Making lumps of meat look bigger...

Rachb2

I had exactly the same problem with my OH a year or so ago, but then I explained to him that we needed to tighten our purse strings and try and loose some weight along with it. Prior to this conversation we had meat every night of the week and we bought it all from the supermarket. After the chat, we decided to try and have 1 or 2 vegetarian dinners a week as a way to save some pennies and calories. My best tip for a hearty vegi dinner is something made with eggs, like a spanish ommlete or a frittata. You can put all sorts of vegis in it or a bit of goats cheese, or you could just put a bit of bacon in to start with. The main thing to do is use potatoes, onions and eggs. I usually serve this hot with a big salad of green, but there are often leftovers and it goes into packups really well, so we get 2 or 3 meals out of one frittata. Other vegi options could be made using big mushrooms for a meaty texture, or using beans and pulses like chickpeas and kidney beans.....what about making spicy bean burgers served in crusty rolls with salad and chunky baked potato wedges? I would recommend trying to get the River Cottage Veg book out from the library for other meat free ideas, although you can often find most recipes online.

The other big change we made was to use our local butchers rather than the supermarket. At first we thought it would be more expensive, and although it does seem to be at first sight, we are now regulars there and get 'mates rates', with our shopping often being rounded down to the nearest pound. We also get our eggs from here, extra-large free range eggs are 98p for half a dozen. I use 4/5 to make a frittata, so that really is budget cooking. The other thing we have found is that the meat we get from the butchers is much better quality, it has no added water or dextrose like so much supermarket meat does. This means that we feel like we need to eat less, so I will often just butterfly a chicken breast between the two of us and makeup for it with lots of flavour using herbs and spices. I also buy whole chickens like you do and the butcher will quarter them up for me for nothing, taking some of the effort out of it. You could also butterfly a pork fillet and use it like that, or you could try buying cheaper meat such as rabbit or turkey.

The other thing to suggest would be in addition to having a vegi meal, what about a meal uing fish? As long as you are buying sustainably caught species, like mackerel or pollock, you can have a meaty dinner quite easily and cheaply. A few mackerel fillets cost next to nothing when compared to using pork, lamb or beef.

I've found that my OH actually hasn't noticed the changes as much as I thought he would, because he was aware of the problem. We have lost a couple of stone each in weight and reduced our food shopping bill by £10 a week. In addition we now support two local shops on our highstreet (the butchers & the fishmongers), whose staff recognise us and are much more helpful than supermarket staff......and before anyone thinks I must have more time than them, we both work full time and walk up to the shops first thing on a Saturday morning.

missyvoid

How about using veggie 'fake meat'? It's a lot lower in calories, and some of the ones I've tried are really convincing as meat! For example, Quorn do a 'family roast' and what they call 'fillets' - both look and taste like chicken. Soem veggie sausages are also very nice.

ljaybrad

Use cheaper meat as a filler? make beef olives? only a small bit of posh meat and then sausagemeat or similar inside, or cok large joints in slow cooker and make them last a few meals?

LannyLee

My OH sounds just like yours, but I've noticed that things like gnocchi (79p a packet from Aldi) or filled pasta (same price) go down well if I make the pasta sauce from scratch & add a little bit of bacon or chorizo, so it's not 100% veggie.

I serve it in a terracotte tapas like dish and it looks like he has loads, but the meal has cost pennies.

It's all about perception.

outtawork

A butcher showed me this tip years ago , get a chicken breast & slice diagonally under it so the breast still looks the same but there is less of it, also bash it with a rolling pin, I do this with all the steak kinda meat. Have you tried roasta bags, they are not just for a roast,there are smaller roasta bags available, try the £ shop.There is no waste plus the meat does'nt shrink like it would in the oven, & it's lovely & moist.In my roasta bag with a meat I dissolve 2 stockcubes in a jug with tomato puree,some tomato juice, couple of spoonsful of red/white wine liquid made up to 3/4-1 pint. Add garlic powder,pepper & herbs, put in bag, tie neck, 2 slits in the bag near the neck, put in casserole dish with lid, nothing else in the dish, very low oven maybe no:2 for a couple of hours.

terra_ferma

ljaybrad wrote: »

Use cheaper meat as a filler? make beef olives? only a small bit of posh meat and then sausagemeat or similar inside, or cok large joints in slow cooker and make them last a few meals?

personally I would not substitute good, lean meat with processed stuff like sausagemeat, which is high in fat and has all sorts of chemicals in it.
I would consider that junk food to have once in a while as a treat.
Large joints/cheaper cuts is a great idea

Heisenberg_2

heretolearn wrote: »

He prefers, to have a visually 'big' single piece of meat.

so, chicken I have sorted. Buying a whole chicken and portioning up and serving on the bone makes it look huge. Give him half a chicken breast on the bone and he says 'wow, that looks great' whereas half a chicken breast off the bone and he'd think I was trying to starve him, lol. Likewise I can give him the underneath bit of the chicken carcass (the back?) which actually has very little meat on it but he's happy as larry because it covers half the plate...I guess he's not too smart about these things, bless.

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No offence but he sounds like Homer Simpson!

I am not sure if it just the visual size of the portion but if he is happy with the underneath bit of a chicken, or back, which has hardly any meat on it, maybe it is because of the extra work he has to do to actually get to the meat in the first place?

I am going to try some of this Quorn http://groceries.asda.com/asda-estore/search/searchcontainer.jsp?trailSize=1&searchString=quorn&domainName=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=99057

£3.33 per Kg.

I usually make stir frys and curries so don't really "taste" the actual chicken if that makes sense. If I could get away with a couple of bags of this and a chicken breast it would save me money and is apparently low in fat.

I think that like a lot of omnivores I have a psychological block that if I don't have some kind of meat I feel like I am missing out - lol!

freeisgood

How about making meatballs (such as pork or beef) but bulking the mix out with breadcrumbs/herbs chopped onion etc.

Heisenberg_2

outtawork wrote: »

A butcher showed me this tip years ago , get a chicken breast & slice diagonally under it so the breast still looks the same but there is less of it, also bash it with a rolling pin, I do this with all the steak kinda meat. Have you tried roasta bags, they are not just for a roast,there are smaller roasta bags available, try the £ shop.There is no waste plus the meat does'nt shrink like it would in the oven, & it's lovely & moist.In my roasta bag with a meat I dissolve 2 stockcubes in a jug with tomato puree,some tomato juice, couple of spoonsful of red/white wine liquid made up to 3/4-1 pint. Add garlic powder,pepper & herbs, put in bag, tie neck, 2 slits in the bag near the neck, put in casserole dish with lid, nothing else in the dish, very low oven maybe no:2 for a couple of hours.

Just on this theme of "shrinkage" - I find one of the best ways to cook chicken breasts so that the moisture stays in is to cook it in the steamer.

Doesn't dry out, shrink or lose flavour like oven or pan frying can.

Also if you are cooking this way cut it on the diagonal AGAINST the grain.

I started getting into Asian cooking because basically I was living on takeaway special chow mein, ribs and chicken balls!

It was a monumental waste of money and I can now make a special fried rice and special chow mein that is better than the takeaway - and I know what has gone in it.

Buy an electric steamer, a wok and a slow cooker and you should be able to cook anything.

HTH

Aldi are doing a special on Woks starting tomorrow - £8.99

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/offers_week02Thursday12.htm

Also for most sauces you only need soy, fish and oyster sauce + cornflour.

My special chow mein and rice just usually consists of onion, frozen peas and possibly shredded carrots and any other frozen veg I chuck in, chicken breast and / or prawns.

Every mouthful I have has some meat in it but I also get loads of veg. Sorry to rabbit on, but I genuinely think Asian cooking is the best way to "con" someone that they are getting loads of meat!

Heisenberg_2

freeisgood wrote: »

How about making meatballs (such as pork or beef) but bulking the mix out with breadcrumbs/herbs chopped onion etc.

This is actually a very good swizz! However I went to buy some pork mince thinking it was a low fat meat - the minced stuff most certainly isn't!

Bought some sausages on offer from Sainsburys £2 for 10 and 70%+ pork and turned 3 of them into meatballs. Definitely tricks the mind into thinking you have had more meat than you have.

The fat that came out was ridiculous though. I know they do 50% less fat sausages pretty cheap so this is a good idea.