Menu and shopping list Saturday 27th November - Friday 3rd December

This week's spend £149.97

I am a bit late with this week's posting as I was away enjoying the delights of the UK and doing a spot of Christmas shopping.  I left husband and children in charge of the menu and shopping list.  They have done pretty well, producing a menu and filling the cupboards with food, although not necessarily the food I need to cook with.  So far I have had to hit the shops twice to buy the ingredients needed for the menu.  Still it gave my brain a rest of trying to come up with a menu that suits everyone.

Also this week I have a "guest writer", my husband!  He has a passion for baking bread, particularly rye bread.  This is another Finnish influence as I think that Finland's best kept secret is their bread.  It is gorgeous and there are so many varieties.  My husband started to take an interest in baking bread when I was studying at University a couple of years ago.  I took sandwiches every day, but discovered that I was getting terrible stomach aches in the afternoon, so he offered to make bread for me.  Since then he has been constantly experimenting with recipes in search of the perfect loaf and we rarely buy any loaves of bread any more.

This week's menu:

Saturday: Aubergine Pasta

Sunday: Steak. Christmas biscuits

Monday: Sardine Fish Cakes with lemon dip. Chocolate biscuit cakes.

Tuesday: Legume Noodle Soup and Naan Bread.

Wednesday: Pesto and Chicken Pasta

Thursday: Oven-baked Red Pepper Rissotto

Friday: Leek, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese Strudels with Foccaccia

Menu and shopping list Saturday 6th November - Friday 12 th November

This week's spend was €169.22.

Let me start this week with a moan.  I am very lucky as I am located near a number of supermarkets and therefore have a choice of which multinational conglomerate I would like to handover my hard-earned cash to.  My supermarket of choice is generally Tesco, as I have mentioned before, since their reward system enables me to book a cheap trip home in the summer.  This week at 9.45am on a Saturday morning I had to beg to have a till opened for me.  Is it just me, but when I have a trolley with a week's worth of shopping I really would prefer to use a manned till rather than a self-service one?  I had to argue with a sales assistant, of which their were many, although none actually appeared to be doing anything, to open a till.  The only ones open were the self-service ones. I eventually got my way.
Another hobby of mine, outside of getting Tesco staff to actually do some work, is checking out the prices in Tesco while I am shopping.  My particular favourite are their so-called offers; for example 1 pack of Oreos cookies is €1.29 or you could buy 2 for the special price of €3.00.  What a bargain!

This week my husband and I were at a Flappers dinner party on the Saturday night, so the children were left to their own devices for dinner and raided the fridge.  We were asked to bring bread to contribute to the night's menu, and so 2 loaves of Riccardo's bread with thyme in one and rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes were baked and sliced for the evening.

Also, this Saturday I was bored in the afternoon.  The weather was awful and the children were all busy with friends so I made chilli jam.  It was a recipe I had cut out ages ago and wanted to try.  I never got it to the sticky consistency mentioned in the recipe but it tastes delicious and we have been eating it on everything.

This week's menu was "eat to the back of the freezer".  I often pick up meat that is on offer or reduced and chuck it in the freezer to use at a later date and, since we have quite a small freezer, it was getting a bit crowded.  I checked what was in there and then based my menu on that.

Menu

Saturday: Riccardo's bread, Chilli Jam

Sunday: Sausage and Bean Casserole with Mashed potatoes

Monday: Fruity Pork Chops and Couscous, Chocolate Marble Cake

Tuesday: Mulligatawny Soup and Naan, Potato Cakes

Wednesday: Sardine Fish Cakes with a Yoghurt dip

Thursday: Chilli con Carne wraps

Friday: Veggie Pasta and Garlic Wraps (we were due to host a dinner party, but this was cancelled)

I ordered a 2.5kg pork shoulder from Garetts Butchers, which was beautifully done for a dinner party on Friday, but unfortunately it was cancelled.  The pork shoulder had been ordered so I have pushed it onto next week's menu.