Roast chicken and labels

 

My Tesco shop yesterday included a large fresh chicken (it was a Clubcard offer!)  The label describes a large chicken as being between 1.5kg and 1.9kg (as per photo above) so I looked for the biggest one I could get.  Yep, I even pulled a few out to get to the ones at the back!! 👀

This was the biggest one!  I looked at every single one on the shelf to get my money's worth of chicken!!  I know another 206g (7oz) of chicken doesn't necessarily produce an equivalent amount of edible meat but hey, it could be enough for another frugal meal.  So I'm always going to check from now on!  

The label also says it serves 5 but we all know we can get more than 5 servings from a large chicken!  Plus I have the bones/carcass simmering in the Crockpot for stock.  I'll make soup tomorrow once it's cooled and I'll skim off and save the chicken fat for making pastry.  I think I'll make some individual chicken pies for the freezer.

I have also been 'sharing' my roast chicken with both dogs as they BOTH have a nasty bout of diarrhoea.   Luckily I now keep some doggy probiotics in the cupboard, much cheaper than vet prescribed ones.  A day or 2 of chicken, rice and scrambled egg should hopefully help settle their tummies.  

As I've mentioned previously, I've been working on removing ultra processed foods/ingredients (UPFs) from my diet.  I was shocked when I looked at the label on my Hellman's mayonnaise today.  It contains calcium disodium EDTA which is a medication to treat lead poisoning.  It's a classic use of a UPF that has found it's way into the food chain as a cheap preservative.  I don't know if it's always been in there or they now have to declare it.  But I'll not be eating it again.  I can and will be making my own mayo from scratch from now on. 

I also needed salt.  Many of them contained an anti caking ingredient (sodium hexacyanoferrate II or sodium ferrocyanide.)  This was the only one that didn't have any!  And of course it's more expensive.  BUT I have noticed a huge difference in my digestive health since I stopped eating over processed gluten free and dairy free products and eliminating these hidden UPFs.  So it's worth it for me to check every single label and make everything from scratch.  And so far I'm managing to do it within my tight budget! 😊

Beef!

Well, despite costing me a small fortune the beef was actually delicious! 😋 My son and I each had 2 large slices in gravy with roast potatoes and veg for dinner last night.  I then let the joint rest for an hour and sliced it up.  I'm rubbish at carving joints (mainly cos I do it so rarely!) so each slice was a generous 'chunky' one 😂  I layered them in a dish and covered it all in the gravy.

I portioned it up this morning for freezing.  The tubs have a large and a smaller slice (these are for my son) and I wrapped single large slices in individual freezer bags with a few spoonfuls of gravy,  In total the joint gave enough beef for 5 tubs, 7 freezer bags plus the 2 dinners last night.  So 14 meals in total makes it £1.53 a serving, still way more than I like to spend on meat.  I could have been meaner in my portion sizes and got more servings.  But I decided some of these would be 'treat' meals for my son so I didn't skimp.

I remember years ago in the 70s when I was a child, my parents had a meat slicer (similar to the above) that carved meat into really thin slices.  As I was 'carving' my chunky slices last night I was thinking 'I bet my mum and dad could have got triple the amount of slices I've got!'  😂

It caught me out this time!!

 

Eurgh!!!  I got caught out by the price per kg in Tesco this morning.  I'm so annoyed with myself.  I was in a bit of rush so when I was looking at the joints of beef I just saw the £11 part of the price tag.  It was actually in rather large bold numbers and there was signage suggesting beef was on special offer.  I put one in my basket, rushed round to pick the rest of my items and rushed through the checkout.

When I got home, I got the Crockpot out and put the joint straight in so it would be ready for tonight's meal.  I'd promised my son I'd cook him some beef.  I didn't even look at the packaging before it went straight into the wheelie bin!

It was only when I looked at my receipt I realised I'd paid £21.38!!!!!!!  😭😭😭

It had better be the best tasting beef I've ever had!!!

Big mistake!

 

I went to Tesco yesterday to 'spend' my £13 vouchers on meat.  They had very little meat in the reduced section, lots of ready meals though!  I got a yellow sticker turkey drumstick and 2 x 400g packs of diced beef (£4.19 each, full price sadly!) as I've been craving some hearty stews.  I was very tempted by some diced venison but it was £6.50 for just 250g so I stuck with the beef!

I didn't get a huge amount of meat off the drumstick but I did get a huge pot of delicious stock.  So I made a huge pot of turkey and rice soup with home grown leeks.  I added all the meat (cut in cubes) so the soup is fairly substantial! 😋

Proper 'sticks to your ribs' soup!! 😂 At least 8 or 9 good portions still left in that big soup pot!

The beef has been simmering away in the Crockpot all afternoon with carrot, onion and some of the turnip I got at the community food shop.  A good splash of Worcestershire sauce and some Tamari are the only other ingredients except for water.  It smells amazing already! 😋

As for the big mistake?  I spent £5.95 of my precious supermarket budget on some Zip firelighters (60 in the pack) to light the woodburner.  It's been years since I bought any as I've been using the natural ones from Letko.  I thought the Zip ones would be a lot cheaper for me to use.  They work out at 9.9p each.  But they absolutely stink!  My hands were stinky and it took several washes to get rid of the smell!!!  When I read the label I saw that they contain kerosine!  I can't have that around with a dog that will eat anything!!  She's prone to grabbing something and running away with it, trying to chew and swallow it before I can get to her!  So I'm rehoming them and I've ordered more of the natural firelighters that work out at 10.8p each.  That extra penny is worth the peace of mind that Luna won't eat anything nasty.

I'm adding the woodburner costs (logs, matches, firestarters, chimney sweep) to my annual energy costs.  I haven't done that before.  I usually just count it as part of my monthly spending so it will be interesting to see how it averages out over a year.

Better than a TGTG bag!

 

I've mentioned before that the Too Good To Go bags aren't always good value for me as I don't eat the bread and cake based items that seem to fill them.  Plus they can be full of over processed foods that I just don't eat.  I noticed that our local Aldi has now joined the scheme and a bag costs  £3.30 with a guaranteed value of £10.  I thought I might test one out at some point as I've seen a few YouTubers talk about their bags.

But then by chance my DIL was in our local Aldi around 5pm when they started marking down the meat by 75%.  She got 2 x 500g packs of Pigs in Blankets and stuffing balls, 2 x 248g packs of the Brie and Cranberry Candy Canes, a 500g pack of beef mince and a 1kg pack of chicken breasts!  She also got a pack of 4 cakes.  Grand total £5.20!!!!  Better value than a TGTG bag methinks!

She gifted me the pack of chicken breasts so free chicken for me 😊  I poached them for 2 hours in the Crockpot on High with a little water, salt and sprinkling of mixed herbs.  Then I sliced it and made 6 generous portions to freeze.  I'll definitely do that again as the meat was so tender!  I used the poaching liquid to make chicken flavoured veggie soup! 🍗🥕🧅 That made 7 portions so that's 7 lunches sorted!

My DIL is a pescatarian but my son eats meat.  When she sees a good price on meat she shares with me and when I see a deal on fish I share with her.  It takes effort (ie going to different stores at different times!) but these kind of deals plus a decent Lidl veg box or bag from the community shop could seriously reduce meal costs.  

Got beef!

 

Less than 24 hours after surgery to remove the remains of her broken tooth, Luna seems to be back to 'normal.'   Although she has painkillers to take for a few days.  And my bank balance took another £450 hit as doggy dental work isn't covered by my pet insurance 🙄 She's been trying to work out how to climb up on my wee stool for ages now and I think she's getting closer!!  The target is stealing the tea towel!! 😂

When I dropped her off at the vet I popped into Morrison's as it's on that side of town and got a beef joint.  Not as nice as the one I didn't get in my Sainsbury's order but a decent price for one that was for chucking in the slow cooker for a few hours.

Here it is all shredded and cooled overnight in the fridge.  There's quite a bit of fat that I'll skim off and maybe keep for my next batch of pastry.  Waste not and all that!  The beef is all portioned up and in the freezer now 😋

Poorly puppy

 

Luna is still a poorly puppy.  After her meds finished last week she got a UTI so we had a weekend of drama which included an overnight stay in the vet hospital where she needed IV fluids.  We're stuck in the cycle of her having an immature immune system so she's picking up all the nasties.  And because she's been poorly the vet can't give her the vaccines against the nasties!!  It's all been rather stressful and we're not quite out of danger yet.  She's on yet more antibiotics so fingers crossed they work to get her stable enough for the vaccines.

I managed to visit the allotment for a few hours.  My polytunnel was a riot with blackfly so I picked all the tomatoes and pulled up all the plants.  The green tomatoes should ripen on my windowsill.  I've left a few cucumber plants and nasturtiums that were ok so we'll see if they produce any more.  

I brought home my chilli plant so I could watch it ripen here in case I don't get back to the plot often enough.  This one is Apache.  Apparently they are mild when green but rather hot when red!!  I might pick and use a green one to gauge the heat level.

As expected the weeds were having a field day so I cleared the path and entrance at my gate.  Rabbits and pigeons have eaten my carrots, pumpkins and my recently planted purple sprouting broccoli.  My fault as I didn't net them!! They've not touched my onions or potatoes though!  And I picked some of my thornless brambles (blackberries) to add to the freezer fruit collection!

Since I'm still confined to the kitchen areas with Luna (laminate floors clean easier!) I've been cooking.  I pulled these lamb steaks out the freezer and did a basic slow cooker stew.

Red onions were from the plot and the potatoes (Pink Fir Apple) were from pots in the back garden.  It was delicious and did 2 full meals 😋

I've got a sourdough starter on the go using organic white flour.  I've been using the 'discard' to make sourdough pancakes.  They're delicious with jam and I've had no issues with the gluten content (so far!) I've cut out all processed foods and now eat my big meal of the day at lunch time.  This seems to be helping my digestive system as I really haven't had any 'issues' for weeks now.  My trousers are a bit looser so I think I'm starting to shift some weight.  I'm still reading Ultra Processed People to keep me motivated!  I need to be fit and healthy to get the most out of retirement!! 😊

Friday night bargains

OH has been away part of this week and I had a parents evening last night which meant I hadn't been to the gym all week.  So I was dragged along tonight even though it's Friday and I always spend Friday evenings slobbing on the couch.  I'll grudgingly admit I feel the better for it.  I really don't enjoy the gym but I am determined to keep myself fit, healthy and active well into my old age 👵  And OH is motivated enough for both of us!!

On the way home we popped into Sainsburys. I hit the meat jackpot.  There was a ton of meat from the butcher's counter in the yellow sticker section.  I picked up a slow roast silverside beef joint reduced from £11.25 to £2.79.  It's already doing it's thing in the slowcooker.

Plus 2 fillet steaks reduced from £8.75 to £2.19 and 2 ribeye steaks reduced from £8.40 to £2.09

All Scottish meat and cut in store by a real butcher.  I got £28.40 worth of meat for £7.07.  That's a lot of quality meat for a quarter of the cost.  And lots of potential meals for the freezer 😊

I'm glad I went to the gym tonight 💪

End of the holiday

That was a quick week!  Although I did pack a lot in with a trip to Brighton at the start and then a couple of days in St Andrews in the campervan.  So this morning it was back to my normal weekend routine of shopping/cooking/housework.  After a trip to Sainsbury's it was a morning of roasting chicken and pumpkin, making chutney and putting a beef casserole in the slow cooker.  Sainsbury's had a lot of their frozen meat reduced, probably to make way for Christmas stuff.  So I got 2 x 500g bags of diced British beef for me and a pulled beef meal for my eldest son.  All at half price.  Worth checking out your supermaket freezers for good deals just now!

It looks tasty but contains gluten!

In the spirit of making good use of everything I had a go at roasting the pumpkin seeds from my pumpkin.  I followed this recipe where you boil the seeds first in salted water before roasting.

They're absolutely delicious!  Worth the fiddliness and they're free :-)

Tomorrow I need to do some prep for going back to school *sighs* and more housework chores.  It just makes life easier when I get in from work each night.

Plodding on

I'm still painting my utility room *sighs*  I'm now on the third coat of paint.   I think the end may be in sight.  In between the paint drying (and my enthusiasm flagging!) I've been decluttering and organising other areas in the house.  I'm trying to get as much done as I can before school goes back.  My kitchen still isn't finished *rolls eyes* but I upcycled a tree mug by painting the red base in the purple colour I used on the door and radiator.  Quick, easy and free!!

I tackled my study.  It was the dumping ground for everything.  It's a through passage to The Teenager's den/family room so you can just see the floor is cleared enough to squeeze through!  A lot of this stuff was put there 'out of the way' to be dealt with at a later date, which of course never comes!  Some of it is school stuff to be taken to my new classroom.

 The view from the other end of the room

Ta da!! The after shot!  You can see the rugs again!!

And from the other end 

I currently have 3 book cases (this was my downsized collection after moving) but I'm aiming to get rid of one more.  If you notice the bookcase on the right is sloping (wonky floor!) and has a missing base plate.  This one will be Freecycled along with the books.  Then I'll put Emma's smaller bed in that place instead of in front of the radiator.  She prefers the small bed now so I'll Freecycle the big one she shared with Lucy.

The Teenager has been cooking some new dishes to get ready for uni.  This is his version of the  Versatile Vegetable Stew from the BBC show Eat Well For Less?  There's a new series on atm and already I've picked up a few new recipes from it.  Some folk like to knock it and make fun of the families featured but I think people just get in a rut when they're busy and running a family.  I could easily have been on it a few years ago.

It was actually very nice although we didn't have any paprika so used chipotle flakes instead.  He would make it again so big success!  Tonight he's going to try baked veggie enchiladas like the ones he ate in a Beefeater restaurant.

I made a big slow cooker lamb stew (Irish Stew) with some yellow stickered packs of lamb I'd picked up over the last few weeks.  Really simple, just carrots, onions, potatoes and lamb chucked in plus some veg stock.  I cooked it on high for 1 hour then low for 5 hours.  I read somewhere that lamb is a very good meat to have if you have food intolerances as sheep cannot be intensively reared like chickens, pigs and cows.  So it's not been mucked about by man over the years.  OH won't eat it as he thinks it's fatty but if you use lean cuts and skim off the fat after it's cooled it's fine (I think!)

It's already been portioned up and frozen, some for me and some for my eldest DS.  He does love a good homemade stew!

I also made him some buttery mash to have with it.  I've not frozen mash before but Sue over at Our New Life in the Country did a recent post on it so I'm giving it a try!

Jackpot!!

I really hit the yellow sticker jackpot last night!! I was hoping to pick up a few bargains but in total I spent just over £25 on:

2 packs vegetarian bubble n squeak sausages
400g turkey breast mince
2 x 500g packs beef mince
400g lean pork, diced
4 chicken breast fillets
4 slices haggis ;-)
6 Cumberland sausages
400g lean beef stir fry strips
chicken crown
3 rump steaks
4 GF wraps

But it's not all for me.  My No 1 son has health issues which means he cannot work and survives (I cannot call it living!) on benefits.  He recently had his DLA (Disabled Living Allowance) taken away after an assessment for the replacement benefit PIP (Personal Independence Payment) deemed him not disabled enough.  I could say so much on this subject but it would turn into a rant.  So long story short, he is £46 a week worse off.  He can almost cover his rent and electricity bill but that's all.  He doesn't have enough money for food or clothes or 'fun' so this is where he's lucky he has family to support him.  There are many who don't :-(

I spent last night and today turning the above into 'ready meals' for his freezer.

The chicken crown (marinaded in smoked salt, garlic and black pepper) was cooked and sliced into 4 generous meal portions.  If it was for me I'd have got at least 6 portions but he's a tall man!

I made a sausage casserole and cooled it overnight so I could skim off the fat before freezing. 2 healthy portions for him.

I made 2 portions of healthy sweet and sour pork and cooked the turkey breast mince in a little stock.  It can be the healthy base for a bolagnais or chilli.  They're already frozen.

I chopped up the chicken and tossed it in lemon juice before freezing.  I've got a plan for that ;-)

I marinaded the stirfry beef in lemon juice and fajita spice before freezing.  That'll feed me, OH and hungry Teenogre one night with wraps and salad fixings.

The beef mince I froze uncooked.  We've got guests coming for dinner in a few weeks so I'll be making a massive lasagne for 10 people.  I also just froze the rump steaks.  They'll be good for a BBQ in the coming months.

And the haggis slices were seperated and frozen individually.  They can be grilled/fried as part of a full Scottish breakfast or used to stuff a chicken breast at some point.

So, back to the plan.  I bought one of these wee slow cookers today for No 1 son.

It cost me just £10 in Wilko.  It holds 1.5 litres. I was visiting mum and dad today so popped in for a look as we don't have one here in Stirling.  It's just like the old Woolworth's :-) My plan is to make lots of these freezer to slow cooker bags so all he needs to do is defrost a bag and dump it in the slow cooker.  His M.E./C.F.S. prevents him from being able to stand and cook so this will cut down on his use of ready meals.  They're unhealthy AND expensive so hopefully mine will save him money and be better for him especially as I'm going pad them out with loads of veggies.  Shhh don't tell him! ;-)

I also got a load of these tubs and pour n store bags.  £1 for 6 tubs and 10 bags for £1.50

If he's careful he can save them and I'll re use them.  I might even fill them for him :-)