Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

Butterfly_Brain

Super six 9/10/14
500g chantenay carrots
600g parsnips
cauliflower
500g leeks
4 pack white onions
4 pack baking potatoes

59p each

They also have savoy cabbage for 59p
2 gammon steaks for 99p
butchers selection sausages 99p

Lots of ideas:

Jacket potatoes
Cauliflower cheese
parsnip and apple soup
leek and potato soup
cheese and leek pie
french onion soup
leek and stilton soup (any blue cheese will do)
honeyed chicken and parsnip hot pot
ham and leek soup

Greying_Pilgrim

Butterfly Brain - as ever you have come up with lots of super ideas for those items on offer, to make some wonderful dishes that sure would help a family on a tight budget :T

I was thinking, for £20 for a week, there's probably not a lot of wiggle room to have a 'roast' meal for 4 - however, I looked at your list BB and I thought of using some of the sausages in a 'Toad in the Hole' with roast potatoes and accompanying veg (or roast parsnips, mash and veg....). So for the input of an egg, some milk and flour, you could have a very filling 'roast dinner equivalent' for not too much money. And surely veg and sausages left over for the rest of the week.

My 'go to' budget Yorkshire pudding batter recipe is the Bero one HERE

Hope that helps someone.

Greying

joedenise

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Butterfly Brain - as ever you have come up with lots of super ideas for those items on offer, to make some wonderful dishes that sure would help a family on a tight budget :T

I was thinking, for £20 for a week, there's probably not a lot of wiggle room to have a 'roast' meal for 4 - however, I looked at your list BB and I thought of using some of the sausages in a 'Toad in the Hole' with roast potatoes and accompanying veg (or roast parsnips, mash and veg....). So for the input of an egg, some milk and flour, you could have a very filling 'roast dinner equivalent' for not too much money. And surely veg and sausages left over for the rest of the week.

My 'go to' budget Yorkshire pudding batter recipe is the Bero one HERE

Hope that helps someone.

Greying

I usually do mini toad in the hole using a 12 hole cake tin so using less sausages - I cut each sausage into small pieces and put 2-3 in each hole. I also make my batter with just an egg & water, it seems to make it really light and has the added advantage of being cheaper than using milk!

For the veggies I'd roast potatoes, carrots & parsnips.

Denise

Butterfly_Brain

I always cut sausages into three and scatter thinly sliced onions over the top, that cuts down on how many sausages I use and it still fills them up, just with a little less meat, which they do not notice So for four of us I use four sausages

I also do a mean sausage pasta and slice the sausages into four put into a hm pasta sauce tomatoes, garlic, a couple of squeezes of tomato puree a sprinkle of sugar and the cheap mixed herbs to taste if I have no oregano in the garden (Or cheat and use a jar depending on how much time I have) to which I add thinly sliced mushrooms, a handful of frozen sweetcorn and a handful of frozen peppers. serve with pasta of choice. Alternatively skin them and make them into meatballs.

Sausage pizza always goes down well, skin the sausages and make them into small balls and sprinkle over a basic HM pizza, with veg of choice.

Make sausage meatballs as above and add to a curry sauce.

Sausage casserole is another family favourite

Sausage and broccolli cheesy pasta which is basically sausage meatballs and broccolli in a cheese sauce with pasta.

Cowboy stew basically sausages, beans and bacon


Sunnyroo
(Sausage and root veg bake with a drizzle of honey)

Which is basically root veg of choice, roasted with the sausages and honey drizzled over.

Sticky sausage wraps.
I make these on Guy Fawkes night

Mix 1 tbsp tomato ketchup,1 tbsp mustard and 4 tbsp brown sugar.
Make meatballs from four sausages and cook until they are just starting to brown, then pour over the sauce and cook for a couple of minutes keeping an eye on them to make sure that they don't burn.
Warm the wraps and add some green leaves, a little mayo and some fried onion, wrap them up and enjoy

Greying_Pilgrim

joedenise and Butterfly Brain, of course, you're both absolutely right to point out that the sausages need to be cut up In my defence, I did say to use 'some' of the sausages and there would be others left over for later in the week However, I've been a thrifty cook for so long, I forget that folk cook differently to me and still use sausages whole.....

Butterfly Brain - I love how your culinary instincts are coming through in your writing. You're just thinking of what can be made from which ingredient all the time I've seen the menu plans that you've provided on various budget threads - you really are such an asset to MSE - I hope people show you their appreciation Had you seen the $4 a day recipe book and the From Scratch PDF recipe books of Leanne Brown? They are really quite inventive - but are written for an American audience....

However, I had a bash at some of the recipes last month (and documented them on MSE with pics, to illustrate, that if I could make them.......), and this talk of sausages made me think of how I managed to get 3 different adult main meals (x 2) from a bag of 6 mrT veggie Lincolnshire sausages (our household is veggie, but meat sausages would work too - as would chorizo if your budget can suit......) I made Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls, Gumbo inspired veggie stew, and 'Chorizo' and butter bean ragu (see below for link) all using 1 sausage per person - and we were stuffed!

Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

Sorry, I linked to the wrong recipe before, I had meant to link to the 'Chorizo' and butter bean ragu and not the vegetable jambalaya - although that can use sausages too (in the original recipe)

Greying

slowandsteady_2

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Super six 9/10/14
500g chantenay carrots
600g parsnips
cauliflower
500g leeks
4 pack white onions
4 pack baking potatoes

59p each

They also have savoy cabbage for 59p
2 gammon steaks for 99p
butchers selection sausages 99p

Lots of ideas:

Jacket potatoes
Cauliflower cheese
parsnip and apple soup
leek and potato soup
cheese and leek pie
french onion soup
leek and stilton soup (any blue cheese will do)
honeyed chicken and parsnip hot pot
ham and leek soup

Thank you for these wonderful posts BB. I get email notifications for this thread and your helpful posts are very much welcome.

I happen to have cauli, leeks and a couple oif parsnips in and am grateful for a fresh take on them x

Soworried

Cheese and leek pie sounds nice BB, any chance of a recipe for the filling?

Butterfly_Brain

[FONT=&quot]3 leeks, cut into chunks 59p
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]small knob butter[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]pinch dried rosemary or thyme or a tsp of mixed herbs[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1 tsp mustard[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1lb potatoes /450g (1 very large baking potato is perfect), chopped into smallish chunks 4 = 59p so 1 potato = 15p
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]6oz/140g grated cheese (I use ½ a pack of aldi mature cheese £1.75 for 350g so that is approx 87p)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1lb /500g shortcrust pastry (HM or shop bought)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1 beaten egg to glaze
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Put the leeks, butter, mustard and herbs in a pan, cover and cook over a low heat for about 20 mins until very soft, stirring occasionally.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the leeks are cooking, put the potatoes in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 4-5 mins until just cooked. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Drain the potatoes and stir into the cooked leeks. Leave to cool, stir in the cheese and season with plenty of pepper and salt if you want. Chill for a bit[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6, and put a baking tray in to heat up.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Cut the pastry into 2 and use on half to line a pie plate. Pile the filling in, roll out a pastry lid, cover and crimp the edges and put a slit in the top for steam to escape, then brush with the beaten egg. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Put the pie plate onto the hot baking sheet (This helps to prevent a soggy bottom)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bake for 35-40 mins until golden. Leave to rest for 10 mins before cutting into wedges and serving with beans or greens.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]The whole pie works out to £2.39 and serves six comfortably (40p per portion) or 4 if you are very hungry (60p per portion)
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NB.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I also add bacon if I have any, preferably smoked, cooking bacon is perfect for this cut into chunks then fry gently and add to the mix.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Alternatively Just top with mashed potato and sprinkle grated cheese on top [/FONT]

If money is really tight replace the HM cheese sauce with a 29p one from Morissons

(All posts today are in pink In memorium of Pink)

moments_of_sanity

BB, you are amazing and your recipes are really well thought out, thank you.

I am a big fan of the 'Frugal Queen' and saw this recipe recently, it is essentially a veg pie but you use a tin of condensed chicken soup to make it taste like it has chicken in. I now have all the ingredients so am going to make this for tea tomorrow night, can't wait to see how it tastes, here is the link...
http://www.frugalqueen.co.uk/search?updated-max=2014-09-27T14:47:00%2B01:00&max-results=1&start=12&by-date=false