Meal for two for 50p. Suggestions?

RainbowsInTheSpray

Oh yes - another point to make here concerns the price of meat. This is often a big factor when people talk about the cost of preparing a meal.

What many contributors to this thread have been saying, in effect, is that you don't have to eat meat by the bucketload in order to enjoy it.

It's often a case of using very little, probably in diced or minced form, and then supplementing with other things like mushrooms or seasonal veg. You get the taste without having to break the bank. You can even do without meat altogether and eat tastily and more healthily/economically, although I'm only suggesting this as an occasional tactic as I'm not an advocate of vegetarianism.

When all's said and done, you can get quite a lot of chicken meat for 50p.

What IS involved is a bit of food preparation - cooking. Increasingly, people don't seem to be capable of lifting a finger in this regard, so they pay the price in both obesity/health problems and their bank balance.

cordial

RainbowsInTheSpray wrote:

When all's said and done, you can get quite a lot of chicken meat for 50p.

What IS involved is a bit of food preparation - cooking. Increasingly, people don't seem to be capable of lifting a finger in this regard, so they pay the price in both obesity/health problems and their bank balance.

Quite right. There's an amazing amount of meat still left on your average chicken carcass after a Sunday roast. Even after taking off 'sandwich meat', I find I can still scrape off enough bits and pieces to make a sauce to put on rice or pasta.

To get the ultimate value from my chicken, I then put the carcass in a large pan of water and simmer it for an hour or so with carrot, onion, celery and seasoning to get a delicious chicken soup.

As for the 'spenders', one of my neighbours is like this - always microwaving ready meals and never cooking. Her kids look like barrels and her OH had a heart attack the other week. She was on at me the other day about how expensive life is and how they couldn't afford their second foreign holiday this year...

Bogof_Babe

It's not as easy to feed two for 50p as it is to feed four for £1 or six for £1.50, unless you don't mind using bits of this and bits of that and having leftovers to work around the next day. Here's my contribution...

1/4 pack red lentils 18p
medium onion 10p
couple of medium potatoes 20p
2 large carrots 20p
2 heaped tsp bouillon powder 25p
splash soy sauce 5p

Peel & chop all veg, plus any greens you have spare, e.g. couple of brocolli stalks, the dark green top of a leek (well cleaned) or a few sprouts. Make stock with boiling water and make up to about 3 pints in a large stove-top casserole dish or saucepan. Add all other ingredients and simmer for about half an hour. Liquidize. Makes 7-8 good sized bowls of soup for around £1.

Serve with a 44p French stick spread with whatever you usually use, or make into garlic bread.

However if I tried to reduce this to two servings I'd be messing around with the leftover bits of things for days. I know the soup can be frozen but what about the crusty bread? Anyway you would have paid out the £1.50 up front, which defeats the objective.

cordial

Bogof_Babe wrote:

It's not as easy to feed two for 50p as it is to feed four for £1 or six for £1.50, unless you don't mind using bits of this and bits of that and having leftovers to work around the next day. Here's my contribution...

1/4 pack red lentils 18p
medium onion 10p
couple of medium potatoes 20p
2 large carrots 20p
2 heaped tsp bouillon powder 25p
splash soy sauce 5p

Peel & chop all veg, plus any greens you have spare, e.g. couple of brocolli stalks, the dark green top of a leek (well cleaned) or a few sprouts. Make stock with boiling water and make up to about 3 pints in a large stove-top casserole dish or saucepan. Add all other ingredients and simmer for about half an hour. Liquidize. Makes 7-8 good sized bowls of soup for around £1.

Serve with a 44p French stick spread with whatever you usually use, or make into garlic bread.

However if I tried to reduce this to two servings I'd be messing around with the leftover bits of things for days. I know the soup can be frozen but what about the crusty bread? Anyway you would have paid out the £1.50 up front, which defeats the objective.

Yes, a valid point - the economies of scale. People need to be able to plan and budget sensibly like Bogof Babe and then they'd find what truly massive savings can be made.

expertwannabe

This is a real easy cheap store cupboard dish that we all love. This is for 2 though:

1/2 onion 3p
1 tsp oil
1/2 cup rice (value rice) 4.5p
1 cup water
1 tin cheap tuna 24p
1 egg 10p
1/2 cup frozen peas 9p

Dice onion and fry off in largish saucepan in the oil. When translucent add the rice and stir round for a minute (keep heat reasonably low) Add 1 cup water and bring to the boil.
(this is important)Put lid on the pan and reduce heat to as low as you can. Leave it like that for ten minutes. Do not lift lid or stir rice.
After ten minutes quickly lift the lid, add the frozen peas, and replace lid and leave for 5 more minutes. Don't worry about stirring the peas in - they will cook.
Meanwhile, hardboil egg in seperate pan, cool, peel and chop.
Heat up beans in microwave or in the egg pan once you have cooked the egg.
(receipe was used alot when I only had 2 pans!!)
Once rice and peas have cooked (lift lid and tip pan, there should be no excess water in the pan) stir in egg, beans, and drained tin of tuna. Season to taste and enjoy!

NB this method of cooking rice works for all rice dishes. If just doing plain rice, no need to add peas (obviously) and simmer with lid on for 15 mins total. (on lowest heat possible). then check rice by tipping the pan for excess water - should be all gone and rice nice and fluffy to be enjoyed!!

RainbowsInTheSpray

Sausage and Cheese Bake:

Good amount of mashed potato mixed, while still hot, with two chopped-up fried sausages, chopped and fried onions and some grated cheese.

Spoon into an oven dish, add some more cheese gratings to the top and bung in a hot oven till golden on top. Delicious.

This is just the basic idea. You can add loads of other ingredients if you want - mushrooms, cooked veg, tomato rings on top etc etc.

sophiesmum_2

Buy a pack of soup mix pulses - most supermarkets sell these for less than 40p a pack. Bung in slowcooker with couple stock cubes and water for hearty mixed bean stew.
Around 50p for a whole slowcooker full. Plenty for tea and leftovers tofreeze or have for lunch.
( If you have a bit of chicken left over from a roast chuck that in too.. yummy)
sophiesmum:D

Sassers

Hi everyone :wave: My recipe works out at about a £1 for two - depending on where you buy your food.

One of the things I always have in my cupboard is a bag of chapatti flour, mango chutney and lime pickle….Below is one of my `recipes’ which costs less than a pound. I’ve used value flour instead of the chapatti stuff…..

One mug of `value’ plain white flour
A pinch of salt
2 tblspoons cooking oil
Water
Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add oil and then enough water to make a dough. Knead then roll out into thin circles. Heat frying pan till v hot and pop in then turn over each dough circle until it is lightly cooked and browned. Keep warm in oven covered with damp teatowel..

Peel and chop up fairly finely two potatoes, two onions, two carrots and whatever other veg you might have lurking around.
Add a tin of chickpeas and tomatoes.
Gently fry all in a knob of butter and splash of oil until tender. Out the storecupboard add tomato puree, garlic granules or whatever you have, salt and sugar to make the sauce. Add curry paste and stir to taste. Let simmer slowly for another 15-20 minutes until thickens .
Serve in a bowl with chutney pickle and the homemade chapattis.

Poppy9

I don't know how much it costs but not much to make a large yorkshire pudding and fill with mashed potato and swede with some onion gravy over the top.

cordial

I've been making a note of almost all of these recipes. Thank you, thank you everyone!!!!

I think I have enough to make up virtually a fortnight's worth of different dinners - I was already saving a fair bit but, armed with this, I can look forward to even less layout on ingredients.

The best thing about it is - almost all the recipes are from fresh ingredients so they're healthy options as well!!! Please keep posting!!