Thrifty Foodie

The meal plan

23/09/16 – 10/10/16

 The receipt - £85.31

So, as you can see – we spent £85.31 on our shopping bill. Minus household items like cleaning products, cat foods etc, car maintenance totalling £15.25.

Our actual “food shop” was therefore £70.60.

This includes 10 breakfast options, 12 lunch options, 8 snacks options and 20 dinner options (with leftovers doubling as lunch options)

All of the meats and dairy purchased are organic / free range / higher welfare.

The purpose of this document is to show how eating healthy, enjoying food and cooking with a plan, makes budgeting for a couple very doable.

Sarah and I split our bills 50/50, meaning that this 3 week shop cost us £42.50 each, which equates to around £3 each per day.

£3 each per day allows us a breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks and the ability to feed the cat and keep the house clean.

So whether employed of unemployed, a varied diet and easy to follow home cooked food is absolutely do-able.

The average weekly payment of job seekers allowance in the U.K. for people of my age is £73.10.

With gas and electric at £10 each per week (£20.00) public transport weekly pass for potential job seeking £10.00 - £12.00, assuming housing benefit and council tax benefit  is in place to pay for accommodation, £3 a day is a reasonable budget for food / meal planning £21.00 per week.

£20.00 bills

£10.00 – 12.00 transport

£21.00 food

£22.10 leftover

Breakfast recipe

When your loaf of bread is nearing its end and looking a little sorry for itself, bring it back to life with a tasty breakfast treat.

French Toast – serves 1

2 slices of bread (£0.03)

1 egg  (£0.13)

15ml milk  (£0.02)

Mix the egg with the milk and drop the slices of bread into the mixture, soaked up all the moisture, pan fry in a lightly buttered frying pan on a medium heat until golden.

Dinner Recipes

Posh Fish Cakes – makes 4 (serves 4 as a starter, 2 as a main)

1 white frozen white fish fillet (£0.33)

5 frozen mash pellets / 1 serving (£0.14) OR 1 tin of new potatoes (£0.15)

1 spring onion (£0.07)

2-3 stalks of coriander (homegrown, taken from herb box)

1 fresh chilli (homegrown, taken from herb box)

For the coating

1 egg (£0.13)

50g breadcrumbs (homemade, using stale bread, blended)          

£0.67 total cost

 Defrost fish and potatoes.

Flake fish and season with salt and pepper. Chop spring onions, chilli & coriander. Mix all the above into the mash potato.

Shape into patties.

Beat the egg in a small bowl, in a separate bowl have your breadcrumbs.

Dip your patties one by one, first into egg, then into your breadcrumbs.

Fry in a lightly oiled pan until crisp and golden.

Serve with side salad of lettuce and cucumber.

Swedish Janssen – serves 2

1 tin of new potatoes (£0.15)

1 tin of anchovies (£0.70)

100 ml of milk (£0.15)

50 ml of hot water

50 ml of crème fraiche (£0.15)

1 white onion (£0.06)

2-3 stalks of parsley (homegrown, taken from herb box)

£1.21

Slice onion nice and thin, sauté in a little butter until soft.

Season with salt and pepper.

Add potatoes.

Chop up anchovies and add to pan, mixing together potatoes, onions and anchovies.

Pour over 100ml of milk and 50 ml of hot water.

Simmer for 30 minutes on a low heat.

Take off heat, add crème fraiche and serve topped with chopped parsley.

Breakfast

Toast & butter, waffles & syrup, porridge, cereal, yogurt & fresh berries, bacon sandwiches, poached eggs on toast, French toast, crumpets.

Lunch

Hummus & pita, cucumber & cheese sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, cheese & oatcakes, tuna sandwiches, egg mayonnaise sandwiches, tuna salad, salmon salad.

Snacks

Cheese triangles, malt loaf, crumpets, fruit, yoghurts, biscuits, chocolate bars.

Dinners

Spinach & potato curry, chickpea & potato curry, Thai green chicken curry, fried chicken & chips, butternut squash soup, crispy chilli beef, beef stew, salmon, potato & broccoli parcels, salmon & broccoli pasta, Thai salmon noodle salad, white fish cakes & salad, white fish bianco, spring green & bacon soup, Swedish janssen, spaghetti bolognese.

In 2014 I was in Closer Magazine, talking about Food Budgeting

Back when I was on probation, working every hour god sent at the University to try and keep my head above water, food budgeting was the pinnacle of keeping on the straight and narrow.

It’s now 2016, and I am blessed to be in a more stable environment, but the ethos is the same, make the most of what you’ve got, treat yourself here and there, but keep the essentials… essential.

Here is my menu plan and costings from 2014 :-

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	Cereal and Milk	Fresh fruit and Yogurt	Porridge	Granola and Yogurt	Toast and Jam	Eggs on toast	Pancakes with syrup
Lunch	Chicken Soup	Sandwiches	Omelette	Mixed salad	Sandwiches
Dinner	Beef brisket style with sweet potato wedges	Tomato soup with soda bread	Vegetable thai curry with rice	Chicken burgers with baked beans	Mutton Tagine with Bulgur wheat	Cauliflower soup with bread	Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots

Fresh Shopping List                                                                                            Cupboard Essentials already in

Milk (4pt Skimmed Milk, Asda £1.00)                                                           Rice (1kg, Asda £0.40)

Natural Yogurt (500g, Asda £0.40)                                                                  Flour (1.5kg, Asda £0.40)

Free Range Eggs (6, Asda £1.00)                                                                     Yeast (125g, Asda £0.65)

Cheese (200g, Asda £1.00)                                                                                                Salt (750g, Asda £0.29)

Strawberries (500g, Appna Supermarket £1.00)                                          Bulgur Wheat (1kg, Venus £0.89)

Bananas (4, Appna Supermarket £0.97)                                                         Onions (2kg, Appna £1.00)

Tomatoes (840g, Appna Supermarket £1.67)                                                               Garlic (1 bulb, Venus £0.20)

Sweetcorn Cob (1, Appna Supermarket £0.49)                                             Cumin (100g, Venus £0.75)

Fresh Peas (45g, Appna Supermarket £0.16)                                                                Chilli Powder (100g, Venus £0.75)

Red Chilli (1, Appna Supermarket £0.06)                                                      Golden Syrup (680g, Asda £1.29)

Sweet potatoes (440g, Appna Supermarket £1.63)                                      Mixed Nuts (200g, Asda £0.56)

Chicken breast mince (500g, Appna Supermarket £1.86)                          Stock Cubes (120g, Asda £0.40)

Mutton Ribs (1kg, Appna Supermarket £1.89)                                             Tinned tomatoes (400g, Asda £0.31)

Total £13.13                                                                                                       Coconut Milk (400ml, Appna £0.49)

                                                                                                                                Butter beans (400g, Appna £0.49)

The Garden Box                                                                                                   Tomato Ketchup (550g, Asda £0.36)

Thyme, Parsley, Basil, Rosemary, Chives, Rocket, Chilli’s                       Potatoes (1kg, Asda £0.69)

                                                                                                                                CocoPops (800g, Poundland £1.00)

                                                                                                                                Brown Sugar (500g, Asda £1.00)

Menu Plan

Monday:-

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

½ chicken portion from previous weeks shop (£1.25)

2 carrots from previous weeks shop (£0.16)

½ a leek from previous weeks shop (£0.18)

1 onion from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.03)

2 cloves of garlic from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.02)

1 stock cube from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.05)

A selection of herbs from ‘The Garden Box’

Method

Place your half chicken into a large saucepan, cover in cold water and bring to the boil. Once at boiling point, skim any foam from the surface of the pan and drop your chopped vegetables and herbs into the pan with a stock cube and leave to develop for an hour or so; on a medium heat. Keep an eye on it ensuring you press a paper kitchen towel to the surface every so often to remove any skin forming. Remove your chicken, allowing to cool until safe to handle, then shred into lovely pieces and pop back into the saucepan. Bring the soup back up to the boil, and you are good to go!

Beef “Brisket Style” with homemade rolls and sweet potato wedges

Ingredients

Leftovers from yesterday’s roast dinner approx. 300g cooked beef (£1.90)

1 onion from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.03)

2 cloves of garlic from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.02)

1 tbs tomato ketchup from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.02)

1 tbs sugar from the ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.01)

1 large sweet potato (£0.59)

1 stock cube from ‘Cupboard essentials’ (£0.05)

A selection of herbs from ‘The Garden Box’

Method

In a saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic, adding the tomato ketchup, herbs and loosen with chicken stock liquid, once at the boil and of a “gloopy” consistency, add the beef to the roasting tin, cover in foil and cook in a hot oven for 2-3 hours. For the potato wedges, cut into wedges, toss in olive oil, salt and herbs, bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes around 220c until crisp and golden.

Prepare for the week with some essentials and some treats:-

White Tin Loaf

Ingredients

300g plain flour (£0.08)

1 tsp of yeast (£0.04)

1 tsp of salt (£0.01)

150ml of luke warm water

Makes a loaf for 2 people

Soda Bread

Ingredients

300g plain flour (£0.08)

150g plain yoghurt (£0.12)

50g milk (£0.08)

1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda (£0.04)

1 tsp of salt (£0.01)

Water to loosen if needed

Makes a loaf for 2 people

Breakfast Bars

Ingredients

50g mixed fruit and nuts (£0.14)

150g porridge oats (£0.10)

50g brown sugar (£0.10)

50g butter (£0.20)

100g golden syrup (£0.25)

Melt peanut butter and drizzle over for something special

Makes 15 bars

Making the most of what you’ve got

A lot of our meals are making the most of ‘wastage’

The leftover meat from our Sunday lunch, is the base of our Monday night dinner.

The ½ roast chicken is the leftover meat from last week’s homemade chicken stock, creating a base for a variety of meals. We keep our homemade chicken stock in the fridge for 2 weeks and use it for soups, sauces and risottos.

Bringing together a few cupboard basics, we can make tasty treats like breakfast bars, saving money on cereals and milks every week, they make a nice change, and help curb the temptation of buying supermarket snacks throughout the day. They are healthy, cheap to make, and easy to store.

Baking bread is the most versatile kitchen trick. With an average home baked 300g loaf costing as little as 16p, it can be used in a variety of ways, here are a few to think about :-

1.       Good old fashioned toast for breakfast

2.       Sandwiches for lunch

3.       Blitzed into breadcrumbs and used to make healthy chicken nuggets/burgers/kievs/schnitzels

4.       Sliced and baked into croutons to add to soups and salads

5.       French toast – sliced bread dipped in eggs, milk and sugar, a real treat

6.       Bread and butter pudding – using your loaf and making a tasty pud!

7.       Summer Pudding – fully loaded with summer fruits, my mums favourite!

Another great way to make the most of what you’ve got is to preserve it – literally.

Using up fruits and vegetables in jams and chutneys is a great way to keep them at their best. Easy to make and have great shelf life tucked away in the fridge.

Foraging – not always the easiest thing to do for the city dweller, but last September I picked hundreds of blackberries which I turned into a variety of things – jam, chutney, and most exciting of all, turned into blackberry vodka in pretty jam jars as Christmas gifts.

In 2016, I can add a bit more to the foraging concept

Nettle soup – what a triumph.

Get your gloves on and go out and pick a big bag of nettles. Stay safe, don’t get yourself stung, pick high up, and wash thoroughly.

500g nettles (free/forage)

1 tin of new potatoes (£0.15)

1 white onion (£0.06)

1 vegetable stock cube (£0.05)

300ml water

50ml of crème fraiche (£0.15)

£0.41

Wash nettles thoroughly.

Slice onion and potatoes thinly, fry in a lightly oiled pan until softened.

Add water and stock cube, simmer for 10 minutes on a medium heat.

Add washed nettles to pan and simmer on a high heat for a further 5 minutes, until wilted and cooked.

Blend with hand blender.

Add crème fraiche and stir in.

Even a posh risotto made from foraged sorrell!

Little cherry dress

She loved me once.
My mother.
She did.
She fell so in love with me, as I did her. The day we met. I'll never forget it. She can let me go, she can loose touch and watch me fade away, but for me, forever, she will be Christine Barker, my mother, who's heart I broke. But the only woman to truly break mine.

I don't think I know what love is, not really. It's always been masquerading as need, as acting out of fear of loneliness, to not be wandering in the dark, all alone.
I worry, I don't have it in me, to understand feelings, to understand other peoples hearts. My lack of empathy throughout my life has inhibited the need and purpose of saying "I'm sorry," - it's always a mechanism. It's what people say when they see tears, when they see hurt, they say sorry.
I've said sorry so many times in my life, I thought it had lost meaning; the fact of the matter is, it never had any in the first place. I never understood why people got upset by the things that I did, the things that I said. I always thought it was their weakness and vulnerability of emotion that allowed me to be so destructive.

Why are you crying? I would sit and think.
It's not the end of the world? Is it?
Do you really know what pain is? Because this is temporary and you get it for a moment of two.
Selfish being, oh silly silly you.
Push push push, and I destroy whoever was first in line.

So I suppose in that we are similar, because I have never seen her cry.
I don't know if she does.
Does she sit at home and see a bedroom I once occupied and cry? The loss of her daughter, her one true love, once upon a time.
Because I sit, surrounded by memories and keep sakes I salvaged.
Daisy duck sits pride of place on my 29 year old me grown up bed.
A small piece of my heart. She has chocolate on her ear, because I was always a greedy kid.
I dare not wash her, because she would loose that memory, that piece of me.

There's the box of stuff my dad dropped off, a mish-mash of the life I had before.
It's me.

There are 60 wine labels rattling around the bottom, I collected them year after year. You guys drink too much!
There are keyrings, from school years, badges, beer mats. I collect like a magpie. I still do.
I attach meaning to strange things. Sarah and I have a collection of receipts, acorns, leaves, obscure nik-naks.

I search through the boxes he gave me, there are photos of us 4, smiling at the camera, theres cake. No surprise there.

Does she love me? Like I love her.
People fall out of love all the time, they switch from love to hate.
Maybe thats what we are now. Enemies of this sorry state.

On Sunday, just gone, I met a woman who knew me, when my story began.
She knew me as the cute, blonde, cockney twanged, little Fran.

I asked her if she thought I was broken, even back then.
She said, no, despite all the horror, I was a kind and loving girl.
With my brother as my soul mate, I was Fran, Jay's little mother hen.

And then she said something that made me laugh out loud.
You are the little girl who was always "fine"
You would fall down, hurt yourself and then get straight back up, hide your pain, and I'd ask you,
Fran Fran come here sweetheart are you ok? And you'd rub yourself down and say "I'm fine," "I'm fine," and be on your way.

Then a beautiful man who cared for me so well back then, Jed, he said something I'm half tempted to get as a tattoo

"You are the little girl who always had tears behind her eyes, but would never ever let them fall,"

This is a man who knew me when I was 3.
Just 3. A little, little girl.
So broken. So lost. Looking for a new mummy and daddy and a bright new world.

And off we rode into the sunset, little brother and me.
To Cheshire, to happiness, to the big house, the mum and dad and the world at our feet.

I lost them.
They lost me.
And my heart breaks wondering why.

Nothing is unforgivable.
Nothing that can't be undone with the right foot forward, an apology and actions that speak louder than words.

I asked my foster carer if she thought my mum loved me.
She said yes, that she was head of heels at the thought of a little girl.
She was scared to be a mother, she was scared it wouldn't work.
Maybe she knew back then, we'd clash, smash and break each other apart.
She'd break mine, and I'd break her heart.

She gave me a photo, of me, in a little cherry dress, with a silly white hat, the epitomy of what a little girl should be, if you had to pick one from a crowd.
That was me. Perfectly blonde, loud, happy go lucky.

That's the dress, the one that made her fall in love.
I asked her if she would be mine, asked her if she wanted to be my mummy.
That is the only tear I have seen, in this long long 29 years.
Just one, a happy one, as she said yes.

Just a little girl, but I'll never forget.
We loved eachother once. A long time ago.

But we clashed, from day one. It's a strange thing.
I was moderately threatening, with my territorial love of the only love in my life, Jay, he was mine, and I was his, until the end of time. If he would fall, he would come running - to me.
The only word he would speak was my name, Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnn, screamed at the top of his lungs and then just a little giggle, wanting nothing but a look.

The first time he ran to her, it broke my heart, I didn't understand why, or how.
She tells the story, about how I was a little devil, and that it was then she knew I would be trouble.
As she comforted my brother, I bit her. Right on the boob.
She never forgot it. She never let me forget either.

It's 2016, and even I can see why.
She never understood me, or why I did what I did, or was who I was. She never tried to.
We never talked, we never hugged, I've never said I love you, and nor has she.
Is that what parents and daughters do? Because it's lost on me.

Why am I mourning the loss of a woman I never had?
And if I got her back, what would that even mean?
So we could go on and exchange cordialities, and menial conversations, about work, weather and nothing more.

I think I'm the girl in the little cherry dress, waiting for a mummy, full of hope and heart, and it just doesn't come.

Did she get more than she bargained for? Was she right to keep me at arms length? Because I can wallow in self pity and blame it all on her and not me, but I know who I am, I know what I did, I know I was wrong, but I know that love is deeper than any of that. That there's no lie to great, no hurtful word too strong, to say forgive me, I love you, I don't want this anymore.

Driving to meet my foster parents, I spoke with Sarah in the car and I asked if she remembered how my mum looked at me at my grandmas funeral, she said its something she would never forget and it occurred to me, I do not remember a moment in the past 10 years where my mum has looked at me any other way.
She looks at me with disappointment, frustration, resentment, that she wasted her life on something so pointless.
She looks right through me, like I'm a stranger, like a homeless person she passes so easily on the street.
And I sat there, in the car, zooming down the motorway, racking my brains, trying desperately a time where my mother had looked at me with love, with pride, with hope, as a mother does.
And I sat, and sat, and the memories did not come to me.
Because they don't exist.

Why would you work so hard to have children?
Why would you search out the right ones for you?
Go through the processes to become parents?
Only to give up half way through?

Yeah, I cost them a shit load of money, with private schools and holidays and I never ever went without, I was so fortunate, I was blessed, but I would give all of it back.
Every fucking handbag, every ponsey dress, every skiing holiday, all of it.
I hate that thats all I have to remember them by, memories of bullshit.
Holidays with people who wont even say my name, with friends who were supposed to love me just the same.
There are people I've grown up with, who won't even look me in the fact. Who ignore my very existence and go with the mainstream view - that it's me, the destroyer, who brought a world of pain, of shame, fire burning down on my perfect family.

Well they are now.
Just those 3.
My mum made that pretty clear when she introduced her son to strangers, stood right next to me.
She doesn't have a daughter, someone once said to me.
"Christine Barker? I didn't even know she had a daughter,"
It cut me like a knife.

I once sat in the hairdressers chair and a neighbour who had known me since I was 8 years old sat in the chair next to me, she asked how I was, because I wasn't listed on the Barker christmas card anymore.
Erased.
No photos.
No christmas card name signed from Christine, Kevin, Francesca and James.
Now its just three names.

I suppose thats how it should be, after all this time.
She got the family she always wanted.
A husband and a baby.
I've lost count of the times shes told me it was buy one get one free.
That the adoption people wouldn't split us up, but hey everyone needs a consolation prize.

I feel the rage rising, the resentment and the pain. And if she ever read this blog, she would laugh out loud, at my wallow and say "my god you haven't changed"

And I suppose shes right in a way.

Sunday showed me one thing - that if I could go back in time and understand what love is, it's all I would have wanted in the world.
The hugs, that talks, the "how was your day"
The "whos the new boyfriend, girlfriend"
The sex talk, the girl talk, I didn't even know what a period was.
I don't want the best friend mum thing, that kind of creeps me out, but I want a woman who knows me, and loves me no matter what.

Because actually, despite the shit storms, I someone to proud of.
I'm someone to say "she's my daughter" with a smile on her face.

I know that when the time comes and Sarah and I have the chance, no child on this earth will be more loved and adored.

She did what she thought was best, there is no doubt about that.
And I'm not shaming her for giving up on me, I'm just highlighting that I never would.