Going all Italian with leftovers

Still using up things from the freezer, yesterday it was meatloaf and spaghetti, both leftovers (from separate meals) that I'd frozen.  The meatloaf, made a few weeks ago, tasted fine but didn't slice well, it was very crumbly, I guessed it would be even more so after being frozen (there was half of it left).  We had spag bol one day last week and I cooked too much spaghetti so froze the remainder, there was at a guess slightly more than 1 portion.

Having had a think, I made a pan of simple tomato sauce - sliced red onions cooked until soft, tinned chopped tomatoes, Italian herbs, a squeeze of tomato puree and splash of Worcestershire sauce, cooked slowly until thick.  I saved about a third of the sauce, the rest I poured into a dish and mixed in some chopped mushrooms, the meatloaf all crumbled up and the spaghetti, topped it with Mozzarella and put it in the oven.  So basically it was minced meat (I think it was pork), tomato sauce and pasta, but all mixed together.  No idea what to call it, but it was lovely and we'll have it (or a variation of) again.  No photo, I forgot.

Today for lunch we've had a homemade pizza, I made the dough base using equal parts of flour and Greek yogurt.....the yogurt is out of date but is still fine, it lasts for ages anyway.  I part cooked it in the oven for 5 minutes, just to set the base, then spread the tomato sauce saved from yesterday over the top.  I'd got a bag of frozen broccoli....not very keen on it as a plain vegetable (too watery) but it's ok with fresh cauli and macaroni in a cheese sauce.  I cooked some of the broccoli then mashed it roughly and mixed some grated Halloumi into it, then spread that over the tomato topped pizza base.  Ham ribbons and mushrooms on top of that, followed by grated Mozzarella and Cheddar.

We had slices with homemade coleslaw and salad, there's enough left to have cold for tea tomorrow and some to freeze.  The yogurt and flour base worked out well, it's the first time I've made it and I will do it again.  Next time though I'll add some flavouring to the dough - eg Italian herbs or garlic or paprika and some grated Parmesan - as it was a bit bland.

Being inventive during lockdown

Can't believe I haven't written a post here since January.....no special reason (we have still been eating....probably too much during lockdown!), I just got out of the habit of doing it.

Since I'm not going shopping so often at the present time, I've been using up all sorts of things in the larder and freezer and being inventive with meals.

I found a pack of chicken livers in the freezer last week, bought ages ago for I can't even remember what (probably liver pate) and never got round to doing it.  I used them in a risotto (which I had to use ordinary long grain rice for as I had no risotto rice left, so it wasn't strictly a risotto).  It was blimmin lovely, I put frozen peas, leeks from the garden and broccoli in it, along with chicken stock and the last of a bottle of sherry plus a splash of balsamic vinegar, we'll definitely have that again.  

Today for lunch we had a sort of risotto too, using bulgur wheat and sausages, I cooked it in my CleverChef multicooker.  Browned the sausages in it first, then took them out and softened chopped leeks, asparagus and aubergine in the little bit of fat that came out of the sausages (not much as they were Heck 97% pork ones) so added a splash of oil.  Sliced the sausages and put them back in.  Meanwhile, I'd covered the bulgur wheat with boiling water in a bowl, to which I'd added a heaped dessertspoon of Italian herbs and some balsamic.  When the bulgur had soaked up all the water, I tipped it into the sausage and veg and mixed it all up, putting it on to cook for another 20 mins.  Delicious.

I had a few carrots, 2 parsnips and 2 small sweet potatoes that were all going a bit soft, so decided to make a sort of cooked coleslaw with them.  I peeled then chopped them all up in my food processor, then sautéed them slowly in olive oil in my big frying pan with a lid:-

Incidentally, that frying pan was a wedding present from my brother and his fiancée (now wife) - as we've been married for 37 years next month, it's done a grand job!

We'll have some cold with mayo, alongside some mature Cheddar and a couple of crackers for tea.

I wish the flour situation would improve, haven't been able to buy any for ages (even the localish flour mill, Shipton, have temporarily stopped taking orders as they're swamped).  I've only got enough bread and ordinary flour left to last about a week (we make usually 2 loaves a week and 1 or 2 cakes, plus a crumble or pastry sometimes).  I've got plenty of porridge oats, I suppose I could whizz some up into flour and use some of that to mix with and eke out the remaining flour.

Batch cooked slow cooker chicken casserole

I had in the freezer 2 packs of mixed chicken thighs and drumsticks, about 7 pieces in each pack.  Yesterday I put them all in the slow cooker - just the chicken, nothing else, and cooked them on low for about 3 or 4 hours.  Took them out and left them to cool, then took off the skin (gave it to the dog) and pulled off all the meat, then left it in the fridge overnight.  There was a mugful of chicken stock in the slow cooker, just from the chicken, I hadn't added any stock or even water.

This morning I chucked 3 large peeled carrots and a large onion in the food processor and roughly chopped them.  I put the mugful of stock, a can each of mushroom soup and chicken soup, and half a canful each of water to swish out the can dregs into the slow cooker, along with some dried sage and mixed herbs, a bit of salt and a lot of black pepper.  Stirred in the chopped carrots and onions and some frozen peas and sweetcorn.  Will leave it to cook on low for a couple of hours.

Early this afternoon I'll add the chicken, a punnet of chopped mushrooms and a couple of handfuls of rice.  I'll probably need to add some more water too once the rice begins to soak up the liquid.

We'll have it with green veg and some tiny new potatoes.  The rest (I'm guessing there'll be enough for another 2 or 3 meals for the two of us) will be put into tubs and frozen.

Batch cooking

We are still doing the low carb, time restricted eating plan, but it's a bit sporadic - we've had quite a few appointments lately and the times of them don't always fit in with the time restrictions for eating, so it's a bit hit and miss.  We have tried to do at least 1 or 2 diet days a week....our original intention was for 3, hopefully we will do 3 regularly when things calm down a bit.  

This afternoon I did a batch cook using a 500g pack of minced steak.  I finely chopped 2 large onions and about 600g carrots in the food processor, then gently fried them in some oil left over from a jar of sun dried tomatoes.  When they were softened, I added the mince, followed by a whole punnet of mushrooms, diced up, and a couple of handfuls of red lentils.  Poured in a pint of beef stock made with 2 cubes, with a splash each of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, and some dried mixed herbs.  Simmered until most of the liquid was absorbed.  I then took out half of the mixture and put it in another saucepan.  

To one pan I added half a bag of frozen mixed veggies (peas, sweetcorn, baby carrots, red peppers and broccoli), a squirt of tomato puree and a tablespoon of gravy granules.  This will be eaten with pasta or rice, or have a topping of mash for cottage pie.

I turned the other half into chilli - having discovered I had no tins of kidney beans left in the cupboard, I used a tin of borlotti beans and one of baked beans....well, a bean's a bean!  Also a tin of chopped tomatoes, smoked paprika and chilli powder.  I generally add a couple of squares of dark chocolate to chilli, we like the depth of flavour it gives.  However, the bar of dark chocolate that was in the cupboard had vanished, mysteriously (I have a vague memory of a comfort eating crisis but don't tell anyone), so I just used 2 heaped tsps of cocoa powder blended with a little water.  We'll have the chilli with rice or a jacket potato or wedges, or salad and garlic bread.

I got 3 tubs out of each - that's a double portion in each tub, so 6 meals for the two of us now gone in the freezer.

We'll never be vegetarians, but are trying to cut down on meat, especially red meat, and eat more veggies.  So 500g of minced steak has been stretched to do 6 meals, with lots of added veggies.

Day 1 diet food

Day 1 of the diet:-

I had black redbush tea in the morning, husband had black coffee - which he says he hates and is going to have my redbush tea on diet days.

For brunch at 10 am, we had a couple of slices of roasted ham, topped with an avocado mashed with tomato puree and smoked paprika.  Then a few slices of Brie on top of the avocado, and finally 2 poached eggs.  Lovely and very filling, due to the protein and fat.  Fat is allowed on this diet, in sensible quantities:-

Dinner at 5.30 pm was a roasted chicken leg on a pile of green veggies - shredded Savoy cabbage, leek, shredded Brussels sprouts, tender stem broccoli and peas, all steamed in a small amount of water with a large knob of butter.  Delicious, didn't even miss the roast spuds:-

sorry about the photos, terrible quality I know.

We're having the weekend off the diet, then back on it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week.  Well, Wednesday will be a slight variation as it's husband's birthday.....we'll still be having 2 meals and within the time restriction window of 8 hours, but will be including some carbs.

The new diet

Today is the start of our new very low carb, time restricted eating diet.  To recap, my GP has said I must lose weight in order to stop my Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) getting any worse, it's already progressed to Stage 2 (there are 4 stages, cirrhosis being the worst at Stage 4).  I've also got T2 diabetes, the start of a diabetic foot problem, high blood pressure and moderately high cholesterol, gallstones, osteoarthritis in both hips and trochanteric bursitis in my right hip.  And a bad back which is exacerbated by bad posture because of my sore hips.  I need to lose about 4 stones in total.

Husband was diagnosed as borderline diabetic this year, he has severe prostate problems for which he's having an operation, he also has heart failure which currently is reasonably well controlled with medication, although he's not so well in the winter.  He really needs to lose about 2 stones.

My GP sent me to the new practice specialist diabetes nurse, she has a reputation as a bit of a sargeant major and is fanatical about weight loss.  She's actually really nice, very encouraging and helpful, although certainly evangelical.  She wholeheartedly recommends very low carb, intermittent fasting or time restricted eating type diets, as advocated by Dr Michael Mosley - she has several patients who, between them, have lost collectively about 77kg following these principles.

Now, I'm very good at starting diets, but rubbish at sticking to them - my willpower is next to nothing.  So I know that realistically, it's no good me saying 'ok we're going to be doing A, B or C diet from now on' - I simply wouldn't stick to it for very long.  So, in discussion with Nurse Rose, we've come up with a plan for me (well, husband and me) to do a very low carb and time restricted diet on just 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and eat mindful and healthy Mediterranean style food on the other days, but without worrying too much about carbs and time restrictions on those days.  Husband is up for this too, there'd be no point otherwise, I'm not cooking separate meals or eating at different times to him.  We're going to give it a try and see how we get on, if it works out alright then we may extend the number of days we do the diet.  Nurse Rose is going to weigh me once a month, starting at the end of January.

So on the diet days we'll be having 2 meals - brunch at 10 am, dinner around 5.30 pm.  Before and after those times, we can only have clear drinks.....ie water, black tea or coffee or herbal/fruit tea.  The science behind it is that (forgive me, this is a simplified version) any calories (carbs in particular) that we eat or drink will be latched onto and used by our bodies as fuel, thus ignoring the fat reserves we already have, and any extra calories not needed as fuel will be added to the fat reserves.  If we have no calories for an extended period - eg overnight plus an extra few hours in the morning before eating/drinking, and in the evening after having our last meal, then our bodies must use the fat reserves for fuel.  So the longer a period of time where we don't consume calories, the more chance of our bodies 'eating' our fat reserves.  I hope that makes sense.

Dr Mosley advocates eating around 800 calories during the time restricted window on your diet days.....I'm not going to get too hung up on counting calories, severely restricting carbs on those days, plus only eating 2 meals and cutting down on the amount of milky coffees and teas we drink will cut calories enough without me worrying about numbers.

Every diet day I'll document what we've had, and try to remember to take photos.

A week of healthyish eating before Christmas

I want to eat a bit more healthily this week, as we won't be next week!

Sunday we had a normal roast - chicken, stuffing, mixed roasted root veggies all done together in a big tray (potatoes, carrots, parsnips and onions), cabbage, peas and gravy.  It was slightly less calorific than usual in that we didn't have Yorkshires and had less of the root veggies and more green veg.   And no pudding.

Yesterday I did a sort of hash/bubble and squeak thing.  4 rashers of bacon left in the fridge from something I made towards the end of last week, a small chorizo sausage, an onion, an aubergine and half a punnet of mushrooms, all diced and fried together in a little olive oil.  Served it with a dessertspoon of reduced fat sour cream and chive dip and some garlic bread - ok, not particularly low cal!  But delicious. 

For today we're having savoury mince with lots of veggies cooked in, I've just made it.  A 500g pack of 5% fat steak mince from out of the freezer, bought some while back reduced to half price.  Low fat steak mince tends to be a bit dry, obviously because of the low fat content, so to make it moist and juicy I've added a load of grated carrot and an aubergine diced up small, as well as onions and mushrooms, with some beef stock and Italian herbs.  Then I had a brainwave - in the freezer I had a sachet of fresh peppercorn steak sauce.  I defrosted the sachet in a jug of hot water and then stirred that into the mince.  It smells and tastes wonderful.  We'll have it with a little brown basmati rice and some long-stemmed broccoli.  There'll be enough to freeze for another couple of meals.

I've been making a few things for the freezer - several dinners we've had recently I've made extra of deliberately to freeze, but have also made a load of Yorkshire puds this morning - a dozen individual ones and 2 large ones, they freeze beautifully and crisp up lovely straight from frozen in a couple of minutes.  A week or so ago I made lots of mince pies and sausage rolls to freeze for the holiday period, yesterday it was ginger biscotti - the recipe made a lot so half of them have been frozen.

Tomorrow we'll have a carbonara, Thursday will be salmon chowder, Friday a crustless quiche.

Trimmings soup

We're having our main meal at lunchtime today, as husband has a late afternoon hospital appointment and we're not expecting to be home until 6pm or gone.  I don't like to eat our main meal too late in the evening or it might give me indigestion when I go to bed.

So lunch will be a jacket spud with spicy pork and beans....the pork left over from Sunday lunch, the beans our favourite Branston ones from a tin, with a shake of smoked paprika and sage stirred in.  And probably a sprinkle of grated Cheddar on top.  

For supper I'm making soup.  I've kept a bag in the freezer for the past month or so, of the stalks and trimmings of cauliflower and broccoli, adding more to it whenever we've had them.  This morning I chopped up a leek (home grown, we have lots now) and a large potato and softened them in a little oil, the potato gives a bit of body to the soup.  I then added the chopped cauli and broccoli trimmings and stirred it all around for another couple of minutes, before adding some dried Italian herbs and sage.  A litre of hot vegetable stock was poured in, and it's now simmering for 20 mins or so.  Once cooled, I'll whizz it up with my stick blender and reheat this evening with a splash of cream and some crumbled blue Stilton stirred in to melt.

Whilst the oven's on for the jacket potatoes, I'll put a couple of slices of our homemade bread in there to dry out, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with garlic granules and smoked paprika.  They'll make croutons for the soup.

Day 14 - Shopping

So we didn't last out as long as I was hoping for without going shopping, we went and got quite a bit of stuff yesterday, along with the fresh whole salmon that was on offer in Morrisons, which is the reason why I went.  I did plan on getting other stuff as well though, I even wrote a list and more or less stuck to it, just adding 3 or 4 items that were in the reduced cabinet and too good to miss.

I spent £39.46 yesterday....considering we got a whole salmon that will do us for at least 8 meals included in that price, along with lots of fresh veggies and the reduced items that will make another couple of meals, I'm pretty pleased with that.  We got the fishmonger to fillet the salmon for us and I asked for the trimmings, I boiled and flaked them up for Betty as she loves fish.  The stock I've frozen to make a fish chowder, so that's another meal.  The reduced extras were some cooked chicken pieces reduced to 75p, which I'll use in a risotto or pasta bake, mushroom & cheese arancini balls down to 50p from £2.20 (they'll make a nice light meal with a jacket spud and salad), a small block of blue cheese and a little pot of single cream, both less than half price and will be used today to make soup.

As I said before, we could still carry on with no shopping, but were both missing fresh veg (that's something I never thought I'd say, seeing as I didn't really eat much in the way of veg until I was in my mid-30s, except for peas and spuds).  And I did want to get that salmon whilst it was on offer....it's supposed to be on offer until Christmas Eve, or whilst stocks last, so I didn't want to take the chance that they might run out.

I'm now sure I can resist the urge to just pop into a supermarket whilst we're out and about, and confident that I can stick to my shopping list instead of just picking up whatever takes my fancy.  Although if I see any reduced bargains on things that we would normally have anyway, I will get them - it'd be silly not to if they're going to save us money in the long run.

The key thing for me is - don't go shopping unless I really need to.

So my grand total on this no(!) shopping challenge, which lasted 14 days, is £48 exactly.  I consider that to be not bad at all.  Ok, so it's a bit of an abject failure really, in view of the fact that it was supposed to be no shopping!!  But I'm still happy about it, we still spent a damn sight less than we would have done normally.

Day 12 and still going strong

The spicy butternut squash soup was delicious, I'm glad we still have several huge homegrown squashes, each one makes at least 3 or 4 different meals.

For lunch yesterday we had cheese, mushroom and ham soufflé omelettes, scrumptious.  Dinner was homemade chilli out of the freezer, with a jacket potato and a sprinkling of grated cheese.  Must cut down - I do eat too much cheese!

Poached eggs on a slice of wholemeal grain toast for lunch today.  For dinner I'll get a tub of homegrown tomato pasta sauce out of the freezer, to go on top of wholewheat tagliatelle.  I'll fry some chopped chorizo (got a bag of frozen ones) to mix in with it, along with some other veg....I think there's some courgettes in the freezer.

I might be going shopping today, we've run out of a few things and Morrisons are doing a special offer on fresh salmon, £5 a kilo - they do it every holiday.  I do love salmon.

Running total - still £8.54.

Day 10 and back on the diet

The slightly relaxed diet weekend went quite well.....I did have some gut issues Saturday night which I'm fairly sure were down to Saturday's meals being a bit (well, very) carb heavy.  Yesterday was better, we still had a higher than ideal carb day but not so much.  Breakfast was cereal with warm milk, lunch 1 slice of homemade (we only ever have homemade now) grain toast with baked beans.  Dinner was pork belly slices, slow roasted in a grainy mustard and sage gravy, with roasted carrots, parsnips and red onion, peas and a Yorkshire pud.  Delicious.

Today I'm making spicy butternut squash soup for lunch, husband's working outside this morning and it's very cold, so he'll want something warming at lunchtime.  Dinner will be Cumberland sausages on a bed of brown rice and things - I'll stir through some lentils, pumpkin seeds, chopped walnuts and chopped sundried tomatoes.  We'll have it with some veg out of the freezer.

I've reduced our portion sizes by about a third, which is working quite well.

We're going to have to think about getting a bit of shopping soon....husband has run out of the sugar-free squash he drinks quite a lot of and hates drinking water, and I'm getting low on my coffee.  Although we have quite a bit of root veg still and plenty of frozen veg, we have no fresh green veg left.....frozen is alright, but not particularly appetising unless I smother it in a sauce, and the texture of frozen green veg is always too soft.

I think this experiment is teaching me that we can manage quite happily on food stores we already have, with a bit of 'make do' mentality.  We could still manage quite well without buying anything...it's more a case of wanting rather than needing.  I'm also breaking my habit of going shopping every few days and ending up buying stuff just because I see it, rather than because we actually need it.  Gemma's Person, no we went into the shop together, so I'm quite proud of myself for only buying the milk and nothing else! 😁

Didn't go out yesterday so nothing spent again, so the running total on Day 10 is £8.54 still.  Considering we would normally spend probably around £50, sometimes more, during 2 or 3 shopping trips in one week, I'm very pleased with that.

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.