Day 8 - weekend so relaxing a bit

Thank you for comments....you're probably right about the salt content of the cappucino sachets, Snoskred.  But we don't have many manufactured foods and I don't use much salt in cooking, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Yesterday, Day 7, we had a tub of previously-made soup out of the freezer for lunch, it was beef and vegetable, I'd made a huge pan of it a few weeks back and froze it in portions, there are still 2 tubs left.  It's delicious, once it's all used up I'll be making more.  I made it using just 200g of minced beef, a whole 1kg pack of frozen diced mixed veg, a couple of leftover rashers of smoked bacon, a large onion, couple of big handfuls of pearl barley.  For the stock I used 2 beef cubes, a squirt of tomato puree and heaped tsp Marmite.  Husband had a slice of homemade bread with his.  Dinner was cod baked in a foil parcel with lemon, dill and a splash of olive oil, on a bed of a little wholewheat pasta (half the portion size we'd normally have) topped with green beans, peas and sweetcorn.  

As it's Saturday we're not being so strict.  Breakfast was a slice of homemade bread toast with Marmite and sliced Cheddar.  For lunch we had bubble and squeak using up some leftover veg, with a fried egg.  For dinner tonight we're having smoked haddock fishcakes with oven baked sweet potato chips and homemade mushy peas....a bit carby but hey ho.  I've also made an apple crumble, with the last few useable apples from our disappointing crop this year - we had quite a few but they just didn't store well at all, going yellow and soft very quickly unlike previous years, I think it's because of all the rain we had.  I've put cinnamon in with the apples, the crumble mix is made with brown flour, oats and chopped walnuts, with just a little demerara sugar.  The crumble will do us for today and tomorrow, topped with Elmlea.

We were running low on milk so had to buy a couple of cartons at £1.09 each yesterday.  But that's all we bought!

So the running total on Day 8 is £8.54, which I'm pretty pleased about.

Day 6 - Getting on with new diet

A couple of you commented that I'm doing so well with a very small spend....the reason we're doing so well though is that we had very full cupboards, fridge and freezer to start with.  It'll be more challenging as time goes on and more food gets used up though.  I'm doing this as an experiment, to see how long we can go before we really need to go shopping again, and to get me out of the habit of going shopping every few days and ending up buying things we don't strictly need.

The barley and roasted veg salad was really yummy, we're having it again today for lunch, with some added vinaigrette dressing as I think it needs a bit more sharpness.  Husband will have a tin of fish, probably mackerel, with his, I'll add some olives and nuts to mine.

Dinner tonight will be a couple of pre-made things out of the freezer that need using up, as I still want to make a bit of space in there.  Husband's having a chicken curry, I'll have some leftover veggie lasagne, there's a small portion of it.  Both have been in the freezer for several months, so it's about time they got used.  We'll have them with some frozen veg.

I've decided that we'll eat a very healthy low fat diet Mon-Fri, then relax it a bit on Saturdays and Sundays....that way we won't feel deprived and go off the rails if we know we can perhaps have something a bit naughty at the weekends.  It will be strictly Sat/Sun only, no extending it to a long weekend including Fridays and Mondays!

I'm also cutting down on my coffee consumption - I drink those cappucino sachets, they are unsweetened, allegedly, but do contain some glucose and fat, so not strictly unsweetened.  I did start off with 2 a day but it's crept up to 3 for the last few weeks.  I'm not going to cut them out completely as I do really like them, but will go back down to 2 and sometimes just 1, drinking more redbush or herbal teas instead, which obviously I have without milk.  I've found a herbal tea I really like, Sainsburys Echinacea and Rosehip, it's delicious - most of them, whatever flavour, smell delicious and taste disgusting.  Or maybe that's just me lol.

Didn't go out yesterday, hence no spending, so the running total of £6.36 remains the same for Day 6.

Day 5 and a new diet

The salmon crustless quiche was lovely, there's half left for lunch today.  I did a small jacket spud each and homemade coleslaw to go with it.

Have just been told by the GP that my worsening NAFLD is in danger of escalating to fibrosis or even cirrhosis if I don't lose weight, well there's an incentive!  Googled for fatty liver diet advice, which is basically low fat, moderate carbs and protein, plenty of veg and fruit (not so much fruit for me because of the sugar content), no sweet things (I rarely do anyway) and no baked goods.  Lean protein such as chicken, turkey, lean pork and fish, or legumes, nuts and eggs.  

Luckily, we have all the above in, it's now a case of proper planning of healthy meals (so I won't be doing the slow cooker savoury mince and dumplings we were going to have tomorrow!).

For lunch today we'll be having the other half of the salmon quiche with a barley salad, I've just cooked the barley and roasted some veggies to stir through it with a vinaigrette dressing.  Dinner tonight will be roasted chicken thighs (minus the skin!) with the rest of the roasted veggies and Brussels sprouts.

Day 5 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36  

Day 4, using up leftovers

Husband cooked the dinner again (2 days running!), fried liver & bacon with onions for him, mash, cabbage and peas, and gravy.  It was all lovely.  Loads of veg left over, so that's gone in the freezer for bubble and squeak at a later date.  I chopped up the last of the roast lamb from Sunday and froze that too, it'll be added to the B&S veggies in due course.

Today it'll be porridge for breakfast, with some of the frozen fruit.  Lunch will be leftovers from yesterday's lunch, the remainder of the tuna mayo for me, I'll have it with crispbreads, husband will probably have a sandwich.  

For dinner tonight I'm going to make a crustless salmon quiche, using a tin of salmon, onion and sweetcorn.  I have some feta cheese to use up so that'll go in too.  We'll have it with a jacket potato and homemade coleslaw.

Day 4 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36

Day 3 and roast lamb cooked for me

Day 3 went alright, no spending as we didn't go in any food shops. 

Breakfast was a sausage bap - husband's homemade quick sourdough seeded roll, with a couple of leftover cooked sausages out of the freezer.  I had brown sauce in mine....lovely.  

Lunch was a bowl of beef and vegetable soup, homemade and frozen, there are several more pots of it in the freezer.

Husband cooked the roast for dinner....a small lamb shoulder joint, he did roast potatoes, cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli and even made Yorkshires, under my direction.  They rose beautifully and it was all blimmin gorgeous, even more so for having it cooked for me.  He doesn't do a lot of cooking, but is good at roasts (perhaps we ought to have more of them!).

Having said that, he's cooking dinner again this evening - he volunteered, and who am I to say no?!

Breakfast was cereal, lunch will be a tuna mayo and tomato sandwich.  Dinner is going to be fried liver and bacon, husband will do fried onions for himself separately (they don't agree with me).  We'll have it with mash, cabbage, carrots and peas.  

We'll have something fishy and lighter tomorrow.

Day 3 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36

Day 2 - oops

Today we went to buy our Christmas meat from Tesco, they had good value gammons, beef and a boneless pork leg crackling joint on offer (thank you for the heads up, WendyT) at just £2.50, half price.  So 2 pork joints, a gammon and a small beef joint are now in the freezer, following some reorganisation to squash everything in.  I'm not including any of this meat in my No Shopping challenge, as it's for Christmas and new year.

However....whilst in there I also managed to buy a few other things (see, this is why I want to NOT go shopping - it's too easy to buy stuff if you do!).  I got another dozen eggs, a Savoy cabbage, some blue Stilton and 2 bars of chocolate, spending £6.36 on those few things.  Ok, so I've used quite a lot of eggs this past week and would probably have run out of them very soon, and I wanted the Stilton to add flavour to a few veggie and pea & ham soups I'm planning to make.  Another green veg will be useful, plus I want to make coleslaw for tonight's tea.  And the chocolate is not to eat as a bar, both bars have been put in the baking cupboard for when I want to bake something chocolatey.  So nothing frivolous or unnecessary, although I dare say I could have managed without them, well, except for the eggs.  Bad me.  That's it though, I'm not planning on going shopping again for at least a fortnight and hopefully longer.

We had one of my homemade sausage rolls each with cheesy beans for lunch.  For dinner tonight we're having sandwich steaks in husband's homemade quick sourdough mixed grain rolls, with sweet potato fries topped with grated cheese and the homemade coleslaw, I'll mix a spoonful of grainy mustard into the mayo.

Day 2 - Total spent on No Shopping challenge: £6.36.

Day 1 of a no shop challenge

I'm doing a kind of experiment to see how long we can survive on our present food stocks before having to go shopping again....we want to save money for next year and the best way to do that is not to go shopping!  We have full cupboards, fridges and freezers (a tall fridge freezer in the kitchen, tall larder freezer and under counter spare fridge in the utility room), so in theory if using up what we already have, we shouldn't have to go shopping for 2 or 3 weeks, or even longer.  We'll probably run out of fresh green veg fairly quickly, but have plenty of other fresh veg (onions, leeks, potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash) and loads of frozen, plus tins of beans, other pulses, sweetcorn, tomatoes etc, and some dried pulses, peas and beans.  We have several cartons of milk in the freezer and lots of cheese and butter, but once the dairy stuff runs out we will have to go shopping then.  

The idea is to use up what we have without resorting to going out and buying anything....if I run out of something I'll either improvise or go without, there's sure to be an alternative.  It might mean some 'interesting' meals further down the line!

I need to use up some things in the freezers first, as I need to make space for some meat joints for Christmas and New Year.  I'm using Mysupermarket to keep an eye on the cost of meat joints, once they're a good price then we will be going out to buy them, but only the meat.  We'll probably get a large gammon, leg of pork and possibly a beef joint, we rarely have turkey as we're not really fond of it.  I'd like to buy the meat from a local butcher, but can't afford to.

Having said I need to make space, I've made sausage rolls to freeze today.  About 2 dozen small ones, and 4 large ones for us to have for lunches a couple of times.  I also made a large veggie pasty, using some leftover lentil & cheese mixture I made for something else.

The sausage rolls were made using a pack of Cumberland sausages.  I deskinned them then mixed the meat with some chutney, a big squirt of tomato puree and some grated Cheddar.

So today is the first day of no shopping or spending on food.

A Christmas baking day

I spent most of the day baking - well, when I get up feeling good having had a great night's sleep, I have to make the most of it!

Having prepared the fruit for the Christmas cake and added to the mincemeat the other day, it was about time I got round to actually baking.  First thing this morning I made bread dough and a load of pastry - I always do pastry in my food processor now, so much easier.  I do a big quantity too, so there's some to freeze for another day.  

After leaving it to rest in the fridge for an hour, I then made mince pies, with a cinnamon crumble topping instead of pastry.  I made 2 dozen to freeze, plus a pudding-for-2 size as there was enough mincemeat and crumble left.  The remaining pastry, enough for a pastry top and bottom pie or 2 open tarts, went in the freezer (oops, just realised.....although I did write 'pastry' on the bag, I should have put 'sweet pastry', in case I forget and use it for something savoury).

The Christmas cake mixture made one large and 2 individual size cakes, which husband will be pleased about as he'll be able to eat the little ones before Christmas!

The loaf is a quick sourdough using an overnight starter and is 1/3 rye, 1/3 wholemeal and 1/3 white.

I've only part cooked the mince pies before freezing them, they'll be going in the oven again when I take them out at Christmas.  The big cake is a bit cracked, I think the oven was still too hot after cooking the bread, should have waited a bit for it to cool down, and covered it with foil sooner.  Husband won't mind though, it won't affect the taste.  It won't have marzipan and icing on as he doesn't like it.

I've also made a steamed pudding for dinner tonight, it's bacon leek and sweetcorn, I've not followed a recipe, just winged it.  Doing it in the slow cooker, which I've never tried before, but saw a mention of on a blog the other day.  Hope it works out ok!  No photo as it's still cooking.

Christmas cake fruit and mincemeat

This morning I've finally got round to mixing and soaking the fruit for the Christmas cake, and improving the mincemeat.  Normally I make my own mincemeat, and would have made the cake by now....this year we've had so much health stuff going on I just haven't done it.  Better late than never, though.  

I haven't made mincemeat, I just bought a large jar.  It doesn't look terribly appetising though, so I've decanted it into a bowl and added extra dried fruit, the zest of an orange and lemon and some sherry, it'll sit covered until tomorrow, when I make the mince pies.

For the Christmas cake fruit, I've added dried raisins, cranberries, prunes and apricots to a bowl - that's what husband likes and what I've got.  I like mixed peel and cherries in a rich fruit cake, husband doesn't and he eats more cake than I do, so I just put in what he likes as I'll most likely only have 1 or 2 small slices of the cake.  I also like nuts in a cake, again he doesn't, so I haven't used any.  The zest of an orange and lemon went in, along with their juice, a big slug of the raspberry and honey whisky I made last year, and a capful of a hazelnut vodka liqueur given to us by a Polish friend a while back....only a capful as it's so strong it blows your head off!  Mixed spice and cinnamon added as well.  I'll keep stirring it every few hours and let it stand for a couple of days before making the cake.  

The kitchen smells like Christmas already.  I put on a Christmas CD whilst I was doing it, just for the atmosphere!  I'm not a huge fan of Christmas really, neither of us is, but one of the things I do really like is Christmas songs....old fashioned like White Christmas, pop ones like Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, and carols like O Come all ye Faithful.

Quick & easy cauliflower soup

I made a soup this morning that I've made several times before, it's really easy but is quite delicious.

To make 4 large bowlfuls:-

1/2 bag frozen cauli (1kg bag so 500g)
1/2 bag frozen broccoli
1 litre stock (veg, chicken or bacon)
Sage and parsley
Plenty of pepper, maybe a little salt depending on how salty your stock is
Some grated cheese of your choice

Simply put the cauli and broccoli (no need to defrost) in a large pan with the stock, herbs and pepper, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so, until the veggies are soft.  Take off the heat and cool for a while.  

Use a stick blender to whizz it up (don't do it whilst it's boiling hot - if you're a bit careless like me, you run the risk of being splashed with boiling hot soup).  When smooth, put back on the heat and stir in a couple of good handfuls of grated cheese.....blue cheese is good, or today I used some leftover Cheddar with caramelised onion, having run out of blue cheese.  You could also use cream cheese or Philadelphia type soft cheese.  Don't boil it, it might split, just reheat gently.  Swirl a little cream on top when you serve it up, if you like.  Add croutons for a bit of crunch.  

If you like a really thick soup, you could add a handful of oats when cooking it, or split red lentils, or even a sprinkle of instant mash flakes.

Bacon stock (I save and freeze the stock from cooking gammons) makes this soup taste wonderful, but you can of course use any stock.  

A successful kitchen day yesterday

Yesterday's kitchen day was successful and I made good use of the oven.  I cooked sausages, 2 giant Yorkshires for dinner last night, along with several smaller ones to freeze, mash made with potato, some leftover swede and half a butternut squash, all mashed together and topped with cheese.  I also made a light fruit cake and whilst the oven was on, cooked 2 jacket potatoes for today's dinner.

The chilli and the beef & veg soup both made 4 double portions each, all of which are frozen except for one of the chilli portions.  Husband's hospital appointment is mid afternoon and will take an hour, meaning we won't get home until almost dinnertime.  So we'll have the chilli with the jacket spuds I baked yesterday, all reheated in the microwave, I'll top it with some crème fraiche to cool it down a little, I seem to have made it spicier than usual.  Which means I'll probably have gut trouble during the night or tomorrow morning, but hey ho.

We had half of the mash in our big Yorkshires with sausages and green veggies yesterday for dinner.  The remaining mash we'll have with soup for lunch today.  When we were kids Mum used to give us Heinz tomato soup poured over mashed potato with a sprinkle of grated cheese on top, it was one of my favourite dinners (and obviously quick and cheap for Mum).

I didn't get round to doing all the apple prep yesterday, I really ought to go and do it now, or else the apples will end up having to be chucked on the compost heap as they're deteriorating rapidly.

A batch cooking and baking day

After several weeks when I've not felt much like cooking at all, due to my ongoing gut issues, I'm now back into it and am having a batch cooking and baking day.

I took a 500g pack of beef steak mince out of the freezer last night, along with 8 Cumberland sausages.  I shall make enough batter for 2 large Yorkshire puds, and several small ones to freeze.  We'll have 2 sausages each with a load of veg and gravy in the large Yorkies for dinner tonight, the other 4 sausages will be cooked and frozen, we'll probably have a sausage sandwich at the weekend.

Using 200g of the mince, I'm going to make a big pot of beef and veg soup, I'll add pearl barley to bulk it out and flavour it with Marmite and herbs.  I estimate it'll make about 8 portions, we'll have some for dinner tomorrow night (I'll make dumplings to go in it) and the rest will be frozen, having dumplings or mash with it each time, to make it filling enough for dinner rather than a lunch soup.

With the other 300g mince, I'll make chilli, using both kidney and baked beans to stretch it, plus plenty of finely chopped carrot and onion.  I chop them up using my food processor, my arthritic knuckles don't like lots of chopping nowadays.  It'll be portioned up and frozen, probably 3, possibly 4 meals for the two of us, to be served with brown rice or a jacket potato and a green veg.

Husband wants some cake, so I'll make a light fruit cake, or maybe an apple cake.....we have apples to use up fairly quickly.  Our homegrown apples this year are not storing well at all, they're going soft and brown very rapidly, I wonder if it's because we've had so much rain this year?

If I have time, I'll have to process more of the remaining apples to freeze, I don't really want to have to chuck them away.

Tasteless GF rolls and roasting veg for soup

Last week when we were away on hols, I decided to try some GF rolls, I had 2 different ones, both seeded.....2 Genius and 2 Morrisons own make.  I didn't like either of them much.....well, it wasn't that I didn't like them, more that they were so unmemorable that they were a waste of time.  Both of them were too soft with no bite, not chewy at all, almost a melt in the mouth consistency.  And no taste - if it wasn't for the seeds in them, there would literally be zero taste.  Of course, they're more expensive than non-GF bread as well, in my opinion definitely a waste of money and I won't be bothering with them again.

I only bought them to give GF bread a try because of all my gut issues, and the irony is I still had gut ache after eating them on one occasion, although that could have been the filling, of course (can't remember what, off hand).

Today for dinner I'm going to do pork loin steaks roasted with sliced apple and a drizzle of honey and grainy mustard.  I'll do a big tray of roasted root veggies to go with it - carrots, parsnips, swede, red onion and one of our homegrown butternut squashes, sprinkled with paprika and sage.  The remainder of the roasted veg (there'll be loads left over) I will add to stock and whizz up to make soup for lunch tomorrow.  Roasting the veg first makes a lovely tasting soup.

Starting cooking again and a great bargain

I'm still having stomach issues, with virtually everything I eat.  Have been having plain simply cooked meat, fish and veg, no spicy stuff, low carbs, higher carbs (a little pasta or brown rice), little or no wheat or gluten, high fibre, low fibre, cutting down on dairy....it's all the same result.  Although sometimes I can eat something one day and it will be absolutely fine, yet if I eat the same thing the next day I'll have terrible gut trouble.  No rhyme or reason to it and it's very frustrating.  Hence why I've still not been posting any meals.....not much one can say about plain poached chicken with green veg and a little brown rice!  I'm now feeling that since it doesn't seem to matter what I eat, I may as well eat whatever I want.  So I might start showing an interest in cooking again.

A few weeks ago my stand mixer gave up the ghost....it had given good service, I'd had it for several years and used it weekly mainly for mixing and kneading bread dough.  I've been on the lookout for a vintage Kenwood Chef and finally found one on our local neighbourhood buying and selling site.  A 901 model (from 1976), in full working order, with all tools including mincing attachment, plus the coffee grinder attachment that was still in the box and had never been used!  All for the princely sum of.....£20.  The lady (it had belonged to her mother who had recently died) said she was open to offers.....I was more than happy to just give her the £20, which she was donating to Children in Need anyway.  So now I can get back to breadmaking....my own semi-sourdough bread doesn't upset my stomach nearly as much as commercial bread, but I find it very difficult doing the kneading by hand as I have weak wrists and arthritic knuckles.  So I'm calling this a 60th birthday present to myself 😁