Feed the family cheaper, share your menu planners and tips [merged]

JoJoB

We've been very broke the last few weeks so meal planning has been essential. It has been very helpful to have bags of frozen herbs/chillies/chopped ginger/chopped garlic in the freezer (bought from waitrose in less skint times) so I can create very nice meals from cheap store cupboard basics. Creamed coconut sachets in the fridge also. In the cupboard all the usual spices plus cooking oil, fry-lite, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. Also helps to have dried pulses in the cupboard. And a few baking basics - I can always rustle up some ginger bread at a moments notice as it uses stuff I always have in the cupboard (flour, sugar, butter, ginger).

If I have to do a very basic shop for the week I would get:

6 tins chopped tomatoes - Netto usually cheapest
potatoes
rice
pasta
quorn mince
cheap tins tuna x2
2 tins sweetcorn
lettuce
veg that keeps well eg carrots, broccoli, 1 sweet potato
frozen peas
oats
cheap end-of-day bread that can be frozen and used for toast
baked beans and kidney beans
flavoured cous-cous
bananas
few apples (keep forever in the fridge)
jar of curry sauce (whatever is on offer - for when I'm feeling lazy)
jar of pesto
fish fingers
eggs

To feed 2 adults and a toddler.

This would produce:

Breakfasts - toast, porridge, omelette, eggy bread, or banana

Lunches and dinners -

pasta in hm tomato sauce
pasta in pesto
baked potato with tuna and sweetcorn mayo
hm carrot and coriander soup
yellow split pea and coconut dhal with pilau rice
chilli and rice
shepherds pie
bombay potatoes
Chickpea and sweet potato korma and rice
fish fingers and beans
beans on toast
chips and eggs
egg on toast
omelette and salad
hm tuna and sweetcorn pizza

I can highly recommend the yellow split pea dahl - so delicious and easy and very cheap to make if you have the spices in your cupboard:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=13824987&postcount=40

discountmummy

JoJoB wrote: »

I can highly recommend the yellow split pea dahl - so delicious and easy and very cheap to make if you have the spices in your cupboard:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=13824987&postcount=40

Thanks for this looks nice might try it just one ickle question Can you freeze it?

JoJoB

Not tried to freeze it, but I don't see why not. I batch freeze lentils so i imagine yellow split peas would be ok.