A trip to the Butcher

We paid a trip out to the Butcher today to stock up a bit more on a few more meat items for the freezer.

I have spent approximately £100, but there is quite a bit of good eating to be had from this.  Now I must make it clear it is a lot of money to spend but in the Winter months in particular I do like to have one really good meal per day.  This meat will last us a fair while, although I am looking for specific meats for Christmas. There will therefore be an element of meat buying in for the next few months.  

One of our mainstay ingredients particularly during the Winter months is Beef mince, but the prices are only going up and there are a couple of places that I source Beef mince from as it is of a really good quality.  The middle of the road Butcher that we have been to today i.e. ABC Meats caters more for family sized packs of good quality meat and at reasonable prices.  I have used them on and off for many years and it is the Butcher I tend to go to when the pennies are tight.  However as I have said before they are a good all rounder.  G's breakfast stuff tends to come from here.  I buy in my Gammon joints here and Gammon steaks and the majority of Rib Eye steak.  I shall also go to them next month as I want some joints for the Christmas table.

Today I have stocked up with:

A tray of Chicken Breasts @ £17 per tray i.e. 9 large breasts, 2kg in weight which have been packed in packs of two, with one odd one which equates to 4.5 packs As I have said they are large and so would be ideal for chopping down for a curry or a homemade chuck everything in Chinese style stir fry.

Two trays of their Lean minced Beef @ £10 per tray price normally but these two were reduced to £8 per tray = £16  i.e 2kg in weight (1kg in weight per pack). These have been split down into four 500g packs.

A whole Chicken @ £6 per bird  this one weighs 1.5kg.  One of the reasons I buy these birds is that the breast as is the rest of the bird nice and plump.

A tray of Chinese flavoured Ribs 1kg in weight £10 per tray.  These are for G's tea tomorrow night.

A tray of two Beef joints for £25. They frequently have offers on for two joints. One of the joints is normally a little smaller than the other but is enough for a Sunday dinner for the two of us. There will be enough for two dinners, plus meat left over which I will freeze in gravy or if not enough for this use in sandwiches.

2 large trays of Lincolnshire Sausages @ £10 per tray (24 sausages 1.32 kilo weight per tray. I achieved 6 packs of 4 from one tray and 5 packs of 4 out of the other as G had already had some for brunch.

I now have since re-packaged everything into portion sizes.  It is easier to portion them up at this stage; I normally portion into fours or twos and if we need more can always pull another pack out.  I package like this in order to be economical with the meat and not waste anything.

The freezer was then tackled and I stripped the freezer out completely and made it easier to find things.  I have also added the new meat from today at the bottom of the baskets and added pre-existing packs to the top so that they get used first.  I am quite pleased to have tackled this tonight.  It has been on the list - it is one of the items that I do in September, as it is when I start buying items to put up for Christmas, which technically I have started doing.  Next month will be meat again as I want a Gammon joint, a larger Beef joint, and a Turkey Crown.  I also want some Pork shoulder to turn into frozen Pork Pies for finishing off and cooking on Christmas Eve from frozen.  I have decided to tackle these again and make a really large one for Christmas and some smaller ones for use either before or after Christmas. I will have a good look around and will gradually build up the stock I would like a month at a time. 

I also bought in two bottles of Barrs Ice Cream soda pop which I quite like which was £1.35 per bottle.  I normally get my Green's cheesecake mixes or Carmelle mixes from here as well.

They did have some good offers on with the Rib Eye, or Fillet steak (4 steaks per tray) £20, Minted or Plain Lamb chops for £20 a tray approximately 12 of these per tray.  There were other offers as well but these were the ones I was looking at today.  Some of the Beef joints and Pork joints were also reasonably priced and they also had Brisket; I love Brisket in any event.  I might get some of this next time as I want to have a go at making some Pastrami which is something I really do love.  G not keen though.

I also use Willowbrook Farm an awful lot as well.  Their meat is extremely good quality - it is a proper Farm Shop and I have used them for years.  I tend to buy my eggs from here if I can as well as a lot of other items.

We also nipped into Iceland the Warehouse, not for a proper look around but for some specific items that were needed.  So may go back another day to have a proper look around. The more the price of food has spiralled upwards it looks as though the offers are not as good as they used to be.  They still do have some offers but not like they were previously.  I have noticed in particular that across the board tinned goods sizes have shrunk quite a bit.   I used to use Iceland quite a bit for basic items like bread and Croissants, Pain au Chocolat that sort of thing.  You used to be able to buy three of anything for say £3.  That has been reduced to 2 in many areas and the price has gone up a little as well. In a lot of instances still reasonable but enough for me to think twice and see if I can locate cheaper elsewhere.

Therefore some reasonably substantial meat buys today.  I would say that these days my freezer contains mostly meat.  I have a lot of fruit in there at the moment, but this will get used up in the next few weeks which will create the space that I need for the meat for Christmas.  I am grateful for having this freezer as after having been without a freezer for quite a few years after the fire, it means that I can stock stuff there without impacting the price too much whereas I was having to buy meat etc as I needed it when I was without the freezer and not able to take advantage of any offers.  I also did not have the capacity to store meat in gravy or anything like that which created another meal when I was without the freezer.  I really need a Chest freezer again, but nowhere to put it.  A freezer really does help you maximise your food spending to the hilt and for me like a washing machine is one of my absolute necessities.  Having a larger freezer also enables you to save on wasting anything and you can make your own Freezer ready meals to plonk on the table mid week.  I have always used a Freezer/Freezers extensively.

Today therefore has been a terribly productive day.  Still a long way to go but getting there very gradually.

Has been a windy night and day here.  We had rain early morning and it was supposed to be a warmer day today which to me it has not seemed to be. The nights are also starting to draw in now and we are starting to get cooler temperatures.

I hope everyone has a lovely evening.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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