Re: Groceries
 

Stepdaughter came home with four more packs for $35 from Superstore. Quality not quite at Sobeys standard but I've cut them up into 5 lots of four steaks and some left over for a curry or stir-fry.

There's something not quite right about chocolate on hobnobs. Doesn't it lose what makes them distinctive?

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Went grocery shopping today for the first time in quite a while. Prices have gone up a bit.

3 boxes cereal

6 mr noddles (27 cents each)

Pork roast pre-seasoned (3-5 meals from it)

Frozen fish filets (5 meals)

Oat meal

Peanut butter

Rice

Apple Sauce

Milk

eggs

cheese

bananas

pork chops (7 meals)

salmon filet (2 meals)

bread

$78.68 total.

According to the receipt saved $21.

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Blimey, what were you eating until now? Or were you in suspended animation?;)

Wait...you've not been eating the contents of your aquarium have you? And fish milk in your tea? :lol:

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Fortunately when we had a bit of money over the summer, I stock piled some food. Now we have gone through it so were pretty low on food stuffs but it got us through most of the winter.

The aquarium fish are like 3"...lol.. I don't even think they would sustain the dog...lol

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Shame you lost Shrimpie, he would have helped :(

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Dollarama store near me sell "Ambrosia Devon Rice Pudding" $1:25 a can

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:eek:
I shall have to check that next time I'm passing (not Ajax, obviously :lol:) . Ordinarily it's $4, maybe more, and Kozy Shack's much less.

Ever tried making your own with leftover cooked rice? It works pretty good. :nod:

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This is quite funny and informative

dollarama food reviews

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Today at the local ethnic store we purchased ('fresh not frozen) Pork Shoulder Roast $0.88/Ib ($3.26), 6 x chickens legs with backs at $0.88Ib ($3.85) the cost for both items $7.11

That's enough meat to last a week

Then from the fruit cart, 6x apples on special $1.99 total cost (two apples made into home made apple sauce for the pork)

Fresh made today Sushi tray 8 x pieces $2.99

2 x huge Danish jam filled turnovers for $1.00 total (will go four ways when each one cut in half)

2 x long 8" sausage rolls (baked today) on special $0.69 each = $1.38

Total spend (incl Hst) $15.80 (rounded)


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Re: Groceries
 

One of the biggest things I miss from living in Vancouver is the ethnic food stores and their low prices. Won't see these kind of prices at the traditional grocery stores.

Chicken legs without backs (haven't seen any with backs in a long time) on flyer special here 3.49/lb at Safeway, 3.39/lb at Save On if you buy the family size pack.

Pork shoulder roast at Save on on flyer special is 4.99/lb. Can get a pork loin roast at Super Store for 2.98/lb on flyer special.

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I've done that & crunched the numbers, and cannot make home made rice pudding (weight for weight) as good as Ambrosia for $1.25, especially when it has to be 'arborio rice' (which we have in the pantry), include the cream or condensed milk cost, cinnamon +labour + $0.50 of electricity cost

Dollarama brand name rice pudding is also made in the UK, just a relabelled can ;)

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I used to make cookies at home, then did the math, cheaper to buy the pre-made dough or a 12 pack of made in store.

Without the cost of electricity factored in, basic chocolate chip cookies run about 45 cents each to make at home for 2 dozen.

2 dozen pre-made dough runs 17 cents per cookie without electricity costs factored in.

Store made cookies run about 41 cents each if bought in a 12 pack.

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Probably not, but I've never seen it that low.
I've used ordinary long grain rice.

There are a few copycat Kozy Shack recipes on line and I followed those, but without the egg.

Just skimmed milk, flour from a ginormous bag - a few cents worth - and sugar, heated up and then the rice added. Left to cool.

I stopped doing it because the Canadians in the house are used to too sweet things (as well as too salty things) and if I made it sweet enough for them it was too sweet for me. The enthusiasm died out. :(
What on earth for? :lol:

I'll check that out too.

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cinnamon on everything in our house, including on top of the rice pudding while its baking in the oven, the wife puts it in her cocoa drink, on her cream of wheat, in the pot of home made curry, I also put it on top of my corn flakes & porridge.

Wife will make the apple sauce for the pork roast, will add cinnamon & lemon juice.

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I'll look for it. One of the Dollar stores has curry sauces now . The yellow Thai one I tried was ok but a bit thin; I'll try the other variety next time..

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Cinnamon City :)

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I used to get a wonderful yellow Thai cook-in sauce in Superstore. It came in a tin. But with the VH ones - especially my fave red one - they don't have it anymore and the VH yellow is a tad bland.

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It isn't $1.25 either.

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Yeah. But the $1.99 or 2/$5 comes around often enough.

The yellow one in a tin was $4 or $5 several years ago.

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I used to like the Patak paste, a spoon of that would flavour a whole pan of food so even though it wasn't cheap it was good value. I only bought the sauces a few times and usually make my own but when I saw the dollar store one, I thought I'd try it. It's thinner and more bland than VH so imo I'd say VH for $2 is a better value. I haven't tried the red one yet.

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VH red Thai and Vindaloo are both max strength. Lovely with Rosé wine, even a cheap one for around $10

I'm a bit reluctant to use the paste on it's own but I do buy it. On it's own I worry I make it too strong or too weak. With curry powder I never do too weak but I might make it too strong. But I routinely use concentrated cream of mushroom as a thickener. If I have too much curry powder, then I use a bit more of the cream of mushroom so the taste is more or less the same.

If I did that to the paste version it would change the taste too much.

Sometimes I fancy a mango curry or the tikka masala and I add a bit of the paste to give it a boost.

Essentially I'm a coward when it comes to my own sauces and I prefer the sure thing. :o

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Oops my bad I just took a guess at the price, being lazy and not checking, thinking I was sure it was 1:25 when it's actually a whopping 1:50 a can.:o

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On the theme of curry paste: Blue Dragon brand is cheap (here) but very bland :(. I've been known to chuck in harissa to remedy that.

Patek sauces & pastes seem to have disappeared from local stores sadly (they were always reliable).

On the very rare occasions I over spice a curry, a spoonful or 2 of coconut milk calms it down, without making it watery.

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Just make your own. A basic sauce.

3 tbsp vegetable oil
200g plain yogurt, lightly whisked or coconut milk
(cashew or almond paste if you want it a bit thicker)
1½ tsp chilli powder (or mild paprika)
1 tsp curry powder
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp fennel powder
½ tsp cumin powder
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2.5cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
2 tbsp tomato puree
150ml water
½ tsp ground cardamom powder
1 tsp crushed dried fenugreek leaves

Whisk the yogurt and mix in the chilli powder, fennel powder and cumin powder. Stir the spiced yogurt and set aside.

Heat the oil in a non stick pan (preferably a wok shaped one)

Add the chopped onions and sauté until they begin to soften for 4-5 minutes.

Add the chopped or pasted (I just chuck both these into a little food processor and add water to make a paste) garlic and ginger and fry for a couple of minutes as it cooks.

Turn the heat to a low setting and add the spiced yogurt or coconut milk. Stir well for a minute and add the nut paste if you're using. Stir for 2-3 mins.

Tip in the tomato puree and stir for a further 2 minutes. As the curry starts to leave oil from the sides of the pan add either meat or veggies or both, water and salt to taste.

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15-30 mins stirring ever so often until the flavours and cooked all the way through.

Add the cardamom powder, crushed fenugreek leaves.

Optional chuck in some fresh coriander/cilantro and ginger at the very end. Simples.

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Also raita; just slice a cucumber, throw it in a bowl of yoghurt and smush it about a bit, add salt and pepper if you have any. Cooling and as authentic as chicken tikka masala.

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You mean too much chilli? Impossible. :sneaky:

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That's good to know. :thumbup:
What happens with what's left? Does it keep or is it so cheap it doesn't really matter if you end up throwing it away?

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Give it to the chickens. Chickens love garam masala.

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What's a complicated one?

That's about 8 too many ingredients for me. :o

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The coconut milk? It's ~99c/a can here (I have no idea why!). It freezes okay once opened: I freeze leftovers in small portions, or keep it in the fridge for a day or two & make fruit/spinach smoothies or pancakes.

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I'm not too bothered about authenticity ;) & I don't think anyone using VH etc sauces/pastes would be too bothered about that either.

Not just chilli :sneaky:. I've been known to muck up proportions of all sorts of spice(S)...

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So, cheap then. Coconut milk ice cubes. Neat.;)

Absolutely. What's authentic anyway? There must be at least 20 variations of most curries.

Stick Vindaloo in google images and there don't seem to be two alike. There's one even looks like a Vesta version :rofl:

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I can get the sauces but not the paste - and I do miss the balti paste! You can buy them from Amazon.ca though, if that's of any help.

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Thanks for the link :). I'm trying to make my own as much as possible these days.

Late last night I recalled another brand ( name escapes me right now) which is very good, I've only ever found it in IGA.

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Check out the products from Lee Kum Kee. Their curry sauce which is actually a thick paste. is a 190ml jar. One to two table spoons per one-litre liquid

Curry Sauce

check any ethnic store, usually found in the chinese supermarkets, as do the 'international section' in the major supermarkets

I buy three jars at a time


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I make all my own as well, except for Balti - I found Pataks was better than most for that.

I'll have to dig out my recipes and notes, I did a 19 week Indian cookery course in HK. The woman ran it in her tiny kitchen with 6 of us sitting on stools either helping to prepare or watching her cook and taking notes (she gave us hand written recipes).. then we'd eat it all. At the end of the course (we kept asking for more lessons, it was originaly a 10 week one, lol) we all made a dish to take to her flat, she dressed us in sari's and we had photos taken. Wish I could find it!

Happy days.

:)

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That great thing about making your own, is you know exactly what goes into it. Especially the sugar and salt content.

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Giant Tiger had Lou's Peameal Bacon 800g for $3.95 so I bought 3 of them, I think that's about half price, though they weren't marked on sale. No Frills has air-chilled chickens or family-pack sausage $2/lb so I bought some of those too. I always get the Hot Italian ones; they used to have PC Original Bangers but haven't seen them in a long time.

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Lucky. :nod:

I was passing Dollarama today so as a few foodie things recently got a mention I dropped in.

I bought a Thai black pepper stir fry paste and a couple of tins of 'British' rice pudding.

Some of the things in tins and jars are definitely a step up from a couple of years ago.

Also Jaffa Cookies/Biscuits Jaffa from Poland. As with Pim's, a good substitute for Jaffa Cakes. Blackcurrant flavour too.

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I went to Superstore and they didnt have Anegadan lobster :cry_smile: