cheaper cuts of meat

I also use lamb neck for stews. I find the meat really tender and very flavoursome. Can get 3lbs for £2.99 in the local butcher, and as there's only 3 of us, it does for two sets of meals.

I was brought up on stews and basic OS cooking. Mum used to use skirt as well as lamb necks in stews, and sometimes there'd be a bit of kidney thrown in there as well. Kidney's quite cheap and helps keep the cost down a bit. Another thing my mum cooked on a regular basis was liver and onions in onion gravy. Absolutely delicious with mashed potatoes and carrots. Ox liver seems to be the cheapest. A good sized pack which does for 3 of us was only 45p in Morrisons. I throw in a couple of sausages as well, and there's three of us with full tummies for about £1.50

For a joint of meat, you can't go wrong with a shoulder of pork. It's cheap enough to have for Sunday dinner, then what's left you can have with chips for tea Monday, or take to work on sandwiches.
Lamb's liver is gorgeous, cooked in gravy with onions, serve with a big huge pile of mash and some cabbage.
Lamb ribs I get from Morrisons, very cheap and make a lovely stew, pack it out with carrots, onions etc.
Belly chops are nice done in a barbeque sauce, all men love it for some barmy reason, it's like caveman food they can eat with their fingers.

This might help...
there's guide for beef, pork,lamb,etc. if you click on each part of the animal it show's you what the cut of meat looks like and tells you how to cook it (i.e. roast, stew,etc)

http://thefoody.com/basic/basicmeats.html

Hello!

If your local library has a copy of 'The River Cottage Meat Book' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that has a very useful guide and lots of recipes:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Cottage-Meat-Book/dp/0340826355

You can also search the BBC Food website by keyword to find recipe ideas, eg:

oxtail:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/food/recipes/queryengine?templatestyle=refine_by_1_gg&orig_kw=oxtail&config=db&scope=recipes&page=1&pagesize=15&attrib_26=keywords&oper_26=eq&val_26_1=%2Boxtail&search=Search

pork belly:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/food/recipes/queryengine?templatestyle=refine_by_1_gg&orig_kw=pork+belly&config=db&scope=recipes&page=1&pagesize=15&attrib_26=keywords&oper_26=eq&val_26_1=%2Bpork+%2Bbelly

I am not a huge fan of offal (liver, kidneys, heart, tripe, etc) , so my favourite cheaper cuts are pork belly (for roasting), scrag of lamb (for Irish stew) and shin of beef and oxtail for stews/casseroles/daubes.

Don't be afraid to ask your butcher though - any decent one will be very helpful and friendly.

Thanks for adding my question to this thread, Penny - I obviously didn't search hard enough before posting! And thank you for all the suggestions. Lots of long, slow cooking is ahead, I think, along with a BBQ sauce belly pork treat for the OH.

The Foody link is great - at least I can now identity which part of the animal all these weird bits come from. And I'll definitely get the River Cottage Meat Book out of the library.

Thanks again - I'm off to read and make notes on the rest of this thread now.