Week Four $100 Food Shop

Was able to keep to the $100 last week. I was under until thought why not stock up on on canned chopped tomatoes. At .73c each they are worth it and are great to add to casseroles or making pasta sauce. So we now have 9 cans at the bottom of our pantry. Then I saw baked beans also at a good price of .85c each these are great to stretch mince out or a quick meal on toast. So we now have 9 cans of them too.
This week I aim to get cans of chickpeas to build up our pantry stockpile.

Week Four $100 Food Shop

Menu Plan
Breakfast: cereal or toast
Lunch: leftovers, sandwiches or fritters and chips
Snacks: Chocolate cake, cookies
Tuesday: Chicken Buns
Wednesday: Mince dish (with rice, baked beans, chopped tomatoes and veggies)
Thursday: Salmon and kale quiche
Friday: Corned Beef with mashed potato and mustard sauce
Saturday: Cold Corn beef with salad
Sunday: Homemade Hamburgers
Monday: Beef or Chicken Stir fry (uses up veggies)

Shopping List
Kids cereal (whatever is on sale)
Muesli (bulk up with rolled oats)
White sugar
Plain Flour
Icing sugar (if our food processor was better would make it ourselves)
Pasta (good to have on hand)
Mayo (used for the chicken buns, DH would make some but is doing more at work while his workmate has his holiday, so comes home tired)
Fruit - apricots are on sale
Milk
Cream
Cheese
Cocoa
Buy bulk canned chickpeas

Week Three $100 Food Shop

Last week (week two) we spent the whole $100 on food. The main reason being the heat wave we had. The children started drinking more milk because it was chilled in the fridge. So we had a talk with them and filled a large 2 litre bottle with water, that they could have instead. But I also crumbled with the heat and brought a box of ice blocks and a tub of ice cream. So this week I need to get on to making our own ice blocks. We were given some fruit juice which would be perfect for that. I'm still very happy we made it through the week not spending more then our $100 budget.

Now ready for Week Three $100 Food Shop

Menu Plan

Breakfast is cereal or toast
Lunch sandwiches or fritters
Snacks we have chocolate cake (DS13 made for us), 100s & 1000s biscuits, and fruit (apples at the moment)
Dinner
Tuesday: Ratatouille (using our courgettes, and my mum's green pepper) with toast.
Wednesday: Pasta Dinner from our freezer (when we had leftovers from a large pasta dinner)
Thursday: Tray Baked Lamb with Cous cous (another dinner using our courgettes)
Friday: Pumpkin Curry with rice
Saturday: BBQ sausages with salad
Sunday: Chicken Stir fry with rice
Monday: Corned Beef with veggies

Shopping

We are out of white sugar so need to get for making Courgette Jam (yes another thing to use up more courgettes) and our ginger beer. Will also get some flour for baking. Happy to see butter on sale this week 2 for $6, so will stock up our freezer with more. Great for baking :)
Don't need to get milk yet, after talking with kids we are stretching it out again. I will make up some powder milk for baking, have been lapse in that. Need to get more kids cereal, sometime the kids will have 2 bowls for breakfast. I also have to get DS7 pasta, he is hard to feed and this is one thing I don't mind getting. We are working with him to try more but it's slow work. Also on list is cinnamon (baking), eggplant (ours not grown yet), can tomatoes, and chicken breast for stir fry.

I'm excited because of doing this challenge we will have a $671.10 debt paid off next week YAY!
That motivates me to keep going.
We are also using up what we need to from our pantry, fridge and freezer :)

Very Hot Summer Day

In the morning had to take a walk in the garden to cool down from a hot night. My sweet peas are flowering lots. Love the different colours, very cheerful.

 

Look what I found, our 1st passion fruit. I saw the beautiful flower, but didn't think it would fruit. Pleasantly surprised.

 

And look our 1st blackberries. I have to help support the vines onto the fence, as they were going exploring.

  

3 days worth of eggs (but we did use 3 for baking on Thursday). Will be using more today with baking and dinner. Our Brown shavers are laying now (those beautiful brown eggs), and with the others we are getting about 6 eggs a day. I should start recording our eggs, see how many we get per month (and year).

 

Our Waste Not Want Not Cup Cakes. They are really Banana Cupcakes, the bananas were at the bottom of our fruit bowl and starting to go brown. So we needed to use them, then some of our eggs. Also these patty cases were from a Christmas present. They were for shortbread biscuits that come in a box, (biscuits all eaten). Perfect for our cupcakes, since I had run out of patty cases. Made 12 cupcakes. I also added some wholemeal flour to them, with plain flour. Partly to make them abit healthy. But mostly to stretch our flour supply to last till I can shop next week.

 

With 8 of our eggs, and 2 of our courgettes made this Courgette and Carrot Quiche for dinner. Served with some our Butter Beans, picked this morning. Large slices were very filling. Yes we are still slowly going through our courgettes. I have a few more dinner ideas for them yet. Then I will start freezing them.

Some Cucumbers, Courgettes and Sunflowers

Went out to water the garden this morning and look what I found. 1 Cucumber and 7 courgettes.

 

So added them to what we have already. I won't count them. So I have started to give them away. Though I going to change the menu to use some more up. Instead of Sliver Beet Quiche on Saturday, it's going to be Courgette and Carrot Quiche.

  

Had to share what was waiting for me by my computer this morning. My lovely sunflowers (and a few inch worms hee hee). At least I'm still getting to enjoy them.

  

Now today when I went to make sandwiches there was very little mayo left. Now because we are doing so well with the $100 Food Shop, I didn't want to go buy some more. So mashed up 3 avocados and added them to water down mayo (so I could get it all out of the container). And it's yum. A good waste not want not dressing.

 

Going to use the leftover avocado mayo with the roast chicken tonight :)

Sad Wind blown Sunflowers

Last night the wind was blowing a gale. The weather report said gusts up to 57km/hr but sometimes it sounded and looked like more. We have a large pine near us that was really moving in the wind. I was scared to look in the morning at our garden. Other then rubbish through our place, it didn't look to bad. then I saw our sunflowers. The before and after photo can show more then I can say.

Not long ago our beautiful sunflowers. 

  

After last night the second plant is half what it was. And the first plant looks very sad.



 

 

Thankfully the cucumbers are not too damaged. DH has cut the best sunflowers and they are all in 2 vases for me to enjoy. He also rearranged the cucumbers. There are 2 more plants that look great, like they haven't even been touched by wind.

There is suppose to be more wind tonight, I hope not.



Week Two $100 Food Shop

Made it through week one of the $100 Food Shop. And spent less then $100! Long may that continue. A lot has to do with our veggie garden, and well stocked pantry and freezer.

Started with $100

Spent $79.70

Have $20.30 left

 

Will keep that $20.30 in another envelope for just in case. Just in case there is a sale on item (like butter that I can freeze), or just in case I go over $100 (hopefully not this 2nd week).
 

Menu plan for this 2nd week of $100 Food Shop is:

Breakfast is cereal, Lunch is sandwiches, Snacks is fruit and baking. This is for everyday.

Tuesday Dinner - is minced stuffed marrow with crusty top, salad on the side.

Wednesday Dinner - is Roast chicken with roast veggies.

Thursday Dinner - is Creamy chicken pasta with veggies.

Friday Dinner - is Chicken rice risotto.

Saturday Dinner - is Silver beet Quiche with salad.

Sunday Dinner - is American Hot Dogs and homemade potato chips.

Monday Dinner - is Pasta dinner from freezer bulked up with our veggies.

Baking that I need to do is biscuits and cupcakes.

Shopping that I need to get is

milk

fruit (what is in season and cheap, our peaches and fejoias are not ready yet)

oil

cereal - kids cereal and muesli

onions

garlic

That's about if for food items, have just a few non food items to get (toilet paper and light bulbs)





Getting Busy Harvesting and Preserving

Made some Courgette Chutney, another way to use up what we have growing in different ways. Made 3 jars of chutney (gave one to my dad) Next I have to try them in a cake.

 

Harvested our beetroot. Of all the seeds I sowed 10 plants grew. And of those 10 plants, 8 were big enough to preserve. Made 2 jars of beetroot.

 

Cucumbers have taken off in our garden. Lovely fresh in a sandwich or salad. But I might have to preserve some, and see if anyone wants some if they keep coming like they are.

  

Our 1st Apple Cucumber. They wouldn't grow for me last year. So I'm very happy see not just one but 3 more also growing.
Yes cucumber crazy this year :)

 

Our Butternut plants are doing well, already fruiting. The vines look a little sad at the bottom, but has lots more green leaves at the top. Our other NZ pumpkin has gone crazy growing (over 3 metre long vines) but no fruit yet.

 Very happy with the garden, but I still haven't planted up stage 6 garden. hopefully in the coming weeks that will get done. I want some more lettuce and peas.

 

Using our Courgettes

Jamie Oliver's Courgette Carbonara Recipe. A good use of our courgettes.

 

 

Getting all ready even have our eggs waiting to be used. Didn't have to buy anything extra as we had in our fridge and pantry all we needed.

 

 

Our Courgette Carbonara. Very happy with the end results, tasty with leftovers for tomorrows lunch.

 

 

Now the Courgette Carbonara used only egg yolks for the sauce. And since we had leftover egg whites and not dessert planed. A Pavlova was a great idea.

 

 

Didn't take long to whip this up. Those are yesterdays stewed plums for a sauce. Oh and some leftover cream from dinner :)

Week One $100 Food Shop

Making a good start to our $100 Food Shop Challenge (long may it continue)



Our Budget Envelope for our $100 Food Shop. Having only a $100 placed in the envelope helps us not to over spend.

Part of what is helping us this week is using what we already have in our garden and pantry.



The plums we were given are now turned into......

Plum preserves ready for winter.

All the plums are cooked up, but some are for summer desserts. Plums and ice cream yum :)

We are having a courgette glut. So coming up with ways to use them.

 

 



With the help of our eggs, flour, baking powder and some milk. We were able to make fritters.

Courgette Fritters ready for lunch.

For dinner we had roasted scallopini with roasted potatoes and cold sliced ham.
I'm going to be making courgette chutney, which will help to use more of our courgettes. Then use that for our homemade hamburgers.
There are also recipes for making cakes with courgettes, we should try as well.