Last week was still about not spending money on food and using up what I had. I did spend some money, I bought the beef for tomorrow’s lunch because I had a voucher for money off that was only valid up to Monday and I bought some apples and clementines because I was missing fruit. No other food shopping has been done, so this week has been the week of soup and things in the freezer. On Saturday, I took the frozen lentil bolognese from the freezer, mixed it with the leftover lentils and vegetable stew in the fridge covered in mashed potato for a veggie cottage pie. I also made a loaf of bread. Half of that came with me to Ma’s on Sunday night for bacon sandwiches on Monday.

On Monday night I had some of the leftovers for dinner with peas and green beans from the freezer. I used the rest of the pie, with more green beans and peas for lunch on Tuesday. Tuesday night I had Aubergine, Olive and Tomato pasta bake. This was the leftovers from one of last week’s dinners. And those leftovers were lunch on Wednesday.

On Wednesday night I ate butternut squash soup and bread. For garnishes I used greek yoghurt, cheese, roasted chickpeas, chopped kale and roasted squash seeds. Guess what I had for lunch on Thursday?

On Thursday night, I planned to have pork steak and cous cous salad but I forgot to take it out of the freezer so it was soup again. There was a work lunch on Friday and on Friday night, Jo asked me to dinner. I had planned sausage pizza and remembered to take it out of the freezer. I had sausage and eggs for breakfast this morning and I’ll keep the pizza dough out for Oli, in case he decides that he doesn’t want to eat a roast dinner (which he did last time I cooked for the family!)

Breakfast all week was greek yoghurt and pear honey.

I also took the last of the vegetables in the fridge and made a parsnip, carrot and ginger soup, which is in the freezer for next week. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself, I still feel that there is loads of food in the house although I have run out of some staples and the freezer is much emptier than it was. It’s also made me think about how I plan my meals and cook. Food over the last two weeks has been more fun, I’ve been more creative and thoughtful about it. This week, I’m at K&A’s for Thanksgiving (shifted to Saturday) and hosting my family for roast dinner on Sunday so there will be a fair amount of shopping, I’ve made a list and it comes to about £50, but that gets me vegetables, a huge batch of taco chilli, and all the spices and beans and household stuff that I need to replenish as well as dinner for Sunday. I’m planning on spending that and then until Christmas, I want to spend no more that £5 a week on vegetables and work with what food I have at home. I will be doing some Christmas baking but that will be separate from my food budget. After a month of not shopping, I’ve become really aware of how often I just pop into a shop because I need one thing and I buy loads. I want to break that habit and just be more aware of how much I consume.