Indoor BBQ from Aldi on a Cold May Bank holiday

Indoor BBQ from Aldi on a Cold May Bank Holiday

One of my favourite things about shopping at Aldi is that there are always new products, special offers and something a bit different to try.

Whilst shopping the fresh fruit/veg and meat section I always go in the same order. I will start by checking the super 6 fruit and veg offers and get what I would normally buy from there for a bargain price, like five lemons for 45p or a big bag of onions for 45p, what a bargain. Next I wander the fruit and veg aisle buying my normal apples, oranges, nanas, big packet of strawberries, maybe a melon or a pineapple to spice it up. I will then select my vegetables, which I try to mix up every week, maybe stuffed mushrooms, or sweet potato or mange tout. Then there are regular Maris Pipers, carrots and broccoli.

Fresh Meat

Next I move to the fresh meat, I will always get a fresh chicken in a bag, this can then be used for 2 meals, this week I used it for chicken sandwiches for lunch and fajitas, plus the juices from cooking have made a chicken stock. I like to be different with other meat I buy. The most recent shop I wanted to buy some meat for a BBQ, hopefully for this bank holiday. But as we know if reading this after the bank holiday, it’s been a bit chilly. So instead we went for an indoor BBQ and I cooked up the meat in the oven!!

I went for pork as the meat. Pulled pork sausages at £1.79 for 6 and 2 packets of maple marinated pork belly (5 pieces) at £2.49 each. I also spied some new wagyu meat balls, a luxury at £3.49 but I knew they would be yummy and would make the most amazing pasta meatballs, these are stashed in the freezer.

Buying British

Buying locally produced fresh produce is important to me. I like to buy British meat and both products are sourced from Britain. The sausages are specially selected British outdoor bred, from RSPCA certified and Assured Tractor Food Standard farms. The pork belly was Aldi standard brand – Ashfield farm. This is again 100% British pork with the Assured Tractor food standard stamp. Love this. I must ask if Aldi will let me loose on one of their farms to see what they are like!

Indoor Barbeque

With my indoor BBQ, all the trimmings are essential.

I boiled a few small potatoes and added mayonnaise for potato salad. I roasted some tomatoes well past their sell by date (by about 3 weeks!) with balsamic vinegar, sugar and rapeseed oil. Crunchy salad in a bowl. I added some olives. And some lovely new pea snacks (gluten free 88 calories per packet, £1.29 for 6 packets). Also a plate of crackers and cheese, some beautiful Aldi brie (£0.99) and stilton (£1.45). The Aldi cheese biscuits are amazing, we love the sea salt flavour or the rosemary flavour.

I made quite a banquet. The main cost being the meat which came to £6.77. We are on a real cost saving drive currently, see my debt post from last week. Monthly food bills have always been high for us, back in the days when we shopped at Tesco we could easily spend £700 per month on food. Using things like meal planning, shopping with a list and creating food from scratch we saving lots of money. I currently spend around £100 every 2 weeks in Aldi on a big shop, there will be top ups in between of fruit and milk normally. Although just had a revelation that I can freeze milk, check out this freezer special post from Reduced Grub who guest posted earlier this year.

Dessert was Aldi mini magnum equivalent, which were £1.89 for 12 of them. Hubby ate 3 of them, sort of defeated the purpose of mini desserts.

How do you save money with your shopping? Do you shop at Aldi?

This is a collaborative post where Aldi kindly gifted me with gift vouchers.