This weeks organic box delivery

A huge bag of spinach, broccoli, carrots, spuds, 2 large onions, 5 oranges, 5 apples, 3 bananas and 6 organic free range eggs - total £12.85

The spinach was a nice suprise as I was expecting green kale as advertised online, now I can have a go at making that spinach, potato and chickpea curry. Everything else looks great and will keep well in the green lakeland stay fresh bags until I can use it up.

I am only getting a delivery every fortnight now and with all the produce from the garden am coping well. The freezers are full and it may be a while before I will find that I need to top up supplies.

The last 2 days have been no spend days so the total is now - NSD 8/15

Let me Outta here!

Sorry about the photo quality (a lot better now though, thank you emmani!) I couldn't resist this little pleading cutie, she hates being shut in away from us all (Cockapoos are very socable), it doesn't happen much just when we are trying to get the grass cut!

I have been feeling much the same recently, after a regular flow of lovely visitors, which I have really enjoyed, I've been exhausted, cfs raised it's unwelcome head again and I had to take a break and rest up, very boring! I have managed to read some of my favourite blogs but been too tired to post much.

Today I am getting out!!! I am off to meet one of my friends to explore a few of our charity shops. We will be concentrating on just one road which has about 6 charity shops and a couple of coffee shops (for pacing ourselves) so fingers crossed I find something from my list (yes I have a list for charity shops as well! :) or any useful bargain or treasure really.

I did manage to phone my mobile phone company in order to cancel my contract, once it ran out next month, as it was costing far too much for my low usage, I was ready to go to pay as you go but the lovely chap has given me a new contract costing only £5 a month which is saving me £35 a month! Really pleased with that, it pays to negotiate even if it wasn't quite what I intended! So now with cancelling the gym (£50), cancelling 2 organic food box deliveries a month (£25.70) and re-negotiating my mobile contract (£35) I am only about £20 worse off without my wages! I am probably saving that much on fuel as I am not using my car for work! Yay! Result!

During my week away from it all I had another 3 No spend days, would have been more but I had to ask Mr C to go on a few errands for me and it was his birthday this week. So NSD 6/15

Aunty Beryl's Chutney Recipe

After 3 weeks without a delivery I'm pleased with the contents of this weeks organic box delivery, a lovely looking cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, couple of little gem letuces, plums, apples and some delicious clementines. Now to menu plan!




I still have courgettes to use, the one at the back is an example of what happens to a courgette if you don't get to it in time, I have a few more like that one, might be making some of my Auntie Beryl's famous (well famous to our family) chutney! Her recipe is really easy and can be used for most fruit and vegetable gluts:-

Aunty Beryl's Chutney recipe

3lbs apples or any other fruit/vegetables (plums, marrows, tomatoes etc)
3/4 pint vinegar
1/2 lb chopped onions
grated rind of an orange or lemon
1 dessertspoon each of ginger, curry powder and mixed spice

Prepare (peel if necessary and cube) fruit/vegetable and simmer with other ingredients until tender.

Then add 1/4 lb sultanas and 1lb sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick. Pot in the usual way.

This is lovely with cheese and ham.

The organic box delivery with the eggs came to £12.85 so total left in the grocery challenge is £24.15 to last until the end of the month and we have visitors next weekend! yikes! Luckily Mr C is taking us all out for a meal to celebrate my birthday so that is one day taken care of!

This weeks organic box - not more courgettes!

£12.80 worth! I haven't had a delivery for 3 weeks and they send me more courgettes! Mind you "they" are not to know that I am lucky enough to have them coming out of my ears from the garden at the moment and I could have changed the order if I had been more organised. Now we love courgette and tomato bake and it does freeze but I think I need to find a few more ways of dealing with them. We love them steamed with balsalmic vinegar dribbled over, yum! I have heard that you can even use them in muffin recipes!

Everythings growing in the garden!

Even the Cockapoo! I guess at 13 months she won't be a puppy for much longer, try telling her that though! She is so full of fun and loves to play fetch, we alternate between pulling up a weed and throwing a ball!

We didn't get an organic veg box delivery today, either they messed up or I ticked the wrong box probably the latter! Never mind we saved £12.80 and have enough fruit and veg in the freezer plus things are starting to grow in the garden and some of these things are edible, including some green peppers - yum! the rhubarb has gone mad, the courgettes are giving me a couple every other day and I am picking about half a dozen tomatoes a day. We are raw beginners though as you can probably see from the photos, more luck than judgement but we are learning. Hopefully next year we will have the main vegetable garden up and running.

Another no spend day and I have saved(rescued) 6 sweet potatoes from the bin which are about to be made into soup using Arkonites recipe. I had to throw 1 away though as it was beyond help, must make sure to remove produce from any plastic packaging as it doesn't keep so well, I normally use old flour bags to store potatoes in and that works really well.
My grocery challenge (www.moneysavingexpert.com old style board is brilliant for support for this challenge) this month is to stick to £150.00 for the month - so far £82 spent so £68 for the rest of the month and I haven't started on the lentils yet! :)

Organic delivery

This weeks organic delivery! £12.80 I forgot to cancel it, oops! On the plus side the strawberries were lovely and sweet though! I will cancel next weeks and do a farm shop for comparison. I already have plenty of carrots in so will make a carrot cake!

This weeks box delivery

In this weeks delivery I have 2 little gem lettuces (must find a recipe to use up all these lettuces! lettuce soup?) cucumber, why does an organic company have to use plastic? tomatoes, carrots, new potatoes, bananas, pears, melon and 1/2 dozen organic eggs. Apart from the melon, it seems a bit boring and not a lot for my money so I am considering changing to a delivery once a fortnight and using our local farm shop inbetween, it will be interesting to see how much I can get there for my money (£12.85)

I wish I had more energy to shop around and get some bargains but with the pesky cfs, needs must etc., I did manage to get a bag of fresh brussels sprouts knocked down from £1.49 to 20p the other day at sainsburys just because the outer leaves were a bit tatty, just peeled those off and used half yesterday with the roast dinner and the rest are in the freezer.

This weeks organic box contents

Some lovely nectarines, kiwi fruit, bananas, lettuce, red pepper, carrots, new potatoes and beetroot. The beetroot was a last min substitution for broad beans, I used to be overwhelmed with beetroot as I mostly pickled it but now make a grated carrot and beetroot salad with a fresh orange juice dressing which is very refreshing and an incredibly bright colour. The kiwis I don't eat fresh but peel, slice and freeze and add to fruit salads. Other than that I will make a large salad and hopefully some banana bread.

Organic box deliveries

For the last 3 years I have been receiving an organic mixed fruit and vegetable box, first fortnightly and now on a weekly basis. It has just gone up to £10.90 for the box and £1.90 for the eggs and I know I pay more than perhaps I would at the shops but the quality has been consistently good and the home delivery side of things has been a lifesaver to me since my illness started. If I wish I can also (with 2 days notice) add to my order online from Abel and Coles grocery section.

Above are photos of a few I have received recently, bottom one being this week (with delicious strawberries and melon) , as you can see I sometimes have organic soya milk and soya yogurt added to the order, always adding organic eggs weekly. It may not look like much but I can normally make a few meals out of this and anything I can't use up quickly I pop into the freezer (this is why my freezers are bulging with bags and containers of veg!)

I still pick up any bargains I can to pad meals out, this week the fruit and veg man at the car boot sale was selling 2 huge cauliflowers for £1.50 and a butternut squash for £1 so I will be adding cauliflower cheese, butternut risotto and a vegetable curry to the menu plan.

Mind you having seen the wonderful bargains Jennifer at Home Matters Most found at the weekend, I am feeling inspired to try some late night shopping!