A little trip to Waitrose

I use Waitrose a lot but I do not buy everything from there. I certainly look at the offers but I am also looking for things to put up in the pantry for Christmas essentially but also other occasions like a special birthday treat, a family dinner etc. etc.

First of all, many of you will realise that I am in Christmas mode, plotting, planning and buying bits for Christmas already.  I have already bought some bits and bobs for the Christmas celebration.  However at our local Co-Op they have had quite a few bits and bobs on the sweetie line instore and available for a couple of weeks or so.  I had spotted some Ferrero Rocher chocolates and as these are a favourite in this household, I went to buy some but stopped and put them back.  I was not paying £8 for a large tray of them.  I am so glad I put them back because tonight in Waitrose I have managed to find them at £6.50.  So I am quite chuffed about that.  £1.50 a tray is a lot of money to lose and could be put to something else so for two trays I saved £3.  That is all we will need.

I have stocked up on some white wine vinegar.  I have plenty of olive oil in the house.  I have also bought a couple of bottles of red wine vinegar which I think I am going to use in a red onion marmalade.  I will need to go back for Cider vinegar though.

I have also bought two bottles of a very sweet wine that I have not heard of before which apparently has peachy overtones so they have also been put up in the cupboard as well.  I noticed that Waitrose have quite a few offers on at the moment with spirits although as always it pays to shop around on these.  They also have an awful lot of offers on in relation to pasta sauce £0.79 per jar, Passata 0.75 per bottle, tins of different beans including mixed beans and other base consumables.  So it may well be worth checking them out.

I have also managed to find some dried figs.  I have bought two bags of these.  I have a preserve recipe which I wish to make utilising dried figs so I am glad that I have been able to locate these.

I have also located some Scotch Bonnetts so Harissa is definitely on the cards.  Quite a lot of chilli related items on the cards at the moment but that is for OH rather than for me.

I always look at the cake decorating section and today I picked up a couple of tubes of liquid glucose and also some glycerine.  I use the glycerine when I make Royal Icing.  I shall be going back for bits and bobs in the coming weeks and I find if I do not do deal with buying items this way on a few a week, they would not have what I wanted later on in the season.

I have also picked up a little cake decorating kit.  I would not normally do this, but this one is slightly different although a little pricy, but it is something different.

However picking up this little kit did make me think as around about this time of year the shops do start doing little kits for the kiddies to make things and its all very nice and good but a lot of the time you can do this yourself at home and for a lot cheaper.  There was a little stars cookie kit for children and I think they wanted nearly £4 for this.  

I then thought about Mayonnaise.  Most people buy this but in fact is very easy to make with a hand blender, all you needs is a jamjar, some oil, vinegar and an egg whizz it up and you have a jar of mayonnaise.  You can also flavour this with other ingredients.  Then all you do is store it in the fridge when not using.  So I am going to look more at making these sorts of things myself.  OH likes French Dressing and that is easy enough to make as well and there are other variations on a theme.

I absolutely adore fresh figs and so I have bought a small case of these home as well.  I may just eat these fresh as they are super and one of my many weaknesses.

So in all not a bad little jaunt out it has saved me some money and I have some more goodies stashed on the pantry shelf.

However on the way through check out I was talking to the young assistant amd explained what I was doing with regard to Christmas and he seemed quite worried to start with and said that as long as you are not putting your Christmas tree next week that's okay with me. I explained that it normally goes up a day or two before Christmas  I said no I am not that bad, its just something that my family has done for years.  It helps cash flow come December for Christmas presents etc. all we really need to get in is the fresh food and we are not putting it on credit cards but are paying for it as we go so we do not owe anyone anything and we are not paying all year or more to pay it off.  He seemed quite interested at that so may be another convert.  

I also nipped in to get some milk from the Co-op plus a couple of other goodies and I got copped by the young man on the till who indicated that he thought my way of doing with things was a good way especially as it would save money in the long run and he was going to try it himself.  

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

xx

P.S.  Forgot to say that Waitrose have an offer on the really good cooking chocolate at £1 per pack (think it is the Swiss one not sure but has a bright green wrapper).  This is for the dark, white and milk chocolate.  I bought four of the dark and four of the white and will pop back in during the week to stock up on more.  I also bought two jars of stem ginger in syrup as well.

PP