Too Good to Go Bags x Cycling - Show us your hauls!

[Boopop]

The perfect combination? Low CO2 to get there, low CO2 saving food from being wasted. What could be better? I'll share two photos with you to get us off to a good start. Too Good to Go in Rome at the end of my 3 week cycling holiday from Leighton Buzzard to Rome 2 years ago. When choosing a TGTG vendor in big cities, it's handy to pick somewhere that sells only roughly one thing. "What will I get from a Pizzaria in Rome I wonder?"

Well, duh. A box of pizza - five euros 👌OK, I didn't cycle to get to this one, I walked from the hotel. I did cycle about 1,500 miles from home though overall, so I should think it counts in that sense 😉

Then there's tonight's effort. I was enjoying Road.cc's podcast with Emma Pooley so decided I had to go do something to give me an excuse to listen to the whole thing, so I went and picked up a TGTG bag on my Pashley Sovereign Princess at the other side of town.

The Asian takeaway box has a Pad Thai in it with peanuts which I'm allergic to, but other than that, all good. I can even use the limes to make some guacamole. Not sure what I'll have with the quiche...potatoes perhaps? Now I think about it I ought to cut it before it freezes 🤔

 

[matticus]

Is there a desktop version? :-/

 

[Boopop]

Is there a desktop version? :-/

Not that I'm aware of - you have to confirm your collection when you arrive anyway, so unless you can bring your desktop, wouldn't be too helpful anyway! Laptop could work if you could get wifi, but again, there's no web based version.

 

[matticus]

Not that I'm aware of - you have to confirm your collection when you arrive anyway, so unless you can bring your desktop, wouldn't be too helpful anyway! Laptop could work if you could get wifi, but again, there's no web based version.

(you should be able to do that by other means ...)
Oh dear - another SmartPhone thing. Never mind, thankyou anyway; I really like the idea of TGTG!

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I had the app installed, sadly it didn't work out for me.
Because I need to be up very early for work, I can't really set out in the evenings.
Some places were offering daytime collections, but it was during my working hours.

 

[Reynard]

I keep meaning to try it, but always end up sticking to yellow stickers. (aaah, see what I did there )

We have a yellow stickering thread HERE

 

[Boopop]

I keep meaning to try it, but always end up sticking to yellow stickers. (aaah, see what I did there )

We have a yellow stickering thread HERE

In my experience lately yellow sticker'd food is much more of a time sink than TGTG. My local Tesco used to put out things at a 75% at about 7:30/8PM every evening and then they'd leave them there. Now I think they just donate them to a local food bank instead, which is fair enough. I'm not interested in food that's only been discounted 25%, 50% is pretty good but 75% off is what I used to be able to get at Tesco.

TGTG is yes, a bit of a lucky dip, but I enjoy the novelty (much like I do with bike jumbles, car boot sales and charity shops) and you can get a lot of food for not much money. That Thai food box I got in the OP is usually worth £12 alone, I got all that food for £5. It also forces you to be a bit creative, I made a broccoli and cauliflower soup a few days ago, that was rather tasty

 

[Reynard]

In my experience lately yellow sticker'd food is much more of a time sink than TGTG. My local Tesco used to put out things at a 75% at about 7:30/8PM every evening and then they'd leave them there. Now I think they just donate them to a local food bank instead, which is fair enough. I'm not interested in food that's only been discounted 25%, 50% is pretty good but 75% off is what I used to be able to get at Tesco.

TGTG is yes, a bit of a lucky dip, but I enjoy the novelty (much like I do with bike jumbles, car boot sales and charity shops) and you can get a lot of food for not much money. That Thai food box I got in the OP is usually worth £12 alone, I got all that food for £5. It also forces you to be a bit creative, I made a broccoli and cauliflower soup a few days ago, that was rather tasty

My Tesco has become a lot more random recently, and the amount being knocked off is becoming haphazard. The days of 90% reductions are long gone alas, but I can still find enough to keep us ticking over. I work on the premise that if it's something that is ordinarily on my shopping list and is less than what I'd pay for what I'd normally buy full price, then any sort of reduction is welcome.

Waitrose and Aldi here also turn up some good buys.

I too, like the whole pot luckedness of the exercise, and as a keen cook, I can always rustle up something tasty. Just finished off a lamb tagine, where the lamb neck, chickpeas and apricots were all bought on YS, and the tomatoes (chopped, cooked and frozen) came from the garden.

Outside of things like deli, coleslaw and pastry, I don't tend to buy ready made stuff on YS. I prefer to look for ingredients. Recent good buys were a 12 oz sirloin steak, an organic lamb leg, 11 cans of chickpeas, four cans of coconut milk, 5kg of jasmine rice and 2kg each of red lentils and yellow split peas.

 

[Boopop]

Today it was Greggs - my local Greggs opened some time ago and hasn't been on TGTG other than one brief appearance. I was hoping for some filled baguettes/sandwiches, instead I've got lots of dessert! I did get four sausage rolls though. They had about five different bags and I had first dibs, I really should have rifled through them a bit more before picking! If this is now going to be a consistent thing for them I'll do that in future.

Tomorrow, similarly, a shop that rarely actually has anything has some available. I bought two because a friend at work mentioned he wanted one last time they were available.

A sweets shop! None of their food has a use by date so it baffles me that they're even on there. I think I may store it in the garage so I have to think long and hard before deciding whether it's a good idea to eat it.

Time for my dessert!

 

[Reynard]

Those doughnuts will make a lovely bread pudding if they go stale.

Mind you, doughnuts generally don't tend to keep very well...