£10 to £15 for food a week?

Hiddenidenity

quintwins wrote: »

i know your on the old style boards so why not try listing an average weeks meals over there and we'll see if we can help cut it down (since we've already taken over this thread:o) or if you list the contents of your cupboards/fidge/freezer you might be suprised just how many meals you already have in, i always feel like we have no food in because my fridge is empty all the time and my freezer is full of meat rather than quick things or nibbles

feel free to private message me if you want anymore help

and merry christmas to you all

Quintwins is definatly someone to speak to about making food last/more meals for low prices. I don't know where I'd be with out her :A

Well I do prob starved to death and even more skint than I already am :rotfl:

winterwhite11

tesco cheap super noodles are about 11p..2 packs together are very filling..just add a half chicken oxo for better flavour. they also do pot noodles cheap...

quintwins

thanks hiddenidenity

winterwhite11 wrote: »

tesco cheap super noodles are about 11p..2 packs together are very filling..just add a half chicken oxo for better flavour. they also do pot noodles cheap...

i read once that these have little or no nutritional value, however i use these for quick lunches with frozen peas and sweetcorn and some soy sauce topped with a wee bit of cheese, or i throw a packet in turkey noodle soup (i think i posted this on my first post) i found the value pot noodles really bland even if soy sauce (which isn't included)

freyasmum

It's not for me to say whether or not that budget is suitable for you, only you can try it and see. I don't think I could do it - I'm constantly amazed when I read that people can get a million meals from a chicken - but I wish you good luck.

I'd also tend to think of it as £60/month rather than £15/week.

A brilliant soup I make is white bean and chorizo. Chop and fry an onion, 5cm piece of chorizo, squeeze of garlic puree, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika until nicely coloured and delicious-smelling then add in your beans (either tins or - if you're mad enough :A - dried. It's much, much cheaper to use dried but you have to soak/boil so it's up to you to weigh up the pros/cons - or you could use cooked chicken if you preferred/have any left over) and veg - I tend to use peppers (frozen, because they're cheaper and there's no waste) and a small tin of sweetcorn but you could use whatever you've got in.

Add in a tin of tomatoes, a stock cube and fill the tomato tin around half full again with hot water and rinse out all the flavour into the pot.

It's a bit more expensive than your basic carrot and lentil (which is another of my favourites) but I think sometimes you just wanna punch up the flavour and the chorizo - even though it's only a tiny piece - does that, and it tastes nice and meaty and satisfying. If you reduce it down to thicken it up a bit and add some more veg/pulses, you could also have it as a bit of a veg stew for dinner.

A delicious dinner I make is cauliflower biryani. If you don't have the spices (corriander, cumin and turmeric) already in they it may work out quite expensive, but they last for ages. I don't tend to bother with the herb yoghurt but I do add in peas (again, frozen) and if I have some sliced meat - last time was lamb - I'll add that in too sometimes.

Another dinner is mince with loads of veg - diced courgettes, grated carrot, garlic, onions, little chunks of potato (cooked), peppers, mushrooms and whatever else you fancy - topped with half a big tub low fat natural yoghurt with an egg or two mixed in - I know that sounds a bit minging, but it makes a really nice topping - and then topped with more grated cheese - again, I use parmesan. I find that because it's more strongly flavoured, I only need to use a little bit. Cook your onion and garlic first, add your mince then the veg, starting with the ones that need cooked slightly longer, add a tin of tomatoes or two and let it simmer and reduce slightly if needed. Put the topping on and bake in the oven until nicely golden brown. Eat with garlic bread, cos it's just downright amazing :drool:

As for shopping I don't tend to buy (only) value products, I buy what I like - green giant sweetcorn, birdseye frozen petit pois, fairy washing up liquid and washing powder - BUT I buy it on offer. Every year, Sainsburys reduce the huge 90 wash boxes of fairy powder to half price and, cos my dad works there, I get it for £8. I got two and that is more than enough to keep us clean until the next offer. I do the same with other products, buy a few more when they're on offer. It does require a little bit of space, but it works out cheaper (for me) shopping this way.

Oh, another thing - if you have other people you can club together with - approved foods isn't a bad place to stock up on things like pastry mix that'll do loads of quiche for £1, 500g packs of dried beans for 20p, rice wine vinegar for 60p, nandos herb seasonings are 3 for £1 (or £1.49 each in the supermarkets). It totally depends what they have in stock and, admittedly, a lot of it is more 'junky' foods like crisps and sweets which I don't bother with, but you can generally pick up a few good buys. ROSSPA seems another place that isn't bad for fruit and veg - they have two melons for £1 at the moment, or 10 bananas for £1 for example.

Sorry, that was long

Good Luck

SailorSam

For lunch i usually make sandwiches , either cheese or garlic sausage which is cheap in Heron Foods, and top up with onion or tomato. Now last week i was clearing the cupboards and found a packet of dried butter beans which i've never used and didn't know what to do with them. I read on here they were a bit like Cous Cous in so much as pretty tasteless but took on the flavour of whatever was around them, so what i did was cook them and whizz them, then whizz the cheese, sausage, onions, tomatoes and mix the lot in a plastic container. So the butter beans which are cheap pans out the other things and as they're full of fibre it means you're eating less of the high fat stuff. And you can't taste any difference.

SailorSam

winterwhite11 wrote: »

tesco cheap super noodles are about 11p..2 packs together are very filling..just add a half chicken oxo for better flavour. they also do pot noodles cheap...

Why not make your own pot-noodles.

Home-made pot noodles: Recipes: Good Food Channel

River Cottage - River Cottage Community Recipes

AdmiralX

SailorSam wrote: »

Why not make your own pot-noodles.

One can make also their own egg noodles and cost far cheaper. Egg, pasta flour or buckwheat flour.

AdmiralX

freyasmum wrote: »

Irice wine vinegar...

Enjoyed indeed. I use rice wine vinegar when I fry eggs, turn them over and pour a bit.

ezyesta

Potatoes. Potatoes. Potatoes.

Jacket potatoes, mash potatoes, fried potatoes.
Mash potatoes with peas and gravy.
Jacket potato with butter or beans or cheese or any other topping eg. canned tomato spaghetti lines.

A bag of potatoes if you shop around are REALLY cheap when you consider what you can do with them. You said you had a lidl near you, lidl are doing 1kg of frozen sausages for about £1.20 atm, so incorporating them, thats mash potatoes, peas, gravy and sausages. You can chop spring onions into the mash to make it more healthy.

A meal with mash potato, some frozen peas, gravy made from scatch and one or two sausages should cost less than 40p. (I'm guessing, as I normally have jacket with butter and this is like a 20p meal, unless the potatoes were on offer/reduced or REALLY REALLY cheap, then its more like a 10p meal)

pourwitty

This is my £15 weekly shop for this week,
i go to ASDA and buy asdas own.
i don't want to eat next to nothing, or just pasta or just soup so i spend alot of time working out meal plans.
_______________________________
enchiladas (3.25) 4meals
tortillas 1.50
mixed beans 0.55
fajita sauce 1.20
_______________________________
curried Pasties/pies (2.40) snack

Veg (2 packs of carrot sweed mix) 1.00
strong bread Flour 0.70
stork marg 250g 0.70
_______________________________
curry (4.00) 4 meals
curry paste 2.00
curry fodder 2.00 (sweet potato, cauliflower,pineapple, peas etc)
_______________________________nettle soup (2.00) snack
carrots 0.50
onion 0.50
rice 0.50
bread 0.50
nettles 0.00
_______________________________
fruit 3.00
tea 0.30


So it works out as (if you stick to regular meals, i like to eat whenever, so split them up into smaller portions througout the day)

-Toast and tea with fruit for breakfast
-1 pie for lunch (i have a berocca with this)
-curry or enchiladas for main meal
-soup for another snack

-If i lived somewhere that had more access to wild foods such as plums, gooseberrys,greenages, etc i'd make jam
-if i had acorns,chestnuts,beechnuts i'd eat them too
-wild garlic is good, but we only have one plant nearby
-dandylion roots make good coffee but it's a nightmare pulling them up without making a mess, ok if it's in your own garden and you don't mind holes in your lawn but i cant take a spade to the park.
-when farmers nearby harvest they miss carrots or potatos around the edge of the fields which go to waste, i take some and make pie.
-if you run over a pheasant.... eat it.

Edit- i don't eat meat, dairy or eggs and it's quite difficult trying to make filling meals with JUST veg.
you could make alot with some eggs+ milk, quiche,omelette, pancakes etc;
add a 50p bag of asda own coco pops and that gives you a different breakfast or snack.

you have to really think about things but they key is to use ingredients that will work for alot of different meals that week.

eg buy sweet potatos and be creative, soup, burgars, curry, baked, stuffed.