Help me cope?

margaretclare

Yorkshire puddings are very filling and cheap

Were traditionally served with gravy or mint sauce, before the meat course. The idea was, you filled up on the puddings and ate less of the meat, which was meant to last several days. Our ancestors knew all about not eating much meat!

From memory, a piece of brisket was the meat course following the Yorkshire puddings. A cheap and tasty cut of meat but it does need fairly long slow cooking. Ask your butcher!

seabright

This is my super-easy & super quick carbonara recipe (good enough to serve to guests too)
1. Boil kettle and put pasta on to cook
2. Put lardons/chopped up bacon in pan to fry with lots of black pepper (this is the "carbon" of carbonara - it looks like soot!). You can use half lardons/half mushrooms if you like, but the sauce won't be as white, it will be beige
3. Beat eggs in a mug and set aside (2 people - 2 eggs, 3 or 4 people - 3 eggs)
4. When bacon half cooked stir in a few tablespoons of creme fraiche & some parmisan
5. when bacon is cooked and pasta is cooked get ready for the last bit - make sure everyone is ready to eat straight away - this won't keep.
6. Drain pasta & put in bowls
7. Remove bacon pan from heat and stir in the eggs, stir well and DO NOT put back on the heat. The heat from the bacon/creme mix will cook the eggs, if you put it back on the heat it will scramble
8. Put sauce on past & eat straight away

jackel

Butterfly Brain
Re Pigs liver. Have you tried the old trick of soaking it in milk to take away the strong taste(for and hour or so)? jac xx

bluebag

jackel wrote: »

Butterfly Brain
Re Pigs liver. Have you tried the old trick of soaking it in milk to take away the strong taste(for and hour or so)? jac xx

You would have to soak my stomach in gin before I would like it.

My mum used to love it soaked in milk and then cooked with onions and a bit of bacon, she said the milk tenderized it too.

Elliesmum

bluebag wrote: »

You would have to soak my stomach in gin before I would like it.

:rotfl: Gosh I'm up for a bit of gin soaking :eek:

On a more serious note we too are struggling to afford meat. I happily eat veggie and have just adjusted recipes as others have on here.

agirlcalledjack is a brilliant blog - her portions are a little smaller than we would have but still work out as excellent value. Where Jack comes into her own is her ability to 'use up' what ever is in her fridge. I've started making fritters and more unusual breads thanks to her. My kids love her parsnip, Parmesan and lemon bread and her courgette fritters are to die for nom nom nom.

EM x

gailey_2

We concluded same as you last couple months we neeeded to trim budget not as low as yours £200 a month for 5 of us and its hard so we decided we eating less meat which allows us to buy better meat.

We have been stuck in a rut.

Im trying to bake more to give family treats.

If you shop in aldis check out the super six thread where loads of meals around whats on offer last week everything was 49p.

Also tried their frozen fish fillets cod and salmon they very nice.
you could do tasty fish pie.

How I do them is wrap in foil parcel with 1 slice lemon , 1 clove garlic, 1 chilli, 1chopped up onion, coriander if I have any and drizzle oil its lovley with some new potatoes or homemade wedges.

The salmon was £3.99 and had 5small fillets cant remember how much exactly cod was but was less and they had other types of fish.

I but aldis /lidls free range bird and an get 10portions and 2-3 different dishes from it.

we have lots egg based dishes too.

Good luck.

[Deleted User]

Re ; 'A Girl called Jack' she has a great recipe for falafels which is really easy to make.She write a great blog and it has lots of recipes on there for things to make out of almost anything I think her and my late Mum would have got on like a house on fire as my mum was very much in that sort of mindset.
I couldn't decide what to have for a meal last night as I had only taken a couple of pork,leek and mustard sausages out of the freezer originally for lunch but I had been so busy baking for today that I had just grabbed a quick cheese and crackers for lunch.
So I thought I know I'll see what I have to eat with it I ended up with a few potato wedges done in the remoska, an egg, two said bangers and the stalks from some mushrooms that were left over in the fridge and half a tin of baked beans .I was stuffed afterwards and from starting with just two bangers I ended up with a very full tummy that cost very little :)The sausages I had bought reduced in price a few weeks ago and I always portion them up into twos as they are quite filling.So a packet of 8 will give me enough meals for myself and a few for the freezer and I think I paid around £1.20 for them.I usually only buy sausages if they are really good ones reduced and sainsburys sometimes do quite good reductions on theirs
I would rather have better quality meat and less of it than buy value ones.I can use another portion up by frying/grilling them and then chopping into chunks to make into a pasta bake with some Hm pasta sauce and a few chopped onions and a spoonful of lazy garlic and a sprinkle of dried herbs if you haven't any fresh.This makes at least a couple of portions ,one of which I freeze when cold for another day.Another portion chopped with veg and pulses will make a couple of portions of sausage casserole.and the last one I will grill the sausages and slice up then make a small curry sauce and make a sausage curry which with rice makes another meal and whats left over will go back into the freezer for a filling for a jacket spud so from my £1.20's worth of 8 sausages I can make roughly seven meals using the basic 8 bangers for the meat part of the mealcosting out the other ingrediants I suppose 7 meals will cost me in total around £2.80 all told maybe even less, depending on the amount of veg used so about 40p per meal. Often its a case of just looking at things from a differant way and deciding how you can make the most of what you have.My evening meals always either have a soup starter or a pud to finish off with.If I'm short of pudding I will have a couple of crackers with some grated cheese and a few slices of cucumber and a spoonful of pickle..A meal can be created from very little really.

maman

gailey wrote: »

If you shop in aldis check out the super six thread where loads of meals around whats on offer last week everything was 49p.

Also tried their frozen fish fillets cod and salmon they very nice.
you could do tasty fish pie.

How I do them is wrap in foil parcel with 1 slice lemon , 1 clove garlic, 1 chilli, 1chopped up onion, coriander if I have any and drizzle oil its lovley with some new potatoes or homemade wedges.

The salmon was £3.99 and had 5small fillets cant remember how much exactly cod was but was less and they had other types of fish.

I but aldis /lidls free range bird and an get 10portions and 2-3 different dishes from it.

we have lots egg based dishes too.

Good luck.

Aldi's Large FR eggs were £1 for 6 this week (normally £1.09) and medium ones are always this price. I buy their FR chickens too. I'm not obsessive about organic and welfare and the like but I think this is great value for FR.

Farmfoods have 2 x 500g bags of smoked haddock for £5 at the moment. They're only smallish pieces but at £5 per kg (compared with £14 - £15 in most shops) that's pretty good. With plenty of potatoes and veg they make for a lovely meal and a change from meat.

Farmfoods frozen veg is good too especially the leeks and peppers.

gailey_2

maman wrote: »

Aldi's Large FR eggs were £1 for 6 this week (normally £1.09) and medium ones are always this price. I buy their FR chickens too. I'm not obsessive about organic and welfare and the like but I think this is great value for FR.

Farmfoods have 2 x 500g bags of smoked haddock for £5 at the moment. They're only smallish pieces but at £5 per kg (compared with £14 - £15 in most shops) that's pretty good. With plenty of potatoes and veg they make for a lovely meal and a change from meat.

Farmfoods frozen veg is good too especially the leeks and peppers.

Hi we do sometimes go farmfoods its a distance though and use money off coupons.

I like their frozen veg we get the peppers, peas, cauli and broccoli.
I did buy their fish but last lot was quite boney not great with the kids.

They great for milk/bread deals.cheese quite cheap too.

I hated lidls frozen fish.

Best value place for me to buy eggs as walkable is co-op 10free range med eggs £1.90.

have tried lilds and aldo free range birds both tasty but lidls had more meat on.

I do like to buy higher welfare eggs/poultry and british pork.

I often find sausages reduced dont buy cheapy ones and use chopped up in pasta or on top of homemade pizza,
sausage casserole with farmfoods frozen pepper and splas wourcester sauce a well stocked store cupboard helps make cheap food exiting.

Try and do evenings and get reduced shopping.
hubby got free range chiken fillets for £1 last night and some breaded fish 49p.:D

All the bread in freezer was reduced none of it value as loved granary and seeded batch.

BAGGY

Farmfoods did 3 x 1kg smoked pollock for £10 - just over £3 a kilo is cheaper than decent mince. They also did chicken portions and pork steaks that you could mix and match. I got unsmoked pollock /hoki and prawns and that will do untold fish pies with lots of cheesy mash on top.
Felafel is a good one too as are turkey burgers in our house. Carbonara (cheat version) using cream cheese let doew with milk and any smoked meat be it salami, bacon or chorizo also goes down well. My kids absolute fave is heuvos rancheros (I wont bore you with the recipe as I've posted it many times before). I try to feed 2 adults and 2 5 y/o for less than £2 for evening meal. That way I can justify crisps or biscuits for pack ups.