Needing Inspiration!!!

the, well i think the secret here is going to be three square meals a day.. the idea being that if you are eating properly, then you wont want/need to snack in between meals.

breakfast - bowl of cereal, slice of toast, piece of fruit, a small yoghurt, and a drink - water/milk/juice/tea/coffee. as money is tight, it will probably have to be a case of value bread, or go late at night to get the yellow stickered better stuff. if you spot a bargain, buy extra and freeze. own brand muffins/crumpets are normally around 20p a pack, and will make a nice change.

dinners - for your OH sandwiches will be easiest and cheapest. its sounds like you've let him get away with a lot of convenience food of late because of the nature of his work. well you cant afford it at the mo, so he'll have to eat sarnies or go hungry. freeze a bottle of water to act as an ice pack to keep it cool and fresh, and he can drink it as it thaws.

for you and ben - jacket potatoes, things on toast, sarnies.. something to fill the hole.

right then, main meals...

your veggie soup - serve with bread to make it go further. can you buy some cheap, plain noodles to add (to bulk it out and make it more filling? or perhaps some lentils?) failing that, add some pasta broken down into smaller pieces.

sauce to go with pasta... tin of tomatoes, or a jar of passata (sieved tomatoes, so the sauce is runnier. i prefer these, as they go further). chopped onion and garlic. what you add from there depends on what you have in.. tuna, chopped bacon, chopped tinned hotdogs is popular in our house (dont all shoot me at once fellow OSers ), veggies if you can get them with your healthy start vouchers. serve with pasta and a little bit of grated cheese.

the chicken... if you serve it in meals where the amount of chicken used isnt so obvious, it should go much further. think stir fry, chicken crumble (like chicken pie but with a crumble topping), curry, pasta bake.. all the types of meals where stringy or small bits of chicken are less likely to cause offence to those who think a meat portion should cover a quarter of the plate :rolleyes:

plain flour - can be used to make a batter. this can be used for pancakes - sweet or savoury, or toad in the hole

mince - if you go to town on bulking it out (lentils, loads of veg, lots of sauce etc) you may just about get away with using two 200g portions instead of one 400g portion (and hence get more meals out of it. not ideal, but you're skint and need to eat). this can be used to make chilli con carne, spag bog, cottage pie etc

will post this then go have another look at your list...

You've got swede, carrots and onions and stock cubes so buy some lentils and you have yourself cheap lentil soup, filling and nutritious (could OH take some in a flask to work?), I use lentils for a lot and make a lentil bolognese type thing which you can have with pasta or baked potato or add some kidney beans and chilli and you have a veggie chilli, add some curry powder and you have dahl type thing.

With the Bramleys you could make a crumble and you have loads of custard too.

As someone has said try and stretch that chicken as far as it will go. You could do a variation of a meal I make which puts leftover chicken on a bed of brocolli and some sweated onions and cover with a sauce, you could just make a white sauce and mustard or soemthing to flavour it, I usually crunch up a bag of crisps as a topping and then grate cheese and bake until bubbly. Yum

Toad in the hole with some of your sausages

Cake mix - make it up and have with custard or make into a wee trifle with the custard and maybe buy a value tin of fruit cocktail in there as well.

I guess if you have a lot of one thing eg sausages then you might want to do toad in the hole twice for example - it is only two weeks so it shouldn't be too bad having the same thing again.

You've quite a lot of cereal there so what about cereal for lunch sometime for your son? My DS thinks it is great having weetabix for tea on occasion, it seems to amuse him he is having it at the "wrong" time of day but it is fortified and he is getting loads of milk with it so it is a healthy enough option.

Good luck