Dinner this evening - ideas please?

JEEC

Hello,

Not sure if this is the right board or if this question should be in the Families board, please move if necessary.

There are 3 of us in our family (2 adults, 1 child - aged 1) and the weekly shopping bill is coming in at about £120 a week, which having read the posts on this board seems ludicrously high.
About £40 of that is spent on our son, and I'm not looking to cut back on what I spend on him at the moment. But, I think £80 a week for 2 adults is too high.
This includes things like washing up poweder/toilet rolls/shampoo etc, but we don't get these items every week and tend to buy these in bulk yet still manage to spend £120 every single week. We don't tend to buy alcohol as we rarely drink at home and we already buy some value items, it's not all Tesco Finest in the trolley.

On top of this we usually have at least one takeaway a week (another £20-£30) or we'll go for a meal (£30-£40) or sometimes do one on the Saturday and the other on the Sunday. So, there's plenty of scope for cutting back!

I am wanting to start mealplanning so we can put the money saved on the shopping bill into a savings account. But, for the first step, rather than getting a takeaway/going out tonight I want to cook something nice instead - even if it only saves a fiver it's a start.

So, does anybody have any ideas of something nice that we can cook for dinner this evening? We're both reasonable cooks, but we don't eat fish/seafood and I can't eat anything spicy.

I'm thinking possibly a couple of nice steaks with homemade chips, fried onions and a mild pepper sauce. But, we tend to have this everytime we decide not to get a takeaway, so I'm looking for inspiration for what we can make tonight.

I should add we do cook, this week we've had homemade beef casserole, chicken chasseur and turkey stroganoff - but these are everyday meals - I want to cook something special that will make up for the disappointment of not getting a takeaway, but that will come in slightly cheaper than a takeaway.

So, does anybody have any inspiration for what we can cook tonight?

SpikyHedgehog

I'm not sure your everyday meals aren't special enough they sound jolly nice to me!

What do you normally have when you have takeaway, and what makes if special for you? I mean, if we have takeaway, we either have chips from the chip ship round the corner because I haven't got energy to cook, or curry because then we can all have something different. I don't often get takeaway chinese because we're vegetarians and I think I make nicer stir fry than we can go and get...

Oh, and what have you got for ingredients?

Tiglath

If you have a Lidl near you, they're doing a 3-bird roast (chicken/turkey/duck) this weekend for £9.99. Includes pork/apple/cranberry stuffing, and a cranberry & port glaze. Howabout chicken breasts stuffed with pesto and wrapped in prosciutto/Parma ham?

vanoonoo

we're probably having fajitas tonight

if you had a takout what would it be? could you try to make similar at home ie pizza, chinese, curry (doesnt need to be spicy), chippy tea

as a guide you'll see from my signature I aim for £50 per week for me, husband, 2 cats, 1 dog which covers breakfasts, some lunches, my addiction to diet coke, all household products, all evening meals but not 1 take out per week and one eat out per week (could be lunch or evening meal)

meal plan this week (roughly and in no order) is a roast dinner, cottage pie, beef casserole, curry, fajitas, slo cooked gammon, spag bol, chili, lunches either left overs (or COUS COUS lol) or sandwiches or rolls such as cold cuts, ham, cheese etc with crisps, fruit, choc bar/flapjack and breakfasts are cereal type things or toast

planning ahead is the key to reducing your spendings and keeping to a budget amount - you can still be flexible as nothing needs to be set in stone, but start with the end in mind!

btw husband has jsut said he doesnt want fajitas so we are having chili instead - see what I mean about flexibility!

JEEC

Thanks for all the replies so far.

We'd usually get a chinese takeaway- starters and mains, or an indian takeaway. If we went out we'd probably have steak or again chinese/indian.

Chinese is one that I wouldn't try to cook at home as it's not going to be the same.

I suppose I want to cook something I could order at a nice restaurant but that is do-able at home.

JEEC

Tiglath wrote: »

. Howabout chicken breasts stuffed with pesto and wrapped in prosciutto/Parma ham?

I like the sound of this!

cutestkids

Hi

Your shopping bill is very high for the amount of people you should be able to cut that back a lot and still have a treat or takeaway sometimes.

I don't really understand that your spending £40.00 on food just for your for your son every week, does he have specialist food requirements that need to be catered for.

JEEC

The £40 on my son includes nappies, wipes, cotton wool, follow on milk, baby bath as well as food. I do buy him those organic meals from HIPP though.
Once I have the mealplanning down to a fine art he'll eat more homemade things, but for the moment I like him to have organic.

cutestkids

JEEC wrote: »

The £40 on my son includes nappies, wipes, cotton wool, follow on milk, baby bath as well as food. I do buy him those organic meals from HIPP though.
Once I have the mealplanning down to a fine art he'll eat more homemade things, but for the moment I like him to have organic.

Ah right, I thought you meant that was just food makes sense now as I remember how much all the nappies, wipes etc add up.

With regard to something for tonights dinner we often have a steak sandwich instead of a takeaway.

I use a crusty loaf like french stick or baguette, slice up steak, onion, and peppers and mushrooms and fry off in olive oil and butter,

Spread mayo and a little smear of mustard on the bread and pile with the filling.

We often have this served with wedges and coleslaw it is lovely and you really feel you have had something special.

JEEC

Thanks for all the responses. I had to rule the pesto chicken out as OH announced he hated pesto

In the end we popped to the shops and have settled on the following:

For starters I've got a rack of ribs, and a jar bbq sauce to marinade them in. We'll have half a rack each.

For the main I've got us a lamb breast joint each (not exactly posh nosh as it's cheapest cut of lamb, but I do like fatty meat). We'll have this with mint sauce and gravy, and on the side we'll have potato dauphinoise and trimmed green beens.

Then for pudding we'll have raspberry sponge with custard.

Total spend was about £11 so much cheaper than takeaway, although we already had in mint sauce, gravy, potatoes and the cake and custard. OH did sneak a couple of bottles of fizzy pop and a loaf of bread into the trolley though.

We went to a gastro pub the other week and had rolled shoulder of lamb (no bones) with potato dauphinoise and really enjoyed it, so that's where the inspiration has come from - although I daresay the lamb breasts cooked at home will be totally different than what we had in the pub, but much cheaper than paying £17 a head just for the main. I've never had a lamb breast joint before, so at least it will be something different!

PasturesNew

You seem to almost be eating as much meat every day as other people might be eating on a once-a-week special meal.

Google tells me this is half a rack of ribs: http://s3-media2.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/usHQVPIA7lT12dVTeXgOzw/l.jpg

To me that looks like a weekly huge special for a family of four.

If I were to attempt to get through just the ribs.... I'd fail ... and if offered a wafer thin mint would then explode.