I know it must seem monotonous, eggs for breakfast every morning, and yes, we eat a lot of eggs, but this is normal for us and not related to the challenge. There is a lot you can do with eggs, not that we always do much with them - this morning was boiled eggs again, as on Day1, but with 2 eggs for him this time.

Cost: 68c.

Lunch will seem boring too because I had exactly the same as yesterday, while he took a packed lunch of cheese and tomato sandwiches, some peanuts and the last slice of melon.

Cost: €1.72

Dinner was more interesting!

We had soup to start, Cream of Cauliflower and Tomato Soup. It’s hearty soup kind of weather - wet, grey and miserable - and this really hit the spot.

Cauliflower has almost magical properties as a soup ingredient. It creates a nice creamy consistency - people invariably think there is cream in the soup - and it complements other ingredients without overwhelming them. This is how I made the soup:

1/2 head cauliflower
1 onion
1 bulb Chinese Garlic (or a couple of cloves of ordinary)
1 pint chicken stock (homemade ideally, but a cube will do)
A little butter
2 portions of frozen tomato soup
1 scallion and some paprika to garnish

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Chop up the onion, garlic and cauliflower, including the stalks, and sweat for a few minutes in the butter. Don’t let anything brown, just let the veg soak up the butter. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 20 mins or until the cauliflower is quite soft.

Add the two portions of tomato soup - I add them still frozen and let them melt. Blend everything with a stick blender or in food processor. You may find the soup is too thick at this point, as I did, if so just add some extra stock or water.

That’s it. Sprinkle over the paprika and chopped scallion and eat. This is easily enough soup for four large portions, so we’ll have it again tomorrow.

Cost: Premade soup 50c; cauliflower 50c; onion 8c; garlic 8c; scallion 8c.
Total: €1.24, and there’s some left for tomorrow!

Then we had big bowls of Chili with Cheese Crisps.

Every time I make chili it’s a bit different because I tend to use whatever veg I have to hand. But one thing I have found a remarkably good addition is left over mashed turnip - which of course I have today. You wouldn’t think it would work, but it not only thickens the sauce a bit, it adds a slight sweetness to the final flavour which is very nice.

Here’s how it was made on this occasion.

1 onion
2 red chili peppers
1 tin plum tomatos
1/2 tin kidney beans
1 pack of pre-made mince base mix, defrosted
A cup of left over turnip mash

It’s very quick to prepare because the meat is already cooked. I just sautéed the onion and chili for a few minutes, added the rest of the ingredients and then let it simmer while we had our soup

Because we eat low carb tortillas or rice is out (and yes, I realise fudge is not low carb!). Instead I make some cheese crisps, which were a total revelation to me when I first discovered them. They are literally just grated cheese zapped for a couple of minutes in the microwave, are quick to make, nicely crunchy and go very well with chili. Maybe you’ve been making these forever, but if you haven’t I recommend giving them a go.

To make them, grate the cheese and put it in well separated little piles on a microwavable dish. The ones pictured took 2 minutes to cook on high in my 800W microwave, but it’ll depend on the amount of cheese and the power of the microwave. When done they are flat on the dish and just starting to become a little dry - it’s really trial and error to get the timing right.

As soon as they done, slip them off the dish using a spatula or scraper (they’ll be very hot, so be careful) and leave to cool and become crisp.

3 oz of cheese will make 10-12 good sized crisps. You can make them ahead, they stay crisp for quite a while.

Cost: Mince base €1.26; tin tomatos 25c; kidney beads 13c; chili peppers 23c; onion 8c; cheese 75c.
Total: €2.70

That brings the total for today to €6.94, counting the fudge and some peanuts we ate watching TV after dinner. I am running low on some things though. There is loads of veg left, but no bread and just a very small piece of cheese. But there is €5.05 left to spend, so all is good.

Tags: Cheese, Chili, Eggs, Soup, €50 Challenge
Posted in Recipes, €50 Challenge | 2 Comments »

One of the greatest myths about shopping in Lidl, or Aldi for that matter, is that it’s for people who don’t really care much about food. Food and its quality matters very much to me. I enjoy buying it, cooking it, eating it and, especially, feeding it to other people.

Where good food is available at cheap prices, taking advantage of that it is just common sense - buying what’s good in Lidl means I can then without any guilt spend more than I otherwise might on food elsewhere.

And one of the places I most like to buy food is at Thursday’s weekly Farmer’s Market, which is where I went this morning.

Normally I’d buy more than I did today, certainly fish and possible some of the pricey, but worth it, organic meat from Coolanowle Farm. But with a dwindling budget to think of I just spent €1 on a cauliflower and 45c on a bunch of scallions - both organic and both also, incidentally, cheaper than the same products in Lidl or anywhere else.

Well, ok then, that’s not all I bought. I mean could you have photographed these and then just walked on without a little something?

See that bowl on the bottom right? That’s Chili and Lime Dark Fudge. It costs 40c a piece. I only bought one piece and I savoured every decadent nibble. It may be the best 40c I’ve spent all week.

Back later with Day Four’s meals and recipes.

Tags: Farmer's Market, Fudge
Posted in Farmer's Market | 7 Comments »

This morning was one of those chaotic ones where it’s a surprise that breakfast even happens.

It did though and we had Cheese Omelette, made with 4 eggs and 120g or 4 oz of cheese - yes, it was very cheesy. I completely forgot to photograph it, but I think you know what a cheese omelette looks like. We also finished off the yogurt from yesterday, it was too good to resist, which means it was a relatively expensive breakfast compared to the last couple of days.

Cost: 4 eggs 54c; Cheese 76c; yogurt €1.20. Total: €2.50  - yikes!

The budget was saved somewhat by the fact that he was being taken out for lunch at work, which probably cost enough to feed us for at least half a week! Is that cheating? I don’t think so. I think if you’re on a tight budget you’re unlikely to turn up your nose at free food. And Gavin will be pleased that he at least got one decent meal this week!

I had tuna with radish and a couple of cos leaves on crisp bread, and a slice of Galia Melon.

I only ate half the tin of tuna, so will probably have the much the same tomorrow. This worked out quite a bit cheaper than I expected when I totted it up, it seems remarkable value to me for what was a pretty nice lunch.

I needed some turnip for dinner tonight and some chilis and beans for tomorrow,  so I took a trip over to Lidl in the afternoon to top up.

It was interesting. They are definitely responding to the Tesco price reductions and a good few items that I bought last time are cheaper now, if only by a few cent. Is this the start of a price war?

Also I can confirm what Alt_k9 said, organic courgettes are cheaper than ordinary ones at the moment, €1.45 as against €1.65 for about the same amount.

Anyway, this is my top up shopping basket:

All of which reduces the kitty to €6.90, with 4 days left. But I think that’s fine.

On to dinner, which was grilled gammon, sautéed cabbage with caramelised onions and turnip mash. Comfort food - simple but tasty.

Though you can just bung gammon under the grill and be ready to eat in minutes, I tend to give it a little love and attention first and it’s the better for it.

I find gammon - and not just Lidl’s - a bit overly salty, so before cooking it, I put it into a saucepan of cold water, bring it just to the boil, pour off the boiling water then rinse it in some cold water. I don’t know whether I’m commiting some heineous food safety sin by heating the gammon, without fully cooking it, like this, but I’ve been doing it for years and we’re all ok so far.

Once the gammon is drained, I brush both sides of the steaks with a mixture of seseme oil, a little soy sauce and a good pinch of ground cloves before grilling. Sometimes I’ll leave it to soak in for a while, anything from 10-30 minutes, sometime I’ll grill right away. The result isn’t some sort of odd chinese gammon, it just gives a pleasant edge to the flavour and means it browns nicely under the grill.

The cost for dinner breaks down as follows: Gammon €1.99; cabbage 33c; turnip 25c; onion 9c.

Turnip is such a good deal. I admit that occasionally when I’m in a hurry I buy Mash Direct’s mashed turnip. While it is very nice and very handy, the half turnip I used tonight made easily as much as is in a pack that costs around €2.30. Over €2 is quite a lot to pay just to avoid cutting up a turnip and throwing it into a saucepan of water.

In any case, to-day ended up the cheapest day so far, at €5.81, thanks to the free lunch!

Tags: Gammon, Prices, Tuna, Turnip, €50 Challenge
Posted in Shopping Baskets, €50 Challenge | 5 Comments »

I can’t help popping into shops this week, both online and off, and comparing prices.

I decided to run my basket for the week though the two main retailers who are online, Tesco and Superquinn. I haven’t the energy to trudge around shops that are not online doing the same.

When I did my shop for this challenge I’d no thought in my mind of making a direct comparison with anywhere else - I just bought the things I like to eat and which seemed good value. It’s all too easy for retailers to cherry pick a shopping basket that shows them in a good light and this definitely isn’t that sort of basket. But on the other hand this is just my basket - your’s could give a completely different result.

How I Shopped

When shopping in different stores, it isn’t always possible to match items exactly on either brand or pack size, so this was the strategy I adopted:

• I chose the cheapest available option I could find for every item on my list.
• Where pack sizes differed, as they do, I chose the nearest size or bought multiple packs in some cases to make up the right weight.
• I weighed my Lidl purchases in cases where comparable products were sold only by weight and not per pack.
• I left out the bread that I bought in Lidl - I just couldn’t find a similar one.

So, here is how it went.

A few notes are appropriate here on each of the online shops.

Tesco Online

The total came to €3.13 more than Lidl, although there were quite a few things where the pack size was smaller (which I have detailed in the list). Tesco have been advertising their new value ranges and it was really interesting how closely they now match Lidl’s prices on a lot of common items - they were often precisely the same.

The two things that bumped them up were the melon and the Chorizo, if you exclude them and allow for differences in pack size, Tesco probably came in around the same price as Lidl or at least with a very marginal difference.

The best buy in Tesco?

The salted peanuts at 29c for 200g, which is about half the price of peanuts in Lidl where I already thought them a great bargain.

Superquinn Online

The total came to a whopping €27.27 more than Lidl, and again there were items where the pack size was smaller.

A proviso I must add though is that the Superquinn online store is a real pig to shop in - if I did shop online I’d go with Tesco every time. It was not easy to either find products, to locate the cheapest products or to compute pack sizes/weights, in fact it was very difficult. I truly did my utmost to make valid comparisons and to choose the cheapest options, but it may well be that I could have shaved a few euro off if I was shopping in an actual store.

I do actually shop in Superquinn quite often, I like shopping there plus they have a great reduced shelf where you can often get items at up to 60% off, so again being in store could have saved me money.

But nothing like €27.27.

The best buy in Superquinn?

There wasn’t one - everything was more expensive.

Be back later with the menus for day three of the €50 challenge!

Tags: Prices, Shopping Basket, €50 Challenge
Posted in Shopping Baskets, €50 Challenge | 5 Comments »

I started the day by going for the paper and being tempted well beyond endurance.

For a long time I’ve been making occasional forays to Ardkeen Food Store in Waterford, which may just be the best supermarket in the world, not for cheap food, but for very, very good food.

Always on my list is a selection of goodies from Glenilen Farm - yogurt that tastes better than any I know, mousse and cheesecake bursting with fresh fruit, sinfully rich clotted cream. Delicious things, but rare treats for me because they didn’t distribute to where I live.

But this morning there they all were, all these precious treasures arrayed on a shelf just a five minute walk from my house!

Considering that my instant reaction was classic Pavlov - I may even have squeaked out loud - I was pretty good. I just bought yogurt, which at €1.80 for a big pot barely counts as extravagance even this week, though it does reduce my kitty to €11.55.

l’m going to deal quickly with breakfast and lunch to-day and get to dinner, and to dessert, which thanks to this find was yum, yum, yum.

Breakfast was 3 eggs scrambled and divided between both of us, with a slice of sunflower bread toast each.

For lunch he had a packed lunch of salad made from 2 tomatoes and the half mozzarella left over from yesterday, much like this one, but dressed with olive oil and pesto, plus a couple of slices of crisp bread and a little tub of peanuts for afters.

I reheated last night’s left-over stuffed cabbage which was if anything nicer than it had been the previous evening.

For dinner I sliced 2 turkey breasts into strips and stir-fried them with onion, a few broccoli spears (half a small head), sugar snap peas, mushrooms, red pepper (which I am now out of) and garlic. It was seasoned with red pesto.

And then we had dessert.

I don’t quite know what to call this - it’s sort of a cross between a sorbet and a mousse with a touch of granita - but I suppose Spiced Melon Sorbet will do!

The picture does not do justice to this at all, it was really very good indeed. Here’s how it was made.

1/3 of a Galia Melon
1/3 of a pot of Glenilen Yogurt (about 160g)
1 teaspoon sugar (or 1/2 spoon of Splenda, which I used)
Good pinch each of ginger and cinnamon
Squeeze of lemon

In the morning, peel and chop the melon into small pieces, put in a bag and into the freezer for the day.

Remove from the freezer about 5 minutes before you start making dessert. Then put the frozen melon pieces into a food processor or blender and zap till it’s fairly mushy. If it’s too hard still, just wait a minute or two and try again. Add the sugar, spices, yogurt and lemon and blend well. Serve immediately.

It’s easy and quick and extremely nice. If I’d had some, I think a leaf or two of fresh mint chopped over this would be a good garnish.

Cost: Melon 17c; Yogurt 60c; sugar and spices about 5c, so 82c in total.

That brings today’s total spend to €6.22. Still comfortably on target.

Tags: Melon, Recipes, Sorbet, Turkey, Yogurt, €50 Challenge
Posted in Recipes, €50 Challenge | 1 Comment »