cheap, easy family meals

3KIDSNOMONEY

Not being the best cook in the world I can't just throw a meal together. If anybody has any recipes for easy meals, not necessarily cheap but so I won't have to go and buy any ingredients that can only be used for this one meal. Everyday recipes would be great, I have recently done a successful shepherds pie that all my 3 kids will eat. I am no good with recipe books as I need things explaining simply, especially cooking meat as I am always unsure about whether it is cooked or not (I am vegetarian and so don't want to sample it) Thanks

TKP_3

Hi, I posted a recipe on the Storecupboard food thread - it's easy, tasty and quite cheap. From BBC Goodfood magazine

Feeds 4 - easily halved or doubled

Tuna Melt potato wedges

750g frozen potato wedges
4 tbsp mayonnaise
1 small onion chopped small
100g grated cheese
2 x 160g cans tuna steaks OR 1 pack back bacon chopped and cooked

1. Heat oven to 220C.

2. Tip the potato wedges onto a large baking sheet, ensuring they sit in a single layer. Bake for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, mix together the mayonnaise, onion, cheese and tuna OR bacon.

2. Tip the potato wedges into an ovenproof dish and spoon the mixture over the top. Pop back into the oven for a further 12 minutes, until bubbling.

TKP_3

Oops, just seen you are vegetarian - sorry. Can substitute the meat with tofu or butternut

tallulah_beaulah

I know you said you don't want recipe books, but have you seen Rose Elliot's "Cheap and Easy" cookery book? She's a vegetarian cookery writer and this book is full of great family recipes, like pasta bakes, a savory bread and butter pudding, rice dishes and some delicious simple desserts like crumble.

I've had this book for about 10 years and swear by it, everything in it is very simple, with straightforward ingredients and easy explanations. I'm using it to plan meals for the whole of december, trying to squeeze down our food spending, and it's really helped. It's not exciting fancy food, but good everyday stuff.

LJM

the tuna melt potato wedges sound nice will put that on my list for my meal planner

Counting_Pennies_2

Stew is fab this time of year.

Just brown some chunks of beef, I find braising steak is best. Then add an onion and brown with it and chunks of carrot or other root veg and pour over water and cook on hob or low/medium oven for a couple of hours.

Bung in some jacket potatoes in the oven and you have a very tasty meal. You mention you are vegie yourself but do meat for your kids, and for this no testing of meat is required because it has been cooked for sooooo long!

hope that helps

pizzaboy

One really easy thing to make if you have nothing in the fridge,is just cooked pasta ,lemon,black pepper and olive oil.really nice especially with fresh lemon and cheap as chips.:D

squeaky

You'll need to cherry pick and adapt the recipes in the links here, substituting quorn or nut loaf or something whereever you see meat in a dish - but there are loads of ideas...

Challenge:
- Cheapest cake to feed six
- Cheapest meal
- Feed six for £1.62
- Full cupboards
- Got £1 and hungry
- Store cupboard Challenge

yummymummy79

We have got a couple of favourites:

Tuna Pasta Bake (although does use sachet of sauce so cheating a bit but still cheap - costs us no more than £2 for 2 and a half people)
1 x sachet Colmans Tuna Pasta Bake Sauce
1 or 2 tins tuna
Sweetcorn (optional, couple of handfuls would do it)
Pasta (any variety)
3/4 pint milk
Basically cook pasta, mix sauce with milk, bring to boil then turn down, add tuna and sweetcorn to warm through, put pasta back in, stir for a couple of mins thendone. You can then transfer to oven dish and put cheese and crushed crisps on top to bake, but I never bother with that bit. Amounts of ingredients are a bit vague, but I do change it depending on how hungry we are.

OR

Sausage and Bean bake
2/3 sausages per person (depending on appetite!), could use veggie instead
Few rashers bacon (optional)
Tin of baked beans
Tin of flagolet beans (or could use 2 x baked beans)
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tomato puree
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
Herbs
Bit of mustard

Cook sausages and bacon until just about done and chop into bite size pieces. Cook onions and garlic for a few mins until soft, add tomatoes, beans, puree, herbs and mustard. Cook for a few mins, add bit of water to adjust sauce consistency if necessary. Add in sausages and bacon, cook for a few more mins to finish off.
Yummy with mashed potatoes.

carolt

Similar to tuna pasta bake - cod pasta bake
Very easy, uses one pan and one oven dish, takes about half an hour start to finish.

- put pasta on. Put oven on medium/high heat eg 200 degrees

- put cod fillets/steaks/cheap defrosted frozen rectangles (can use any cheap white fish eg coley, pollack etc, all fine) in the biggish dish you're going to use for the pasta bake later and bake in oven while pasta is cooking.

- turn off pasta and drain

- take dish with cooked fish fillets in (will have turned from translucent to white and probably leaked a bit of fluid and should flake easily when done, but even if a tiny bit under/overcooked won't matter)

- flake fish fillets with fork in dish

- tip pasta into dish

-tip enough tomato pasta sauce from a jar onto mix to coat it, and mix all together

- grate cheese on top

- put back in oven for about 15 mins to melt/brown cheese so it goes crispy on top. Voila!

Can make own pasta sauce easily with cooking onion/tinned tomatoes/herbs and optional peppers/courgettes - but the bought sauce is quicker and probably no more expensive and certainly a lot less hassle - I use Tesco's Healthy Eating jar at about 63p which my kids love (they prefer the homemade, but when I can't be bothered....).:o

LJM

quote from counting pennies

Stew is fab this time of year

i find that too i just bung everything in the slow cooker in the morning and its done i love stew hmmmm