6000 meals under 50p in 2010; feeding your family on a low budget

Lesley_Gaye

MileySmiley wrote: »

I make toasted sandwiches in my george foreman grilling machine thingy, just the same as using a sandwich maker but i can cook 4 at one time, saves on space just having one gadget that does a variety of things.

I do that too and they taste just gorgeous, they don't seal the edges, which I'm not bothered about, but they give that lovely crunchy outside. I can only do 1 toastie at a time, but I have a fairly small model, just the 2 of us now, so all we need

Am reading this thread from the beg and it is just brilliant. I had got about half way last night and had a couple of comments and recipes to post when the forums were suddenly taken down for maintenance - damn!

I have several word docs of recipes collected from the site over the last year, like Jackio O, I got mine mainly from Weezl's 50p a day challenge thread. If anyone wants a copy, quite happy to send and I will be pm'ing Jackie O for a copy of hers as well, I've got loads of good ideas from this site

mark55man

Reporting back for Tuesday 19th January

Busy day at work, glad to get home and fed - my OH does a mean chilli - me; I'm just mean. But today - NO CHEESE

Today's Summary - 18/18 :A meals 50p or under
Summary Total - 310/342 = 90.6% = Target 91.3%

Breakfast: 50p or under (6/6)
OP, OH - Lidl Crunchie Oats
DD1, DD2, DS1, DS2 : Cereal or nothing

Lunch: 50p or under (6/6)
OP: 2 slices woopsied breasd 4p, 2 carrots 12p, 1 apple, 10p = 26p
OH: Poorly
DD1, DD2: Egg Mayonaise Sandwich + 2 Carrots & Apple = 36p
DS1: Quorn Chicken Ham - 2 slices 24p + Bread 4p + 2 carrots 12p + apple 10p = 50p
DS2: Tuna Sweetcorn Sandwich + Apple + crisps

Supper: 50p or under (6/6) - unusually we measured this stuff out as I knew it would be close

Chilli Base : Lidl Kidney beans 20p, 2 tins sainsbury value tomatoes 70p, biq squeeze sainsbury tomato puree 8p, 2 lidl red onions (6 for 29p) = 10p, chilli salt and cumin - 10p = £1.18. Split in 2 half saved for veggie meals tomorrow, half used now = 59p
Meat Sauce = 230g mince (ASDA frozen lean steak mince 450g for £2) = £1 + 59p base = £1.59 for 4 portions (still with me?) = 80p for 2 portions
therefore
OP, OH : Chilli with rice = 80p + 100g rice = 16p = £0.96 for 2 = 48p each
*QED*

Kids : Egg Fried Rice - 400g Tesco Basmati rice 64p, 2 eggs, 20p 2 carrots 12p, 200g peas, 24p, 100g Asda smart price prawns (ty weezl *respect*) 58p = £1.78 = 45p

mark55man

can't keep up with all the comments but thanks to all, but a special mention for
* Bob who made me smile with the french paradox, and laugh with the Polish food link (I am going to try if any fit the budget - or even if they don't- I love that food)
* Weezl - whose suggestions were 90% of my ASDA food order
* BigMumma and Raini for moral support

omg I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow - but not blubbing

weezl74

mark88man wrote: »

omg I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow - but not blubbing

you're very similar though Mark.... she went one further tho, actually NAMED the kid after one of her 5 a day!




Baby called apple, to save anyone googling it

Raini

mark88man wrote: »

* BigMumma and Raini for moral support

Bless!! Made me blush - or might be the wine!!

You're welcome, I am really impressed with you & your efforts & think that you should be proud of yourself. You're a fine example for your kids :T

mark55man

weezl74 wrote: »

you're very similar though Mark.... she went one further tho, actually NAMED the kid after one of her 5 a day!




Baby called apple, to save anyone googling it

I named one of mine after biscuits ...

Lesley_Gaye

BigMummaF wrote: »

Oops..:o..this wasn't directed at you personally so please accept my apologies. In my usual ham-fisted way, I was trying to say that reading labels is a good idea as you may just be pleasantly surprised

If you have a look on the current month's Grocery or No Spend Day Challenges, there are a wealth of ideas & recipes to be had. I'm copying the list I've made from the NSD so hopefully the links will still work..I'm not very good with poota stuff :doh:
January Grocery Challenge. First page of any Challenge has lots of recipes.
Tinned Food Recipes.
Leftovers? Don’t Throw It..
Exciting Sandwich Fillings on a Budget.
Lunch for Work.
Laptop Lunchbox Ideas.
Packed Lunches.
Cheap Healthy Snacks.
Cheap Snack Ideas to Stop Buying Crisps.
Homemade Snack Ideas…contains further links for ideas.
Sprouting Seeds to Eat.
Really Quick & Alternative Snacks.
Easy Homemade Biscuits.
Muesli & Cereal Bar Recipes.
Weetabix Cake.
HM Popcorn.
Smoothie Recipes.
Yoghurt Without a Yoghurt Maker.
Ham Economics.
Low Carb Kids Lunches...contains advice for diabetics.
Kids Lunch Box Ideas.
Back to School Lunches.
Healthy Kids Snacks.
HM Lollies.
Ice Lolly Ideas
Cheap Healthy Playground Snacks.
Homemade Fudge.
OS HM Sweets.
Forgotten Puddings.

wow, what a lot of threads to investigate. I have cut and pasted your list into my Word doc and I have just tested it and the links still work, so thanks for listing all those

mark55man

Lesley even I haven't read through them all yet

Lesley_Gaye

phizzimum wrote: »

do you still have potatoes mark? I have a recipe for an Indian dish that uses white cabbage and spuds - it's yummy and but not overly spicy (not sure how spice tolerant your kids are!) it uses (roughly) equal quantities potatoes to cabbage.

fry diced onions with half tsp ginger and few cloves garlic in some veg oil (a dash of sesame oil adds extra flavour)
in another pan fry cubed potatoes until browned
add good amount of garam masala, sesame seeds, cumin, coriander, s & p and one chilli (if you have it).
add onions and sliced cabbage and sweat until potato is soft

its good as a side dish to curry - but we've eaten as a main dish when cooking for vegetarians.

This sounds utterly yummy, it has gone straight in my file so I can find it again

mark55man

mark88man wrote: »

I named one of mine after biscuits ...

In case you were wondering ...

Rich T ..

(I suppose I could have had Gary - esp if no hair at birth - ie a baldie, or Jacob, or even (my favorite) Dunk'n))