Sainsbury's £50 meal plan for the week

Make-it-3

Do Sainsbury's really think these are nutritionally sound meals? I'm surprised they are able to make the 5-a-day claim. Toast & jam for breakfast, a bit of limp lettuce in a lunch sarnie and a couple of token veggies thrown into the evening meal doesn't tally five.

patchwork_cat

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Do Sainsbury's really think these are nutritionally sound meals? I'm surprised they are able to make the 5-a-day claim. Toast & jam for breakfast, a bit of limp lettuce in a lunch sarnie and a couple of token veggies thrown into the evening meal doesn't tally five.

To be fair there is over 5 portions of different veg a day, but not a lot of variety really. I do agree as I said earlier it feels cobbled together and lacks variety and imagination.

CH27

Is this going to be a regular thing & if so, how often are they going to change their menus?

franwise

I agree with others here that all in all this is not aimed at MSE followers or those who already budget carefully. It is the lazy option to meal planning, and I think for that it is a darn sight better than ready meals (and cheaper).

The real trick as others have said is to buy in bulk different items from different stores. A trick a lot of you have missed here is sticking to "White Person" supermarkets, the day I discovered as a student the asian foods supermarket World Wide (Admittedly I live a short walk from Manchester's famous curry mile) was the best. Rice, spices, tinned beans/lentils, fresh fruit and veg, meat, bread, (all halal so no pork or cured meats) all A LOT cheaper. Cheaper than Lidl or Aldi. I laugh every time I see someone pick up a tiny pot of spices from Tesco/Sains and pay £1.50 for about 15g of spices, compared to 50p for 100 grams in the asian supermarket (even seen people doing it at the tesco across the road from asian supermarket!!) Also laugh at pathetic bunches of coriander for 3 times the price. So I go to the asian supermarkets for most of my shopping and then top up with specialty meats/cheeses/salads from tesco/lidl. Fresh chillies for 1p each!!!!

If you like Asian cuisine as much as I do NEVER EVER BUY ASIAN PRODUCTS FROM "WHITE PERSON" SUPERMARKETS. Obviously some areas will lack asian supermarkets. But like I said people stick to what they know and feel scared about wondering around in a slightly less orderly supermarket even when its just across the road. When I move out in June my dad is coming to get me and he is so excited about stocking up the car with 20 kilo bags of rice and every spice under the sun there might not actually be room for my stuff...

Thats_Me_3

Does Jamie Oliver still promote Sainsbury? I would love to see a series where a *celebrity* chef makes a weeks meals from the basic range. Every year around the time of the school summer holidays you will get some woman on one of the morning shows moaning that she can't afford to feed her kids during the holidays because her kids get free school dinners. One year, Antony Worrel Thompson was on the show and said that was nonsense, you could buy nutritious food to feed your family from the basics/value/smart price ranges, there was no excuse! Hmm, trouble is, he did not go on to say how to actually cook these marvelous meals. It is no good telling someone they can eat cheaply if they have no idea what to do with a packet of pasta and tin of tomatoes.
Anyway, what I am getting round to is supermarkets do good ranges of basics foods so could we please have Jamie/some other celebrity chef tell non cooks what to do with them. As anyone who has watched his cookery programmes will know, his emphasis is always on GOOD olive oil, GOOD parmesan cheese, GOOD pasta etc, etc. No one buys cheap food from choice, we buy it because that is what we can afford. To constantly have it shoved down your throat that you cannot do these recioes without GOOD ingredients will do nothing but put people off of cooking from scratch and make them feel inadequate for not being able to give their kids the very best, ie. the most expensive.
Anyway, that is my tuppence worth. I think supermarkets are doing themselves down by not promoting their basics range. Any fool can make a banquet with expensive foods, show us how to do it with cheaper alternatives.

song_of_calliope

I completely agree with you, Thats Me! It's ridiculous how bonkers these celebrity chefs have gone with lists of exotic ingredients as long as your arm to put into their recipes. I kid you not, I once saw a recipe in the Guardian that called for 3 different types of soy sauce. I didn't even know you could buy 3 types of soy sauce before!

Any fool can take a bunch of the really expensive stuff and put it together to make something that will taste nice. It takes actual skill and talent to make something tasty and original from just a few basic ingredients. I found an old Mennonite cookbook recently called "More with Less" that does this, though, and everything I've made from it so far has been fantastic, much better than anything I've made by spending a fortune copying the chef of the moment's recipes.

tootoo

very wise words!
its easy to come up with a menu when pennies aren't an issue, i would love to see a menu using basics and leftovers.
maybe some old stylers would be willing to do this with approx. costs? i know there are meal plans already but as they are a few years old the costs are out of date.

DennisBlue

I concur exactly with all that is said just above. I am not a student any more but buying in Asian stores is sooooooo much better value for all herbs & spices and pulses! Also quite a lot of fresh veg is lower cost too - although this usually will last for fewer days, so buy for the next few days only. But yes whole black peppercorns at a quarter the Asda price.

Also, a Catalan basic recipe is dead simple but delicious and cheap.
It's called 'pa amb tomaquet' (bread with tomato).
You need :- A baguette + 4 tomatoes (ripe and soft) + olive oil + salt.
Simply, slice the baguette lengthwise (so they are lying long and flat on the bread-board).
Cut the tomato in half through the middle and then press the tomato into and all over the half of baguette so the juice and pips act as a spread (instead of any butter or marge). It's the juicy taste rather than slices that we want.
Then, sprinkle (quite liberally) olive oil onto the (tomato-)bread and also a pinch of salt to taste.
If the tomato and/or oil is tasty, this is very nice on its own. In Catalunya, they invariably have sliced meats chorizo, jamon, salami, slices of cheese etc to go on it too.

This can even be a main course, but is usually a side plate or a starter. It takes minutes to prepare - ideally minutes before eating. In restaurants (here) they often take out the pips by passing the tomato through a sieve (or tea-strainer at home for small volumes), but the natives in Barcelona do not bother. They also discard the tomato skins; I love them so even eat these with oil & salt.

Perfect for summer! And you feel continental at the same time, as you eat it.

Thats_Me_3

Always makes me laugh when people say shop in asian shops for cheap herb, spices, pulses etc. Wish I could, but I live in Taunton! Very unfortunatly, we do not have ethnic shops here apart from one small outlet we have visited, the spices were excellent value but everything else was no cheaper than supermarket and in some cases more expensive. There is a Polish/Latvian shop that is open a couple of afternoons a week but it is mostly tinned produce and the prices are quite high. Years ago when I lived in the Midlands I always went into the asian shops and also the asian butcher but there is nothing here.

bramble1

I wouldn't buy meat from an asian supermarket/butcher because i don't agree with the way in which their animals are slaughtered. Plus i don't think we have any round here.