My favorite Cheap Meals

Spendi

I thought i would post this, maybe to give others an idea for cheap meals, you may have forgotten about or overlooked. I know with the joys of food shopping, and the lovely prepacked meals, we spend a fortune on, we sort of get waylaid with ooh dont buy ready meals make them. But there are lots of old basic meals i love now, that are really cheap.

Egg, oven chips and beans
Birds eye honey & mustard chicken breast (1) with pasta & sweetcorn
Grilled chicken breast with oven chips and peas
Jacket potatoe with tuna mayo ( tin of tuna bit of mayo ) and salad
Cod in parsely sauce with mash, peas and extra parsley sauce !

And a favorite more expensive meal but still cheap !

Tesco value scampi with oven chips peas and a squeeze of real lemon !

Puddings

Shops own brand / Value Angel delight - forgot how good this was !!

Perhaps if anyone likes these or has anymore you could post them underneath

computerwoman

I like poached egg on toast for breakfast, jacket spud with cheese or beans for dinner/lunch and stew and dumplings for tea/dinner, or bangers and mash

Quasar

I cook my own pasta con pommarola from scratch.

Wholemeal pasta
sautee a clove of garlic in extra virgin olive oil
add tomato passata (sieved tomatoes)
add a couple of chopped basil leaves or a pinch of dried basil
let simmer for 10 minutes while the pasta is cooking (wholemeal takes a bit longer than white pasta),

When ready, toss the pasta and sauce together and add a bit of freshly grated parmesan.

:drool::drool:

This is a very healthy dish at a very affordable cost. Of course you can go even cheaper by using ordinary olive oil and value pasta, but I would advise not to compromise on healthy meals, if at all possible.

Mics_chick

Sounds delicious Q I think Jamie Oliver does a similar thing on his latest advert (whatever it's for )

Got anymore like that one - I for one would be extremely interested

Quasar

Mics_chick wrote:

Sounds delicious Q I think Jamie Oliver does a similar thing on his latest advert (whatever it's for )

Got anymore like that one - I for one would be extremely interested

Well Jamie Oliver travelled to my native Italy to learn something about our cooking...;) I have quite a few recipes, including my own little inventions. I was planning to post a few now and then, but you know what they say about the best laid plans...:rolleyes:

Anyway I'm away tomorrow until Friday, but I'm determined to post some Italian recipes at some point - not just pasta, risotto etc, but meat ones, the ones nobody ever hears about..;)

letsgobilliejoe

today I made a quinoa, vegetable and bean casserole (mostly organic) at 60p per plate.

So healthy fod can be fairly cheap. Would have been about 20% cheaper if I hadn't broke my cradinal sin of buying tinned beans.

GUMPO

For value and taste nothing but nothing can beat home made corned beef and potato pie with beans.

I will duel any man who disagrees.

[Deleted User]

Bangers & mash
Egg & Chips
corned beef hash
Bubble & Squeek
Cottage pie.
Jam Butties ,
All basic British food that I grew up on .Probably not terribly healthy ,but when I was little there was a war on, and your were darned lucky to get anything to eat at all. Meals in those days were a challenge to any Mum, and my mum was extremely inventive;) .Not all of the food was particularly nice though, and I can't stand Woolton Pie or spam fritters :eek: .But today I have a choice, and I wonder what my old Mum would have made of the sorts of food available today .
She would have been gob-smacked at the amount of food wasted I think, as to her, thrown away food was a sin. Nothing ever was thrown away what we didn't (unlikely ) eat went into the chickens .We had a couple of chooks in the back garden that always ended their lives on our table .Sentimentality didn't enter our lives at all .when there are three hungry children to feed you have to do what you can with what you have .The lack of sugar in our diets probably did us no harm, and made up for some of the stodgy puds that was foisted on us to fill us up.It wasn't so much the frugality of our diet, as the nessecity to make do that was the order of the day.
Today I can go into M&S and buy a carrot cake for almost as much as my mum had to feed her family on for a week.
The thing that I find strange is that for all the cookery programmes on T.V. and the huge amount of cookery books in the shops there are millions of people who just can't, or won't cook at all. Hopefully this country will never again see the deprivations of the last big conflict as I doubt that many cook cope with the trauma of boiling an egg.
Bring back basic cookery to schools, and perhaps this generation won't grow up thinking that all you need for a healthy lifestyle is a tesco's or sainsburys meal-in-a-box :rolleyes:
It's quite possible with very little thought to cook and eat very ordinary food ,it's not rocket science it's just common sense .Pasta you throw into a pot and boil (similar to a kettle really )Grilling meat is no different than making toast
One of my grandaughters is in the middle of her Duke of Edin. award scheme, and at Christmas with help from her friends cooked and iced a terrific Christmas cake.This is a little girl who rarely steps foot in a kitchen apart from picking up the walkaround phone to chat to her pals .She was amazed how easy it was .I finished the last slice last night and it was great.She has at 13 caught the cooking bug, and is really keen to have a go.When I asked her if they did cookery at her school she said no, as it wasn't classed as important, and it was something that the school just couldn't be bothered with .:eek:
What an indictment of todays world.

gingin_2

b

Quasar wrote:

Anyway I'm away tomorrow until Friday, but I'm determined to post some Italian recipes at some point - not just pasta, risotto etc, but meat ones, the ones nobody ever hears about..;)

I am waiting eagerly to hear. We ADORE italian food

For us, it is

HM pizza
bacon and eggs
risotto
potato bake
chilli (maybe not that cheap but always bulked out with an extra tin of beans)
fishcakes (using tinned fish)
stuffed veggies

HM soup is another favourite and costs soooooo little compared to shop bought versions, £1.99 for a branded 500ml leek and potato soup whereas I can make litres for less than that!

[Deleted User]

Absolutely gingin.I made a HUGE potful on Sunday and bottled it up and froze it for a weeks supply. I usually have soup as a starter in this frosty weather, and then my second course doesn't have to be so large .I can eliminate pudding this way as well.:j

Although a really good thick gloopy rice pud is to die for .
2ozs rice pudding rice 10p
2ozs of sugar 5p
one large tin of evap milk 40p
diluted to 1 3/4pints of water add 1/4 pint of milk = two pints of rice pud That will stick to you ribs and feed a family easily for around 55p I like to put a few sutanas in as well as ithey plump up beautifully
Shove it all in the slow cooker or on the bottom shelf of the oven for a couple of hours and hey presto, one Huge pudding
My mum used to put her rice pud on first thing Sunday morning on the bottom shelf of the oven, and it would cook slowly until lunchtime, kept the kitchen warm as well.:rotfl:

DawnW

stuffed potatoes - bake as many largish potatoes as you have people to feed in the oven till done, take them out, cut in half and scoop out the flesh, saving the skins. Mash with butter/little milk, then add any combination of the following (though I am sure you can think of more alternatives): chopped onion, first softened in a little oil, grated cheese, scraps of cooked ham, bacon or other cooked meat, a tablespoon or two of pickle or chutney, cooked left over veg (small quantities). Season with salt and pepper, pile mash back into potato skins, sprinkle with grated cheese or dot with butter, then pop back in the oven till golden on top. Serve with salad or baked beans.

Cheese and onion, sprinkled generously with cheese, are my favourite. Kids love them, and can choose their own 'fillings'.