Mince quantity question (stretching and portion sizes)?

kezlou

This if for 2 adults and 3 children 8 and 5 yrs old both have huge appetites. My eight year old eats an adult portion, so way more than i do.

Some ideas and recipes:-
I did a few days ago got two deep filled pies and enough for shepards pie another day. so three meals using a 89p value mince from sainsburys.

Pie mince
500grams mince
a couple of handfuls of lentils (i used brown ones)
4 carrots chopped
2 onion sliced and cut of small ish
4 potatoes cubed
sweetcorn
mushrooms
swede
2 beef stock cubes

Boiled all of the above in a pan till lentils virtually disappeared. Then let cool.

I then made some pastry:
4 oz (110 g) of plain flour
2 oz (50 g) of fat. (margareine or butter)
run the above together till it resembles bread crumbs
add a small amount of very cold water to the breadcrumb mixture mixing it together with a knife.Do this until the mixture becomes doughy, pastry like .
Place into the fridge for 30 mins or till ready to use.
Roll out and place into baking tins, place mince filling in.
Put pastry on top and bake till golden brown gas mark 5 till ready.

I did the above with mash and veg.

Another one:-

Tomatoish Mince:
1kilo of mince(doesn't matter if meat / soya)
2carrots chopped
1 tin of tomatoes
handful of red split lentils
2 onions chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed
Put in about a pint of water
salt, pepper

Shove in slow cooker on low for about 6hours or on the cooker till it becomes thick but may need more water on the cooker.

I then split this up onto 6/10 meals.
can use the mince to make bolognese, chilli (just add kidney beans and chilli powder), lasagne etc

It all depends on what you wish to do with it.

I also fry and boil mince down along with rice to make a biryani.
Or make beef burgers or meatballs with them.

You'll be surprised at how much you can get out of a bit mince.

HTH

chivers1977

I definitely only use a fistful of mince in my cooking! I bag it up into 100g bags in the freezer. There are loads of pulses and veg all of my mince recipes. My OH hasn't noticed the difference!!!! He even commented that it was the best shepherds pie ever!!

Stephen_Leak

And I can do you recipes for risotto and Keema (minced beef) curry, both of which only use 250g of mince for 2 servings.

mirry

I have just taken some turkey mince from the freezer ,
and I wondering If I could get two meals out of it ?

I am thinking of making it into a sheppards pie style meal ,
but is there anything cheap I can use to bulk it out ?

any advice much appreciated

Katzen

Not sure if it works with turkey but whenever I bolognaise/chilli I add grated carrots and mushrooms. Also, make sure the shepherds pie's got loads of veg in-cubed carrots, peas, mushrooms and I like to add a tin of baked beans too

hilstep2000

You can add porridge oats to mince to bulk it out.

mgardner

I use red lentils I find this gives a better texture.

tessie_bear

u could add a can of baked beans if u are making shepherds pie type meal...i drain the tomato sauce off but thats up to u...u caould add a tin of sweetcorn...a choppped up courgette or pepper...an aubergine
hth

KimYeovil

Broth mix. Or even more onions than usual. Mushrooms. Or mix some of the potato in the mix and have a thinner topping of potato (or just use a breadcrumb crust.)

As it's turkey why not try sage-and-onion meatballs-come-stuffingballs?

eselt

I make turkey and sweetcorn risoles- mix up cooked mince with mash potato and sweetcorn, maybe some onions, season and chuch in some parsley, bit of egg to bid, shape into burger shapes or sausage shapes, flour, dip in egg, dip in breadcrumbs, then fry- yummy- the more I have to spead the mince the more potato I add!