Help! £40 to feed family for the month

Butterfly_Brain

I can't believe that this thread is still going after a year!
But it just goes to show that more and more of us are finding things tight especially the way that food prices have risen in the past year (probably due to 3 fuel tax hikes in 9 months) We end up having to pay more because of transportation costs.
I got a bag of 6 Turkey Breasts for £1 - Great! So Today I am having a batch cook

So tonight we are having

• Turkey Stirfry with sweet chilli sauce (1 breast)
• Tomorrow (Weds) will be Turkey Crumble (2)-will make enough for 2 meals and freeze one
• Thurs:Turkey casserole (2) - will make enough for 2 meals and freeze one
• Fri: I will mince a breast and add some mash, a beaten egg and some herbs and bake in the oven to serve with whatever veg or salad I have in the garden

And I will still have 1 breast of Turkey left which I will make into a pie to freeze

jacki981

tried the lentils in chilli it was brill! have another 2 portions frozen. i also made butter bean n lentil soup! yum! shoppin on tuesday! till then im skinter than skint! but thanks to the ideas on here we wont starve.
this month ive spent 9pounds on milk bread n cheeze so please help whats the best recipe for bread rolls ect and is it ok to freeze?

missychrissy

Wow ButterflyBrain I am impressed :T

I love seeing how far I can make things stretch. I did 5 chicken thighs in my slow cooker the other day. I added half a bag of butter beans (soaked overnight), 4 tablespoons of lentils, 3 chopped carrots, a handful of green beans chopped (from next doors garden and needing using up), one onion, quarter of a jar of Patak's Korma paste and a block of coconut. I did some basmati rice and it fed myself, one of my sons and his girlfriend who came unexpectedly. I had 2 further portions I froze for taking to work later and I had 2 portions of veg curry (no more chicken thighs in it) the following two days for my dinner.

I've just taken three chicken breasts out of the freezer(Asda frozen and work out approx 25p each) and put them in the fridge to defrost slowly. Will turn them into a stir fry day after tomorrow and hopefully will get 5 to 6 portions.

I have just had my dinner as I am going to work in just over an hour. I fried an onion, added half a tin of chopped corned beef and one portion of defrosted mashed potato (frozen leftovers from another meal) and fried until hot. Lovely and I have enough left for my dinner tomorrow. I have just taken one of my curries out of the freezer to take to work with me tonight. It should be defrosted by about 1am and I can heat it in the microwave. The other staff always jealous I have a nice cooked meal with me.

Pippilongstocking

bigbeff wrote: »

Can I ask, how do you bulk out bolognaise with lentils? Do you cook them first, then mix them in? I assume they are ok to freeze? I have never used lentils before....please excuse my stupidity!!

Hiya I am not keen on lentils in bolognese (personal taste thing) so we use soya mince (<£1 for 250g) - I just chuck in about a cup (25g?) when browning 500g mince - and it absorbs the extra browing and fat from the mince - cook then as normal and NOT ONE of my family has noticed - makes it go so much further and often so much extra to freeze.

In fact OH said it was the loveliest bolognese he ever had

I lvoe the adding porridge oats to curries and creamy things its brilliant and also the adding value mash potato powder to thicken up stews etc

I love this thread too its one of the first things tell folks about MSE:T

It was wierd we had a french student staying over the summer and she bought all the 'instant' meal food - firstly it tasted disgusting, it smells OK but it was SO expensive, by the end of her 9 week stay I had got her into taking in 'leftovers' - on leaving she gave us an extra £40 for food saying it was the cheapest and nicest 'leftovers' she had ever had

Cant beat home cooking eh? Waves to all

Pippilongstocking

lauzjp wrote: »

I do love this thread, but I've yet to convince hubby to eat left overs - especially stuff out of the freezer. I find it incredibly frustrating to make something lovingly in the slow cooker, only to find that that's it - he doesn't want to touch it after 1 meal.

This so made me giggle - my OH goes a bit white and shakey when I mention being 'frugal' - he likes NICE stuff - (our stuff is lovely) he's such a snob

I have to be frugal by deception or undercover of darkness like a secret-frugal agent.

Makes me giggle - he's so wierd, he's amazed I am paying off my debt earlier but is still not a fan of frugality - :rotfl:therefore I sneak around like a lunatic

Love the pie idea - I used up old cauliflower (frozen) old bacon and left over onions for a pie with reduced pastry - seemingly its called that wierdo cheese and ham pie - but they have asked when can they have it again!

firesidemaid

has anyone been watching economy gastronomy on tv?

i cannot believe how much people are spending on food (even after reducing their budgets)?!

silvasava

I've just found this thread & spent a couple of hours going through it. There are so many good tips that I will be using. I'm recently retired and wouldn't you know - costs have gone up, pension has gone down so I'll be making the most of my freezer & slow cooker. I have one advantage in that I'm a fairly keen gardener & had a good crop of potatoes, tomatoes & cucumbers. I've also had a good result from the fruit this year - apples, plums & pears. OH & me went blackberrying today - there's LOADS this year & free!!! so plenty of crumbles etc. I also use fruit in a lot of my cooking (bulks it out & adds taste) Apricots with lamb, plums with beef. I also experiment with stuffings to make the meat go further. I always use breadcrumbs (made in the food processor) & 1lb pork sausage meat & add whatever - sage from the garden & onion or for something different chopped chicken livers & mushrooms & a couple of tablespoons of cranberry jelly or plum jam - its really yummy. I also add frozen spinach to my bolognese/lasagne ( I buy the 'nuggets' & just lob half a dozen or so in the pot) which also adds to the 5 a day. I am going to start menu planning & using all the stuff I've crammed in the freezer. Maybe then I can start saving towards that New Zealand trip?????

furr

Hi everyone, I am truly inspired by this thread, I am still only on page 17, skipped to page 37 for variation lol and read that someone said to buy cheaper mince and drain off the fat. Another tip that was given to me by a friend (if you have time) is to fry off your mince, then put it in a bowl and stick it in the freezer for half an hour. When you take it out, you can literally lift off a 'disc' of fat that has hardened on the top. Much healthier and makes you realise how much fat there was in it. I tried it, was disgusted at the fat and am now converted!!!
Will DEFO try some of the ideas on this thread - especially the lentils!!
Mbaz - well done btw!

Chuzzle

OMG! I've just done our budget for the month and I am determined that we will NOT go overdrawn this month. Unfortunately with how things have been the past couple of months (car going wrong, frdige breaking down etc etc) this all means that I have £40 to feed my family (me, OH, DS1 & DS2) breakfast, lunch & tea. I have no storecupboard as I'vew been eating into that over the past few months - apart from herbs and spices all I have now is a tin of baked beans and a tin of chicken soup. Nothing in the freezer either in the way of leftovers. This is where I seriously need some help. My lot won't consider a veg meal as a meal it has to be meat of some sort. They get nasty if I give them the same thing twice in a row. And they're not keen on ready meals either, so it all has to be home cooked. And they won't eat my homecooked bread but they will eat my home baked cakes

Bearing all this in mind what would you do with £40 till nxt payday? This is for breakfasts, lunches and teas. Yellow stickies at supermarkets only ever seem to come out when I'm at work :-(

purpleivy

You need a Big Plan. If you look in the indexes of threads you will find some very similar threads here to the subject that is now in front of you. SOmeone cleverer than me with these things will provide the links, I'm sure. Weezl has a thread called something like 50p per day till Christmas. ON the first pages there is a big list of recipes that are very reasonable to make cost wise. I'll see if I can find it in a mo.