First it was Meat ... Now it's Fish

Last Friday I posted all about our Musclefood delivery and the meat that we bought to stock the freezer for Alan's meals (see here) ...  this week's bulk purchase for the freezer is fish.

In Tesco one day last week I noticed the end of one of the chiller cabinets was absolutely full of sides of salmon at the reduced price of £7.50, instead of the normal £15.  After checking all the other fresh salmon prices I bought two.  In the cinema half an hour later I thought about this and decided to nip back to get two more thinking that they would last us a long time at this brilliant price.  By the time my film had finished and I had driven the three minutes back to Tesco the fridge had been stripped bare ... as had lots of other shelves, it seems the Christmas buying frenzy is already upon us.

But never mind I had my two safely in the boot of the car  :-)

They have now been sliced into meal sized portions.

Although a couple were slightly over the recommended 100g of meat or fish allowance for a meal.

Each portion was wrapped in Easy-leave, so it would be safe in the freezer and separate from the pieces next to it.

I just weighed every now and then to keep me on track, especially as the fish changed shape towards the tail end.

Once both sides had been portioned out and wrapped I put them into a freezer proof box and added the label off one of the packs.

Then I decided to write on the label how many portions I had started with and the cost per portion, because as much as I think I'm going to remember I never do.

A Tesco single plain salmon fillet is currently on sale at £2.35 for 130g.  So I think my portions at just 83p each are an absolute bargain, and with 18 slices now nestled in the freezer Alan will have a fish dish every now and then at a much lower cost than usual.

Sue xx

A Meatier Than Usual Post

This week for the first time ever I ordered from Musclefood.  My son has used them a couple of times but I had always resisted temptation.  But now with not a lot of meat left in the freezer for my lovely hubby I decided to stock up in time for Christmas with the idea that this would form the major part of his Christmas dinner and keep him well supplied into the New Year.

I chose an offer that I picked up off a Facebook frugal foods page, which gave me 2.5kg of chicken breasts, with a 'hamper' of various mixed meats that were worth £19.55 but which were the 'free' offer, and then another 2.5 kg of chicken for £12.

It was delivered on time by courier in a chilled box yesterday and after it spent a night in the workshop, which is as cold as a fridge overnight, we set to this morning to get it all ready for the freezer.

I was surprised at the size of the chicken breasts, so I got out the scales and weighed them.  Not bad at all, they were well over 200g each.  Which means that following NHS guidelines there is more than enough in each one for two adults to have as part of a meal.

With Alan doing all the meat handling and me doing the wrapping it was all portioned out and ready for the freezer in no time.  The chicken breasts were wrapped individually and then put into boxes to avoid freezer burn, the sausages were snipped apart and wrapped with a layer of EasyLeave between but everything else was just checked for a level of separation and then popped into the freezer as  they were.

I was wondering how to work out the costings for each item at first, then Alan suggested to simply count the portions we would use for a meal.

So we counted :

24 chicken breasts x one meal each

1 x mince meal

2 x meatball meals

2 x steak burger meals

1 x sweet chilli chicken meal (these seem quite small)

2 x sausage meals

2 x chicken breast meals

So a grand total of 34 meals, which if I divide that by the total amount the order cost me to have sent (including delivery), would make the meat part of each meal £1.08. 

But after seeing the size of the breasts we now think that most of them will be used for two meals if it's something like curry, casserole, stew etc.  If they are to be the 'star' of the show, sliced meat for sandwiches, a large roast dinner etc, then they might be used for just one meal.  So counting three quarters of them as two meals, and using the mince for two instead of our original thought of one meal (it's very tightly packed, not loose like you get from a supermarket or the butcher, so seemed small, but after checking the weight it does weigh in at over 200g), we now have a working total of 55 meals.

Yes that's fifty five meals!!

Which brings our cost for the meat part of any meal down to 67p.

Bargain.

I know it's not very often that you get a 'meaty post' from me, but living with a meat eater is my life and something I can't change, so it means that we just make the best of things, and one of the things I am good at is saving money with food .... but I am glad I had Alan to help with the handling of all this well packed meat, otherwise I think a thick pair of rubber gloves would have been called into play   :-)

If you would like to have a look at the Musclefood site for yourself and see all the bargains there you can use this link to get you there:   MUSCLEFOOD

If you do decide to buy anything while you're there use my referral code ... which is SH731226 ... and you will get an extra freebie that can be chosen from one of four items ... and being totally honest I will get a 500 point referral fee.  I have also added a link to the sidebar for while so you don't have to keep coming back and finding this post.  Just click on that and you will have access to the site and my code.

Have you used this site before, what did you think of it?

  We were very pleasantly surprised and wondered why we hadn't taken the plunge before.  One thing for sure is that we will be ordering again in a few months when the 55 meals have been eaten and there is some more space in the freezer.

Sue xx

Mondays Fridge Soup

At the end of last week we had to call to Tesco late in the evening and for once we were lucky enough to grab a few bargains, it's pretty rare these days that we are there when the yellow stickers are out in force ... well to be honest we've just not been shopping that much recently, only going to the shops for absolute necessities. 

Anyway this morning I set about using the veggies up, they had survived the weekend very well in the drawer of the fridge, but I wanted to use them up before they got any unhappier!!

I emptied out the rest of the fridge drawer too ... 

... put back the few things that were in really good condition.

Then I got out the 'bits and bobs' bag from the freezer, I save all trimmings and stalks from the cauliflowers and broccoli for just such occasions.

Then it was time to fish out the 'flavour enhancers', some Approved Foods bouillon powder ...

... and one or two other additions.

I always find the more variety of flavours you put in the richer and deeper the taste of the finished product, and anyway I like to play.  So I chopped and diced and got everything simmering away nicely for a while and then decided it looked a bit wishy washy ...

... so I added a good squirt of tomato puree and a couple of teaspoon of Turmeric.

It looked much better !!

After a couple of hours in the bottom oven of the Aga I whizzed it up with my stick blender and had a good bowl full for my lunch ... for tasting purposes of course.

And then the rest was cooled ready to go into the freezer, with one small bowl put into the fridge for tomorrows lunch.

I had already dealt with the bargain pack of ham as soon as we got home, you don't leave meat lying around for too long.  First it was dried off slightly on kitchen paper ...

... then split into four usable portions.

Before being placed in a zip lock bag and popped into the freezer.

As you can see I am still determined to make full use of everything we buy or grow and watch our pennies and I'm gearing up for next year ... when the purse strings will once again be pulled in very tightly.

Sue xx

Freezer Inventory

I came across this brilliant freezer inventory on a website called Organised Home earlier, after a tip off on Facebook. 

See HERE.

They have the basic one you can just print out and write on, which would be brilliant for me when I'm out in the workshop at the big chest freezer, and also a version for saving onto your computer to fill in with your keyboard ... which would make it much neater and easier to read if your handwritings anywhere near as bad as mine  ;-)

Guess what I'll be doing one day next week then, and this time I'll try and keep it up to date and not let it fizzle out like it usually does.

There are lots of other very useful printables on the site too, including this weekly menu planner with built in shopping list. I've just printed myself one out, ready for next weeks effort to eat through the contents of the indoor freezer.

Sue xx

Meat, Meat and Maybe a Little Bit More Meat

We called up at Bodnant Farm Foods the other day to partake of their current offer of 'Plenty for Twenty'.  Basically lots of meat products from their butchery department for £20 ...

with a free gift if you took the time to print out a coupon.

As Alan is the only one to eat meat in our house it pays us to look out for offers and make full use of what we buy.  He loves the quality of Bodnant meats and the localness of their suppliers.  Indeed in the next couple of years he is hoping to become one of their regular suppliers himself with pork products.

As soon as we got home I snapped into action and prepared all the meats into single serving portions, individually wrapped so even a single sausage could be taken out itself if needed, and then bagged together.  Alan portioned up the whole chicken for me and that was split into four large portions.  The bones, and the meat they had stuck to them, were boiled up and then simmered with some chunky cut vegetables and provided him with a huge bowl of soup the next day and a stock to add to some lamb shanks that I cooked for him that night. He had the 'free gift'  ... which was a chicken stir-fry pack ... last night for his tea.

Once wrapped and bagged everything else was boxed and taken out to the large chest freezer in the workshop.

While we were out and about we also called to Sainsbury's' with the intention of using our large stash of Nectar points (over £35 worth) to buy more meat for the freezer, and luckily we arrived just as the fridges were being checked for near date items.  We managed to get most of the meat Alan wanted with yellow stickers, making it a very worthwhile shop.

Once again everything was portioned out at home, even the pack of twenty meatballs being divided into little wraps of five.

Just enough to add to a pasta dish or pizza, for a little taste of meat for my meat loving man.

The diced 'casserole steak' was also portioned up, just enough to add a meaty hit to a stew,  casserole, curry, pie or pasty.

I did it by eye, but I couldn't resist checking to see how equal the packs were and I found that I had pretty much got it spot on  :-)

Again everything was individually wrapped, bagged and then boxed to give it as a long a storage time as possible.  Air is your enemy in the freezer.

I also took some homemade soups out to the freezer, which is now filling up nicely ready for Winter.  It wasn't my most enjoyable afternoon of food prep, but one that was really worth doing to get us the most for our hard earned money.

Sue xx