What I ate in a day for £2.13

 

In tomorrow's Foodie Friday vlog, I'm sharing the costs of what I ate in a day.  I explain how I work out the cost of the veggies in a Lidl veg box simply by dividing the £1.50 cost by the number of items (6) so each item/pack is 25p.  Then within that 25p I work out what each single piece of veg costs.  For example a single pepper would be 25p divided by 3, a single banana would be 50p divided by 13.  And so on.

I had 6 Wagyu beef sausages that were reduced to £1.99 making each sausage 33p.  These were cooked in home made onion gravy and portioned into 3 servings.  I ate one and froze the other two.  Honestly, they weren't the best sausages I've ever had despite the fancy Wagyu content!

I have a load of butter in the freezer made from reduced cream so when I add butter to a meal/recipe it doesn't cost as much as shop bought.  

And so you get the gist of how I calculated the cost of what I ate in a day.  Here's the breakdown of each meal.

Breakfast: 42p

• 50g oats 6p (from a 2kg bag costing £2.45)
• 50g frozen raspberries 33p (from a 300g bag costing £2)
• Banana 3p 
• Peanut butter, no cost bought with a voucher
• Jam, free as was a gift

Morning snack: Free

Scone with jam and clotted cream, free gift

Main meal: £1.37

• 2 sausages 66p
• Instant mash 45p
• 1/3 of the sweetheart cabbage 8p
• 1/3 of onion gravy 18p (made from 2 onions at 32p, butter 10p, seasonings 10p)

Supper: 34p

• 1 slice home made sourdough bread 6p
• Butter 10p
• 30g cheese 18p (from a 900g block costing £4.99)

Grand total: £2.13

If I'd had fresh potatoes at the time or mash in the freezer, it would have been cheaper as the instant mash was just a storecupboard standby.  

It's not something I'll do regularly as it's faffy to work out the costs but it was an interesting exercise nonetheless 😊

Simple mango chutney

 

I got 2 mangoes in a Lidl box last week.  I've been checking their ripeness all week.  They seemed soft and ripe so I tasted one this morning.  While it was ripe it wasn't that sweet so it was perfect for making mango chutney!🥭

This is a very simple bare bones recipe.  Of course you can add your own favourite spices to it but today I didn't have any chillies or garlic or cardamom seeds.

I used:

2 mangoes chopped

1/4 cup sugar (I used brown)

1/4 cup vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1/4 tsp ground coriander

pinch salt

Add to a large pan and bring to the boil.

Simmer for 5 to 10 mins until the mango is soft enough to mash.

Simmer for another 5 mins or so until you can pull the spoon through the mixture and no liquid fills the gap.

I've just put it into wee containers to freeze, the size you'd normally get with a take away.  I'm freezing it so I don't eat it!!  I guess you could put it into a sterilised jar etc if you want to preserve it longer.  But I'd look for an actual preserving recipe instead.  

I just want to pull out a portion to have with curry or pakora! 😋