Help me cope?

jennyc85

We are both veggies and I often just do variations of traditional non-veggie meals. Have you tried quorn type products? asda do their own version and they're 2 for £3, you can get mince, chicken style pieces, sausages etc. It is a lot cheaper and also healthy than meat. Meals I do with these include chilli non-carne, shepherds pie, lasagne, spag bol, bangers and mash, curry, stir-fry, roast dinner etc etc..

Lilyplonk

I've been struggling with the price of 'proper meat' for a long time and we've solved the problem by only having it on alternate evenings.

I've also gone back to buying liver for us both, kidneys for me - OH doesn't like them - cheaper cuts of meat (eg oxtail/stewing lamb pieces) and we eat quite a bit of chicken and/or turkey (especially Turkey Steaks) - chicken drumsticks and wings are marinaded for mid week with pasta; diced turkey/turkey thighs, replace Chicken Breasts for casseroles/curries.

Stews/casseroles/curries/chillis are cooked with very small amounts of meat (using minced pork/turkey; shin beef; lamb pieces; oxtail; diced turkey thigh), LOTS of veggies with added lentils/beans/pulses.

I'm the 'The Whoopsie Queen' when it comes to getting bargains in the 'real meat department' - those are the only times that we have Lamb, Beef or Pork joints.

I'm very happy to eat 'veggie meals' and so is OH and there's beans/spaghetti on toast with poached egg - or another 'egg-based meal' - on the menu at least one evening a week.

OH loves Fish where I'm not very over-keen - though I'm quite happy to eat cod in batter/breadcrumbs - including cod fish fingers, fish pie made with cod, cod fishcakes, prawns/scampi/shrimps, tinned tuna and scallops. He doesn't like prawns or scallops though .

He won't eat anything with a 'creamy, white/cheese sauce' - so when he has fish that I don't like, I'll have cheesey vegetable bake or cauli/macaroni cheese.



Fishy smells make me nauseous, so he's only allowed those when I'm not at home. He loves me going away with my mother so he can have his stinky mackerel, kippers, smoked haddock/cod etc :rotfl:!

RAS

Tink_04 wrote: »

Desserts are jelly, fruit or yogurt ( I'm not a great baker

Hi

As a not great baker, you might want to prepare and freeze some crumble topping. Then if you find cheap fruit, you can just prep, give a quick whizz in the microwave (1minute) and add the topping to make a substantial pudding.

So - 100-125g marg (Stork or similar) or butter straight from the fridge and 150g plain flour, rubbed into breadcrumbs. Add 50-70g sugar. Pour over partly cooked fruit and bake for 25-30 mins at 200C. Will probably do two days. You can add porridge oats or nuts for a chunkier texture.

Also try the all in one cake method. Weight your eggs (2-3) and then weigh out the same quantities of self raising flour, butter or marg and sugar. Put it in a bowl and beat until creamy and the colour turns pale. This a a great on the day and OK tomorrow recipe but not a keeping cake.

Pour over partly cooked fruit and bake. Or use some teacups and fill 2/3rds full, cover with cling-film, make a small hole for the steam and set of in the microwave for 1 minute each. Check it is cooked by pushing a skewer in the middle and zap for another 15 seconds until done.

Also think about pancakes? Make in advance and wrap round stewed fruit and custard or icecream?

lobbyludd

Hi - not a great cheap food cooker BUT I usually only spend about £100 per month on food for me (only adult) and 2 children (this does not include their school dinners) so mostly I am cooking evening meals.

A usual week consists of buying the biggest chicken I can afford as I find the meat to bones ratio is better the bigger they are, we have roast chicken on sunday I have the wings and the children have less than 1 chicken breast between them, with plenty of roast pots and veg and yorkshires. (any visiting adults have legs)
at the same time I bake some jacket potatoes. I strip the carcass on sunday night - but have been known to keep in the roasting tin with lid on in the fridge for up to 5/6 days and it's fine, a little dehydrated but great in stews. The carcass is made into stock and I freeze any left over vegetables from the dinner for soup later in the week.

Monday night is Jacket potatoes with some toppings cheese/beans/tuna/bollognaise etc.
Tuesday is usually using up any remaining chicken breast - either chicken chips and veg OR if there's not very much a chicken pasta bake/risotto/stir fry/curry, all heavy on seasonal/frozen veg.

wed is a mince or sausage day, usu bought when reduced/on offer (bolognaise, toad in the hole, sausage hot pot - cut up sausages, 4 small pieces in a hotpot feels more that 1 sausage on a plate) and I make sure there are some small portions left to be frozen to go over next weeks baked potatoes.

thursday is the return of the chicken bits, I definitely do some risotto/pasta bake with the dregs. friday and saturday depend what I've got in and it's soup all week for me at work - either chicken or veg or lentil or.... (I now cannot stand tinned soups, HM are so much tastier).

this looks fairly limited, but I'm time poor, the kids like routine in their food and I mess about with spices and flavourings for my lunches - spicy chicken soup tastes a world different to taragon chicken etc.

I can't bake anything that needs to rise either, but I make fab ginger biscuits and can do a very edible chocolate brownie (although I wince at the fat and sugar content).

mcculloch29

For anyone living in the North of England, the frozen food chain Heron is very good. Like Farmfoods, but much, much better and the service is better too.

They do lambs' liver at £1 for a pound that is ideal for pates or casseroles, esp. with bacon.

I use their cooking bacon a LOT - for quiches, hotpots, casseroles, pizzas, perogies, (pasties made with bread dough) standard pasties, cheese and bacon wraps, (puff pastry, cheese and bacon, as sold by Gr*ggs)

T*sco cooking bacon tends to be minced; ok for quiches, pates, pizzas, pasties and perogies but not for wraps or casseroles/hotpots unless you don't mind your meat microscopic.

Quorn mince is very good and can be seamlessly stretched with grated carrot, add stock cubes for a meaty taste.

As well as looking for yellow reduced stickers in supermarkets, don't forget that discount stores do reduce their produce. Look for the red dot on A!di fresh meat and fish for 30-50% reductions.

Barbeduk

Hi Tink, hope you've had a chance to make the gammon in the slow cooker, I usually cook one gammon joint a week which does us one 'proper' meal, then I use the rest for packed lunches/chucking in pasta sauce/freeze in sandwich size batches. I also use the stock for yummy soup using up whatever veg is in the fridge.

Tonight we're having risotto using HM chicken stock (so there's also lots of chicken scraps in it), left over butternut squash and a few left over mushrooms. The original chicken also did a roast for 4 and a chicken, mushroom and pea curry.

My favourite soup at the moment is similar to one off the 'a girl called jack' blog. I fry off an onion, bit of garlic, celery then add a tin of tomatoes (lidl) and a tin of haricot beans, 1ltr of chicken stock (oxo cube), simmer 40 mins and blend. It's lovely and thick and my DD loves it!

Can you make your own pizza bases? (I think there's a recipe on the grocery challenge thread, page 1). Top with a bit of passata, left over gammon, mushrooms? Sweetcorn? And some cheese and voila! Cheap and filling! And everyone loves pizza!

Good luck, your on a challenging budget but there are so many fab ideas on old style.

timehastoldme

My husband an I decided at the start of the year not to buy any more meat until we were debt free - we figured August. We're going to hit our target early, but are sticking to the no meat till August resolve.

We're lucky because we do have meat in the freezer. Was in waitrose at just the right time for red sticker reductions and got huge packs of chicken legs and drumsticks for just over £1 each, so portioned out we have three carrier bags full of chicken, as well as some other things (one pack of mince, some lardons, some sausages, some lamb burgers).

I think we could go longer than August - we'll re-assess then. How we've made it work is by making meat no longer be the main event on the plate - and by embracing vegetarian food, rather than trying to get round it.

Vegetarian curry is amazing. We love squash curry (and have a few in the cellar thanks to Aldi's super six a month or so ago). This website has made me try some different recipes http://www.vazhayila.com/p/recipe-index_9803.html the cabbage thoran is lovely, and turns out egg curry is really nice. Home made curries can be jazzed up with a big dollop of mint and yoghurt on top. We have masses of naan and chapati's thanks to approved food, so often forego rice with this. Dahl is a big must, so cheap, and an mazing, healthy side dish.

We went to the library and took out a couple of books as well, we got global vegetarian cookbook which had some lovely mexican recipes. We've had refried beans (home made much *much* nicer than the tinned stuff - I don't even like kidney beans but could eat this all day long), quesadillas, squash enchiladas (can be made and frozen) and scrambled egg with sweet chilli sauce. Really lovely - it's surprised us.

Fish is something we're also trying to embrace - the fresh fish counters always have the biggest reductions by the end of the day. Sometimes it's because you can't freeze it, so it's only a bargain if you can eat it that night, but sometimes it's fine. I'm not a big fish fan so this is a brave move for me!

We both are serious carnivores, but not being able to buy any is really changing our minds on what we will do when August comes around. I think probably we'll move towards meat being an occasional treat - and not the main event in a meal. Which is nice!

gailey_2

Any ideas how to do fish pie with frozen fillets? thinking need to to cook then add sause then top with mash and cheese.

Im impressed how many of you stretch a chicken.

my main meals with chicken are

roast
curry
faittas.

dreggs in soup , rissotto or chicken and veg pasties are lush i kind of adapted and made up recipe from book only thing not sure of is does making own pastry cost more than buying it?

we went farmfoods yesterday and only got plain cod fillets and some breaded fish no meat.

lots of veggies yesterday was simple jacket potato, cheese and mini corn on cob was lovley.

eldest and hubby has breaded chicken, chips and petit pois.

where hubby would have 2 i now only give 1 and try pad out with veg or salad.

might do a frittta again today as such a simple dish and nice with salad and new potatoes.

its hard thinking outside what normally do my chicken and veg curry other day wasent a hit:(.

Wish hubby liked quorn as was 2 for £3 in farmfoods i only eat veggie sausages which are £1.

I have butternut squash in veg bowl debating what to do with it.

going to try macaroni cheese as we have lots of milk.

I have does cauli cheese with frozen cauli.

got some frozen peppers for casseroles.£1 a bag,

we often have pasta with chopped up bacon, ham or my fave diced pancatta.

BitterAndTwisted

I don't think it's necessary to pre-cook fish for a fish pie. Just let it defrost and reach room temp before smothering it in the sauce. Think about it: fish takes merely a few minutes to cook, so 20 mins or so in the oven to reach piping-hot should suffice.

Butternut squash: oven roast it and then add to risotto? My fav is butternut squash and mixed-bean soup. A teaspoon or so of that smoked paprika in it works wonders.

Steve059

I take your point about fish in a fish pie. However, poaching it changes the texture and enables you to break it up into flakes and lose any remaining bones.

I have some kippers in the freezer, and I'm thinking of making a fish pie with them. I always like to use some smoked fish and kippers are, of course, smoked herring fillets.