£7.00 per week - menu ideas

Softstuff

Ok, so I couldn't feed 2 people for 7 pounds and eat satisfactorily (knowing how hungry hubby and I are), so I worked out what I could do for the best and came up with £14.98 to feed 2 people for a week and a half or 1 person for 3 weeks. I didn't think it was bad and it does include some fruit and veg.

Shopping list

Tesco Everyday Value Mixed Fruit Jam 454G £0.29
Tesco Sieved Tomatoes Passata 500G £0.29
Tesco Everyday Value Oats 1Kg £0.75
Tesco Everyday Value Self Raising Flour 1.5Kg £0.52
2 x Tesco Everyday Value Spaghetti 500G @ 24p = £0.48
Tesco Everyday Value Medium Curry Powder 50G £0.52
Tesco Everyday Value Long Grain Rice 1Kg £0.40
Tesco Everyday Value Sage And Onion Stuffing 85G £0.15
Tesco Everyday Value Beef Stock Cubes 97G 10Pk £0.10
Tesco Everyday Value Bananas £1.15
Tesco Everyday Value Apple Pack £0.84
Tesco Everyday Value Mild White Cheese Small £1.77
Tesco Everyday Value Eggs Minimum Weight Box Of 15 £1.25
Tesco Everyday Value Small Potatoes 1Kg £0.69
Tesco Everyday Value Beef Mince 800G £2.40
Tesco Everyday Value Lard 250G £0.39
Tesco Everyday Value Onions Pack £0.69
Tesco Everyday Value Carrots £1.00
Tesco Everyday Value Frozen Peas 900G £1.00
Tesco Everyday Value Kidney Beans 400g 18p
Tesco Everyday Value Rice Pudding 400G 11p

£14.98

Breakfast each day is porridge made with water (soak oats in water overnight to make porridge creamy).

There is a bag of apples and a bag of bananas, these are snacks to be eaten as and when. The tin of rice pudding will do dessert for 2, for that special date night .

Lunches/Dinners can be interchanged and eaten as and when, I find it best to cook and freeze in portions. That way you can change it up a bit and don't have to eat the same thing for a few meals running.

These are as follows:

Use 500g flour with 4 tablespoons lard and water to make pizza dough, top with sauce made from fried onion and 100g passata, grated carrot, half of cheese grated and 8 meatballs chopped up. Makes 2 large pizzas (baking tray sized) for 6 servings.

Make piadinas (flatbreads) using 1kg flour, 100g lard and water. Makes 24 large flatbreads. Can be spread with jam, sprinkled with grated cheese or topped with a fried egg. 12 used as 6 meals, the remainder to serve with soups.

Veg noodle soup - 3 potatoes, 3 carrots, 2 onions (fried in lard), a couple of handfuls of rice, a couple of handfuls of peas, a teaspoon of curry powder, 2 stock cubes, water. Liquidise, throw in a handful of spaghetti broken into small pieces, simmer until soft. Makes 4 servings.

Beef and vegetable curry - 200g mince, 2 medium potatoes cubed, 2 onions, diced, 3 carrots cubed, a couple of handfuls of frozen peas. Fry all in lard, add half of curry powder, 200g passata, water (a cup or 2), simmer until thick. Serve with rice. Makes 8 servings.

Beef and veg bolognese - 200g mince, 2 medium potatoes cubed, 2 onions, diced, 3 carrots cubed, a couple of handfuls of frozen peas. Fry all in lard, add 200g passata, tin of kidney beans water (a cup or 2), simmer until thick. Serve half with rice - 4 servings, the other half with spaghetti topped with a little grated cheese - another 6 servings.

Meatballs and Meatloaf - 400g mince, pack of sage and onion stuffing, 1 onion chopped, 1 carrot grated, 1 egg. Whizz all with stick blender. Make 4 serves meatballs to have with rice and peas, 1 serve to go on pizza, 1 small meatloaf to slice for 2 serves with potatoes, peas and carrots.

Not quite Kedgeree - Boil remaining rice. Fry 1 onion in lard, add a handful of peas, a tablespoon of curry powder. Serve with 4 chopped boiled eggs - 2 servings.

French onion soup - Fry remaining sliced onions in lard, add beef stock, boil. 4 servings.

You have plenty of eggs left over, so can have omelette if hungry, maybe with a bit of reserved cheese.

I hope I got sizes and use of products right (forgive me if I stuffed anything up!), it's a lot easier to do when you have the stuff on hand. My portions are pretty generous, so the slimmer/more frugal of you could eek them out a bit further. But for me being hungry is pretty miserable, so this would at least fill us up.

newlywed

Softstuff wrote: »

Ok, so I couldn't feed 2 people for 7 pounds and eat satisfactorily (knowing how hungry hubby and I are), so I worked out what I could do for the best and came up with £14.98 to feed 2 people for a week and a half or 1 person for 3 weeks. I didn't think it was bad and it does include some fruit and veg.

Hmmmm. That was interesting. I have most of that in the cupboard etc but somehow wouldn't have thought it could be stretched it out that far...

I really do need to rethink how far I can stretch food without OH noticing there is little or no meat in his dinner

quintwins

newlywed wrote: »

Hmmmm. That was interesting. I have most of that in the cupboard etc but somehow wouldn't have thought it could be stretched it out that far...

I really do need to rethink how far I can stretch food without OH noticing there is little or no meat in his dinner

lol my hubby is a real meat eater but he doesn't midn when i make stews or pies with one chicken breast or a tiny bit of beef, but if i put it on his plate with veg and spuds he'd have something to say about it (in a nice way he'd never refuse to eat it or anything) the only thing i don't try to scimp on is steaks but on a £7 budget they wouldn't have to worry about steaks :rotfl:

What amazes me is when i'm eating out of my freezer just how little food we take out compared to how much i buy a week/month i already know i'm overbuying or else i wouldn't need to eat out of my freezers but it just goes to show how little you need for the week.

Butterfly_Brain

Did any one watch simply Italian on channel 4 last night? It had some great cheap recipes and how to make your own pasta

katep23

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Did any one watch simply Italian on channel 4 last night? It had some great cheap recipes and how to make your own pasta

Approved Food sometimes have pasta flour - I got some which was £1 for 2 x 1kg bags or something similar so not too expensive. I think 500g does 4 portions.

Mushroom sauce for pasta is cheap to make - melt some butter or spread in a saucepan, saute the mushrooms, add some flour and cook out then add milk and stir until it thickens up.

It has a surprisingly strong flavour from the mushrooms without adding any seasoning or herbs but you can add whatever else you want - ham, cheese, sweetcorn, vegetables, mustard etc.

PennyGrabber

A standard meal when I was a uni student was pasta with a pasta sauce on top, and grated cheese if I felt flush! Given that cheapo pasta is 30p, and cheapo sauce is 39p, that's got to be a cheap meal...

Softstuff

newlywed wrote: »

Hmmmm. That was interesting. I have most of that in the cupboard etc but somehow wouldn't have thought it could be stretched it out that far...

I really do need to rethink how far I can stretch food without OH noticing there is little or no meat in his dinner

My hubby really enjoys the meatballs and meatloaf, he jokes that they're "not-very-meat-balls". When things are tight meat is the thing I reduce first, I try and make sure there's plenty of veg though and increase the protein with eggs or beans. We've eaten a lot of lentils, mostly as dhal, but prefer eeked out real mince with veg to them.

quintwins

katep23 wrote: »

Mushroom sauce for pasta is cheap to make - melt some butter or spread in a saucepan, saute the mushrooms, add some flour and cook out then add milk and stir until it thickens up.

.

add some value philly and you'll have a lovely creamy soup

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

quintwins wrote: »

it could be worse think of all the student debt you missed out on, i have to say i was no where near this creative when i was younger, when we first got married 6 years ago we had £20 to live off a week after our rent was paid and that had to include electric and clothes, i was pregnant with twins at the time, and i just went to iceland and got whatever i could, bacon mash and beans and fishfingers and chips featured alot, it wasn't til i had the kids that i stepped up my game to try and get as much fruit and veg and healthy food into our budget (also we had tax credits and cb at that point aswell).

debbym thats amazing welldone.

Thanks for that - I'll have to try some of that fish. That must have been very hard for you when you were pregnant, especially tiring with it being twins (and even more so when they were born).
I agree about the student debt thing - it's such a shame that nowadays people have to leave with massive debts before they even start their working life.

anrutpea

ButterflyBrain - yes I watched it and the food looked amazing and very cheap to make.

I got in from work last night and made the pasta - so chuffed with myself!

It's basically 100g plain flour & 1 egg per person. (00 flour is best but I ran out so used a 58p kilo bag of plain flout from aldi).

I did what she said on the programme except I was cooking for my partner and i and only had 1 egg so weighed the egg and made up the weight in milk.

Rolled the dough out thinly and cut out narrow ribbons with my knife. Dropped into boiling salted water for 2.5 mins chucked in some pesto.

Meal done for 2 adults less than £1 and totally delicious