My last grocery haul was exactly 2 weeks ago, which means I did pretty well regarding using all my ingredients. I still have a few minor things left over and if you were following my food journey you would have seen all my Mediterranean inspired dishes. I had a vision of what I wanted to eat and this week I didn’t really have one and am just going with the flow. I didn’t even have a list – which can be disastrous but it turned out ok – and by okay I mean balanced in terms of veggies, proteins, starch and random ingredients that I bought. Stay tuned to see what I have planned for the next two weeks, but in the mean time lemme break this haul down for you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I spent more than double my budget this week! To be honest I didn’t really feel like going back to the shops to buy my proteins which is what I usually do. and thought why not just get a few things to work with this week. The craving for chicken wings has been strong and thats what prompted some of the items.<\/p>\n

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Starting off from the top it was purely by chance I walked past this huge stand with Sriracha sauce and saw that they were R39.99 each! My first thought was that something was wrong with them and promptly looked at the expiry date – nope, 2019. All good to go. I put one in my basket and thought “This is normally R80 at Woolies and I can get it from Kariel’s in Rylands for R40 but am I really going to drive all the way there? I mean I like hot sauce but how much do I like Rylands drivers?” That’s when the second one went into my basket. I knew it would mean my spend would be more, but in the long term it was a good decision. We go through hot sauce like its a joke in our house. It’s not even financially viable for me to buy Tabasco because we can finish one bottle in a few days so needless to say I’m chuffed about this score.<\/p>\n

After the success of my Spaghetti and Meatball dish I envision a lot of Italian food in my future, so hence the chopped tomatoes which I got 3 for R20. The strawberries were 800g for R25 or 2 for R50. I want to make more jam so this was a no brainer. One of the more shocking prices was the red pepper! I didn’t realize that I normally buy peppers only when they’re on special and today I just grabbed one of each. The red pepper was R20 more p\/kg than the green but I didn’t realize one would cost me R17! Oh well, better make something fantastic with it.<\/p>\n

Rigatoni, some breadcrumbs a few potatoes, one sweet potato rounded out the first half of my haul.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The almond milk was a splurge, it was marked down to R34.99 and if you have been following the prices of almond milk that is only slightly cheaper than normal. I’ve been dying to make carrot cake overnight oats so decided it was just a coincidence that this was marked down. I love almond milk, it is the cornerstone ingredient to my favourite green smoothie<\/a> but too pricey to justify buying on a regular basis. I’ve been using lime juice a lot for salad dressings and my asian food vibes so topped up on another bottle. My protein choice for this week consisted of chicken wings, drumsticks, tenderized steak and beef mince. We usually eat ostrich mince and haven’t had beef mince in a while hence my choice. The only “treat” item I picked up this week were the cereal snack bars. They were 3 for R10 so I bought 6. My favourite flavours are the chocolate brownie and dark chocolate orange. These two are also the ones with the least amount of sugar (I checked).<\/p>\n

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In total I spent R434.56 but if you add all the proteins (R119) and Sriracha (R80) I would have spent around R230 which is not too shabby. What did you buy this week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last grocery haul was exactly 2 weeks ago, which means I did pretty well regarding using all my ingredients. I still have a few minor things left over and if you were following my food journey you would have seen all my Mediterranean inspired dishes. I had a vision of what I wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[144],"tags":[277,242,241,145,308],"class_list":["post-1014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-groceries","tag-budget-buster","tag-food-lovers-market","tag-groceries","tag-grocery-haul","tag-shopping"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n