Part 3: No Shopping for a Month Challenge

Hi everyone. Yes it’s been awhile – but I’m STILL going with the No Shopping for Four Week Challenge.

Part 3: No Shopping for a Month Challenge | Stay At Home Mum — via giphy

If you’ve missed what I’ve been up to, here is what has happened so far:

It is now week two since I’ve been food shopping – actually a bit longer because I actually hadn’t shopped for a week before I decided to do this challenge…. so technically it is week 3. But let’s not argue on semantics. I have continued to buy 3 litre milks every few days – as I’ve explained – I have kids and don’t have a cow – so it was the only item I would have to continually buy during the challenge.

I’m proud to say that I turned off my second fridge (so saving on electricity too) – and I’m really thinking about what to make!

The Weekend:

The Weekend was so hard… you see, we have gotten into the habit of getting takeaway on Friday night after swimming lessons. Not this week. So we got home late, all tired, all hungry. We ended up eating scrambled eggs on toast with a cup of tea. Hey it wasn’t the best meal in the world but it certainly hit the spot!

The rest of the time we dragged out chicken and steak, whacked it on the barbecue and served it with one of the gazillon bags of frozen vegetables. I’m pleased to say I’m down to about 12 bags now! Progress. Breakfast cereals are all gone – but it has gotten cooler and we’ve been eating porridge every morning (and the whole family are really enjoying it!)

I even got bacon and eggs for Mother’s Day breakfast…. but now that’s the bacon all gone too!

School Lunches

I got into the kitchen and used up loads of my cake mixes (I buy the 80c Homebrand varieties) and put extra vanilla and mashed banana and pears and all the other dying fruit in my fruit bowl into the mixtures. They actually taste great, so I’ve frozen them for school lunches and snacks. Pears are particularly good in cupcakes – I just mash or grate them – makes the cake so moist!

The boys are totally HOOKED on my home made bread. In fact, for white bread eaters to say that they want Mummy’s home made seed bread from now on – this made me smile. Problem is, I’m now out of the bread mixes. But I have loads of flour and have been making some wholemeal versions in the breadmaker, adding a few chia seeds and all other seaweed and snot type ingredients that have accumulated in my pantry.

So I’ve made it through the weekend – and have prepared for school lunches (except for fresh fruit – but I’ve been adding dried fruit to their lunch boxes instead.)

The Dried Apricot Debacle

So as mentioned above, all my fruit has either been eaten or was dying and now is living in a delicious cupcake. I needed fruit for school – the school gets angry if you don’t provide fruit for fruit break. So dried fruit it was. I had a packet of dried apricots that have been sitting in there for about 3 months now – so added them.

The boys LOVED them.

BUT, there was a….. slight adverse reaction to them. It made them fart. It made them fart so bad they could have powered a small city. In the car on the way home from school, I would hear a little giggle…. a little boy voice whispering ‘that one was hot’…. then a wave of nuclear powered fart gas filled the car. They REEKED. OMG it was so bad. I had to air out their room with the aircon and fan on full in the morning. Smells like something died in there.

No more dried apricots will be entering this house anytime soon!

Dinners I’ve Made This Week:

I can honestly say I had a dinner disaster this week. You see I had a packet of Rice-a-Riso – or something like that – it was beefy pasta. So I whacked it in with some beef mince (which my freezer is full of) – and added zucchini from my garden to bulk it up. The thing is, I thought I’d be smart and not brown the mince first, just throw it all in and stir. Let’s just say the dog ate well that night. It went to stodge. In fact I have a piccie of said stodge. It even smelt like dog food…. hahahaha!