£7.00 per week - menu ideas

quintwins

Bigaunty this is only a temporary plan, meant for a week or 2, on a budget of £7 it really is about getting as much as you can for your money so that your never feeling hungry.

Personally in my own plan i did try to get some meat in but it is very hard. Please if you feel you can do a more balanced plan we'd love to see it. (thats not sarcasim we really would)

BigAunty

There was no guidance provided by the OP at the outset about a 2 weekduration - the subject heading is about meals for £1 a day so it’s not clear this issupposed to be some kind of interim emergency measure (unless someone cares toplough through loads of pages where it is belated defined as such).

Nobody should eat a nutritionally deficient, protein low diet on even atemporary basis. Some of the recipes I read here are excellent lunchtime snackswould make me as weak as a kitten if they constituted my main food for anextended period and it’s clear that some members see providing a regular mealsfor 50p a head as a long term strategy which is a great aspiration so long as it is a temporary or infrequent activity.

Yes, your meal plan was more balanced than others, also the link to thecheap recipe website produced by an MSE member Weezl on the first page of thethread is excellent as it provides healthy meals for around £5.75 per personper week.

But I am alarmed to see proteinless plain pasta dishes and veg soups positedas recipes for main meals, for example, and the dearth of fresh fruit.

I know the main criteria is to provide 3 meals a day for 2 people for £1 butldoes it mean it should be a race to the bottom just to throw a meal together forthe least amount of cash regardless of nutritional value, where thrift isvalued but can sometimes only be achieved by neglecting basic nutrition?

RuthnJasper

I can only afford one meal per day The original (the green one) New Covent Garden Soup Company's recipe book is brilliant (Available second-hand on Amazon for 1p - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Covent-Garden-Food-Book-Soups/dp/075220503X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346074416&sr=1-2). If you buy the vegetables in season it works out cheaper - the most expensive one I made from the book was Cream of Fennel, which worked out at around £2.86 for six portions.

The soups can be "jazzed-up" with cous-cous, pasta, cheese or anything else you prefer to make a more filling meal. I generally make double quantity each time and freeze it in portion sizes. Also very economical around Hallowe'en if you like making jack-o'-lanterns - the pumpkin soup is really scrummy!

Best wishes! x

rosieben

Chunkysmum wrote: »

... I was wondering if it'd be possible to feed two adults for a pound a day for a week, assuming you have no basics in? Any shopping lists/menu ideas would be great.

from the original post

quintwins

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=54688375&postcount=56

This post from the op also states that it's only until her bursary (sp?) id threw.

I totally agree no-one should have to livve off a diet devoid of fruit and so limited, however sadly it does happen.

quintwins

RuthnJasper wrote: »

I can only afford one meal per day The original (the green one) New Covent Garden Soup Company's recipe book is brilliant (Available second-hand on Amazon for 1p - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Covent-Garden-Food-Book-Soups/dp/075220503X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346074416&sr=1-2). If you buy the vegetables in season it works out cheaper - the most expensive one I made from the book was Cream of Fennel, which worked out at around £2.86 for six portions.

The soups can be "jazzed-up" with cous-cous, pasta, cheese or anything else you prefer to make a more filling meal. I generally make double quantity each time and freeze it in portion sizes. Also very economical around Hallowe'en if you like making jack-o'-lanterns - the pumpkin soup is really scrummy!

Best wishes! x

I used to also have very little money and lived off one meal per day, i used to buy a 50p bag of spuds and a 20p bag of brocolli (they use to do wee steam in the microwave bags) and a tin of corned beef when it used to be around 50p and i'd live off this forserveal day, however it was far from healthy and most def not good for me,when i got married and pregnant i was eating alot more and felt alot ebtter for it.I don't think i would find soup filling enough if it was my only meal, have you tried whoopies shopping? i made a huge pot of around 10 portions of veg soup for less than 30p last week due to whoopsies.

Maitane

msgreen wrote: »

I just want to say a huge thank you to all who have contributed to this thread.. I finally took my head out of the sand the last week and realised how dire my finances are, all my own fault! so all these excellent recipesx are going to come in really handy, I have copied many into a notebook so I can use them, I hope thats ok, Once again Thankyou :-)

Good luck! Just keep lurking round the Old Style boards, they really do help. Even ideas you think won't work at first really will. Also, ask loads of questions - they're a super friendly bunch who have been a great help to many.

Soworried

RuthnJasper wrote: »

I can only afford one meal per day The original (the green one) New Covent Garden Soup Company's recipe book is brilliant (Available second-hand on Amazon for 1p - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Covent-Garden-Food-Book-Soups/dp/075220503X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346074416&sr=1-2). If you buy the vegetables in season it works out cheaper - the most expensive one I made from the book was Cream of Fennel, which worked out at around £2.86 for six portions.

The soups can be "jazzed-up" with cous-cous, pasta, cheese or anything else you prefer to make a more filling meal. I generally make double quantity each time and freeze it in portion sizes. Also very economical around Hallowe'en if you like making jack-o'-lanterns - the pumpkin soup is really scrummy!

Best wishes! x

I am so sorry that you are going through a rough patch money wise. Do you have a local allotments? When we were out walking a few weeks back we got talking to somebody at the local allotments and they gave us some lettuce and tomatoes. They were lovely as well.
You could try growing your own potatoes maybe in a bag?

RuthnJasper

quintwins wrote: »

I used to also have very little money and lived off one meal per day, i used to buy a 50p bag of spuds and a 20p bag of brocolli (they use to do wee steam in the microwave bags) and a tin of corned beef when it used to be around 50p and i'd live off this forserveal day, however it was far from healthy and most def not good for me,when i got married and pregnant i was eating alot more and felt alot ebtter for it.I don't think i would find soup filling enough if it was my only meal, have you tried whoopies shopping? i made a huge pot of around 10 portions of veg soup for less than 30p last week due to whoopsies.

Well, I could do with losing a bit of weight but, despite the irony of being something of a comfort-eater, I don't have much of an appetite, so a soup with extra veg/pasta/meat/mashed potato added is generally enough for me - my priority is to ensure that my dog has enough to eat as she shouldn't have to suffer for my past financial mistakes; they aren't her fault (she wasn't even BORN when I entered into my IVA! Bl**dy h*ll, that's only just occurred to me!! :o )

May I ask though - what is whoopies/whoopsies shopping? Is it things like tins which have lost their labels? My late great-aunt used to call her dogs when going to the lavatory as "doing their whoopsies"... An unfortunate but undoubtedly cheap and inventive (though probably unpalatable) ingredient is now hoving into my brain. Please don't tell me you are suggesting cooking with THAT sort of whoopsie?!

Butterfly_Brain

Big Aunty
In answer to your critique, there are many thousands of people in this country who work full time, not just those who rely on meagre benefits, that are now reliant on food banks and sadly a lot more will need these next year when benefit changes come in. I am afraid that they get what they are given when they go to a food bank, it is usually tinned and packet foods, rarely fresh meat, fish or vegetables, because they are extremely expensive. The menus are a reflection of what you can do with very limited means and were never meant as a permanent solution, just a few ideas for some cheap meals. Some protein has been included in the way of chicken leg quarters, tuna fish, tinned mackerel, sardines, eggs and some fresh veggies from the Aldi super six range.
If you check the NHS web site they state that tinned fruit and vegetables are just as good as fresh and it has been proven that frozen fruit and veg in some cases has more vitamins because it is frozen quickly and has not been left in a warehouse for weeks on end.
During the war years people had very little protein in their meals, because meat and fish were scarce and they were deemed to be the fittest ever generation we have had.