A Souper Day

Butchers £14.78 (1.5Kg Chicken, 400g Lean Steak Mince. 12 Rashers Smoked Streaky Bacon)
http://www.barkerbrosbutchers.co.uk/Site/HOME.html

Our meat shop for the week has been done. I  feel confident that the balance of spend between vegetables and meat is pretty good and probably in keeping with what we should be aiming for. Notably it is considerably less than I might previously have spent. Combining a restricted budget with sustainable food ethics is proving trickier than I imagined and I definitely need to rethink next weeks meal plans. Perhaps we need to consider embarking upon the 5:2 diet!!!!

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It is "soup day", today.
The family favourite is tomato but as they are completely out of season and so stupidly expensive I decided to stick with the orange colour scheme and go for carrot! We do, generally, eat rather a lot of soup but most usually for lunch.
I don't know why we automatically view it as a light meal. Served with plenty of freshly baked bread, a bowl of soup is both filling and nutritious. However, I did make a blackberry cake for pudding, just to be sure that there were no rumbly tummies!



I genuinely believe that pretty much any leftovers can be transformed into an interesting and delicious soup and as such have a definite love affair with my hand blender.
This cavalier attitude to soup making really frustrates Marcus. He likes to follow instructions to the letter and wants to know weights and timings. I still stand by my claim that with most casseroles and soups ideas and guidelines are all that are really needed but for anyone who is in the "Marcus camp" here are the exact measurements that I used to make a "really yummy carrot soup"

Carrot and Ginger Soup (Clean Plates 5/5)
1 Onion
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
600g Carrots
130g Parsnip
Scant Tsp Cumin Seeds
Tsp Coriander Seeds
Knob of Root Ginger (yielded a heaped Tsp once grated!)
70g Red Lentils
1.5 Litres Stock (I used Kallo Organic Chicken Stock Cubes)

Peel and finely chop the onion. Gently heat the oil in a large saucepan and sweat the onion until translucent. 
Meanwhile peel and grate the carrots and parsnips. I do this rather than dicing as it is heaps quicker than chopping and it will also cut down on the cooking time.
Toast the cumin and coriander seeds until fragrant and then grind to a fine powder. Add to the pan with the carrots and parsnip and continue to sweat.
Peel and grate the ginger and add this, along with the lentils, to the pan.
Pour in the stock and leave to simmer until everything is tender.
Blitz until smooth,.
Serve with lovely big hunks of  freshly baked bread.

To market, to market, to buy ..........

£24.70 of our £80.00 weekly budget spent on fabulous vegetables!

I love the market on Sundays - there is something intrinsically wonderful about choosing a cauliflower or searching for squash while the sound of church bells fill the air around you.
There are two fabulous vegetable stalls on the market, Mayflower Produce and Wild Country Organics  http://wildco.co.uk/. I filled my bike basket and panniers with an array of colour, shape and potential meals for the grand total of £24.70 ( + a free bag of beetroot from the lovely man at Wild Country Organics).

It's going to be tight, that's for sure. I still need to buy fruit, meat, dairy, eggs and basics like sugar, flour, rice and dried fruit. Obviously I do have some store cupboard and freezer ingredients. However as I am doing this over a four week period, it figures, that I will replenish these over that time and end the challenge with stuff left over to compensate.

Strawberry Fields Forever

It's been a while since we have done any work on the allotment but as we start to creep towards Spring we need to crack on and start preparing for earth for planting.

While the girls tackled last years squash patch (making it their own with yet another scarecrow!), Marcus and I set to work increasing the size of our strawberry patch.

Pre-Challenge Nerves

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With just 3 days to go before our budgeting challenge kicks off I have been racking my brains for meal ideas and ways to make the allocated pennies go further. A quick calculation gives us just £2.29 per person per day for three meals, snacks and beverages. That equates to about 70p a meal.

This has sent me into a state of lentil induced panic where I fall asleep dreaming up insane recipes for lentil ice-cream or lentil biscuits. In my more lucid moments, my reliance on lentils is less intense and I have come up with some more appetising and family friendly solutions to test drive.

My alternative to lentils is soup [and on a good day maybe even lentil soup!]. The plan is to make a vat of soup for Marcus and I to eat for weekday lunches, soup for the whole family at the weekends and to also introduce a weekly "Soup Day" when our evening meal will also be .......wait for it....... a hearty soup.

How little can it cost to eat well? 

Two years ago we were spending in the region of £200 a week on food, drink and household goods. Once we started to grow, forage and make our own we easily reduced this by a good £80- £90 and at the same time upped the quality of the raw ingredients  that we were buying and subsequently the food that we ate.

Inquisitive as to whether this was a reasonable amount to spend for a family of five I did a bit of a survey amongst my friends and family. The results are pretty varied; as are my friends and family!

For a family of four/five it ranges from as low as £60 all the way to £200. That is a huge variation! I am intrigued, and dare I say it, a little disappointed. It turns out that, despite all our baking, making and growing, our high effort £120 is pretty average amongst the fairly careful shoppers and a long way off from the Aldi shoppers and those utilising the 3 for £10 meat deals or the freezer aisles.

Driven by financial necessity and my rather competitive nature I am suddenly involved in a "challenge".
For four weeks my friend Katherine (another mother of three with a competitive personality) will endeavour to feed our hungry troops for £80 a week.

To make the challenge appropriate to our family ethics and values I will continue to support local businesses rather than depending on supermarket deals. This is particularly important to me with regard to meat, fish, eggs and milk and will definitely make it more challenging.
Katherine's particular objective is to reduce her food costs without her children noticing that anything has changed.

Our challenge will begin on Monday 23rd February.