Shopping

Look - three have already gone from the tray!! Not sure who ate them!

I did wonder today if I should rename this blog to include the word frugal. I had £40 to do the weeks basic shopping. The couple in front of me with a toddler & a 6 month old spent £108. OK there were a number of organic purchases but there was also plenty of biscuits, cakes & jars of baby food. If it were me I'd be making the baby food from the organic produce - yes I used to buy jars of food for emergencies or days when I could be bothered but not in the quantity I saw today. Another retired couple had a trolley full of ready prepared meals & tins of meat, pop etc. Maybe they felt it was time to take it easy & not spend time doing the prep. Maybe I'm just jealous? No! I want to feed my family as well as I can but not at any price nor with a lot of junk. Which isn't to say I don't buy junk or ready prepared meals occasionally - everything in moderation I say. My purchases included meat & veg, washing powder, milk & yoghurt. I already have some basics in the house so it isn't the entire amount of food for the week, although my housekeeping varies between £30 & £50 at any given week depending on how much hubby earns a week so we have to shop carefully. But do we all use up the leftovers?
I started out with the intention of echoing the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle motto. I took my own carrier bags in a cloth bag I made specifically to hang on the trolley see Lakeland Limited's website for their eco bag. Lunch was homemade veg soup using the stock I made yesterday from the carcass of the chicken from the day before. Bread was a homemade roll topped with cheese. Tea was quiche with bacon & cheese, served with fresh green beans & mashed potatoes left over from yesterday but put in little pyramids, topped with cheese, on a baking tray in the top of the oven while the quiche cooked below. I used the left over pastry to make jam tarts as well.
So I reduced the waste from leftover food, was sensible using the oven for more than one thing & didn't take any new plastic bags from the shop by recycling the ones I got last time! I managed to fill us all up except for my son who is a lean mean eating machine at the tender age of nine. Well he's always been like this. I filled some more of the gap with cherry pie that Mum gave me a while ago that had sat in the freezer until today. Haven't we overdone the pastry today?!! Now I notice he's snacking on the home made choc chip cookies that I made today. I didn't mention that his late breakfast was homemade drop scones (Scotch pancakes) - a veritable bottomless pit! He'd be eating a banana as well but as per usual they were all green inthe shop today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll get chance to read & drool a little more over Kaffe Fassett. Joe badly needs some more trousers I'll have to have a look through some back issues of Ottobre to see which I (he) likes best, being a stick insect bought trousers don't necessarily fit, even with adjustable elastic in the back waist. Custom made look better!