Tasty vegetables

Yesterday's baking - date and walnut loaf - tastes as good as it looks!  

My DH is a great cook.  He's not a recipe-follower, but is able to concoct wonderful meals from what we have available.  Last night we enjoyed a delicious vegetable shepherd's pie, and tonight we tucked into stuffed peppers.  We are not strict vegetarians, as we eat chicken/turkey and a lot of fish, but we are very happy to eat non-meat dishes.  We often comment that dedicated meat-eaters seems to regard veggies as an after-thought to meals, but we have found that by giving vegetables centre-stage, their particular flavours shine through.  Indeed, DH, who was a confirmed meat-eater before meeting me several years ago, now enjoys veggie meals more than meat ones, and really enjoys experimenting with fresh produce.

A new greengrocers has just opened up in our small town.  Thinking about it, I believe there might only be one other in town.  Apart from those two, the only place to buy fruit and veg is in the supermarkets - a far cry from my childhood days where every town and village had it's own greengrocers, butchers, bakers etc.  How complacent we've all become, shopping for everything under one roof.  In the greengrocers, I can select my produce, much of which is UK grown (and some even more local than that), and I don't have to have it in a sealed plastic bag.  I can use a paper bag if necessary (sprouts get lost otherwise), but usually it all goes into my cloth bag loose.  Every day there are bargains to be had - the peppers today were 4 good-sized ones for £1 - and we now have peppers for pizza topping, this evening's meal, and the rest will be frozen for casseroles etc.  We have decided that instead of shopping for our fruit and veg in the supermarket, we will now use this little shop on a daily basis until our small garden starts producing later on this year.  We may have to pay a few pence more, but the quality is good and the service friendly.  It also means we will have the benefit of walking into town, and we will be able to take advantage of the daily offers.  Even better, sometimes the plastic mushroom trays are stacked outside, free to customers.  Great for all sorts of storage in the shed, and in my sewing room.

We consider ourselves quite canny shoppers, and since we left work, I think we have become even more so.  We hunt out the bargains and deals, but only buy if it's something we actually use, trying not to get seduced into buying things we don't actually need.  We aren't slaves to brand names, but will try own-brands.  Very often there is little or no difference in taste and/or quality, but there is usually a big difference in price.  Making meals and baking from scratch is something we are trying to do more and more of.  That way we know exactly what we are eating, and save pennies at the same time.  We try to limit the number of times we visit Tesco, and shop with a list.  

I want to see exactly how much we spend on grocery shopping each month (we have a monthly budget that we always stick to anyway), breaking it down into food, cleaning etc, to see if there are further savings to be made.  I think we do quite well already, if other people's bills are anything to go by, but it's worth keeping an eye on the shopping as it's a big expenditure.  It'll be an interesting project.