Newbie Here

sam010185

Hi everyone
I've decided that we need to start eating properly (i.e. remotely healthily!) for two reasons - at the moment we eat rubbish and we need to start spending less money on food as my maternity pay ran out last month so we are just on my hubby's wages now.
We've done a meal plan for this coming week (decided to do shopping weekly as we were spending a hell of a lot on "top-up" shops when we were shopping monthly) and I did the shopping last night and spent £57ish. This included 8 jars of baby food for my son although from Monday I'm cooking 'proper' food for him as he's so uniterested in being fed now and would rather do it himself!
Anyway, I'm going of on a slight tangent here! I would say that I am a reasonably good cook i.e. I can follow a recipe and it turns out how it should, however my downfall is getting stuck into a rut of eating the same things all of the time and obviously this leads to us getting take aways when we don't fancy shepherd's pie or spag bol AGAIN! So, I'm looking for advice on how to cut down on my shopping bill and different things to try. I'm going to start making my own soups for lunch but have no idea how to go about this or whether I can freeze it?
Any help, advice or tips would be greatly welcomed!

Plum_Pie

Hi Sam,

Here's a few things for you to be getting on with - I'm sure you'll get some good advice tomorrow too!

Weekly meal planning thread - might be some inspiration here for you: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1378329&highlight=meal+plans

Thread about motivating yourself to use Old style methods: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1385857

Lots of soup recipes: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=8146

Freezing soups: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1389919

The complete cooking collection - just the titles should get you thinking: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=8736367#post8736367

The OS daily thread is for chatting - the first post give all the info http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1388415

rosieben

And the monthly grocery challenge is definitely worth a look. Lots of ideas, information and recipes etc and newcomers are always welcome

FrenchMaid_2

I know what you mean about getting into a rut food wise... about a 1 1/2 years ago I started to add at least 2 new recipes per week into my meal plan per week. I have written down all the meals I cook in one long list (incl. reference where the recipe is) at the beginning I had 10 meals on that list (I kid you not, it was that bad) I know have over 200 to chose from...

SunnyGirl

Welcome! You'll find lots of hints and ideas here to help you reduce the grocery bill. Frozen soup is a brilliant standby to have in as it defrosts quickly & is very healthy. You'll enjoy challenging youself to get everything at the best possible price - or maybe that's just me LOL! Anyhow enjoy the reading of the threads & I look forward to reading your posts.

Hans_Mum

i make a huge vat of soup and freeze it in individual portions, just take it out on a morning and zap it at lunchtime at work

Rowan9

I'm another soup maker. I make a different kind most Sundays and then freeze portions. It's so handy to have after work and I always feel very nourished by HM soup:D
Good luck and happy reading through the threads
w

thriftlady_2

This is my basic soup method. Soup freezes really well.

chopped flavouring veg -onion (at least one), garlic, leek, celery
cook gently in butter and/or olive oil

other flavourings -spices, chopped bacon, fresh ginger, coconut cream (add this with the stock)

chopped main veg (squash, carrot, leek, mushrooms, parsnip, potato, frozen peas, watercress, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, lentils, other beans) cook until beginning to soften

Liquid-water/vegetable stock/ chicken stock to cover by an inch or so (too little is better than too much as you can easily thin it later). Bring to the boil then simmer until everything is cooked. Allow to cool and then blend with a stick blender or in a food processor. You may want to thin it with more water/stock. If it is too thin add some more potato and cook till soft -blend again.

Reheat gently to serve. Add cream/yogurt/ grated cheese if liked

Obviously you don't have to blend the soup, you can leave it chunky. I tend to do this with bean soups. I also add barley or small pasta to this type of soup.

Good combinations are; lentil and spinach, spiced butternut squash and coconut, sweet potato and coconut, watercress and potato, leek and potato, curried parsnip, jerusalem artichoke and bacon, carrot and orange, broccoli/cauliflower and cheese, celery and stilton, bean and tomato.