Store cupboard challenge

purpleivy

First would be to use up what's in your fridge or freeze it. I slice and freeze celery and peppers and keep in the freezer to add to casseroles etc. What would be nice would be to roast the peppers onions celery. You can then use them as a basis for some meals.

a couple of ideas

-frittata or egg tortilla. this would use some of your eggs as well

- You could have some roasted veg in pitta with a chicken fillet cut into strips and stir fried.

-make a tomato salsa and have it with chilli con carne and the sour cream on the side.

-this time of year I would be using some of the veg and pulses to make soups

Dizzy_Ditzy

Right then, this might take me a while but I will see what I can come up with!

You have rice, pasta and mince.

Seperate the mince into 2 or 3 portions, and cook something like savoury mince with one and spag bol with the other. That potentially is 3-4 meals if you have any leftovers for lunch the next day.

Chicken and bacon pasta bake with peppers, onions etc- you can top it with cheese. you can also make a tuna pasta bake- all you need is tuna, pasta, onion, peppers, tomatoes and cheese

laughing cow is nice on jacket potatoes. JP's go well with salmon.

Eggs, you have the usual things like egg mayo sandwiches, quiche as long as you have flour, cakes, pastry etc.

Lemon- couple of slices of lemon in some hot water in the morning- brillinat for your kidneys and digestive system!

You could grate some lime zest to have with your salmon

I hope thats given you some rough ideas of what you can do :-)

Celery- just bin it, its nasty!!!!

With all the various bean type things you have, you could make a soup with them, you need stock (veg or chicken is best) - by making soup you can also useup some of the cream etc (just goole soup making recipes)

Get yourself some flour, (its is dirt cheap these days) and you can make pies of the sweet and savoury type-

Turkey is good in a stir fry

nuttyrockeress

One of the things I do often (this is good if you are ok with using excel) is list everything left in the cupboards inc. how many tins of stuff you have of one product and group them into what you can make a meal from - and list them down in column A then in column C I will drag items from column A that can go together that will make a dish. This way I always make sure i'm not duplicating an item and find myself short of something

Plus by doing it like this I can title each group with what each meal will be

Hope this makes sense?

daisy1973

Hi there,theres a website called supercook.com which if you type in what ingredients you have,it comes up with recipes for them,hth

esmf73

Personally I'd use the kidney beans and red lentils to bulk out the mince so you can make more chilli - you can then serve the chilli either with rice, or in the pittas.

Hope this helps - sorry to suggest and run - boys home from school

Butterfly_Brain

Check out this thread it has lots of ideas
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=326929

CCP

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

Celery- just bin it, its nasty!!!!

:rotfl:

I'm not keen on celery, either! It's not bad as a basis for soups and stews, though, so that's probably how I'd use it: chop it fairly finely and soften it in a splash of oil and use with some of the bacon and some red lentils to make a lentil soup, which will do you for lunches.

The rest of the bacon could go with the kidney beans or chickpeas, some tinned tomatoes, one of your peppers and some more of the celery to make a bean and bacon hotpot; and/or fry with some of your eggs and serve with baked beans and toast for a fry up (well, if you can't have a fry up when the weather's this cold, when can you do it? )

Fritatta is always a good way of using up excess eggs, perhaps with peppers and some of the feta - it's good cold, too, so that might be your packed lunch sorted out. The mince I would use as queen of cheap suggests, bulked out with lentils as esmf73 says, which should give you several meals (I usually reckon on 6 - 8 one person portions from a standard pack of mince, depending what I make with it).

If you don't think you're going to use the two lots of cream before they go off then you can stick them in the freezer until you need them; I think you can freeze yoghurt, too, although I've never tried it myself. The lemons and limes should last for ages - I'd stick them in a bowl on the side in the kitchen - they'll look pretty and make the room smell nice, too. You can then use them up as you need them - I wouldn't worry too much about them going off unless they've already been in the fridge for ages.

I hope that's of some help.

got-it-spend-it

For a quick and easy packed lunch try the tuna mixed with butterbeans and some of the crunchy veg like pepper. Add some mayo or salad cream and lots of black pepper.

Red lentils are definitely the best way to pad out mince, IMO.

Cottage cheese is great on a jacket potato.

jexygirl

Hi ya
Firstly, I am pretty sure the majority of us, have at some point decided to count it all up and after feeling faint and nauseas wished we hadnt - BUT - once the shock is over, and you start dealing with stuff and getting help, then it can be almost liberating! Well done for taking the plunge I say.
Besides anything else, with all the food you have in, I reckon with some planning you could do a couple of weeks without a shop too - especially with all these great ideas above my sloppy post!

I would sweat off some onions, finely chop the celery, add some salt and pepper and the cream and a little veggie stock cube if you have it - boil it up and then simmer for a fair few portions of cream of celery soup. Freeze in portions, and when you are hungry just defrost a portion to fill you up.
The pitta ideas are great with the veggies, also I read somewhere of people who make wonderful bean burgers with lentils and the kidney beans etc, so that would be good for a change for you, perhaps made into patties with pasta or the pittas.
The salmon would make great fishcakes and stretch it a bit, out of 2 fillets you should get about 6 fishcakes (3 meals) if you fry off a bit of onion, S&P, add it (poached off and flaked) with a bit of lemon juice to some creamy mash and then dip them in egg / hm breadcrumbs. deep fry or bake with some frozen veggies.
Chicken and veg pasta bake, using one breast and some of your frozen veggies and the rest of the cream! Tuna pasta bake as suggested as you have some cheese frozen.
Also possibly stuff the other chicken breast with cheese and wrap it in bacon, and bake it off, with a Jkt pot or similar.
The oatcakes would be nice crushed as a topping on a pasta bake to give it crunch too. Or eaten as a snack with the cottage cheese and tomatos on top.
The yoghurts and sour cream will help with pasta bakes / sauces / that sort of thing I think, just check out recipes with them.
Chances are many of the meals you make will do for at least 2 meals not just one, so once cooked can be frozen down and reheated thoroughly.
HTH, Good luck, and let us know how you go
Jex

Isklar

I just want to say that I've been very emotional this afternoon, because of the money (LACK OF!) situation and I come back to read this thread and everyone's so nice and helpful it's nearly set me off crying again.:o

Thanks so much everyone, there's some great ideas here. I've found an old A4 folder and notebook that I'm going to use as my 'house book' to keep financial notes and household ideas in and have divided it into sections. I am going to write down all of your great suggestions in it.