Katie Butcher

Hmm… I’d be interested to know how many of the 65% of people who can apparently make spaghetti bolognese ‘from scratch’ without using a recipe, think that using a jar of Dolmio is ‘from scratch’.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8007081.stm

I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed by the rising prices in Morrisons, and so, somewhat inspired by Martin Lewis’ discussion with Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 about cutting your shopping bill, I decided that this weekend I’d try and food shop at Aldi. I didn’t expect to be able to get everything I wanted from there, but on Saturday lunchtime along I went with my shopping list, to see how much of it I could cross off. Normally I avoid supermarket shopping at that time on a weekend (I always try and get to Morrisons soon after it opens as whenever I’ve been unfortunate enough to be there later on a Saturday it’s been murder) but Aldi was not too busy at all. I was quite impressed. I managed to get about half of my list and I worked out that I saved around 25-30% on what I would if I’d bought equivalent items in Morrisons. On Sunday morning I zoomed around Morrisons with a mini trolley and picked up the remainder of my list.

I think I’ll try and do a similar thing as often as possible. Although it’s a little bit more hassle going to two shops, it didn’t actually take up that much more time up in total, and I think the savings make it worth it. And there hasn’t been anything I bought from Aldi that I’ve not been happy with or I’d say is particularly worse quality than Morrisons. Part of how Aldi keep their prices down is by: not accepting credit cards (only debit); not offering baskets, only trolleys; not having so many staff in stores; charging for plastic carriers; mainly stocking ‘own label’ products; ‘no frills’ display of produce in stores. None of that bothers me – I rather just pay for the food anyway.

Some of the best Aldi buys were: 10 little bottles of not-at-all-bad Premium French lager for £3.29, 350g of mushrooms and 250g of cherry tomatoes both 59p (and nice too!).

I think I’ll go down to Lidl next time and see what they have.

The ‘Good Food’ website is brilliant, and one reason for that is because it means I no longer have to keep old editions or cut-outs of the magazine, as I can get all favourite recipes from the website.
A few weeks ago I made ‘Boiled Bacon with Cabbage and Carrots’. It was very tasty and I was left with a rather nice smelling stock which I froze hoping that I might find something I could do with it. I came across a recipe on Delia’s website for a pea soup called London Particular which required bacon stock. Nigel made the soup this afternoon. By coincidence, I had just the perfect amount of stock and it made a really delicious soup. I’d never had pea soup before – never really fancied it – but this absolutely converted me. Yum. There’s nothing quite like home made soup.

I couldn’t ever do my weekly shop without a shopping list. How on earth can you know what to buy without one? I could never just wander around the supermarket picking up random items hoping I might be able to cobble something together out of them. Before I go shopping I always spend some time planning what I’ll be cooking for most of the following week and writing up a list. It’s a bit annoying and takes a bit of effort, but it’s definitely worth it. It means I can get my shopping done quickly, and I don’t have to think what we’re going to have for tea every day, I just make a plan once a week.

Planning my list tonight for my shop tomorrow morning, I thought I might buy a whole chicken to roast on Sunday, and then use left-over chicken for dinner on Monday or in packed lunches. Looking on the web for ideas for using up left-over chicken I came across ‘Love Food Hate Waste‘ website. I’ll admit it’s not the first time I’d seen this site, but last time I looked (I’d seen it advertised in ‘Good Food’ magazine a few months ago), it didn’t have so much on it. Now it’s building up in to quite an informative and handy website.

On Monday, to use up the chicken, I’m going to make a risotto.