Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

Rachel021967

Tried the Colonel Merrit's bucket of chicken and it went down very well with my youngest girls (4 and 13) but not popular with my husband. He said it was too dry.

hotcookie101

r.a.i.n.b.o.w wrote: »

The lamb dish they made was looking pretty tasty until he said "just £2.76 per person"...WTH??? I want to spend £2.76 ON THE WHOLE MEAL!!

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Is it just me who thinks spending £10ish to feed 4 adults a delicious restaurant quality meal is OK? On the programme this recipe was not aimed at the kids, but seemed to be a treat for the adults. I like to treat me and OH (we don't have kids and we are on a budget, but not as extreme as some OS it seems) to a good meal every now and again, and not worry about getting 6 more portions from the roast chicken (which I love making it make 4 meals, it is just not my entire reason for living;))

I shop at butchers, buy organic veg-and eggs, chicken, pork etc-have been to intensive farms-I hated walking down a row of cages with 5 chickens in each etc, and made the decision then, as a poor student to go free range or without-but that is my decision-I would never judge others on theirs! (except maybe vegetarians who don't eat meat on "moral ground" but who happily eat battery eggs! :mad: pet peeve!!!)

I cook from scratch because I don't like salty ready meals-I used to love m&s but more recently have found them salty etc. I don't live on £100 per month for 2 of us, I try to keep it down, but if we fancy a treat, or if its a special occasion, we'll spend more!

Its been said most people are OS because they have to be because of ££ but I really don't think that is case for the majority of people on here, but I could be wrong

thriftmonster

hotcookie101 wrote: »

Is it just me who thinks spending £10ish to feed 4 adults a delicious restaurant quality meal is OK? On the programme this recipe was not aimed at the kids, but seemed to be a treat for the adults. I like to treat me and OH (we don't have kids and we are on a budget, but not as extreme as some OS it seems) to a good meal every now and again, and not worry about getting 6 more portions from the roast chicken (which I love making it make 4 meals, it is just not my entire reason for living;))

I shop at butchers, buy organic veg-and eggs, chicken, pork etc-have been to intensive farms-I hated walking down a row of cages with 5 chickens in each etc, and made the decision then, as a poor student to go free range or without-but that is my decision-I would never judge others on theirs! (except maybe vegetarians who don't eat meat on "moral ground" but who happily eat battery eggs! :mad: pet peeve!!!)

I cook from scratch because I don't like salty ready meals-I used to love m&s but more recently have found them salty etc. I don't live on £100 per month for 2 of us, I try to keep it down, but if we fancy a treat, or if its a special occasion, we'll spend more!

Its been said most people are OS because they have to be because of ££ but I really don't think that is case for the majority of people on here, but I could be wrong

No actually - I think there's more of us than you would think from reading some of this thread.

I cook from scratch most of the time - but we have an excellent Chinese round the corner and a fantastic Indian in the next town (although we cycle there!!!) and we do treat ourselves occasionally. Today I made tuna and sweetcorn lasagne for tea - but I got in at 7pm after a golf match (and we lost:rolleyes:) so I used an organic tomato sauce to speed it up - but made my white sauce from scratch - and the organic sauce passed the Michael Pollan test.

After years of scrimping to renovate the house and pay off the mortgage, I am more than happy to spend some of the extra on quality - food for us is a huge part of our lives and is reflected in the importance in our budget now - rather than on holidays etc

And like a lot of people - we hate ready meals - I think the kids would mutiny - ds2 is baking as we speak - my mother didn't teach me to cook much but she provided the books and let me experiment on my own with advice if I asked.

geordie_joe

hotcookie101 wrote: »

Is it just me who thinks spending £10ish to feed 4 adults a delicious restaurant quality meal is OK?

Cut

Its been said most people are OS because they have to be because of ££ but I really don't think that is case for the majority of people on here, but I could be wrong

I think it's fine, if you can afford it. Everybody has different budgets and different size families. If you can afford to spend that much on meals, either once a month or every day then that's fine. Being OS is about making the most of what you have, not being to mean to spend what you've got. And there is nothing wrong with spending what you have saved on a nice treat.

Old Style is about making it your self, not paying way over the odds for ready made stuff. So if you've bought the ingredients and made it your self then it's old style, as long as you got the ingredients at the best price

competitionscafe

hotcookie101 wrote: »

Is it just me who thinks spending £10ish to feed 4 adults a delicious restaurant quality meal is OK?

Nope it's not just you. I think less than 3 quid per head for that meal is a bargain - it would probably be over £10 per person in a restaurant and it looked delicious and easy to cook at home.

Fish and chips (for one person) is around a fiver around here and a takeaway pizza from Dominos / Pizza Hut is 10 or 12 quid - give me that lamb dish over those any day even though I have to cook it.

Anyway, I think the chef guy pointed out on the programme that the lamb was a restaurant quality dish to impress the in laws when they came round and not a standard weekday family meal.

You would be hard pressed to make a meal for 4 people involving lamb as the main ingredient for a total of £2.76 (unless you used mince or offal - nothing wrong with that) - but if you wanted pieces of lamb meat then even with the cheapest cuts I don't see how you can do it for 69p per person including all the other ingredients unless the amount of lamb in the dish (or the portion sizes) were very small! Farmers work hard and deserve to make a living too and animals should be well cared for - so meat is going to come at a price.

I also buy meat from the butcher or farmers market, fish from the fishmonger, fruit and veg from a weekly organic box delivery (£11 a week) and other groceries from Waitrose - but I still think I am OS because I hardly ever buy processed food, almost always cook from scratch, never buy ready meals apart from an occassional pizza (which always tastes dissapointing!), always shop from a list and meal plan (only 2 or 3 days ahead rather than weekly though), use up leftovers etc and therefore hardly ever throw food away. I also have cheap meals (soup, pasta, etc) and breakfast in winter is often oatmeal porridge (made with water) - not because my aim is to make a meal that costs less than 10p (which it does) but because it's tasty, healthy and filling. The fact that it costs less than 10p is just a bonus.

BigMummaF

Oh Dear It is a pity this thread has become a bit of a mud-fest, with inuendo & higher ground smattering the posts, & I feel I should share the three main guidelines that my family follow.

• EVERYONE is entitled to an opinion.
• EVERYONE must take control of their own lifestyle.
• NO-ONE has the right to stand judgement over those decisions until it directly affects you.

I like to watch all sorts of programmes on all sorts of topics & very often mention something amazing, only for my fellow chatee to exclaim "Didn't you know that!" The point being -- We all have different life experiences & we all have different interests. The way we learn is by sharing those with others, but we don't have to be so damned righteous about it!

As to this particular show..Personally I have to watch every penny so it would have been more helpful to me, if the budget was lower & the recipes reflected that. Then again, we are a mixed bunch with varied tastes so if there were a lot of mayo/ salad dressing/ egg/ blah-de-blah...it still wouldn't have been a resounding success FOR ME.

So can we please all play nicely or BigMumma will take the ball away


OK--I feel better now!

thriftlady_2

BigMummaF wrote: »

Oh Dear It is a pity this thread has become a bit of a mud-fest,

I see no mud just people expressing slightly different points of view.

thriftlady_2

geordie_joe wrote: »

So if you've bought the ingredients and made it your self then it's old style, as long as you got the ingredients at the best price

Although I don't think you can define 'OS' it looks like I am not OS by this definition.

cw18

But 'best price' doesn't have to mean the cheapest cut for it to be OS......

While my personal budget (by necessity not choice) dictates that I have to look for the cheapest alternatives for a lot of ingredients, if I were still working I was hoping to be changing over to organic/free range/lean cuts of meat by now - and I would purely be looking to source the best price for those options!!!

randomer

I guess it depend to some extent on your starting point. We used to eat out perhaps once every 2 weeks or so or on a whim if I was tired/having a bad day.
That is now definately a thing of the past so if I buy something from M&S or expensive pork chops or something instead that is progress for me.
Mostly I am good,home cooked economical food but soemtimes with OH on shifts and life's challenges it can go pear shaped.(that would be own brand pears obviously)