A Little Shopping and replacements for Take-Aways.

Saturday Morning

This morning was a morning for going to the proper bakery we use to obtain six crusty white buns, which we subsequently purchased, together with a couple of cakes, a couple of trifles and a Pork pie.

The real reason for us going out though was because we had run out of bacon for G's breakfast, we therefore from the bakery ended up going to where we get a lot of our meat from on the other side of the City.  Came home with the pack of bacon, two Gammon steaks, a Chicken, 4 x Lemon Meringue Pie boxed mixes, a big pack of Ham, a pack of 6 cans of Barrs Ice Cream Soda and a frozen Half a Peking Duck with Hoisin sauce and pancakes planned for Sunday evening's tea for a change.    

I did notice that they seemed to have more availability on small joints during the week at the Butchers.  I usually do one shop a month there as it is where we get the 2kg pack of Back Bacon either smoked or plain for about £13.  I shall start the meat collection for Christmas for the Freezer next month.

Sunday

Peking Duck has been planned for supper today.  I have prepped up the Spring Onions and the Cucumber.  Probably not as nicely and professionally as those bought but did the job.

Verdict: 

Very nice indeed it was and for just over £5 for a pack which had the Duck and the pancakes and sauce will be buying this again from one of the Butchers.  They do a load of frozen stuff as well.  We therefore had our "Chinese Peking Duck" not from the take-away but from our own kitchen.  Those saved pennies can go elsewhere.

Monday

Plans

For this month I still need to get a couple of trays of eggs and some Sausages.  Will see if they have anything else that can be squirrelled away as well.  I want to see if they have any offers on buying in Mince which I need to stock up on.  In the past they have had very good offers, but we are in different times now.   I am looking forward as usual to make sure that we have a good selection of items available, this time for Autumn/Winter eating. The Butcher we are going to on Tuesday is located outside of Peterborough in the middle of nowhere but near a well known village.  I will just about get the Sausages and maybe some mince into the freezer with a bit of manipulation. We have been eating some items out of the freezer, but with this hot weather our appetites have been diminished a little bit.  I did at one point make quite a bit of space however I have also been adding bits and bobs back in as well. We get a good turnover overall. I am shortly going to be making a load of jam for the Pantry shelf.  I also need cooking apples for making up some more Apple Sauce.

There are  lots of things which do need topping up.  However, I am just buying a few things here and there at the moment and am not doing a concerted shop, although I could be doing with one.  Trying to go slower for this month overall as there are other things that need doing and am trying to fit those in as well.  

There was an offer on with the butter at my local shop however, they never seem to have many items for the actual things on offer and they nearly always seem to have run out rather quickly.  Probably because it is a smaller branch.  I have stocked up on the butter potentially for the month as well as just on everyday things.   I cannot abide the margarine type spreads and stick to my butter. The Butter was £2.75 a tub (Anchor spreadable).  I refuse to pay £4 a tub for it which seems to be the normal price so I do tend to shop around a bit for this.

My vanilla pods have been ordered to make Vanilla Essence for the Pantry shelf. I have ordered in 20 Vanilla beans of Gourmet A class Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla pods via Ebay.  With P & P it has cost me £14.35.  In the shops you get about two pods from about £7 to £8.   Hopefully they should arrive this week.  I still need a bottle of Dark Rum to do this.  I also intend to start off a Rumtopf a little late to normal, but still achievable and I will therefore need a 1 litre bottle and a standard bottle.  I do love Rumtopf at Christmas with some homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream or Cream.  You do not need large amounts of it.

I had wanted to go to Lidl, but that may happen half way through the calendar month for us when things are starting to run down a bit.

For tonight's tea I am going to roast a Chicken and then have it simply with some bread and butter.  I should then be able to use up the Remnants in a stir fry for tomorrow using up some of the Cucumber and Spring onion left over from Sunday tea. We have Strawberries and cream to finish off with.

Take-Aways v Home Take-Aways

It is nice to have a Take-Away especially if you have been under pressure time wise as it makes things a little quicker.  We got caught out during the week as G ordered in a Fish and Chip supper which we had not had for some time. This is what happened on Thursday night when G ordered in some Fish and Chips.  Must stress that they are very good Fish and Chips, but even so. We were charged £1.80 per tin of Ice Cream Soda i.e. £3.60.  We have decided that although the Fish and Chip supper is very nice it is getting a little too rich for our pockets.  We normally have Haddock, but Cod was a lot cheaper we therefore opted for that.  There were also chips and baked beans  We have therefore decided that is for us is not sustainable and intend in future to go and get the fresh fish from Waitrose and cook it ourselves going forward.  We ended up paying about £32 for the supper.  I nearly died.  Take-away prices seem to have shot up just too much.  We usually have one about once a month.   I think this will be reduced to nil going forward.  There is so much more that I could do meal-wise with the money.  So please do not get caught out like we did.  Either make the meal yourself, but definitely buy in your own packs of drinks or sides like baked beans they charge heavily for them too.  Far cheaper to do your own thing.  I really am turning into a bit of a skinflint!  For less than the price of the two cans of drink bought from the Take-Away, I bought in 6 cans from the Butcher for £2.35.  Just a bit of a difference.

These days we rarely go out to eat like loads of other people and I suppose that the Take-Away was our alternative to this.  No more though. Just not worth it.  The pennies are better to go into the Pantry budget/Food budget at the end of the day.  Yes I have to cook it and pay for the energy, but I would rather do this than pay through the nose, and then end up with some pennies potentially to go into the food budget.  It is becoming a matter of priorities and keeping things going rather than that of ease.

Have a lovely evening everyone.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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