Economy Gastronomy- HELP!

freyasmum

Puddingpennies wrote: »

Whats rubber chicken?!


I'm amazed that its so easy to make my own lentil soup, I love lentils, can I freeze that too once its done?

It's a chicken that's been streeeeeeeeeeeetched

You buy a whole chicken and cook it, and get as many meals as possible. For example, you'd have roast chicken and then use the bigger bits that are left for a stirfry, smaller bits for a pie, and then boil the bones for a delicious stock - and any other bits of meat that come off the bones can be made into a delicious soup with your stock, a pack of your cheapy value noodles, a handful of sweetcorn and a diced carrot or two.

It's dead easy when you know how, and we'll be happy to teach you :j

Yep, lentil soup freezes brilliantly.

Good luck, and welcome to OS :T

misskool

Puddingpennies wrote: »

"When bored of bolognaise, add a tin of kidney beans some chilli powder, some cumin some coriander and call it chilli.

when bored of chilli, add some curry paste and call it curry."

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
I had to laugh at that, I had no idea mince could be so versatile!

I love the chicken idea, think I'll give that a go this sunday, how do I make the chicken stock from the bones? Once its made do I freeze it until I need it again?

Whats rubber chicken?!

I'm amazed that its so easy to make my own lentil soup, I love lentils, can I freeze that too once its done?

:rotfl: You did want an easy recipe.

You can make your own burgers with mince too. 250g mince, some chopped onion (optional), 100g (or less) breadcrumbs, egg and seasoning. A dash of worcestershire sauce. Mix, shape and grill/bbq/pan fry.

when bored of burgers, crumble them up and make bolognaise. :rotfl:

Sorry.

You get the idea how easy things are when you stop thinking about recipes and start on the ingredients that you have. (although not everyone thinks like I do, which is a good thing!). Cook things how you like them and you can't go far wrong.

Yes, the soup freezes well, but keeps in the fridge for up to a week, it definitely last sunday night to friday lunchtime.

rubber chicken's been explained by a fair few people. To make stock, get chicken bones, and put in pan with onion, some carrots, some leeks, some veg peelings and bring to a boil, simmer for a few hours. I think some on here roast the bones for extra flavor.

Katie-Kat-Kins

Puddingpennies wrote: »

"When bored of bolognaise, add a tin of kidney beans some chilli powder, some cumin some coriander and call it chilli.

when bored of chilli, add some curry paste and call it curry."

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
I had to laugh at that, I had no idea mince could be so versatile!

I love the chicken idea, think I'll give that a go this sunday, how do I make the chicken stock from the bones? Once its made do I freeze it until I need it again?

Whats rubber chicken?!

I'm amazed that its so easy to make my own lentil soup, I love lentils, can I freeze that too once its done?

Glad to see that you've come over here from DFW for some serious specialist help - the ladies on here are great at meal plans and cutting your shopping budget, you'll be eating lentils and living on 50p a day in no time!

I'm no where near as good as these ladies but for some cheap but varied meals for one on a low budget here are a few of my tips:
1. Make enough for two and save half for the next day in the fridge if you don't have room in the freezer for big batches. Eating the same meal two days running isn't too bad if you have different on the third day and try to vary your lunches.
2. Try to eat breakfast, porridge oats are great for a filling budget friendly breakfast (or lunch or dinner if you run out of cash!) Eating breakfast will mean less snacking later. To make it more tasty a dollop of jam is nice or a bit of fruit. A past its best banana or berries mixed in and heated through is lovely!
3. Tinned tomatoes are your friend, for 30p they are much cheaper than buying ragu sauce and do the same job and much more. Mix with mince and onion for bolognaise or use as a veggie pasta sauce, or with rice for a joloff rice, or as a base for a curry. A bit of leftover wine, or a stock cube, a handful of herbs, a chilli, a bit of ginger or whatever can make it really tasty too.
4. Condensed soup is great, for a start you get twice the volume of normal tinned soup so one tin will do two meals. Or use it diluted less than recommended to make a pasta sauce or pasta bake or filling for savory pancakes. There are lots of flavours to choose from so it need not be repetative, mushroom, chicken, chicken and mushroom, chicken and ham are my favourites for this sort of thing but experiment with the ones you fancy.
5. Get free recepies online, this board has loads and the BBC website is good too, there is also a BBC book called cheap eats which only costs a fiver and has some good receipes in.
6. Freeze some veg so that you can use it little and often without waste. Those noodles or pasta meals can be livened up by adding frozen peppers, or mushroom, or courgette or whatever.
7. Freeze your bread so you don't waste it, split a loaf into three freezer bags and freeze two and use the third.
8. You say you have jacket potatoes a lot, don't buy the specific baking potatoes just buy a big bag and use the little ones to boil/roast/fry and save the big ones for jackets. You can always do two if you don't have one big enough.
9. As well as soups and 9p noodles if you want some quick easy options, check out the packets of rice and pasta in the supermarket. Like noodles they aren't the best option but they do a job for a few pence and it is better to have a stock of this sort of thing in than to cave in and get a takeaway. They also keep forever and are easy to store.

sunshinesheli

Oh, just remembered my uni lunch of choice when I had no loan left!

Boil some rice in water that you've put a stock cube in, add some bits of leftover veg.. voila! the stock cube flavours the rice so it's not boring and plain, it's super quick, super cheap and easy peasy

Reverbe

Chell wrote: »

There is a really easy dhal recipe on the board made with split peas that you might like. I freeze portions and my DH takes it to work with a mini Nan bread. You could also eat it with rice or as a jkt spud topping.

I did a lentil and coconut dhal from here and when it froze it went a bit funny on the top.. jolly nice stuff tho..

rosieben

Hi Pp, welcome to the board! you've got loads of good advice re stretching mince and rubber chicken.

take a look at Complete Cooking Collection - there are a couple of useful threads listed under Basic cooking - Learners start here and a few listed under Cheap (low cost) recipes but remember that the costings may be out of date if the thread is very old. Lots of other recipes threads to check out too!

The Grocery Challenge has a useful recipe index on the front page, here's the August thread including over 20 soup recipes!

Unfortunately Economy Gastronomy has the accent on Gastonomy and so not very useful for us normal bods looking to cut costs.

hth

Puddingpennies

Wow, this thread has really taken on a life of its own since I’ve been gone!


Thank you so much everyone, all your ideas are great :T


Sunshinesheli- I love the sound of the rattatouie (I can’t spell) and would also be great for my vegetarian house mate! I normally go to Asda and then top up tinned or little things from either B&M’s/ Home Bargains or Lidl. I was considering moving to online shopping to make things a bit easier to plan, I’m hopeless at shopping at almost always forget the things I really wanted! And I completely agree with you about the EG budget, last nights really was a shock to me, they spent almost double what I earn a week on food, I still cant get my head around it! :eek:


Chell- I bet your DH is the envy of his colleagues; somehow a shop bought sandwich doesn’t sound as tempting as a home made Indian delight! I’ll hunt the recipe down and see if I can give it a go.


Tinkerbellsmum- I am SO glad someone has suggested home made Chinese, I’m ashamed to say I think I’m a little bit addicted to Chinese takeaway, a homemade option would probably do wonders for my diet as well as my purse…


Freyasmum- I might just take you up on that offer… move over BBC2 the MSE’s are here! :rotfl:


Misskool- the burger idea has inspired me, if the weather stays nice this bank holiday, its BBQ time! I’ll make the burgers from your suggestion, tinkerbellsmum’s quiche, and pasta salad with left over chicken from Sunday et voila, a bbq for me and a few friends, then I could ask them to bring the wine/ chocolate (and if any wine is leftover I’ll cheekily stash it away for a mid week treat:cool:) and dessert.


KatP- I’m glad I came too, I have so much help and advice already its amazing! Why I never thought of having two small potatos instead of one large one is beyond me *must engage brain* lol! :rotfl::rotfl:


Rosieben- Thanks for the link, will have a look and make some notes over the weekend, don’t think my boss would approve much of me perusing the complete cooking collection instead of working!

Phew, this has turned into an epic post, Im hungry now, I'll go and put my last packet of 9p noodles in the microwave, next week it'll be a whole new dining experience!!

PP

Puddingpennies

Ooops! Just noticed there is already a thread about economy gastronomy

I'll have a read through that as well!

tinkerbellsmum_2

a couple of links for u
http://www.studentrecipes.com/ i'm not a student but love this site cause there quick easy and cheap

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/Cheap-quick-%26-easy

shellsmithcat

tinkerbellsmum wrote: »

quiche is easy to make use a packet mix pasty will make 2 quiches then mix egg milk salt and pepper in bowl. put pasty in flan dishes and lay your filling in i do bacon and mushroom pour over egg mix and cook.
I agree - I have made so many of these lately - they are cheap - you can put in so much to make variety of different ones - and i have some already sliced up individually in the freezer - grab one to throw in my lunch box - and by lunchtime all defrosted and ready to eat with the benefit of keeping my lunch box cool.

LOL how do you do the quote thing - does not work LOL