Good & Cheap

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I do love a bargain: we don't shop at Waitrose that often these days, at least since I retired - it was all too easy to drop a hundred quid in there when I was working - but I wanted some more loose teas and there isn't much local purchase choice in that department. So we went over there this afternoon in a brief break in the appalling weather we've got today.

We were looking for some lamb mince to make some minty burgers, as we no longer have a meat grinder to do it ourselves - something I think I'll remedy via eBay - but they didn't have any. However, there was a large, sealed bag labelled free-range belly pork going for half price. As you can see from the label, there's about seven and three-quarter pounds of rather fine meat at the ridiculous price of £6.53: around 0.85p/lb and enough food there to feed eight people at one sitting or around three to four meals plus cold cuts for the two of us.

Alongside the joint (which I've cut to provide tomorrow's meal and frozen the remaining two-thirds of the piece) are some parsnips picked up for free at Tesco, where I was picking up a replacement electric kettle: there were boxes and boxes of just on date parsnips free for the taking; so I grabbed a bag to go with tomorrow's belly pork.

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