Stocking up for bad weather

I will be mainly going to Leclerc next September!

I collect cook books, and I usually buy one when in a "foreign" country and a small dictionary - makes for great afternoons on a warm patio or terrace-last acquisition was in Catalan, but, believe it or not, I have not managed to get one in the Welsh language - sadly it would have to be very old and by association, antiquarian and very, very expensive...... I'll keep looking

Lebkuchen, along with Weihnachtstolle, they are a well established family ritual that I make in the middle of December. Now neighbours and friends want them too, could be a profit in there somewhere.

I do believe we have some Welsh recipes. Antonella (give away name) and Non (Cymru speaker) exchanged and translated some recipes that we have bilingual. I can actually only read the Italian, the other - pass.

@Brian-funny you should say that.

I once had to "teach" Italian to a group of chefs going over to Italy from Wales on an inter-college exchange.

I had the very dubious task of creating a "recipe" book of Welsh recipes IN ITALIAN!!! I still don't know how I managed it, especially as I hadn't spoken or learned Italian before I did the class-my language is Spanish.Seriously Brian, the online translators are getting really good now, so they are worth a try, as the Italians really know their tomatoes.

It's a bit of a family joke , as I eat tomatoes nearly every day..I just love them

Helen, we have an entirely recipe book for tomatoes that includes fresh, canned, dried, bottled and others no doubt. Unfortunately it is Italian and I plod through anything I have a go at, I believe it was originally late mother-in-law's handed down. Being her mother tongue, her indoors tends to hog it like a top military secret.

ILOVE Lebkuchen - my German step-grandmother send us boxes & boxes every year - we always think oh no far too many but strangely they always disappear PDQ. An adde bonus are the nice tin boxes both cylindrical & rectangular, perfect for storing treasures/photographs/bits of string & used birthday candles which are bound to come in useful some day for something (the latter because obv. I am actually Steptoe).

...............and just to prove to the disbelievers that I am not the doyenne of the TV dinner, here is my "real" larder.

Tee-hee Véro, I actually did see such a woman with a ship load of loo rolls in autumn 2010. We tend to buy two of the large packs. I will one day photograph the smirk on a cashier's face when checking them out!

Clearly have too much time on my hands this morning....

In the mixed pack of Lebkuchen, half of them are covered in a sugar "wash" - these make an excellent accompaniment to a cheese board.

Also have the Lebkuchen -love them!

I think everyone may now think I live exclusively on the food in the picture-for those who know me, I don't, but as they say "A little bit of what you fancy does you good....."

PLEASE! TELL ME! What is "boot and mush"?

Thank you Catharine & Brian ;-) I have 5 daughters so you can imagine looroll is pretty crucial... we ran out once & I vowed NEVER AGAIN

The bogroll promo is at Leclerc every autumn - they sell packs of 96 I think it is, they look like mattresses. If you're at the Bergerac la Cavaille Leclerc & see a harassed-looking short woman with a wangery trolley wheeling 3 or 4 loo-roll 'mattresses' & nothing else it'll probably be me.

I am also a big tomato fan. As a girl who is easily impressed, I am always amazed at how wonderful a tomato sauce tastes made from a cheap tin of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic salt and sugar....and a few herbs and /or chilli if you have them.

In fact, that's what I am making today to go with some Scandi - style burgers, that need to be cooked in a sauce rather than grilled. FYI, they are from LIDL, called Frikadelle, and they taste as good as my Danish friend's own recipe.

@Brian-do you freeze a lot of tomato sauce?? The reason I ask is that you can "save" space in the freezer by making a soffrito (lots of spellings for this) which is a concentrated base to add on to other things-it is an amazing amount of flavour for very little freezer room!

Véronique, snap what Catharine said. My OH delves everywhere, but never acquires that many bog rolls. For all of that, with our frequent 100 pluses, we have managed to run out!

As for the tomato, and in our case Bolognesi, sauce, it seems to be in every possible compartment of anything that is cold permanently yet transmogrifies into so many other dishes miraculously that I actually do put up with it without complaint. Mind you, both versions of tomato soup (frozen or fresh tomatoes and canned) I make are much loved, and requests for that even make me wish not to see it again for many long years!

Veronique - you are now officially my hero!! 296 rolls - wow! I thought I was a bulk shopper but you have beaten me hands down :)

'Veronique-In our family its called the "WAR CABINET" :-)

My mother in law used to live in the Black Mountains in Wales-she shopped once a fortnight, and there were no local shops.

She had her shopping off to a fine art - she had a veggie garden of course, but she had been raised there, and was well used, in an family of eight children, to making do.

She baked, and eating there was always a treat,as you never knew what you would get- baked potatoes and sausage rolls, tiny cheesy scones stuffed with extra cheese and butter, and pitta bread "sandwiches" as the sliced loaf had long gone........it all tasted wonderful, and I remember it fondly.

You sound like you have your food shopping well and truly sorted - I am still in that zone where I am mentally buying for a family of 4 when in fact its just me and my OH. I dread to think how long a 25kg sack of rice would last us!

My grannies both had war cupboards and I do too. I have lots of children so I tend to bulk-buy & stock most things anyway, but I buy fresh stuff (bread eggs veg fish meat) as needed every day on my way back from work & picking up at school.

I live in a fairly isolated house at the top of a steep hill so I buy pasta in 5 kilo bags, rice in 25 kilo sacks, fill the freezer with frozen bread, butter, plain frozen vegetables & fruit, fish, sausages & chicken, buy chopped tinned tomatoes in 5 kilo tins & freeze some in bags once the tin is open, make my own pasta sauce (1 kilo jars) in season...also giant tins of sweetcorn, sacks of onions & potatoes etc. I always have flour, golden syrup, treacle, coffee, teabags, porridge oats, etc in the larder because we like baking & my children are sniffy about packet food. We get stuck for a few days most winters (9 days last Feb) and we haven't gone hungry yet (monotonous maybe, but not hungry) and I buy milk in 5x6 pack (cartons) every week.

Oh and loo roll in the autumn promo mega-packs (got 296 rolls in Sept) I have to do that particular shop on my own as for some reason it embarrasses my daughters....

Dear Helen

I would like to apologise for Anthony's post - it is a good job that you have been a member for long enough to know that it is completely unrepresentative of usual SFN content! And for newer members, it provides a perfect illustration of why people should read our netiquette page BEFORE posting.

And Anthony, no you are not going to get 'censored' as you put it in the chat last night. As you have seen, Helen is grown up enough to have published your comment despite your sarky comment about 'free speech'. SFN is all about (polite) free speech. It is also a free to use site. We don't charge you to belong and in that context, I would be very careful about posting "Go back home" type comments. They are not helpful or constructive and are quite likely to lead to a permanent ban.

Have a nice day everyone. Torrential rain forecast here so I will mainly be eating toast and marmite by the fire :)

@ Anthony murphy , Wow Anthony you use De Walt products? You really have been taken in by all their marketing Bollo**s. Ca vaut rien.