Padding out meals

Kerriebaby

god. I feel mean...I use pearl barley, oats, lentils and loads of minced veg in the OH's mince meals.
About and handful each of the oats, lentils and barley, and then whatever suitable veg in ( I tend to use 3-4 carrots, good handul mushrooms, couple of courgettes, handful frozen sweetcorn ) then about 2-3 tins toms.

trinity_bleu

seem to have got away with it ... he did ask at the end if I'd used cheap mince (which I hadn't) as it was a bit gristle-y, but not sure if it was a bad batch of mince or if he meant the lentils.

one dish was ready at tea time but the other had been in the bottom of the oven and was still a bit watery, so that had another 2 hours at 150.

managed to get 6.5 meals out of a 800g pack of mince, which is good going for us. OH is 6 foot 6 and his ideal weight on BMI charts is 16.5 stone, so he takes some feeding !

D&DD

I tend to blitz baked beans,pinto beans etc and use those to bulk out mince especially.I find the baked beans need to hidden with a bit of either gravy browning or w.sauce as the colour is different otherwise
My lot would have a fit if they knew what they were actually eating some days lol
My latest venture is 'bulking up' the fruit from the garden into a more filling pudding.I've been making cobblers in the slow cooker which are so easy and really filling while using minimum amounts from the cupboard

[Deleted User]

I have also used a handful of sage and onion dry stuffing mix to pad out the mince when I was broke and my family never noticed at all.
I usually buy the 'posh' fancy flavored stuffing mixes that are left on the shelves of the supermarkets after Christmas .You know the sort that only get used at Christmas. I did a lovely piece Pork Fillet dipped in flour and egg then rolled in a dry mix of Apricot and Herb stuffing mix a couple of weeks ago. I then roasted it in the oven until brown and crispy It was delicious.Its a great way to streeetch pork fillet, or even chicken wings or legs. If they are coated in stuffing mix it seems to be very filling and rather tasty

CravingSaving

D&DD wrote: »

I tend to blitz baked beans,pinto beans etc and use those to bulk out mince especially. I find the baked beans need to hidden with a bit of either gravy browning or w.sauce as the colour is different otherwise

That's a great idea. My kids did ask why the bolognese was more orange than usual :rolleyes:

maman

I absolutely love my padded out bolognaise and chilli, I'd never go back to the full meaty stuff now. I feel quite smug about all the xtra veggies we're eating and I'm quite brazen about it. Nothing gets disguised, just rough chopping and throw it all in! I think for bolognaise I use about 400g for 8 portions.

With chilli I recently used a very small (I think about 250g) portion of diced beef ( whoopsie hanging about in freezer) to make 8 portions of chilli. It was 'spot the meat' but full of lovely beans and veggies and absolutely delicious. My DD told me M&S make a chunky chilli with cubes so I now have my own version!

pigpen

For the 10 if us I use..

1kg mince
2 onions
1 tin toms
2 'medium' carrots
1 handful of lentils
1kg mushrooms
various herbs etc

I fry the onions and meat in the various herbs and a little olive oil

add the tin of toms plus another tin full of water.. it rinces out the bits left behind and is needed

I add the grated carrot

then the mushrooms.. and the handful of lentils.. if a little more water is needed I add that as and when

Swishy_bell

I always blitz up any crusts or stale bread in the food processer and store it in the freezer in grapefruit sized portions. Add one to any meal with mince in and you would never tell the difference. I hate wasting food so it's really nice not to waste the bread that has gone past it's best too! You can get away with more at about half break crumbs half meat it starts to loose some of the flavor but under that it's fine.