Cooking up a Storm on a Sunday

I love a good faff in the kitchen. Mainly so I can avoid doing proper housework. It's what Sundays are perfect for.

So this morning I made a lovely big mess preparing food for the next week.

I made some lentil soup, which is DELICIOUS! If a little heavy on the garlic, and chapattis to go with it. I think, though, it might only stretch to 4 portions and Sophie showed a great deal of interest in it! Hopefully I have enough lentils to make another batch midweek. The stock cubes I added work out 2.5p each as I buy them in packs of 100. And the garlic powder around 5p. So that's an extra 10p on our total.

I cooked the chicken thighs then stripped them and made stock from the bones and the discarded bits of veg. I decided to save the skin to stick back in the oven another day as it seems a shame to waste and the others love crisp chicken skin.

I also prepped Iroog so it's ready to fry later in the week. This is a recipe from our Iraqi friend Abdul. And it's delish! When I checked alternate recipes online it even said that they are often served with lentil soup. So hopefully I'll have extras! I'm experimenting with my veggie version, and put some cooked lentils in. We'll see how it turns out.

I think having confidence in the kitchen is essential to succeed with this challenge. I couldn't have followed proper recipes for the things I made, I just adjusted to suit what we had enough of.

Apparently only a fifth of parents give their kids homecooked meals every day. And another fifth cook once a week or less. I'm not passing judgement, life gets really busy! I'm lucky that Les has the time, skills and inclination to make us some really good food. But if you don't know how to cook then getting the most out of your money is going to be even more challenging. And that can be a huge barrier to being healthy and raising healthy children.

I braved Asda at closing time. I was hoping for something good to put in the chicken stock to make some soup for Sophie (mainly to keep her grubby hands away from my lentil soup). The choice was limited but I came away with lots of stirfry veg and a bag of salad for the grand total of 25p. A saving of £3.35! 

To be honest I wasn't sure whether it was a good buy. I've no idea what I'll have the salad with, and I hadn't planned a lot of stirfry! But decided to deconstruct the packets and use the individual bits. Sophie requested the carrot, squash, sweetcorn and red cabbage for her soup. I separated a bunch of cabbage which we could use as a side for later in the week, and the red pepper which both kids can have as a snack. The remaining veg will make a welcome addition to the instant noodles I'd planned to have one night.

There actually looks more after than before!

 So we're now up to £19.20 before ANY spices, tea or emergencies. I'm a little worried. Usually we have at least an emergency pack of biscuits to get us through the midweek lull but I can't see that happening.

Wish us luck!!

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/kateraynor1

Shellshocked from shopping

Despite some meticulous planning, I was once again undone by complacency.

I spent 2 hours this morning writing meal plans and comparing the price of every single ingredient across 4 supermarkets. But it took so long that I ended up with a slightly incomplete shopping list which said "some fruit" and "packed lunch stuff". Not that organised. I remember last year working to a 10p a piece rule on the fruit so that was my plan. I felt pretty confident as I walked into Lidl with a couple of quid to play with.

I started unravelling quite quickly when the store assistant told me they "couldn't get lentils in". This was the base of like 80% of my meals. I even found a lentil falafel recipe I was excited to try if I had enough left. Hoping there wasn't a world shortage, I pinned my hopes on getting some in another supermarket. Aldi don't sell them, but Asda had them for the same price. As long as they were in stock!

The fruit was all more expensive than I'd anticipated. Not by much, but I also realised I'd missed baked beans off my calculations, and the biscuits were more than I'd expected. The kids had requested satsumas. But £1.29 was a little steep. I decided to try my luck with the reductions in Asda.

I'd added up at least 3 times. I'd checked the prices of everything on my way round. But the till receipt was more than I thought. So on the packing bench I got out my list and my receipt. Tinned tomatoes which I'd seen online at 25p were actually 29p. I so wanted to say something. We might need that money. I felt myself go red and hot. It was crazy to query 12p. So I left.

In my haste I'd forgotten to log my vehicle reg. So as I went back in I decided to ask about the tomatoes. I explained to an assistant that the price differed from online. She sighed, looked at me with a mixture of confusion and weariness. Then told me how much stock she had to sort before closing time. I felt so ashamed and stupid. 12p was such an insignificant amount. And did I really want to get a manager to argue about a 12p refund?! I decided that no, I did not. 

On to Asda, it seems I had timed it badly to get any yellow sticker items. The only things they had left were birthday cake and ranch salad. If only Jo were here to ask! She'd have known the precise times of every mark down!

I found some reasonably priced fruit, the highly sought after lentils, and some smart price snacks for the kids lunches. The biscuits worked out 4p a portion, the crisps 6p. But the fruit, 10p per banana and 8p per satsuma (And that was only because I'd scoured the crate for the bag with the most in it!) Once again I'm frustrated that unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy. That on a very tight budget parents have so much less choice. My kids would love melon or strawberries, but there was no chance of anything so exotic and expensive. 

This time when I got to the till I was right on the money.

So after 2 hours planning, 1.5 hours shopping and about 15 rounds with the calculator, we have our starting food which comes in at £18.85.

I really hope I haven't forgotten anything!


Don't forget we're doing this for BCDP, please consider sponsoring us - https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/kateraynor1

It's back!

Here we are back at the beginning of our live below the line challenge for another year!

We had a family chat about doing it. The boys were cool with it, Sophie had said she didn't want to do it again.

So later on the follow up conversation went like this;

"Sophie, I definitely don't want to make you do this. But last year we raised a lot of money and it really helped people. I'll make sure we include some really tasty stuff, remember last time you said it was great coz we had more biscuits than normal and..."

"Mum. You could have stopped at 'it really helped people'. They need us, let's do it."

So we're doing it!

I always struggle with involving the kids and making them 'suffer'. But social responsibility is really important to me; I think it is our responsibility to help those who have less than we do. We shouldn't feel guilty for being housed, fed, clothed. I work hard for that. But I have had some lucky breaks and a supportive family and not everyone gets a great start. Or makes the best choices.  And in the great scheme of things, to have a bit less choice for 5 days is not going to hurt my kids. I hope it helps them to grow.

Anyway, here we are. 2 days to go, without a shopping list or meal plan!

I had a wander round Asda and saw 8 chicken burgers for like 80p. A bag of nuggets for the same. That's pretty tempting! But I really don't want to eat rubbish all week. It's not about proving that it's easy to eat healthy on that budget. Because it really isn't easy. It's awful. And if we did it all the time I guarantee I wouldn't have my job and the kids would do worse in school. But I want this to be a challenge to eat as closely to how I'd like to eat as possible. Which means making space for fruit and veg. And cooking proper meals for the kids.

This year I'm doing the challenge in memory of my friend Jo who passed away last year. She was so supportive of us doing this challenge and used to volunteer at the project before I'd even heard of it! She was joyous, kind, funny, crazy, loving, cheeky. But she made some bad choices along the way and things didn't always turn out great. Last year she joined in the challenge with us for moral support. She sent me recipes, and tips on getting discounted stuff from the supermarkets. I hope she's proudly watching us this time around. Love you, crazy chicken lady. And, when I feel like crap by Wednesday and want to hide, I will be slapping on my reddest lipstick knowing that's how you'd want me to handle it.

Of course the main objective is raising money for a very worthy project which offers love and support to those often overlooked or rejected. If you can give, that would be amazing. Your support means a lot.

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/kateraynor1