Grow Your Own Magazine

Just wondering really because I do . When these basic range of products first appeared at Tesco, I was horrified but now my grocery shopping wouldn't be complete without them. Here are my favourite that I think are excellent value and quality still acceptable. These are however Sainsbury which I find are always superior in quality to Tesco's. If you have any more recommendations, I'd be pleased to hear of it as I believe I haven't tried everything yet .

Product Range I like
Baked Beans (taste better than Heinz!)
Tinned Chopped Tomatoes
Tinned Kidney Beans
Sweet Pickle (DH insists on having this but I don't eat!)
Crunchy Peanut Butter
Sliced Beetroot in jar
Dried Skimmed Milk
Packet Noodles
Big pack of Sweet Peppers
Big pack of Parsnips (not big pack of carrots as the qty is too big for us)
Big pack of ordinary Potatoes
Full flavoured Chedder Cheese (very big pack)
Frozen Prawns/shrimps
Frozen White fish fillet
Tortilla Chips
Crumpets
Cream cleaner
Yet to try Sweet & Sour sauce in jar

Tried these but didn't like
Tinned Sweetcorn
Tinned Tomato or Chicken soup
Gravy granules
Long Grain Rice (still prefer Basmati rice)
Custard cream biscuit or most biscuit
Pasta sauce in jar
Choc Ice
don't feel comfortable with any meat product!

I'm sure I've missed something but that's about it.

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Food for Free

How can you compare Long Grain to Basmati it's like comparing Tea to Coffee.

I tend to buy own brands when they are ingreadents in a meal rather than the meal, so and baked beans when its for Shepards Pie but beans on toast it has to be Heinz.

Did use to buy all my cleaning stuff at Lidl it was way cheaper but now we use ECO balls so don't buy any.

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My phone has more Processing power than the Computers NASA used to fake the Moon Landings

Don't buy many 'value' lines any more - many moons ago we used to buy lidl baked beans at 8p (?) a tin and rinse the sauce off to use them as haricot!

One of the things it seems with some value products is that they have less 'un-necessary added ingredients'? (cheaper not to mess about with them?)

Oh I've remembered, we do have value range tins of 'mushy peas', I've never seen an organic version?

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I think the baked beans have improved over the years surely. I now can't stand Heinz, too thick that it feels like you can't swallow them. The value ones are 20p per can.

Yes the value ones are actually less fattening (perhaps healthier) than the normal and premium range according to Dispatch program! Funnily enough I don't really use much of the listed stuffs I buy because I'm a freaky eater. The good thing about value lines is that the savings will enable you to indulge in 'Taste the Difference' range .

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Food for Free

I'd have thought so, if they're 20p now they must have?

We tend to be more concerned nowadays with salt content (we mainly buy organic stuff).

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I usually buy the value loo roll (after all it all gets flushed). I always check the labels against the one I would purchase and compare values for foods. The value ice cream can often be less fattening than the cornish or whatever, and usually tastes just as good - specially if you are serving it on an apple pie or crumble.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Oops just remembered - we use Sains value loo-roll its recycled and quite soft.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I find there is less paper dust with the value stuff.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

We get an awful lot of stuff thats blue and white. Tend to buy spuds by the sack because we go through loads! The savoury rice packets are quite nice.

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I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

http://hollandsroadparadise.blogspot.com
updated 14 May 2008

www.bradleyroundtwo.blogspot.com

From Sainsburys: Value juice (apple, orange and breakfast): find it's fine for day to day, but splurge for special occasions and pay through the nose for the freshly squeezed Taste the Difference. Also buy tinned kidney beans (11p?): bargain and occasional tinned fruit.
Not much I'm afraid.

The only 'value' product I get is loo roll. Mr F calls it Badger's @rse!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

Don't use the supermarkets if I can help it so not really an issue for me. Also, OH would do his nut if I bought value loo roll (yes I know it only gets flushed), finds it too thin and is paranoid about his fingers going through...........

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Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

I had the misfortune to read a publication that listed the pesticides,herbicides,all-of-the-cides in supermarket veg(these are chemicals that the supermarkets insist on to get the regulation pretty fruit and veg!!) and can't bring myself to buy them now(wish I'd never seen it!)
However I do buy Lidl's washing powder,olive oil,bog roll,tins of pilchards,booze.
Oddly enough,we are to have a Lidl store in our village.Had Tesco,Asda,Sainsbury,Morrison tried to open a store there would have been outrage,petitions,demonstrations!! But we are all so excited at the thought of Lidls.
Work that one out if you can

Same in my house... Also do find that non basic last longer. Probably because OH and kids dont use so much as it is thicker.

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Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful..William Morris

I don't buy any Heinz products since they closed down the HP factory in Birmingham. Have found Daddies sauce a good replacement.

Branston baked beans are infinitely superior, and at 99p for a four tin pack are much cheaper. Branston also do a great tomato ketchup and brown sauce.

Regarding loo rolls, our local Netto frequently has very good offers on Andrex products.

One of my old schoolteachers reckoned I had 'too lively an imagination'. Recycled toilet rolls No can do!!

valmarg

I only occasionally get to Sainsbury's (usually Newry, but a quick dash around the one near Ikea in belfast a few weeks back) but I have a few things that I keep an eye out for when I am there:

Basics -
Tinned tomatoes (18p a tin - much cheaper and as good as the varieties "down south")
Tortilla chips - not only are they much cheaper, but taste as good as M&S but a far better pack size for us too (M&S ones can be sitting with an airtight clip for more than 6 months)
Various beans in tins
Garlic bread

I also get some of their non-basic items:
Taste the Difference spicy onion chutney (oh yum - and I forgot to get it last time so will be out of it for a couple of months....)
TTD Pesto
Chair de tomates
Small tin of tomatoes and herbs
Tin ptomato puree (lots cheaper than down here)
Small tin plain tomatoes (can't get small tins and occasionally don't need a large one)
Extra large tins tomatoes (also can't get down here and easier and cheaper than 2 regular tins when doing double batches of stuff)

And then there are other things that aren't Sainbury's own brands but can't be got here either:
Princes tinned tuna with dressings
John West tin prawns
JW tins shrimp
JW tins cockles
Walkers baked crisps

And I can't remember the rest now. But it' not just for the value that I make my couple of trips a year.

Never tried the value juice yet. Yeah, I forgot the tinned fruits, peach actually but not pineapple chunks. Tinned kidney beans must the best buy surely.

LOL! Yikes, I know what he means!

I agree that stuffs like Olive Oil (esp extra virgin grade) are cheaper in budget supermarkets and also some do weird and wonderful continental foodstuffs that you don't pay exclusive price for.

That's a good deal for branded baked beans for 99p. Sometimes it cheaper to buy the branded stuffs at budget supermarkets like Netto, Lidl and Aldi.

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Food for Free

Just a point about Value juice - they are generally 'made from concentrate' (look at the small print) which I understand knocks out a whole heap of the vit C so it's not remotely as good for you as 'proper' juice.

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sun 30/11/2008......Indoor Allotmenteering too!.....

Now I remember, I've also tried the garlic bread before, perfectly acceptable quality, no point buying the normal range. Their plain tortilla is actually more authentic to what the Mexicans eat and therefore better for dipping with Mexican dips.

For Taste the Difference, we like their exclusive sausages (most Italian & French style) but my DH said the Angus beef sausages tasted like eating beef burgers! We've discovered that their 'Morrocan style humous' is something to to die for. Once we tried their TTD patotoes, it was way out of this world but the pototo variety wasn't specified on the packaging. I also like TTD curry sauces in jar for the main reason that they're completely different to the usual Indian dishes (korma, tikka masala, madras, duopiaz etc). I'm sure there are more but can't remember.

For exclusive crisps (away from Walker), try the Kettle Chips and now they also sell Tyrell (more like gourmet stuff) but the Walker's own exclusive crisps I find, are still quite lousy in texture and taste too salty.

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