We called up at Bodnant Farm Foods the other day to partake of their current offer of 'Plenty for Twenty'. Basically lots of meat products from their butchery department for £20 ... with a free gift if you took the time to print out a coupon.
As Alan is the only one to eat meat in our house it pays us to look out for offers and make full use of what we buy. He loves the quality of Bodnant meats and the localness of their suppliers. Indeed in the next couple of years he is hoping to become one of their regular suppliers himself with pork products.
As soon as we got home I snapped into action and prepared all the meats into single serving portions, individually wrapped so even a single sausage could be taken out itself if needed, and then bagged together. Alan portioned up the whole chicken for me and that was split into four large portions. The bones, and the meat they had stuck to them, were boiled up and then simmered with some chunky cut vegetables and provided him with a huge bowl of soup the next day and a stock to add to some lamb shanks that I cooked for him that night. He had the 'free gift' ... which was a chicken stir-fry pack ... last night for his tea.
Once wrapped and bagged everything else was boxed and taken out to the large chest freezer in the workshop.
While we were out and about we also called to Sainsbury's' with the intention of using our large stash of Nectar points (over £35 worth) to buy more meat for the freezer, and luckily we arrived just as the fridges were being checked for near date items. We managed to get most of the meat Alan wanted with yellow stickers, making it a very worthwhile shop.
Once again everything was portioned out at home, even the pack of twenty meatballs being divided into little wraps of five.
Just enough to add to a pasta dish or pizza, for a little taste of meat for my meat loving man.
The diced 'casserole steak' was also portioned up, just enough to add a meaty hit to a stew, casserole, curry, pie or pasty.
I did it by eye, but I couldn't resist checking to see how equal the packs were and I found that I had pretty much got it spot on :-)
Again everything was individually wrapped, bagged and then boxed to give it as a long a storage time as possible. Air is your enemy in the freezer.
I also took some homemade soups out to the freezer, which is now filling up nicely ready for Winter. It wasn't my most enjoyable afternoon of food prep, but one that was really worth doing to get us the most for our hard earned money.
Sue xx