Eat for £12 a week?

jcr16

by reading all the posts about getting stuff from markets. i so wish we had a decent market, but we have the market that sells really horrible i love the isle of wight tea towels, and clothes that only older people would wear , and then there is a cheap electrical stand , which sells the plastic clocks and batteries that one work in a remote for about 5 mins. am i painting a picture here ? i think u know what i talking about.

it is such a shame , as i would move away from supermarket produce to support a market if it sold fruit and veg and meats at the prices quoted her.

Skintmama

I have been following PP's first meal plan for this week and I must say that we have eaten extremely well. There are four of us and we have fairly big appetites so there were never any leftover portions for freezing though!

A most noticeable difference for me is that I have been cooking a wider selection of veg for each meal whereas I generally just do a big portion of one veg. I'd say that this has meant the children have consumed more vegetables PP's way so this has filled them up more too.

The Sunday roast chicken took me four hours because the Aga was slow and I was making the HM Yorkies and HM stuffing from scratch but again the plateful of other things, including a chipolata, meant there was more chicken left for the next two days meals. My children preferred baked beans and cheese with their baked spud so there was plenty for chicken curry for DH and me with ours.

Also, last night I made a chicken and mushroom pie with the remaining chicken and it was delicious with one portion left over. I never bother to make pies as I am not a natural with pastry but I will repeat this as everyone loved it. Finally made chicken stock with the carcass for the freezer.

I haven't costed it out but know the bill will be fairly high as I do use a lot of organic stuff. Even so I am confident that we have eaten very well and not wasted anything at all so that makes sense for my budget. We have eaten meat at each evening meal too which is not usual for us either.

This has been a very successful and interesting experiment for me, so thanks PP and also to BS for the puddings! :A

Skintmama

jcr16 wrote:

it is such a shame , as i would move away from supermarket produce to support a market if it sold fruit and veg and meats at the prices quoted her.

The nearest market for me is 12 miles away. As it is a covered market there are permanent stands so it is more like a shop. The two fruit and veg stalls obviously liase on their prices as there is no real difference between them. They are not that cheap so the veg looks very tired and not like anything I would want to buy.

Maybe one needs a big city to get the type of stall that packs up each day and needs to sell everything asap. It makes me remember rather fondly living and shopping in London!

The farmers market seems to sell everything before I can get there unfortunately. I am reluctantly pretty stuck with either a supermarket or a greengrocers as my choices. There is a farm shop some distance away though that I plan to investigate soon.

halloweenqueen_2

seraphina wrote:

Bigbarn had an article on meals for under £2 per person per day. Links are:
http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/food/articles/index.php?articleid=198

and for the recipes:

http://www.bigbarn.net/food/articles/?articleid=195

I love the way their budget menu includes roast phesant! All costings are given, I think

I'll have to look at this site - I often get given pheasants:D , if you get a couple and do them in the slow cooker, the meat falls off the bones. Sometimes I may get a heroic one (full of shot - obviously dived in front of the other birds!), but a couple of thise do quite a few meals, I put 5 spice with them and make a pheasant peking duck dish, they go really well with hoisin sauce!:drool:

taplady

seraphina wrote:

Moggins - should have mentioned I'm vegetarian, hence the marge instead of suet!

It is possible to get veggie suet. I use Atora Vegetable suet which makes lovely dumplings!

mirakl

I don't know if this goes without saying but Chinese and Asian Supermarkets are superb for money saving. You can get peppercorns and bags of spices for less than half the cost of the teeny tiny bags you get in regular supermarkets. I bought all my spices there in one go which was a big initial spend but they lasty forever. They've also usually got quite fresh and cheap veg.

thriftlady_2

mirakl wrote:

I don't know if this goes without saying but Chinese and Asian Supermarkets are superb for money saving. You can get peppercorns and bags of spices for less than half the cost of the teeny tiny bags you get in regular supermarkets. I bought all my spices there in one go which was a big initial spend but they lasty forever. They've also usually got quite fresh and cheap veg.

You can also get huge buckets of bicarb and vinegar from Chinese supermarkets.

halloweenqueen_2

I always use vegetable atora, I prefer it and I think it makes better dumplings. I don't like the idea of using a meat suet IYKWIM in a sweet suet pudding!

chardonnay_2

we have been reducing costs and have done quite well this month. i plan to try & spend even less this month.

meals we have had so far

chicken, chips & gravy
lasagne (beef mince, onion, mushrooms, tinned toms, bolognese sauce)
chilli nachos (tortilla chips covered with hm chilli + covered with cheese melted unter the grill) chilli made with chilli sauce, baked beans, tinned toms, onion, peppers)
steak, special roast tots, pepper sauce, garlic mushrooms
chicken mayo baguettes with salad
chilli with tortilla chips to scoop up the chilli
spag bol

we don't have puddings and prefer to have filling main meals.

mummysaver

mirakl wrote:

I don't know if this goes without saying but Chinese and Asian Supermarkets are superb for money saving. You can get peppercorns and bags of spices for less than half the cost of the teeny tiny bags you get in regular supermarkets. I bought all my spices there in one go which was a big initial spend but they lasty forever. They've also usually got quite fresh and cheap veg.

Sent dh into the Chinese supermarket near where he was working that day, he came home with everything I'd asked for plus a box the size of a small shoebox full of prawn crackers that had cost £2.00 ish - you only need a handful of them to create a couple of huge bowls of prawn crackers - and it's great fun watching them puff up in the oil. Anyway if anyone knows of any recipes that use prawn crackers .... :rotfl: Even the children have started saying "not them again" when I dish them up as snacks! Seems like they will last forever at this rate, or at least long past their sell by date! Oh, well, they were still cheaper than a small bag of pre cooked ones in the supermarket! :T