I wanted to have an less spendy week, which I sort of did. the theme of this week was chickpeas. That wasn’t entirely planned but I had a bag of dried chickpeas which I wanted to cook this weekend and a hummus recipe that started with dried chickpeas so I just rolled with it.
SHOPPING
This is what I bought. It was a grand total of £7.51. It was over my planned £5 spend but I needed some spices and I had the money.
COOKING AND EATING
I food prepped like a mad thing on Sunday and made hummus. I ate that for breakfast with a naan bread and some vegetables. Which was a bigger breakfast in reality than in my head, so I also had hummus and veg as a mid morning snack too! I made some coleslaw and that with a baked potato was lunch. Snacks were pear crumble (I had leftover pears from last week and oat crumble mix in the freezer) and a mini pack chocolate buttons each day.
Dinners were great, if slightly repetitive because I’d made so much and was aware that it all had to go by Friday night. On Saturday, I ate the pasta leftovers from last week, with flatbread. On Sunday I ate chana masala (I left out the fresh chilli’s because I’m not keen on them) and ‘extra veg’ naan bread. It was one of those dinners that would have enjoyed more if I’d had any kind of appetite but both recipes are good and worth checking out.
On Monday night, I was a bit more into the concept of dinner so I had leftover chana masala with rice and some naan.
Tuesday was more chana masala this time heated up with an egg cooked in it like shakshuka.
There were more chickpeas on Wednesday night, this time in a Spinach and Chickpea Pilaf, with an egg because I like them!
On Thursday, I had a plan to eat something else but I was tired and there was loads of pilaf left so some of that and some carrot and cucumber. 
Friday would have been pizza night but I was in clear the fridge mode so the last of the pilaf with flatbread. 
BEST THING I ATE THIS WEEK
It’s a hard one to call. The hummus was the best hummus I have ever made at home (better than this one) – go and make it (if you don’t want to soak the dried chickpeas, just remember 1 cup dried equals 3 cooked) it was incredible.
But the naan and chana masala were both new recipes that turned out really well and I’ll make again.
LESSONS LEARNED
The theme of this week was chickpeas. That wasn’t entirely planned but I had a bag of dried chickpeas which I wanted to cook this weekend and a hummus recipe that started with dried chickpeas so I just rolled with it. It was also completely vegetarian. I’m never going to completely cut out meat from my diet but the constraints of the budget do mean that happens more often, I don’t feel that I’m lacking anything major from my diet although I have started to take a vitamin and iron tablet each day though that has more to do with still having a cold and just feeling exhausted, so I thought I would see if it helped.
One of the things to remember this year is that the budget is for me an experiment, ok I don’t have that much more money each month to spend on food but I could if I needed to. On Saturday, in Lidl, the lady in front of me at the till had to put food back and have a negotiation with her child about what they could do without. Lots of things get said about poverty and hunger and the Trussell Trust released it’s figures on Friday and there has been the immediate reaction about fecklessness and free food and so on but it’s worth remembering at the end of the day that comes down to a mother telling her child that they can make porridge with water rather than milk and that she doesn’t need a snack bar in her packed lunch.
There will be a day in Newcastle
and on the way home we’ll stop at 
By Monday night, the sick was gaining ground and I repeated lunch because it was minimal washing up and that way I could go to bed early (7:30pm!)
I didn’t manage dinner on Wednesday or Thursday. I just came home, ate a flapjack and went to bed. Which should demonstrate how not well I was feeling, eating during the day fine but by the time I was home, I was just overcooked and ready for bed.
That left me ready for bed and I bailed on Adam’s birthday party, which I was looking forward too but I was in bed at about 9pm and asleep shortly after.
The film was Eye in the Sky and it was very good, if quite harrowing. Then home, food prep, bed.
