Feed a family of four for £20 a week challenge

thenanny2die4

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Use it for a Halloween candle holder, carve several faces and put in several candles it will make a spectacular show!!!

Now that's thinking outside the box!

Thank you.

Butterfly_Brain

Bought six packs of mushrooms and have frozen three packs of them to go into stews and pies, two will be used in a big batch of mushroom soup that I will make and put in the freezer for later on in the month and the others will be used on a bacon and mushroom tart that I will do for tomorrow's dinner.

Basically a puff pastry base with chunks of cooking bacon diced and quartered mushrooms all in a mushroom sauce.

Bake the pastry blind for 10 mins add the topping then another 15 - 20 minutes at 160c fan/180c /gas 4 and it is done.
You can add cooked sliced chicken or even tinned ham, anything you want really.

Mushrooms 69p (SSix) puff pastry 99p HM mushroom sauce 30p, ¼ pack cooking bacon 29p.(670g is £1.15) in Sainsbury)

I stew the mushroom stalks first to get some stock and then make the sauce from that.

Total £2.27 or 45p a portion

mon1o

Just found this thread and I love it! Weve recently suffered a drop in income of around £600 a month so trying to save money where we can. Already changed our weekly shop to ald! and we spend on average £50-60 a week but im sure we can reduce this further.

Ive told hubby tomorrow we are going through fridge, freezer and cupboards to see what weve got and we arent going shopping again until weve used it all up (or close to it!).

Looking forward to the challenge!

Thrift

My mother used to make marrow jam but that had ginger in it. I believe you can also mix it with apples or plums to make jam or make a chutney. Should be recipes around online. About to go out or I would seek out my mother's war time cook book which is still in use!

craigywv

moments_of_sanity wrote: »

What.....no room for jelly :eek: this brought back memories of what my youngest DD said when she was little...I had said she couldn't have pudding as she hadn't eaten all of her dinner at which point she said 'Mummy, everybody knows you have 2 tummies, one for dinner and one for pudding'! :rotfl:

Aw that's so cute,I just want to eat all the time with the dark nights now......not good for the waistline. I going to make a big pot of veg soup in morning and make soda bread to have with it, approx 40p for a big soda loaf and the soup is from all the bendy veg in fridge will throw some pasta shapes in to bulk it out. Will put cheese on the soda and melt it so food for tomorrow's dinner will cost about 1.50 .will fill us up so might just make a jam pud and custard for later with a cup of coffee.have a good night all xxx

sillyvixen

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Use it for a Halloween candle holder, carve several faces and put in several candles it will make a spectacular show!!!

when i was a kid, we had a huge marrow from nans allotment as a Halloween pumpkin, we had had several marrows and nobody really liked them so it was hollowed out and a face carved. looked different but impressive.

Butterfly_Brain

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

Thank you greying x

When we were really struggling in the days of 15% interest rates, we did meatless roast dinners.
Basically roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots, greens of some sort whichever we grew or was cheap on the market and Yorkie puds covered in either gravy made from Bisto or Bisto chicken, the Bisto chicken was the best because you got the "meaty" taste of chicken.

Any leftovers went into a pie, gravy as well, for the next day.

I still do leftover pie after a proper roast dinner with meat on a Monday.

We call it Monday pie and everyone loves it.

Alternatively make pasties for lunch boxes

Change4Life

Change4Life offers loads of ideas and help to make the many small changes that add up to a happier, healthier future for you and your family.

Our Meal Mixer tool contains over 100 healthy, easy to make and calorie counted recipes. It has a great ‘smart recipes’ function which provides suggestions for a day’s meals, and a shopping list function which makes it easy to keep track of everything you need.

Most recipes serve four adults and only cost around £5 to make. Plus, it'll help you keep track of your calories too!

GS, Change4Life

Butterfly_Brain

Change4Life wrote: »

Change4Life offers loads of ideas and help to make the many small changes that add up to a happier, healthier future for you and your family.

Our Meal Mixer tool contains over 100 healthy, easy to make and calorie counted recipes. It has a great ‘smart recipes’ function which provides suggestions for a day’s meals, and a shopping list function which makes it easy to keep track of everything you need.

Most recipes serve four adults and only cost around £5 to make. Plus, it'll help you keep track of your calories too!

GS, Change4Life

Not helpful on this thread when there is only £20 to feed four people . maybe the government should stop forcing people into poverty :mad::mad: and then they can think about eating healthily

Ladyluck1

AS IF the government think £5 for one meal is cheap!
If I spent that I would not be able to pay my rent/council tax etc!!
My hubby works 40+ hours a week as we have 2 young children.
Mind boggling really!