A Challenge for you.

mother_noah

My daughter is going through a very tough patch financially and needs to cut her spending to a minimum.This is hard for a girl whos heart rules her head :rolleyes: The family comprises of my daughter ,her partner and four children aged 13,11,3 and one.She needs to provide breakfast ,lunch and evening meal each day plus two or three snacks a days for the children ( they are all very active so need them for extra energy) Partner needs a packed lunch 5 days a week.My daughter is a vegetarian ,the rest of the family eat fish .No one eats any meat.With summer holidays starting soon ideas for portable meals that can be taken on picnics if the weather is fine ( well we can only hope !) will be appriciated.Looking forward to any ideas i can pass on to her Many thanks in advance:A

ubamother

first question - does she/can she/will she cook from scratch??

Pink.

Hi mother noah,

There are some vegetarian ideas on these threads:

Cheapest recipes???

Meal for two for 50p. Suggestions?

The Cheapest Healthy Meal Ever!

Feed 6 for £1.62

Cheapest meal

Your Cheapest Evening Meal.

cheap, easy family meals

Show Jamie How To Cook On A Budget Champagne Contest

Meal idea's under £1

There are some good suggestions for breakfast in this thread:

Filling breakfasts - any recipes/ideas?

For lunches have a look in the Complete Cooking Collection under lunches

And for picnic ideas have a look here: Any ideas for picnic food??

Pink

whatatwit

Have a look on Weezl's 2 threads, the first was vs USDA the second is the eat healthily for 50p a day.
Mrs Weezl and Acetate Monkey eat a lot of veggie food and there are recipes as well as geeky nutritional breakdowns and costings for most stuff.

mother_noah

Ubamother yes she can cook from scratch.... taught them all from the cradle.Will try and read through all the threads listed to get some ideas ,number 2 son hates it when I am looking at the computer and disappears to wreck the house He has special needs so waiting for bed time is not always an option either.I am not veggie so a lot of my cheap recipies are no good to her.

ubamother

my daughter is veggie and does lots of variants of pasta in a tomato/ratatouille style base and has it cold for lunches - same with couscouse/rice salads. I'm a big fan of homemade fishcakes or vegcakes made with potatoes and basically whichever fish/veg are cheapest or on offer. Often the downfall in terms of money can be the snacky carb-type stuff with kids, so h/made cheese straws, cheesey biscuits, h/m breadsticks, scones, dips with cucumber/carrot batons etc. are really useful to have about the house, or in the freezer (not the dip and batons obviously!!). Are there other forums on mse that may be able to help her as well as the foody stuff?