfast 

Remainder of the sausages from freezer

Pain au chocolats from freezer (that were free, as were going to be chucked out, from my local bakery!)

Poached eggs on toast (our eggs, h/made bread)

Cereal 

Breakfast is always a mammoth affair in our house. It's the kids' best mealtime!

Lunch

Homemade tomato soup and h/made bread

Supper

Homemade pizza with tomato base, leftover lamb, finely chopped, garlic butter, mint and mozzarella (recipe to follow - this is a new invention so will see how it turns out!!!)

What I bought this week:

2 x Milk (had some in the freezer too)

1 carton of apple juice 

2 bottles Pepsi max (my addiction)

1 cucumber 

1 bag bread flour

12 ways with wild garlic

Like free food? Of course you blinkin' well do! Well, it's wild garlic season so get yourselves down to the woods and fill your boots!

As I've mentioned, I'm working with a £50 food budget this month so any free food is even more welcome than normal! 

I LOVE wild garlic and use it loads every year. I actually still have some pesto in my fridge left over from last year, unbelievably! And it still tastes great!

There is an abundance of these lovely garlicky leaves at the moment so I've compiled a list of my favourite things to do with the little lovelies. And they're all cheap as chips and delicious!

• Wild garlic pasta
• Wild garlic and hazelnut pesto
• Wild garlic butter
• Wild garlic oil - use it over homemade focaccia - it's to die for!
• Cheesy, wild garlic bread
• Wild garlic and chilli hummus
• Wild garlic pizza
• Wild garlic and feta omelette 
• Wild garlic mashed potato
• Sun-dried tomato and wild garlic scones (thanks to my lovely friend, Gail for this suggestion)
• Wild garlic pancakes
• Wild garlic soup

Other ideas 

• It is also a lovely addition to salads and stir fries. 
• The oil is fab drizzled over soups or breads. 
• Melting a knob of the butter on a piece of steak will jazz it up amazingly. 
• Swirl some pesto through soup, as well as pasta. 
• Use pesto to make fab and easy canapés - twin with pastry/ tomatoes/ goats cheese. The world's your oyster!!

I made pesto for the fridge, pasta for my supper and hummus for the freezer yesterday and made garlic butter and oil today. I made focaccia and smothered it with the oil. The most moreish thing I've eaten in a long while! I had roast chicken for supper and i rubbed the garlic butter over it.

I'll post recipes for everything I've made later!

Happy foraging! 

£50 food challenge!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned but I've set myself a challenge this month of spending a max budget of £50 for household groceries.  This is proving quite tricky but I am determined! 

I regularly set myself these types of budgets but I think this is the smallest so far. 

I do have a pretty well stocked store cupboard and freezer but I certainly didn't stock up before I started the challenge. Whenever I see a great offer on meat, or I'm a bit flush, I stock up. We also have hens so eggs will, as they always do in our household, play a large part in keeping the budget down. 

I'm going to post a list of recipes that I've cooked up over the last few weeks and some that I intend to make. I know that I'm very lucky that I've got some nice bits of meat in the freezer but I'll show you how I stretch them out by making good use of leftovers. 

I bet that most of you will have a whole host of fab ingredients hidden away at the back of your cupboards and the bottom of your freezer so why don't you join me and challenge yourself to use these up and get adventurous with your menu!  

I've pretty much spent the £50 already and I've got just under 2 weeks left to go but I've not ventured too far into the freezer yet so I am feeling, probably stupidly, fairly confident. 

Wish me luck!! 

Ps. If you are going to join me, I would advise you get £50 cash so that you can keep a track of what you've spent more easily.