September’s challenge (challenging?)

We have our last Bank Holiday for a while just around the corner and that always signals a shift in seasons, cooking and kitchen tasks for me. More stews and soups and the start of squash season. We have had a good amount of courgettes so far and they will continue to come for a while yet hopefully. There’s plenty coming in from the garden, yum.

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I actually have courgette fritters in the oven (trying healthier version so baking opposed to frying) as I type. New recipe, so we’ll see how it goes.

What is this nonsense I hear you ask? September’s challenge is to come under grocery budget of £100 for the month (4 weeks from starting to make it easy for me). This doesn’t include milk as we have doorstep delivery to support a local business and we know we could get it cheaper from Aldi but that is a personal choice. Milk would cost us apx £3.30 for 12 pint semi skimmed. To be honest, this shouldn’t be too hard as we have a lot in but September is also a month of change. The kids are returning to school after months of lockdown, I’m working from home and juggling their 2 different schools etc so I’d like to make it as stress free as possible, meaning I must stay on top of my kitchen tasks.

The first week’s meal plan was fairly simple as I didn’t have lots of thinking time when writing it. I quickly popped in to Aldi and spent just under £15. Combined with the £11 for the weekly veg box taking this week’s total to £26. For those who don’t know, I get a veg box every Saturday from a local greengrocer, which supplements our veg that we grow in the garden and sometimes gives me veg to use that I wouldn’t normally buy. It also supports another local business which is great. Here’s this weeks veg box which was delivered this morning and I am in the process of coming up with what we will be having this week. Doesn’t it look a-ma-zing?!

Veg box from a local supplier 🙂

With £74 left and a week of packed lunches for 2 (soon to be 3) people, I need to get my thinking cap on and come up with frugal meals from the freezer, pantry and garden. I have to clear a space in my freezer for an impending meat order so I think I’ll soon have to go ‘shopping’ in there to see what treats we can have. Also from Monday I am officially back down to 1200 calories a day though my meals will cater for more than this as I won’t be subjecting my family to that too 🙂

Thanks for reading, I’m off to have a look in the freezer and think about this week’s meals. Take care, Tracy.