Eat Well for Less

The thing which really annoys me is the way the supermarkets sell quantities of 'things'! It's not easy to buy for two economically these days with the way they seem to target families with their BOGOF deals and the like. We now use the local butcher, greengrocer and baker far more often! More expensive, yes, more frequent shopping trips, yes, but certainly less wastage and arguably better quality/tasting products. Yes, we are lucky, all these shops are about 5mins walk from home. 

I too get annoyed wth these programmes, the money spent and wasted.   I have always cooked home made meals for my kids my eldest two are 28 this year and youngest 14, no baby food jars they were weaned on home made soup, pureed fruit, veg, mince n tatties etc.   I am gobsmacked that a lot of youngsters do not know their way around a kitchen to prepare a meal, all my kids can prepare a meal and have helped me from a young age.  Eldest two have left home and can put a good meal on the table with their respective others so I am happy.  Since early retirement my OH has got himself 'a plot' or Allotment as some may know it.  We are lucky to have home grown veg and fruit - can't beat it.  I gave some home grown tatties, turnips and carrots to a colleague at work - her son was shocked as they were covered in mud and enquired if they were OK to eat LOL :-)  It is much cheaper to buy fresh, cook and even freeze leftovers for another meal.  As a single parent to twins many many years ago I had to live on a budget and found the BOGOF bargains a must and could rustle up many meals from 2 packs of chicken or mince.  It is up to us as parents to show our kids how to cook and eat healthy.   

I have never liked throwing food away so the BOGOFs really annoy me too, however I do have a big freezer so if something  can be frozen or cooked and frozen then I will take advantage of a BOGOF. I also never buy chicken pieces, like a tray of breasts or a tray of thighs far more expensive. I prefer to buy a whole chicken and joint it myself, that way I can use the breasts for say curry, the legs for spicy piri piri and the carcuss and wings goes in the pressure cooker for soup. When I did this the other day I weighed the chicken pieces I'd picked off (out of curiosity) and it came to 5.5ozs, in most houses that carcuss would have been thrown in the bin, thats if it had been bought in the first place and jointed, I've shown both of my DIL how to do it and they now do the same. If i'm in the shops at the right time I can pick up reduced chickens, mince and beef joints all of these can be frozen straight away, or meals made from them then frozen, its not hard work to make and cook up double portions, its something I've done all my married life. 

her son was shocked as they were covered in mud and enquired if they were OK to eat LOL :-) 

This made me laugh, my friend always refers to her veg as being dirtyveg, she buys hers direct from a small farm and they always have soil on them

 I was really disgusrted at a family member of my partner's family who has never worked since leaving school and is a social securiity expert.I had done some sales demo work in our local supermarket and late on a Saturday afternoon they used to sell off  unsold hot cooked chickens cooked on the premises. I bought two.One was packed for the freezer and the second I stripped the breasts which we had with a salad and new potatoes.The remainder of the meat was stripped from the carcass and  I made  two mushroom and chicken pies.again for the freezer. We had 6 meals off the one chicken for 50p.On relating this to our cost conscious family memebr her comment was "Oh we couldn't do that because we only ever eat the white meat so we throw the dark meat away."This young woman had the most beautiful collie dog, my question why could she not use the meat for him?What a waste buy a bigchicken and eat only the white meat....I suppose the fact that she didn't have to worry about the finances made it easier, except we were the ones paying for it...This is the youth of today growing up nad guiding the  population of tomorrow........Sg2

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Well, hardly typical of "the youth of today", just one individual and I'm sure there are plenty of the older generation who are equally wasteful. It has nothing to do with being on social security (IMHO), it's a matter of education. Some years ago, some genius civil servant in the education department decided to ditch cookery lessons in favour of "food technology". Maybe this young woman was at school then, so I bet she'd be great at designing and colouring a package for some foodstuff! Thankfully the pendulum has now swung back towards proper cookery lessons with youngsters bringing in ingredients and taking home the finished product. So maybe there's hope for the youth of today after all! 

Well, hardly typical of "the youth of today", just one individual and I'm sure there are plenty of the older generation who are equally wasteful. It has nothing to do with being on social security (IMHO), it's a matter of education. Some years ago, some genius civil servant in the education department decided to ditch cookery lessons in favour of "food technology". Maybe this young woman was at school then, so I bet she'd be great at designing and colouring a package for some foodstuff! Thankfully the pendulum has now swung back towards proper cookery lessons with youngsters bringing in ingredients and taking home the finished product. So maybe there's hope for the youth of today after all! 

Write your comments here...Moulesy, No she does not have any other attributes, except  inviting herself to homes where good food is readily available,She acyually was just one example of very many young women about that age I know  so was not just a single random sample.My comment regarding social security  was that like so many od those receiving it today care not where it comes from as long as it does and they have no social responsibility or pride. Soory these are my feelings you are freely entitled to yours but mine are spoken from a fairly wide experience  of dealing with young people...

SG2

Fair enough, SG2. I actually agree with you about the obscene amounts of food that are wasted in this country both individually and corporately. As I said, on an individual basis education is the answer. If you've never been taught to cook from scratch either by your parents or at school it's very sad and difficult to overcome. No amount of expert TV programmes or internet recipes are likely to change that. But as I mentioned the pendulum in schools has (currently) swing back in favour of proper cookery lessons so let's all hope the next generation are less wasteful than a few of the current one. 

Let us hope so,so much enjoyment can come from self cooking and can improve your personal esteem as well......SG2

Roadkill curry! Now that's a consideration, believe it or not!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588536/Doctor-dishes-roadkill-badger-balti-Father-three-regularly-feeds-family-unorthodox-recipes-prompts-police-warn-not-copy-actions.html