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| I have a feeling this is going to be very appropriate... |
As you’ll know if you read my previous blog post, this
year, Mike and I are taking on the Live Below The Line challenge – from the 27th
of April we’ll be living on £1 per day per person, for five days, to raise
awareness about living in poverty and raise money to help. If you can, please
do click here to donate and cheer us on! Right now I’m feeling quite nervous
(you might have noticed that I’m quite keen on food) but excited too! Planning
how to go about this has already given me a bit of an insight, and I’m looking
forward to learning a whole lot more from the experience.
I usually plan meals in advance because it helps save
money and cut down waste, so I knew that planning was going to be a key part of
getting the most out of our money during this challenge. To that end, I’ve
worked out a menu and a shopping list (based on £10, for two people) which
should give us three meals a day, with something different for dinner each
night. As well as the items on the list, you can add seasoning if you calculate
the cost per pinch, so I’m planning to use a little curry powder, oregano, salt
and pepper to make things a bit more tasty. I’m also going to use this approach
for a few other things that I won’t need to use all of, such as the bag of
rice. A final note is that I’m going to be using butter for cooking, rather
than oil – it’s not necessarily super healthy, but a little bit will add a lot
of flavour, and butter is much more versatile than oil as we can also use it in
our breakfast, so it’s better value for money.
If you fancy cooking along with me, or even just trying
one of the recipes, then please go ahead – don’t forget to comment on my posts
and let me know how you’re doing! The shopping list and menu are below, and on
Saturday 25th of April I’ll post the first couple of recipes
(including the soup, for lunches), ready to go for Monday. On Tuesday I’ll post
a new recipe for Tuesday night, and so on!
One thing - do bear in mind that I’ve based my shopping
list on products and prices at Sainsbury’s and my local fruit & veg market,
so depending on where you shop, it’ll be a rough guide. I have to say that I really love the Sainsbury's Basics range - not only is it great value, but the quality is consistently good - so you'll see there are plenty of Basics products on the list.
The Menu
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Monday
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Tuesday
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Wednesday
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Thursday
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Friday
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Breakfast
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Toast & butter
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Toast & butter
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Toast & butter
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Toast & butter
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Toast & butter
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Lunch for Mike
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Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
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Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
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Leftover curry
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Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
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Leftover chilli
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Lunch for me
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Cheese on toast
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Cheese on toast
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Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
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Leftover jambalaya
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Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
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Dinner
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Courgette Pesto Pasta
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Chickpea Curry
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Jambalaya
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Bean Chilli
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Pasta with Meatballs
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The Shopping List
From the
supermarket:
Sliced white bread
Sainsbury’s own Pork Sausages x8
Sainsbury’s Basics Cheddar
Sainsbury’s Basics Salted Butter
3 cartons of Sainsbury’s Basics Chopped Tomatoes
1 tin Sainsbury’s own Tomato Puree
1 tin Sainsbury’s own Mixed Beans in Chilli Sauce
1 tin Sainsbury’s own Chickpeas
500g pack Sainsbury’s Basics Pasta
1kg pack Sainsbury’s Basics Rice
From the market:
1 courgette
3 peppers
3 onions
Garlic
Please don't forget to donate if you can - even if you can only give £1, if enough people did that, it would make a huge difference. Click here to donate on our official Live Below The Line page.