Weekly Shop No 3

We've only got 1 week of our little & local project left to go so this will be our last weekly shop report.  It's gone so quickly and I feel as though we're just hitting our stride with it.

This was today's shop, minus a couple of tins of tomatoes which I completely forgot to put out for the photo.

Our window cleaners arrived just as I was doing the photos and judging by the looks they were giving me, now think I'm completely barmy ;-)

The biggest thing I've noticed is that the whole shopping process has become much quicker now that we know what we can get where.  Our basic shop takes about 45 minutes taking in the butcher, the greengrocer, the fishmonger, Jacks and the bread and fruit and veg stalls on Wednesday Market.  The extra bits, we try and do when we're passing (see our earlier post about O'Brians and Maple News).

Instead of giving you the full shopping list this week, I thought I'd tell you what we plan to eat so that you can judge whether we're getting good value for money out of what we've bought locally.

Dinners
Lamb curry
Keralan prawns with basmati rice
Lebanese chicken with green lentils
Jacket Potatoes (with ragu sauce left over and frozen from last week)
Vegetarian shepherd's pie
Spiced haddock with bombay potatoes
Pork with cashews, chilli and mint

Lunches
Rolls with roast pork
Thai spiced carrot soup
Lentil and feta salad

Looking at the picture, I'm struck by how similar our food shop looks every week.  Maybe it's just putting it out on the table that makes it look that way.  We do a fair bit of cooking but it could be that we're always attracted to the same type of recipe.  The last couple of weeks they've had wonderful fresh looking fennel and globe artichoke in the greengrocer but both are a bit out of my comfort zone.  I've never cooked a globe artichoke and the only thing I've ever done with fennel is put it in a fish pie.  So I feel as though I'm still missing out on buying some of the nicest, freshest stuff.  By the way, if anyone has any great recipes for those ingredients, please share!

So, the reckoning.  We spent £72.89 in a total of 9 local shops.  The Tesco comparison shop was £75.99, £3.10 more expensive.  I had to substitute a few items because I couldn't find single plums and rhubarb on Tesco's website so I put kiwis and pears in my basket instead.  That's the second week in a row that little and local has come in cheaper which is a bit of a surprise but a very happy one.