Bulking out Meals?

Rosetta92

Hi lizzielondon,

risotto is really easy, and you have most of the things you need on your cupboard list. I just chop an onion or a couple of shallots and cook gently in some oil. Then add the risotto rice and give it a quick stir to coat in the oil. Then you need to add stock (I make up a pint with veggie stock mix). The stock goes in a couple of spoonfuls at a time, stirring in between till its absorbed. Put the stock in a second pan on the cooker to keep it warm while you're doing this. Once you've added about a third of the stock add any other veg - some of your frozen peppers would be good - and any odd bits of cooked meat/ frozen prawns you have to hand. Keep adding the stock till its all in and the risotto is nice and creamy. Add seasoning, stir in a wee bit of cheese or butter for extra richness if you like, and its done.

I think there are recipes to do this in the oven, but I find standing stirring it is like cooking meditation - very good for the stress levels.

Good luck and happy munching

quintwins

lizzielondon wrote: »

ok quick check of cupboards ....

cupboard:
lasagna sheets - 3 guess's what i'd do with this
pasta & spagetti- tuna pasta with some homemade white sauce, and spag bol
white & brown rice
risotto rice (never made risotto in my life??) mushroom risotton is yummy and cheap
500g green lentils
300g red lentils
1x dolmio tomato & basil pasta sauce - i'd make a pasta bake with this as i find it seems more filling in my head than just a bowl of pasta, just make it as normal then stick it in the oven with cheese or breadcrumbs ontop
2x small red salmon tins - salmon fiscakes?
2x big red salmon tins (best before 2010...)
2x tuna tins ok date
8x tuna tins dates from 30.09.2011- 30.09.2010
most spices & dried herbs

Freezer:
peas/sweetcorn/chopped peppers-you can use all this for a veg lasanga
4x fishcakes recently bought

4xfishcakes been in there for at least a year!


Sooooo i clearly do not check my cupboards enough and hoard really old food!

Curry idea is great thanks! Can chicken be batch cooked and frozen in portions this way?

Thanks for all you help! Really trying to be better at this..

i've added a few comments in red all you really need to buy from them is mince and cheese/bread, you don't say if you have anything in your fridge


one of our cheapest meals is stew, 8 spuds 3-4 carrots a onion or 2 1 packet of beef shin (can get this in tesco for £1) and a sprinkle of gravy cook it really slow on the hob til it's starting to go musty and throw in some gravy at the end it's yummy and very filling and freezes well

lizzielondon

rosie383 wrote: »

One friend of mine would use 1 chicken breast per portion!!!! .

:o:o:o:o me too, not sure I can fool OH though...

LittleMai

Hi!

Another alternative to the chicken soup recipe by Stephen Leak, I put rice in it, which helps to thicken it a bit and is super cheap. about 1 tablespoon (which doesnt seem like much, but it bulks up a lot!!), it needs to be cooked for about 40 minutes, so put the rice in 40 minutes before the end.

I havent done this one personally myself, but I did read somewhere on here that if you are going to add oats to a spag bol add them when you are frying the beef, so they take on the flavour of the beef, rather than adding them when you add the tomatoes and other veg, as it will turn into bolognaise flavoured oats.

Have you tried going to the supermarket in the evening when they are reducing everything? my supermarket (Mr T in L*ng Eaton) does this at about 8pm. Yesterday I got a 1.5kg of carrots (31p), 1kg of potatoes (25p) and 0.7kg of onions (13p), which I have turned into 12 portions of carrot soup. The only other ingredients needed is a bit of butter and stock, so I have 12 portions of soup for about 90p! (7.5p a portion!!)

outofmoney

I used to bulk out mince with some breadcrumbs made from value bread. Couldn't taste it once it had absorbed all the juices.

Sweet and sour is another cheap one. A jar/tin of value sauce is 25p in Asda and Tesco and you can just add extra chopped veg bought in the reduced section. Add a small amount of chicken.

darkrev

tuna pasta bake or tuna pasta salad dep on fresh veg situation

2ways to approach the tuna pasta bake.
either make a basic tomato sauce ( using whatever you have like basil, parsley, garlic, tinned tomatoes ect ( even tomato based relish or table sauce can be used to substitute herbs if really stuck) cook off some pasta , drain , put in casserole dish, mix in the sauce, layer some tinned tuna on top and if you have any grate some cheese on top, bake till warmed through, ( can also be micro waved for lunch once cooked,
if no cheese bake at it is,

or make a bechamel ( u can use oil instead of butter with this) sauce, add plenty of herbs and some mustard, ( the more u add to make it tasty , the less cheese u need) add some cheese, whatever u have, even Philadelphia or Parmesan if in store cupboard, and substitute this for tomato sauce and bake.


lentils will make both a lasagne and a curry, just google some vegetarian sites : and substitute what you have

http://www.veggie-recipe.com/recipes/lentil-lasagne.html

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1306/easy-peasy-lentil-curry ( you can omit raisins and use any rice you have)

pea and sweetcorn fritters if served with a nice dip or relish ..... like sweet chilli sauce or something from store cuboard might be good, also you could test out the salmon.......... but be cautious.....

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&web!!!!!ab-kidscooking&tid=7

also rice pudding can be made with ordinary rice as well as short grain rice a s a good filler !


also check the voucher section of mse as there are some printable food vouchers that work out close to free or for 50p for added ingredience

good luck

valk_scot

Red meat or chicken portion should be 4oz per person for adults, proportionally less for kids. Growing teenagers need more protein per portion than adults. Fish portion is 6oz. You can use other protein foods of course ie cheese, eggs, milk, pulses and beans, but if you're cutting down generally it's vital that you keep an eye on what you're doing nutrition wise. If you're only going to serve a couple of ounces of chicken per person then you have to put something else in to make up the protein lack. Lentils are great of course, especially in a dish which will be eaten with carbohydrate ie pasta or rice.

I expect you know all this of course but I have seen some extremely nutritionally unbalanced recipies put up in similar threads over the years and it does worry me. Of course if you only cook these now and again that's fine, things only need to even out over a week or so. But if you're eating less nutrients than you need over a month or longer you can start making yourself ill, and kids especially won't grow properly. So it's important to be aware of more than just cash and calories.

rosie383

Thanks for the reminder of this Valk-Scot. It is easy to forget (in the name of money saving) that we can't just cut down completely on all proteins.
Funny that I don't stint on fish as much. Maybe because we know it is so good for us and the kids love it. I'm just learning to cook fish after a lifelong hatred of it! ( Amazing what pregnancy cravings can do!). Mind you, I still serve with loads of veg and lentils etc.

lizzielondon

Thank you all so much for your replies, i really appreciate it

Re: nutrition, it's just me and OH, 23 & 25, no kids yet :eek: gotta make a dent in that £25k student loan first!!

I'm trying to bring him round more to mse ways, we both have really good jobs (tbh really well paid for our ages, even though we're in london it's really embarrassing we're struggling at the mo)

trying to make a dent in things little by little and plan ahead, we both have student overdrafts and relatively small cc debts and i just really really really want to do something about it now, because on our salaries we should be saving, and reading how people do it on here has really put me to shame a bit today :o:o

hayleymoo

I always get the frozen value chicken breasts from Tesco - £3.99 for (usually) 5 large chicken breasts. If I make stroganoff or something I use one breast between us and supplement with onions and veg. They also have bags of pre-prepared casserole veg for £1 or a huge bag for £1.50.

When I have a whole chicken I always make soup out of the carcass. Depending on the size of the chicken and your portion sizes you could stretch it to 4 dinners - chicken dinner or a casserole, chicken curry and bulk with veg (you already have rice), then pick off the rest of the meat and use the carcass to make chicken soup. If you have some bread rolls with this you can eat it on 2 nights.

Do you like liver? Lamb's liver is really cheap (around £1.50-£2) and very easy to cook. You can make some really easy gravy w/flour and oxo, add an onion and put the whole thing in the oven on low.