Challenging Myself
Friday 14 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The End of Challenge Round Up ... and What I Did With the Leftovers
Thursday 13 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 for a Week Challenge - Days Six and Seven
Lunch was special.
As I had quite a few carrots left I decided to choose the two biggest, top and tail them, cut them in half and then slice them down the middle, and then roast them with a big fat slice of onion. They were all tossed in herby, garlicky oil and roasted in the oven, it was a real flavour treat to have them on the last of my mashed potatoes for lunch. They were surprisingly filling too.
So much so that when teatime came around I just had a slice of toast and marmalade. Ooops I have just noticed that the cut is remarkably like that on the last post ... but the marmalade is twice as thick. 😀
Maybe I wasn't quite as satisfied as I thought because later watching my film I succumbed to my Easter egg and scoffed the lot. A near end of Challenge cheat that I am not embarrassed at all to confess to.
Wednesday 12 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - Day Five and Prep Work
At the start of day five I thought that it was time for me to assess what food I had left. My main worry was that if I had not done my calculations right I might end the week with a day of toast and marmalade, which wouldn't have been the end of the world but would have been pretty boring.
This was what I had in the fridge, I had cut a couple of my potatoes into chips and had them ready for action, there was one pot of spaghetti rings left, the breadcrumbs, the carrots, my remaining onion and the now opened peaches and marmalade.
I picked the best potato to be a baked potato and washed that, and then peeled all the others. The skin did not feel as good now and to be honest I wasn't that fussed at losing a bit of peel. Usually I would save them for soup, but you have all seen me do that so many times before during various challenges so I decided against it.
Some were boiled up as they were and then mashed, and the others had a couple of the carrots added in to make a mixed mash. I actually used the same pan and water for both lots of cooking, it seemed crazy to warm another pan up when the first one was already hot and full of hot water, and as you can see I saved the cooking water and will use it to make another pot of carrot soup.
Tuesday 11 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - Days Three and Four
At lunchtime I made a large pan of Vegetable Stew, using some of the smaller potatoes, a couple of carrots and about half of an onion. All cooked until just starting to fall apart in some of my store cupboard stock.
For my tea I had the Vegetable Soup that I made from the whizzed up vegetable stew leftover after lunch from the day before. It was delicious and very filling, and no I decided against any toast this time as it was beautifully thick just as it was.
I think that varying the food I am making, even though I am obviously using exactly the same ingredients over and over again, is helping make this seem not so repetitive. Of course I could just have made a great big pot of vegetable stew and one of soup for the whole seven days of the challenge. This would have been so much easier, but I think the repetition might have made it a miserable week, even if it was tasty.
Still it's something to think about if you had to live on this amount of money for a week and were too busy to play with your food. Toast and marmalade for breakfast, soup for lunch and stew for your tea, minimal cooking at the start of the week, less washing up and no thought required after the first day ... what's not to like.
Sue xx
Monday 10 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - Days One and Two
My tea for day two was really simple, as I was just not that hungry.
A baked potato cooked in the microwave, with salt and pepper and a drizzle of mayo and that was all I needed.
In my opinion it was a good first two days and although I felt slightly hungry at times it was nothing that a cup of coffee didn't cure ... and I slept so well. 😴 zzzz
Sue xx
Sunday 9 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The Food for the Week
So, armed with my four little coins I went to Sainsbury's and I chose as much food as I could get for my miniscule budget. I brought it home, took the photo and then thought now I must see exactly what I have to work with here.
I had one jar of orange marmalade, one can of orange spaghetti rings, and one can of orange coloured peach slices. Yes it was at this point that I realised that most of my shopping for the week was orange in colour!!
Saturday 8 April 2023
The Eat for £3.50 a Week Challenge - The Where and the Food