*Afterthoughts & Addenda* *'Most Expensive' variation* - I truly appreciate all the creative suggestions people are offering for variations on this challenge. I'm sorry, I don't think a 'most expensive in category' would be a good idea in practice. Money is for spending, sure, and spending extra on what you desire is a good thing, where it's possible but 'RU-vidr sets out to waste money on purpose, because he can' never quite sits right with me.
2 (ISH) years ago I bought a 500g bag of mung beans. Ive sprouting bean sprouts ever since perfect for stur fry.. Only just ran out yesterday Need to purchase more Could be a video idea?? Oh if you allow forging, more seaweed.. although I think you've too far from the coast now and rock samphire is illegal to pick (maybe, so I hear) Peace and love ❤️
@@tonyoliver4920 Mung bean porridge is also a great dish (never a fan of bean sprouts), something from my part of the world. It's a sweet dish, usually eaten for a light meal like afternoon tea.
Maybe something similar to what Barry lewis does, 'cheap vs steep' where you try to find which ingredients are worth spending a little more on to get better bang for your buck. maybe along with the normal 'cheap' products you can choose one premium one too.
I remember the time when you could go into a supermarket with a fiver in your pocket and walk out with a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine. You can't do that these days, there's too many cameras.
At least Kay doesn't feed her creations to the public. An american "cooking" chanel "Cooking with Jack" fed 14 month old, frostbitten, rotten brisket to a church chili cook off.
He does seem to have some culinary flair and he's not afraid to mix some unusual foods together. I'm not sure why he's always surprised at how well his meals turn out.
I would love for you to do this again and add another ingredient container type that is super common in the supermarket. The bag. It could be chips, flour, spices, candy, etc. Tons of stuff comes in bags.
ooooooo interesting idea!! but maybe flours and sugars should be disqualified, those huge and dense bags would absolutely kill all competition in price for weight, and probably dominate the entire days cooking a bit much.
@@martenmaarten Sugar would probably be to expensive, and as I live in the US I don't know how flour price compares to other things. So limiting it might be a thing.
There's a super tasty Korean green onion pancake called pajeon. The main ingredients are simple and cheap, so if you have excess green onions or you want a tasty vegetable dish but can't afford much, green onions are a great veg option. Maangchi has made pajeon on her channel before, so check her videos out if you'd like to make it.
@@JohnDlugosz the Chinese counterpart has more flour compared to the Korean pancakes, which has more eggs. They both go well with soy sauce and chili oil 🤤
i love that every time i see the ingredients i think "theres not even one meal there" and then you come up with the most creative ways to make good meals. Helps me with using stuff I have in rather than ordering take away.
One of the things I've learned from watching you and a number of other "budget challenge" cooking videos is that there isn't any "correct" way to combine ingredients, so long as you like the result. The twice-baked potatoes with everything seemed like throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, but it all makes its own sense as it went together. Always resourceful and brave with your dishes, and I appreciate that!
This feels like the most relatable challenge to me! Rather than a specific budget I just buy the cheapest thing of whatever I need, its fun seeing you do this!
It would be easy for me. Where I live there's quite a large Islamic community, so most of the shops have loads of vegetables, spices & herbs at really agreeable prices. There's a lot of Caribbean places too. I'll never go hungry living around here.
I think it would be an interesting shake up to follow this up with the inverse, after doing budget cooking for so long I wonder how you'd deal with a chaotic group of luxurious items
@@hdbordercollie He admitted he made a mistake by doing it late, and choosing a BP garage and having to supplement 1GBP at a Morrisons. He should redo it and pick a location more suited to what Too Good To Go was intended.
Tartare sauce for potato salad is an inspired shout. I always struggle to use up tartare sauce when I buy a jar for fish and chips or scampi. Now I have an option!
Please keep making these, as a student on a tight budget with a newfound addiction to making cheap healthy food quickly I've particularly used the "16p buns" among other things like soups etc to add to my personal cookbook. Another great video, keep it up :)
If you haven't already, I'd love to see a challenge where you set a time period and see how long you can create meals using what's already in your stores. I do this every February as part of our annual Austerity February exercise where we eliminate all non-essential spending for the month as kind of a reset after the holiday season. I really enjoy trying to use up items in the pantry and freezer and seeing how little I can spend on additional grocery items. It becomes more difficult as the month goes on, but I love the challenge.
When I do that it's usually involuntary. I've been in situations that were like advanced editions of Ready, steady..cook. I've found myself attempting to create a meal from an egg that may be on the turn, a pinch of ground Cinnamon and half a bottle of Lucozade.
good idea but mr shrimp seems to me like he has loads of wares frozen, dried and stashed away, plus a flourishing garden, so I doubt it would even be a challenge for him
Really like the idea of seeing more “budget” challenges modelled on this, rather than the monetary limit ones. As you say, this yielded a much more interesting set of ingredients, a bit like the random selection one or ambient vegan challenge. I think a financial limit works best when it is a slightly higher amount over more days, like the £5 for 5 days one, but that’s a lot of work. This style is very interesting and has given me a few ideas for my own cooking going forwards; I’ll definitely not just pour away mozzarella water anymore. Thanks Shrimp!
Next one you should add a math rule on the price like has to start with 0.20 or even etc. + maybe a total price. Or do a dice D10 roll for each category and that sets the first 2 digits, reroll if impossible.
I have to admit, I get one thing all the time from your cooking videos. The courage to experiment. What do I mean? As a single guy I pretty much have the same 7 day meal schedule. Breakfast is a couple of pieces of bacon and 2-3 (depending on hunger) eggs in a basket, cooked in the bacon grease. Lunch is leftovers from the night prior (always cook a double portion). Dinner one of 7 meals. Like a simple ramen stirfry with sausage and frozen mixed veggies. Snacks are everything from an apple to chips to candy. But, watching you do stuff with food I couldn't even dream of, well, makes me want to experiment and change up my menu. Look for things that I normally would pass up and try to see how I can add them into my weekly meals. Like, this past week I bought brie cheese to go on fuji apples. Something I wouldn't have thought of doing anytime in the past.
Hi Shrimp. Chef here, I've found the easiest way to tackle a pomegranate is to cut out the stem, cut into quarters, then holding a piece seeds side down in your hand, beat the absolute hell out of the skin side with a wooden spoon 😊 love watching your alternative creative process with these videos!
I wanted to keep this tip for myself and loved ones as hardly anyone knows about this... Just use a strong magnet, there's a fair bit of metal in them seeds. (You're welcome!)
Once upon a time, Mr Shrimp used a die to choose which foods to use. I enjoyed it very much. Lovely channel. Sorry for my bad English, I'm old and had to learn English myself.
The Bossa Nova muzak playing while you shop has somehow become a part of my psyche, despite sounding like a Casio keyboard. The prices being above the shelf felt so wrong. Great video Mike!
You should see the cashiers in Romanian Lidl roll their eyes when you want a return because a product had a different price: "The price is placed above but aaaanywaaaaay"
Hey, don't knock Casio. I've got an MT 40 keyboard. It's awful but it's not without it's charm. Also one of my main wristwatches is Casio F-91w, the original water-resistant sports watch.
This gave me the crazy idea of doing a challenge buying the cheapest item from every aisle in a store. Could really require a lot of creativity like this since youre locked into items that may or may not go together
I love the fact you change the rules a little bit, but not too much, every now and then. It keeps the challenges I love, with new angles and interesting ideas, and as such it allows me to keep enjoying these in a new way.
Atomic Shrimp does a cooking challenge = immediate watch. This was great, really loved how the changed parameters really pushed you into doing something different. Would love to see more of these (and am very tempted to give this a go myself).
Very interesting, because you learn how to mange your money and make up new recipes at the same time, for young people this is a must to watch, thanks, now I need to compare pounds to Australian dollars, and provably there is nothing here as cheap as that.
@@AtomicShrimp I wish you did have Patreon! You've brought so much joy to my life, cheered me up when I'm feeling down, got me through an actual global pandemic, and so much more - I would love to be able to show my support in other ways than just views, and I guarantee I'm not alone on that!
yess! this challenge was so good! my thoughts: I am surprised that the lack of a limited budget inspired more creativity, I personally would not have expected that at all. I'm also glad to learn that pomegranate is versatile as it was, I had that marked as "the weakest link" of your haul and was pleasantly surprised! I don't think you messed up with the cheese moisture at all, that was a smart move and I think dinner would have been a fail if you hadn't done that. I second your idea for revisiting the potato skins and an emphatic YES! to a revisit of this challenge, i like the idea of doing it at another store or doing the same store but switching catergories, either is fine. I would like to see the return of random selection of herbs and spices, if you are still interested in that concept. I thought it was fun and i think for fairness you could decide the choices for the draw after the shop so you don't get really weird selections. I still love the limited challenge videos, but I'm glad you were able to make this concept as well as you did. Anyway, thank you for making the video! oh ps: i understand the omission of salt this time was an accident, but i think in the future it should always be available like normal.
I have missed your limited budget videos so much. Thank you for this. I love how you change up the parameters as well, it really does keep things fresh and interesting.
Really nice how a slight change in rules ended up with ingredients we never normally see here (the pomegranate for example!). The "cheapest jar" being awkward because there are jars scattered around the supermarket makes me think a restriction like "the cheapest item per aisle" could be fun. Or even "the first thing alphabetically in each aisle". Or "one thing beginning with each letter of the alphabet". As always, incredibly inspiring. Thank you : )
Have you been watching Taskmaster? There have been several tasks over the years where the contestant had to come with with 26 ingredients - one for each letter of the alphabet and then assemble them into some sort of meal/dish. Usually with disastrous results, but I think there were some good outcomes. Of course, Mr. Shrimp would have more than 10 minutes to think of his ingredients.
I really dislike supermarkets that no longer sell loose fruit and veg. As a single person why would I need 20 carrots,or a bag of sweaty damp parsnips? Our local co-op has started doing it. It also means I have to stand there feeling each fruit through a layer of plastic to detect the token rotten one. And plastic,plastic,bally PLASTIC!!!!!!!! OK I'm finished now.🤐
Here’s another video idea. Using “scraps”. Like going into a butcher and getting the things people don’t buy like bones and offal. Then using up potato skins, carrot ends etc things you’d usually compost throughout the week. Taking leftovers and making something new.
Oh God I have been waiting for a video of this series. I discovered them a couple of months ago and watched all of them. This is the first I will watch on release and I am: excited. I have been thinking of doing a challenge of sorts myself for a week with my partner, adjusting the price to Sweden and seeing what is feasible and what not.
I've seen in other videos that you use the little glass jar things Nutella comes in as glasses. The soft plastic lids of those just so happen to fit on top of standard sized tins perfectly, and are a useful reusable way to keep the contents of partially opened tins covered up and fresh in the fridge.
Really enjoyed this episode! Definitely try this challenge again for a different store as you will get different results - I bought a pack of cooked beetroot today at Sainsburys for 31p which would have been your cheapest veg. The pomegranate with pate was a clear winner. Our family always puts fresh fruits with our meats. Pear with smoked salmon is worth trying if you haven't already. :)
At some point it would be interesting to see you revisit your budget favorites as upscale - or at least not constrained - meals, where you take the weird things you've created and make nicer versions of them.
Food challenge (and cooking in general) are my favorite, followed closely by gardening. While I love watching the challenges, I can’t do them myself, but I do love a solid recipe. I made the butternut squash recipe you baked, and it was the first thing my future mother in law and I baked together. It’s a delicious bread, and made for a wonderful time with her!
I’m blessed to have a pomegranate bush on my property for which I anxiously await them to ripen each year. They are very nutritious and very versatile. Great to see that you enjoyed it. I live in New Mexico USA.
I'v been a regular customer at Lidl (Germany) for over 20 years and I have never seen this kind of variety and product selection, you guys in GB have it good!
Pomegranate syrup is used a lot in turkish cuisine. It's sweet, sour, spicy and slightly bitter sich does make it even more universally usable in all kinds of dishes :D
I was reading a story today Mike,about a man that bought one of those food bags from Aldi for £3.30. He was amazed to find in the bag, a Korean Beef with Rice, and 33 blocks of cheese! Yes 33!
Great video as always😊 You could also do a rainbow challenge. I just recently saw a video explaining, that in old paintings they would only use the three colours red, yellow and blue. But when Newton got into researching light with prisms he differentiated the light into 7 colours (of course there are a million nuances). So the rainbow challenge would be 7 food items each in one of the 7 colours of the rainbow. An additional 2 items if you take white and black e.g.. The colours could be the packaging or the food item itself to get more variety and the chance of getting a decent amount of the three macronutrients. I think it would be fun to search for items that make a rainbow but at the same time being some reasonable ingredients.
When you were trying to focus the camera, I thought you were offering us a seat and I was ready to take it 😭😂 because the food looks so good especially that lunch!! Wow I'm watering at the mouth watching this and I'm currently eating dinner. You never cease to surprise me with your content and I really enjoy watching these food challenges. 🥰🙏 :)
Never ceases to amaze me your ability to make seemingly nonsensical ingredient combinations work together. I learn a lot about ingredient versatility from you
Im just so shook on how cheap the food is there. A can of veggie for 19p?? 99 cents for a sale can here, notmally 1.50$. Pomegranate is on sale here for two for five dollars. Thats the sale price.... Just crazy the price difference. Love your videos, great work. Thank you.
We may have a few bargains in certain food categories, here in the UK, we get screwed in almost every other area of living. I'd gladly trade with most people and can't wait to leave this miserable shitehole of a country.
I admire how you managed to incorporate every last bit of usable food you had available here, feels really satisfying in a way that nothing good has to go to waste. Even the mozzarella brine that most people would just dump straight down the drain can come in handy.
Your budget vids aren't just entertaining but useful too - they allow us to choose cheap but quality items and make delicious meals out of it all! Just the other day, I found imitation crab at a dollar store. I made low-carb, high-protein ramen using sale shirataki noodles, sale fresh taragon, sale canned sardines, sale hamburger, sale seaweed, the imitation crab, and I mixed two packets found in traditional ramen (spicy beef and beef pho). The amount of soup I made could've fed 2-3 people, tasted great, cost less than $4 USD total, and was the amount you'd get at a restaurant for $20. Of course, I was selfish and instead of sharing with 2-3 people, I ate it myself😆
I'm emigrating to the UK in about a month from Canada. Your videos are remarkabky helpful as I'll be on a very limited budget and need to be creative with ingredients. Thank you for uploading. ❤
Thank you for doing these - not to downplay everything else you do, but these are my favorite kinds of videos from you, because they showcase how to think creatively with food and try different things, and to be more economical with what otherwise would be considered 'waste' (I'd never have thought to save cheese water, for instance, or bits of fat and oil and the like before I started watching these). This time, I paused the video after you'd listed all the items and tried to think about what kinds of dishes *I* could whip up with this assortment of ingredients. I'm afraid I wasn't half as inventive as you; Nevertheless, I'd like to thank you for getting me to think about food prep differently in the last few years.
This was actually a really good idea, and probably relatable for a lot of people. Not having a specific number budget per day/week, but just trying to buy cheap items, and seeing what you can do with them. So thank you for making that. And this type of challange would be nice to see again. Speaking of seeing again, I know you say you want to bring something new to the videos, but some of your ideas have been really nice, and really worth revisiting. Like, that one challange videos where you rolled dice, and went along with the randomness of the dice rolls. I would really love to see you do something like that again. It was a really neat concept, and you can really make your creativity shine through with that.
i got my wisdom teeth out yesterday and am going thru it, but i am so happy to have your content to fall back into. Of course, I'm quite jealous of eating real food 🤣 i miss bread so badly already, but the calmness and sweetness of your content is just such a special treat. I discovered you years ago from the scambaiting content and am so glad I started watching your other videos. Your cooking videos are by far my favorites! Thank you for making such comforting yet interesting content. I hope someday to cook so freely like you do, but I know that will take practice and an openness to accept failures while learning, something I struggle with. Your content is so nice to watch while im biting down on my gauze and just passing the time. Thank you!
What a delightful video! I feel like in this one you were genuinely having fun. There's no one else I'd rather watch, glee and giggles, eat an entire jar of tartar sauce
Ugh, you’ve reminded me how much I love cold sweet rice pudding with cinnamon in the cold deli section, sold in single cups like a large yoghurt or small parfait.
This channel is without doubt my favourite on RU-vid, no donations/patreon etc and a mix of content that appeals to a nerd like me. The fact it’s just some guy like us videoing nerdy stuff he likes but better than we could ourselves? What a channel. I always look forward to an atomic shrimp upload. He’s what a content creator on RU-vid should be. Like a throwback now though sadly. However he does prove it’s possible. Thank you atomic shrimp for your content and “keeping it real”
Atomic Shrimp video’s always calm me down and inspire me. Especially the budget and cooking videos, and of course the garden vids. I do a garden every year as well.
This was for me a very successful variation on the “shopping for cheap” theme. I definitely want to see you do it in different shops, and the loaded potato skins theme also needs a revisit. Thank you for giving me ideas that I never would have thought of.
I'd like to see a pound store shop. People in the US do dollar tree challenges quite a bit. But most of our stores do not sell veg by the pound like mushrooms and things. Mostly it comes pre packed in 2/3/5/10 pound packs. But one lady does do a $10 for a week to feed her husband and herself from dollar tree. It was very interesting and eye opening. Our dollar stores have jumped to $1.25 now. It might be interesting to see if going to a regular store and only buying items $1(or $1.25)might be fun too. I also saw that dollar general has a whole aisle with $1 deals. From food to toilet paper. Of course tho all in US
grocery shopping can be a meditative experience and a problem solving exercise. It's always nice when you can buy what you want but there's satisfaction in finding creative solutions. Thank you for sharing your process with us, as always.
@@abegarfield7031 I don't mind the shopping itself, it's doing it on a tight budget that I don't like. I need a list every time, otherwise I forget stuff too.
I really love and appreciate this account. Like the varried ideas, not overedited and like hectic, it's actually damn relaxing to watch. Also, nice narration, interesting concepts that go with my personal interests. I really don't comment much, because I am tired, but genuinly, this account gives me what I crave. Informatic videos, in an entertaining yet 'gentle' setting. With data to back it up. So yeah. I like!
I get that same pate and it's really nice. I always like to get to Lidl early morning because their bakery section runs out of the best stuff early, plus it's had fewer people breathing all over it.
I love this conceptual take on the “limited budget” videos. Like you’ve said repeatedly, these are about stretching your culinary skills, and having an opportunity to use different ingredients than you usually do was a great change! I love it!
This is such a comforting video, the expectations are so low there is nothing to be disappointed about, there is nothing special, yet this is such a pleasure to watch. Immensely relaxing, but not in a boring way.
I'm always really impressed by your resourcefulness with these! You really know how to extract a lot from a little - and none of these meals feel 'lesser' or like compromises given how restrictive the challenge terms are. And you get such brilliant inventions as pomegranate, green onion, and tartar relish (though I'm not sure it'll catch on) Your encounter with supermarket pricing is similar to what I get irritated by - if I'm trying to buy the cheapest X, having four different ways of presenting the same price is really annoying and means I have to guess. I'll be charitable and say it's hard to calculate to a single measurement (such as by gram) rather than it being a malicious attempt to make it harder to spend less.
I’m so so so so so happy you posted another of these challenges- I love your content but these are always my favourite! Perfect for moving back to university and looking after myself.
That was interesting to watch, and for fun, I priced each item that you bought, as best I could, here...in Nova Scotia, Canada. (prices in CAD, but according to currency convertor is = $16.45 UK pounds) pomegranate=$4.49, spring onions = $1.79, 2 baking potatoes @ $1.78=$3.56, roll (bagel) = $0.89, 200g mozzarella = $3.50, pork & ham pate 150g= $5.49,rice pudding 400g = $3.99, tartar or horse radish 250g = $4.49. Total is $28.20 CAD I know, our products would be different, if we used the same guideline you used, but thought you might be interested in our prices
I'm shouting "get the chorizo get the chorizo " I make a fabulous hash with fried onions , leftover potatoes and a packet of chorizo with fajita seasoning served in a bowl with the cheapest tin of tomatoes I can find, it's yummy. Well done on all your cooking. Lots of ideas x
Hi Shrimp, loved the video and this format for budget challenges. You mentioned at the end trying out this format in different shops, and I wanted to suggest doing this in an international supermarket. I think it could be interesting to try out new ingredients, similar to the appeal of weird stuff in a can, and would make an interesting video
Im so glad you posted. I had the worst day but saw you posted a food challenge video and it has cheered me right up 😊 Please keep making these videos ❤
love watching these cause when I'm on a budget I suddenly lose all creativity, but youve made so many fantastic meals just off the top of your head, and with so many restrictions, its so impressive and inspiring!
For some reason, blocks of low moisture mozzarella are very difficult to find in the UK. What isn't difficult to find is sliced mozzarella, which IS low moisture mozzarella. All you need to do is stick it in the freezer for 10 minutes, and it becomes very easy to grate, and you don't have to deal with the pregrated stuff they cover in corn starch.
Thoroughly enjoyed this twist on your cooking budget challenge series. Would be interesting to see this cheapest item concept repeated with only frozen items.
I don't have any spring onions but do have some leeks growing in a container/large-ish pot outside my flat planted them three or four years ago and they are still growing as I just cut a few tops off of them as needed which allows the bulbs to continue growing. I guess they could be called perpetual leeks. Also has some wild garlic in a pot and can't wait for them to start growing in a few months time! Leeks are getting a little sparse now (as sometimes accidentally I've pulled some up rather than cutting the tops) so maybe time to plant a few more seeds, maybe in another pot.
I love how this series has been evolving over time, from simple financial restrictions to more experimental limitations! Something I like to do (though am unsure of whether it could carry an entire day's worth of meals on its own) whenever I go shopping is buy the items that people have picked up but put back in the wrong place. If I can't see where the item should go, I put it in my basket. For me, it adds a little fun & mystery to the weekly shop and has gotten me to try some foods that I wouldn't have ordinarily picked up. Plus it has the added benefit of helping the shop workers out by saving them from having to spend their time tidying up after people and putting things back where they belong!
I really love the randomness and creativity of these videos! Suggestion/idea for another, randomly generate a maximum spend limit for each category (similar to this video or maybe the standard Carbs protein etc). Whatever the next challenge (or even video tbh) its bound to be enjoyable, thank you for continuing to make these videos =D
dude i don't know what it is about your content but i swear , my brain was going in overdrive and i could feel myself calming down just chilling with you while you did your thing, thank you for sharing!
Great video as always! However, as somebody that eats pomegranate everyday, I looked on in horror when you stuck the knife straight through the middle. 😂 definitely use a bowl of water and segment it into five next time 👍👍
