Please help, ideas for dinners, cheap and new.

Narva

Hello, Myself and husband are going through a really rough patch and a comment he has made is our diet is rubbish. I have post natal deppresion and have no inspiration for evening meals. We have a 8 year old who is very very fussy. what i do cook, spag bowl, jacket pots with beans and cheese. Kievs and chips, roast dinners, cottage pie. curry and rice (daughter eats just the rice and chicken)
Please i need ideas for dinners, dont mind simiply cooking and dont have a lot in cupboard or freezer, need to go shopping in the am.

many thanks

Penelope_Penguin

Try these:

Your cheapest evening meal

Cheapest meal

The cheapest healthy meal ever

Cheapest recipes

I'll add this thread to the most recent of those later

Penny. x

kellyw8800

Poor you, i don't think what you have listed are unhealthy. I thought chicken nuggets etc were gonna be there! I have found Jamie Olivers Ministry of Food website useful, some simple ideas. Or googling the ingredients with easy recipes and see what comes up. Did a really simple but yummy soup once. You mentioned the depression, how about using your cooking time for you. No-one is allowed in the kitchen when I'm cooking (I usually only read a mag in between waiting on stuff but it does help, in a way) or why don't you start some evening cooking courses, if anything it'll get you out so your not thinking of the depression, you'll learn something from it, and you may start having fun in the kitchen again.
Blabbing on now, hope this helps

junior_j

Hey there! :beer:

Heres some ideas i use for cheap and fairly healthy (i choose do the cooking in my house lol im 16)

Tuna pasta and sweetcorn with a blob of mayo or salad cream with side salad

bag of stores own brand pasta 70p
Tin of stores own brand tuna 50p
Tin of own brand sweetcorn 50p
Lettuce - 60p
Cucumber 50p
Cherry tomatoes 50p

£3.30 and u should have enough left over for one of you to have lunch the next day! Your husband cant say thats unhealthy pasta tuna sweetocorn all good and filling and salad , whats healthier then salad lol!

Stores own brand LEAN mince - 2.80
Own brand pasta 70p
Own brand sauce 1.00

Spaghetti bolonase for under a 5er tasty and you can add any veg u have too! or splash out another 50p for a small punnet or own brand mushroom!

Hope those two ideas come in handy!

Jess x

pollys

This recipe was on the telly this week and I'm going to give it a try.

Slice an onion and fry in oil until softened and just tinged brown add a clove or so of chopped garlic, a sprinkling of sugar, salt and pepper a tin of plum tomatoes (broken down) a tin of barlotti beans and some good quality sausage cut into 3 (she used about 6) give everything a good stir, put in an ovenproof dish and cook for about 45 minutes, 10 minutes before end add a good sprinkling of cheddar cheese and return to oven. Serve with chunks of fresh crusty bread to mop up the juices.

It looked very warming, a good autumnal dish.

thriftlady_2

Here's an easy one I do sometimes.

Cheese and bacon chips

Not chips really -wedges.

Scrub baking spuds(1 per person or to suit appetites) and cut into wedges.

Bung in a bowl, pour over a little oil and some seasoning like Cajun, Jerk or poultry seasoning or whatever you like. Toss around so the wedges are coated.

Bake on a baking tray (I line mine with reusable liner so they never stick) at 200c for 30-40 mins.

About 15 min before the end of cooking sprinkle over the spuds some chopped bacon -as much as you can spare, but at least a rasher per person.

10 mins later sprinkle on grated cheese.

I serve it with frozen peas and sweetcorn or baked beans.

You could also make a space amongst the spuds and crack an egg into it -oven baked egg and chips. Don't cook the egg too long though as I did once;)

MrsMW

Do you like fish? My DH is very faddy with his food but he loves this meal.

Put pieces of white fish, I use cod, into a dish, sprinkle with chopped streaky bacon. Place cut up tomatoes around the fish, season with pepper then pour on a slug of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.
Bake in the oven about 180 'til it looks done.
You could use tinned tomatoes, I generally use cherry type and add salt if you like.
Serve with whatever you fancy.
Think I'll have that tomorrow.

Meadows

Narva wrote: »

Hello, Myself and husband are going through a really rough patch and a comment he has made is our diet is rubbish. I have post natal deppresion and have no inspiration for evening meals.
many thanks

Fried Rice

Prawns (Don’t pre cook as prawns if pink are already cooked, if grey they need to be cooked until they turn pink)
Bacon Ham
Onions Peas (Frozen peas are the best)
Mushrooms Peppers
Soy Sauce Seasonings
Eggs 1x Omelette 1 x beaten egg Rice (cooked)
Butter Oil


Fried Rice takes longer to prepare than to cook the dish. You can use any or all of the above. You can make this dish an all in one meal or serve with chops, chicken, gammon etc.

Pre cook the rice, (rice is always better used reheated especially in this sort of dish, can be cooked the day before. Before use fluff up with a fork. Plain rice or Fried rice is ideal to freeze & re-heats well in a microwave or in a wok (or pan). I always make more than I need so I have some to freeze for a quick meal .

Decide which ingredients you are to use, dice into small pieces.
Pre cook any items that need to be cooked, keep them warm.
Heat the peas through, drain when ready to use.
Make an Omelette and dice.

When ready to make the fried rice, heat some butter in a Wok or large pan, add beaten egg and stir until slightly scrambled but still quite wet, Stir in about half of the rice and quickly mix to allow the egg to coat the rice then add the remaining rice and stir well, you will need to add some oil to the pan, add as necessary to allow ingredients not to dry out or burn. Or reheat the rice, pour beaten egg over it and leave for a minute or so, before stirring in to the rice. (Both methods work well).
Add all the other ingredients to the pan, add any seasoning, soy sauce (basically any thing you feel will enhance the dish, you can change seasonings to suit your tastes).
Stir over a hot heat until all the ingredients are thoroughly heated. (If you add more butter to the dish it will help to make the rice crispier).

As with all cooking adapt and season to your taste.

Serve on its own, or with another meat.

You can also do just a Mushroom Fried Rice, use beaten egg, rice & cooked mushrooms. Cook egg as above, add rice & mushrooms add more butter & a little oil until heated thoroughly. Season to taste


(Use butter & oil for cooking, but you do not want the dish to be greasy)

This can be a really cheap meal, you can do chicken from a left over roast, it also freezes and re-heats really well, for the days you don't feel up to cooking or don't have lots of time, get your 8 year old involved, they can chop some of the things for you or even cook the meal with supervision, it really is easy to do!

Make your own tomato sauce for pasta or bolognaise, roughly quarter some tomatoes (I tend to you several varieties for flavour, but you can use anything you can get you hands on, yes you need quite a few tomatoes for a reasonable amount of sauce and no it’s not as cheap as a value jar of pasta sauce, but it’s not full of sugar, you know exactly what has gone into it, and taste the difference) add a dash of olive oil, season well to your taste and just leave on a medium heat (lid on) until you have the consistency required (you can cook it down until all the water has evaporated and you are left with just thick tomato pulp, ideal for tomatoes on toast).
If in a hurry you can turn up the heat to allow it to cook quickly or just leave on a slow simmer, again get your 8 year old to give a had.
This sauce freezes well if you need to, try tossing it into pasta or add some finely chopped veg (which could be pre cooked & frozen), either serve as is with a meat of your choice as or toss in some tuna, grate some cheese over the top and heat through in the oven.

daleigha

One of my favourites is Naan Bread pizza (from Nigella i think?!? )

i make the tomato sauce from some pesto, tomato puree, black pepper and some cajun pepper for a bit of spice. i then finely chop mushrooms and olives, sprinkle them on top of the pizza and sauce, and top with grated cheese. ten minutes in a hot oven and they are ready! me & OH have two each, but i usually save half of one to have the next day for lunch.

another cheapie & quick one is to blitz a can of drained tomatoes (this does two portions) with about half a tub of creme fraiche and a dollop of pesto, pepper, chilli pepper, a squirt of lemon juice, some walnuts and dry roasted peanuts and grated cheese and mix it with cooked pasta.

i tend to cook the same things until we get bored of them, then i just google for recipes and try new ones out - some of them are rubbish, and some become our new favourites!

xx

Butterfly_Brain

Bless you.
If he thinks what you cook is rubbish tell him to cook and see what you have to put up with Post natal depression is awful and he sounds like he needs a kick into reality, can't you ask your health visitor to sit him down and explain things to him, or even his mother; I had Post Natal but I was so lucky that I have a supportive husband who took a lot of the day to day stuff on, even taking over looking over the baby when I couldn't face another day.
As for your 8 year old don't pander children will eat anything when hungry.

nanokitten

How about toad in the hole with sweet potato mash and onion gravy?
proper winter confort food.
Its easy to do in the oven (cook the sausages in a roasting dish with a good bit of oil and add batter when there just about done). I've never met a fussy eater yet who wont eat this (even my veggy version with quorn soss.)
You can pick rosmary from the garden to add to the oil (if you have any) and if you are feeling really lazy do a packet of batter. sweet potatos are brill at the mo and shouldn't be too pricey as there in season (the ones I got in sainsburys were massive), if they are too dear, make them go further by using half normal spuds and or carrots. Frozen Peas for colour. You could even do the spuds in the oven to make it easier.

Other ideas, really quick meals: Stir fry with noodles, you can always use frozen veg if your tired and noodles take minutes, choose thick chinease ones to make in more interesting (most kids will eat noodles as they are like spaggettii).
couscous again takes 2 minutes, fry some frozen veg up to make it interesting. chop a boiled egg on top for protein.

If your fed up/cant cope with cooking, it can help to change your approach, I have a freind who gets up early and cooks before she goes to work as she's tired and hungry when she gets home and another who after he's eaten and washed up cooks in the evening for the following day. Slow cooker or casserole dish can do wonders too, my mum will bung stuff in the slow cooker before she goes out - nothing better than coming home to the smell of stew or curry and will make you feel like a domestic godess (which is good for your soul).

The other idea is to cook a big batch of soemthing and make it last. Eating leftovers fo lunch is delicious and cheaper than most other lunches.
make a massive vat of pasta sauce (tomato and veg, mince if you like) when you are feeling up to it eg weekend, first then during the week use different toppings and accompaniments to add variety
eg have: Pasta first day, then chilli (add a packet of chilli mix and some kidney beans), (chilli can go in baked spud next day), tortilla wraps (fry some chicken strips bung in a dollop of the sauce).... curry - add dollop of curry paste, boiled eggs on top, naan breads or chappatii (or the wraps again, noone can thell the difference) if you've had rice the day before, dollop of yogurt, by the end of the week you can always bung in some sausages and youve got sausage casserole!

I find when I am fed up with cooking that reading cookery books or watching ready steady cook when I'm hungary can help with inspiration.