2 weeks groceries haul and dinner for two in Belgium (114.93 euro)

Hi, it's me again with my biweekly groceries haul. I'm enjoying cataloguing my hauls and sharing them like this. I'm a bit of a snoop and i looove looking at people's hauls so i thought i'd keep sharing mine for other snoops like me 😆

This time we spent more than we did the past 2 grocery hauls. We stocked up quite a bit of pantry products and some of them lasted us for the entire two weeks and some of them more. We also got some treats and beers because there's nothing quite like a cold beer on a hot sunny day 😉 The beers will last us a month or two depending on the weather. We also got a kilo of salmon that we divided up into 8 pieces and stored in the freezer. But as always, we tried to keep things within/under our budget which is €100 – €125 / 2 weeks depending on whether we need to stock up on things. And we of course still looked for bargains and planned our meals around them.

A lot of our pantry products are from foodello. If you live in NL or BE, i really recommend it. They get products that are about to be thrown out by supermarkets and warehouses (because of approaching expiry dates or because of mistakes in the packaging) and sell them at discounted prices. And i often find products that i wouldn't normally find in our local supermarkets. It makes cooking interesting and saves us quite a bit of money too.

This is the list of the groceries and the price breakdown (total €114.93). I include the purchased price as well as the retail price (rp.) below:

Fresh protein:
• 1kg salmon on skin – €17.59 (rp. €25.99)
• 2 packs of 400g tofu – €2.62 (rp. €2.74)

Fresh produce:
• 5 bananas – €0.87
• 500g grapes – €1.00 (rp. €2.75)
• 2.2kg honey melon – €3.21 (rp. €5.36)
• 2 lettuces – €1.82 (rp. €1.94)
• 3 cucumbers – €0.99 (rp. €2.97)
• 3 courgette – €1.31 (rp. €2.17)
• 2 bunch of radishes – €1.46 (rp. €1.58)
• 5 paprikas – €3.56 (rp. €4.06)
• 1 aubergine – €0.73 (rp. €0.91)
• 6 tomatoes – €0.39 (rp. €0.99)
• 1 pak choi – €1.49
• 150g mushrooms – €2.33 (rp. €3.11)
• 8 carrots – €1.01 (rp. €1.09)
• 1 plantain – €0.59
• 20g coriander – €0.75 (rp. €1.49)
• 3kg potatoes – €4.65 (rp. €5.22)
• 3 medium onions – €1.46
• 2 garlic heads – €1.28 (rp. €1.50)
• 400g olives – €3.49 (rp. €4.49)

Dairy:
• 400g salad cheese – €2.59 (rp. €3.27)
• 250g roquefort – €3.99 (rp. €4.99)
• 6 bottles of 500ml milk – €3.89
• 1L yoghurt – €5
• 1L soy yoghurt – €5

Bread:
• 480g pita bread – €1.29 (rp. €2.30)

Pantry:
• 2 packs of 380g kidney beans – €1.29 (rp. €2.58)
• 2 packs of 150g edamame – €2.36 (rp. €4.78)
• 2 packs of 180g white beans – €1.40 (rp. €2.78)
• 200g TVP – €1.38
• 4 cans of 300g sweet corns – €2.67 (rp. €3.56)
• 2 packs instant noodles – €2.25 (rp. €3.49)
• 1L soy sauce – €1.89 (rp. €4.90)
• Okonomiyaki mix – €0.69 (rp. €2.50)
• Tagine spice mix – €1.69 (rp. €1.99)
• 200g chocolate sprinkles – €2.19 (rp. €4.99)

Treats:
• 2 bars of 180g chocolate – €3.60 (rp. €8.50)
• 2 bags of 175g rosemary crackers – €2.80 (rp. €3.98)
• 2 bags of 80g sesame seed crackers – €2.20 (rp. €3.80)
• 2 bags of 100g veggie crisps – €3.50 (rp. €4.98)

Drinks (adult treats):
• 6 bottles of 330ml blond beer – €6.96 (rp. €8.70)
• 4 cans of 330ml 0% corona – €3.70 (rp. €4.36)

We are spending a long weekend with friends and family in the netherlands, so our biweekly meals ended on thursday. Some meals were enough for a couple of days so we have been having a lot of hot meals for lunch too (heaven!). Anyway this is the list of dinners we made:
1. Salmon teriyaki with rice and salad of glass noodles, cucumber, lettuce, radish leaves, radish, seaweed and soy sesame vinaigrette. While salmon isn't the cheapest fish, if you can get it on discount it's for sure worth it. I wanted to up my salad game and i found a recipe for harusame salad (glass noodles salad). It's a nice summery salad and i added in lettuce and radish leaves to make the it even bulkier.
2. Taco with TVP and blue corn tortilla, and a side of salad with lettuce, radish leaves, cucumber, tomato, corn, jalapeno, paprika, coriander, salad cheese and lime mayo dressing. TVP (textured vegetable protein) is a great alternative to minced meat. It's dehydrated soy protein that soaks up moisture as it cooks and turns into minced meat texture. It doesn't have flavour so it's great for dishes like taco, pasta, noodles, and it's extremely cheap too! As to the salad, i got an inspiration from a post in this sub (shout out https://www.reddit.com/r/budgetfood/s/Yc74V5rp5O). Many thanks!
3. Jollof rice with tomato, jalapeno, paprika and kidney beans, and salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, corn, radish, coriander, plantain, and lemon, chilli flakes and brown sugar dressing. My first time trying to make jollof rice. We've had it before at nigerian and west african restaurants and i simply loved how flavourful it was. Tomatoes are so cheap now so it's a perfect time to try this. I blended the tomatoes, jalapeno, onions, garlic, rosemary, thyme, coriander and paprika powder to make the spice mix for the rice. And i added the plantain to my salad for the bite.
4. Indian fried chicken with fries and salad of lettuce, cucumber, paprika, radish, olives, salad cheese, and yoghurt and herb dressing. It's a tradition in our house to have fried chicken friday once a month. We love trying new fried chicken recipe and this time my partner made a south indian style fried chicken. He marinated the chicken in egg, spices and baking powder. Then he airfried the chicken and coated it in a sauce of yoghurt, ginger, spices and chili pepper. It's sooo good and such a flavour bomb!
5. Baked fusilli with tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, roquefort and shredded mix cheese, and salad with lettuce, olives, roasted courgette, radish and paprika, walnuts, and red wine vinaigrette. Easy, cheesy, cozy (?), what more could we want? The recipe calls for macaroni, but we used fusilli instead because that's what we had. It's an indulgent meal that can easily be stretched out into a couple of days meals because you really don't need a big portion to be full and happy.
6. Tom kha soup with glass noodles, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, pak choi, carrots, corn, chilli peppers, coriander, lemongrass, lime leaves and coconut milk. While the weather has been nice and warm, we did have a few rainy days inbetween. I felt like having a comforting yet light and summery soup. Tom kha is perfect because it's not heavy, and yet it's still filling and warming. I used dried shiitake mushrooms (you can find it at asian grocery stores or bulk stores) it's much cheaper than fresh shiitake. Just soak it in hot water for a bit before you cook it.
7. Stuffed courgette with tomato, egg, cheese and pine nuts, roasted potatoes and salad with lettuce, cucumber, radish, olives, carrot, corn, salad cheese and za'atar white wine vinaigrette. I found this recipe in ottolenghi's cookbook and surprisingly it's not that difficult, the hardest part was scooping out the courgette flesh without breaking the skin. I mixed the flesh with garlic, egg, a bit of cheese, breadcrumbs and tomato. And then i stirred in half a lemon, oregano and roasted pine nuts mix, leaving the other half for the toppings. It's a beautiful summer dish for those bright and warm evenings.
8. Surinamese curry with green beans, potatoes, paprika, carrots, eggs and tofu, and a side of pita bread. Surinamese curry is usually served with roti which is a sort of chickpeas based crepe, unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make it so we used the pita instead. It's not the same but the highlight was for sure the curry. My partner made a spice mix of black pepper, salt, masala, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg powder. He then cooked the potatoes and vegetables slowly with the spices and our homemade veggie broth.
9. Tagine with courgette, aubergine, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, chickpeas and couscous. Tagine is another great way to eat cheap and healthy. It's super versatile and you can use up a lot of vegetables to make a very filling meal. And now a lot of vegetables are in season so they are extra affordable. I got the spice mix for tagine, but i'm sure you can also make your own. Mine is a mix of cumin, coriander, paprika, ginger and cinnamon powder. We don't have a clay tagine, so i used a normal hob steamer for the vegetables and a sauce pan to steam the couscous.
10. Polenta with sauteed brussels sprouts, mushrooms, carrots and white beans. Last meal of the 2 weeks is always the hardest challenge because we have to use up the leftover produce. So it needs to be a flexible dish and sauteed/stir fried vegetable is one. I made polenta with homemade broth from veggie scraps and then i sauteed the vegetables with garlic, onion, paprika and cayenne pepper powder, and lemon juice. It's fresh and creamy and cheap and quick to make!
11. Kiwi and lemon yoghurt cake. Bonus food! I made this dessert because we had a surplus of yoghurt that we needed to finish before our trip. I added lemon zest to the yoghurt cake mix and then i swirled in some homemade kiwi jam we made a few months ago. It's a nice summery cake that's super easy to make. I had to try it first of course to make sure it's properly baked (wink wink), hence the cake looking like pac man 😆