Help with food - no money!!

flis21

Right, here is the situation. I have about £10 left in my bank account and about £10 worth of Nectar points to last me for the next two weeks. I need to feed me and other half mainly out of what we have in the cupboards. So I was hoping if I list the food I have got you could give me some ideas of things I could make using what I already have or things that I would only need to buy something cheap to go with. Here goes:

Freezer: 1.5 bags of Prawns, 8 Cod portions, 0.5 bag mince, green beans, 4 sausages, 1 steak, baby sweetcorn, 4 chicken breasts, peas and 2kg frozen chicken 'portions'.

Fridge / Fresh: 2 bags potatos, red onions, garlic, 1 lemon, apple juice, celery, lettuce, carrots, parmesan cheese, eggs, a little bit of low fat cheese and condiments (mayo, mustard etc.)

Cupboard: 6 tins chopped tomatos, 2 tins baked beans, 2 tins sweetcorn, curry paste, 4 tins red kidney beans, 2 small tins tuna, tin coconut milk, plain flour, cornflour, suet, green lentils, red lentils, sultanas, 1 pkt cous cous (lemon and herb), poppadoms, gherkins, 1 jar bolognese sauce, pasta shapes, rice, macaroni, risottoe rice, cannelloni, pizza base mix and usual herbs / spices / oxo / gravy etc.

So any ideas?

Bogof_Babe

I could easily feed two for a fortnight with that lot, all you need is a big chunk of cheddar or other tasty "cookable" cheese and plenty of milk, plus a packet of cornflour. Say £5 for those, plus butter if you need more of it. Cheese sauce turns many odds and ends into a meal!

I can never get my head around these huge lists of what people already have, but if you make a start with a meal plan (list the obvious things) then let us know what you have left, it will narrow the challenge down!

mae

prawn curry.
spag bol
tuna and sweetcorn pasta
fish pie using the cod and slices of potatoes and onions layered with some stock milk and butter with peas.
chicken done in the oven with tin of tomatoes and herbs onions garlic.
celery soup
sausage casserole or just sausage and chips maybe with a tin of beans

Somebody else will come up with better ideas but just for this type of basic meals you've got loads.

sophiesmum_2

bolognese with pasta
use half then add chilli powder/kidney beans to make chilli and have with rice

home made pizza with tuna,red onion,lf cheese,tinned toms,

prawn curry with rice

jacket potatoes with prawn mayo filling

cube the steak and add to potatoes veg and stock for a hearty stew.
blitz leftovers with stick blender to make soup.

vegetable risotto

make a fish bake with flaked cod portion, prawns,peas,sweetcorn in white sauce, top with potatoes.

fish and chips/peas

sausage mash,onion gravy,green beans.

lentil and carrot soup

vegetable omelette

chicken portions, roast potatoes,carrots.peas,gravy etc

chicken/sweetcorn/mayo with salad/jacket spuds.

No worries you should easily do it, just use the perishable stuff like salad first.

Good Luck
sophiesmum

moggins

You've got loads there, If you stick to fairly simple dishes that only require 4 or 5 ingredients then you should even come in with money to spare.

freda

You don't say if you need to provide breakfast and lunch too?

If you do, get a large bag of porrige oats for breakfasts, you can make it with water or 50/50 milk and water. Add some currants for variety, maybe some cinnamon if you have it.

Lunches, you will need lots of cheap fillings for sandwiches, i.e. cheap hard cheese, jam, marmite etc instead of ham slices etc. Make a big batch of cakes (buy some own brand s.r. flour and cheap eggs to make these). Put sultanas in the cakes, or maybe use the lemon if you're not using it for anything else (grate the rind into the cake mix, then when they're cooked, squeeze the lemon juice and spoon over the tops of the cakes while its still hot). Buy a big value pack of cheap eating apples, and a big bunch of value bananas. For variation, take leftovers from your main meals in to work, especially if you ahve a microwave. You've got couscous too - make a couscous salad with the flavoured cc plus any salady bits you can find to chuck into it. No fizzy drinks or anything, just drink water or whatever your work provides free. Lunch sorted.

Meals, you've had loads of ideas already. Mine would be:

Cod portions - make a large fish pie (cod portions covered in cheesy white sauce, covered in mashed tatties, bake). Also, just poach the cod, cover with white cheesy sauce and eat with mash and veg.

0.5 bag mince, - lots you can do here. Meatballs, spag bol, burgers, shepherd's pie and so on.

green beans - eat as veg part of main meals.

sausages - sausage casserole, toad in the hole, grilled sausage and mash?

steak - as you only have one, chop it up small and make a casserole with it, using lots of veg to bulk it out.

baby sweetcorn - use as pizza topping, or as veg part of main meals.

4 chicken breasts - make chicken kievs (slice breast open like a pitta bread, open out and bash a bit flatter, fill with a bit of tomatoe paste and cheese, or garlic and soft cheese - whatever you have really. Fold back together, dip in egg then in breadcrumbs and bake till cooked through), or chicken kebabs (chop the breast up and put on kebab sticks with any veg that you have, grill), chicken in white sauce on rice etc etc

peas - use as veg part of main meal, also to add to things like rice and pasta to add colour and interest.

2kg frozen chicken 'portions' - biiiiig casserole! Use the leftovers to make a chicken pie - just put the leftover casserole in a baking dish, cover with (ready made) puff pastry.

2 bags potatos - keep these fresh by making sure they are in a paper bag and stay dark and dry. A cool cupboard is better than a fridge, imho, as a fridge sometimes gets a bit damp.

red onions - great for stir fries or just use instead of normal onions in any of the main meals above.

garlic - would be great in any of the casseroles, or chicken kiev.

1 lemon - use to make lemon chicken with some of your chicken, serve on rice or your lemon and herb couscous. Or use it to make the cakes.

celery - great for adding flavour and bulking out casseroles

lettuce - quick, eat it before it goes off! Use in salads for lunch, sandwiches for lunch, as the veg part of a main meal like lemon chicken and couscous.

carrots - use with main meal, also great roughly chopped into large pieces and added to casseroles to bulk them out.

parmesan cheese - use on top of fish pie?

eggs - scramble as sandwich filling, or hard boil and add to fish pie

a little bit of low fat cheese - buy some more (normal, its cheaper) cheese, its dead useful.

tins chopped tomatos - great for all the casseroles, spag bol etc. Also as the base of a soup, or simmered down to make tomato paste for pizza or chicken kievs.

2 tins baked beans - on toast for a lunch, or add to casseroles to bulk out

2 tins sweetcorn - on pizza, or as the veg part of a main meal

4 tins red kidney beans - great for bulking out casseroles.

2 small tins tuna - tuna on toast for lunch, or add to tin toms, onion, to make tuna pasta bake. Put grated cheese mixed wiht breadcrumbs on top and grill.

green/red lentils - use to bulk out casseroles.

1 jar bolognese sauce - use it up because you have it, but please learn to make your own! Doesn't take long and costs pennies.

pasta shapes - think pasta bakes, pasta and (homemade) sauces etc

rice - use instead of potato when you run out of tatties

macaroni - macaroni cheese. Or add to casseroles.

risottoe rice - could use this with the chicken to make lovely chicken rissotto

pizza base mix - great for using up any leftovers. Don't buy the tom sauce to go on the bottom, either just use tom paste spread thinly and topped with a scatter of herbs, or make your own tom sauce by frying onion and garlic, adding tins of toms, herbs, dash of worcester sauce and simmer down. Also, learn to make your own pizza dough - again, cheaper and dead easy! And you know what goes into it, which you don't with ready made.

I think you'll be fine just buying a great big slab of cheap cheddar cheese, some eggs, fruit, maybe more tatties, bread (get into the supermarrket when they reduce them, stock up and make into sandwiches to freeze.) and maybe some self raising flour to make cakes and puddings.

apple_mint

Also don't automatically allocate one item of meat per person. For example - one chicken breast will feed two of you if you slice it and stir fry with veggies and rice. One chicken breast, cooked, shedded and mixed with a HM cheese or savoury mushroome sauce can be used to top jacket potatoes or fill HM pancakes.

I would take two sausages, slice them into chunks and add them to veggies and stock to make a pan top sausage casserole which can then be poured over or into Yorkshire Puddings.

Robothell

Should not be a problem with that list.....lots of good stuff there.

In the bottom of a pan, fry half an onion, a bit of garlic and some chilli powder if you have it. Brown some chicken in the mix, pour on the coconut milk - easy thai red curry.

Curry powder, other spices, garlic and onion in a pot - cook the spices then add some chicken or veggie stock and hoy in some lentil for a lentil curry (really filling and healthy too)

Pizza idea as mentioned above - just blitz down some of yoyr tinnedtomatoes with some herbs an garlic for the sauce and top with chopped sausage?