February Food Challenge - Catchup

This challenge is one that I've set myself to try to use up food we had in our cupboards and freezer, that had been hanging around for a while and just wasn't getting used.  I did a full stocktake and compiled a list of all the foods that needed using up in my original post for this challenge, and there was quite a lot of it I have to admit.  I altered my menu plan for the month accordingly, taking account of what we had already and I have been trying to buy only what I need from the menu plan. 

I have made some inroads into the list and have used the following in the last couple of weeks:

One pack of Crème Brulee Mix -  I didn't realise, but there were actually two sachets in each pack, so I had to make these twice to use one pack (shame!)  and there's still another pack to use at some point.  Not bad value for 99p though.  I added 200g of Weightwatchers reduced fat cream and 350ml semi-skimmed milk to make 4 of these from each sachet in the pack and they were actually really nice and a real treat for us all.

One pack of scone mix - I made 15 small scones from this pack by just adding some milk.  They weren't anything special, but with a bit of butter and jam made a lovely treat with a cup of tea.

One pack of Fajita seasoning. - I forgot to take a photo of our chicken fajitas, but they were very yummy and added a bit of variety to the menu plan.

One large frozen turkey - I roasted this last weekend (apologies for the poor quality photograph) and then used the leftovers for several meals over the next few days. 

 

This was my turkey leg,  and a whopper it was too.

Four from a pack of 12 frozen stuffing balls - eaten with the Turkey roast.

It was turkey curry last night with the last of the frozen naan breads and brown rice.  I used a sachet of the Ainsley Harriot Indian and Curried Lentil Chickpea Pan Soup and one packet of Tikka Masala seasoning mix- to make the turkey curry.  The pan soup on it's own didn't taste curry-like enough so I popped the seasoning mix in too which had the desired effect. It was very nice.

There's still half of the turkey left, in spite of eating it in sandwiches with mayonnaise and cranberry chutney for the last two days lunches, so I'll be making a turkey tagine later in the week using another pan soup mix and some Morrocan spices and will be eating it with some of the cous cous needing to be used.

I also used half the pack of trifle sponges, along with some of the frozen mixed berries and a sachet of raspberry jelly to make a trifle.  I added some custard and whipped cream  and sprinkles to finish.  I also made some mixed berry individual jellies which I didn't take a photo of, but which make a nice low calorie dessert.

One pack of Weightwatchers Double Choc Chip cookie mix also got used by Little Bird who made these up and they were a nice treat as we don't get biscuits in too often -  although as you can probably tell, we do like sweet things in this household.

Various other bits and pieces have also been used.  I finally got around to making some yummy butter popcorn for Little Bird's packed lunches and attempted a bit of a bento box style approach, to make them a bit more interesting for her.  I'm going to try to do this more often in future.

I used one of the money off vouchers for Morrison's when I did a shop there last week, to get £5 off a £40 spend.  Subsequently, however, I have decided to only use a couple of the remaining vouchers, as the amount you need to spend to actually get the benefit of the money off, only encourages me to spend more than I need to.  This seems to me to defeat the object, so I am back to shopping at Lidl and Asda, unless I need enough food and non-food items in one shop to match the total needed to use the vouchers.

As you can see I've made a start, but I do need to get a bit more serious about this challenge as there is still a huge amount of food to use up.   We're away in Yorkshire next week, but I'm going to take as much of the food as possible with us, to try to use whilst we're away. I think it will definitely take me more than one month to completely use up the food on the list, so maybe I can save money on food shopping for two or even three months consecutively.  I'll post again at the end of the month to update on further progress.