£30 a week, family of 3 and am stuck on meals help!

fly_dragon_fly

Hello,

I do my weekly shop for the 3 of us and the dog for about £30 / £40 max a week. I am so bored of my weekly dinners and would love some ideas for dinners that I can make stretch and are still cheap, my son has school dinners in the winter and hubby just has ham / cheese / tuna rolls , fruit from the market, home made cakes and crisps from the market stall.

My normal dinners are :

1. Spag bol ( Tesco value mince, onions from the market, mushrooms from the market, pepper from the market, sauce, tin of tomatoes, spaghetti or pasta )
2. Sheperds Pie (Tesco value mince, onions from the market, mushrooms from the market, tesco value tin of carrots, tesco value tin of sweetcorn, potatoes from the market, sauce)
3. Chilli con carne ( tesco value mince split the large pack into the three meals, sauce, onions from market , mushroom from the market, boil in bag rice, two bags between the three of us)
4. chicken curry ( 4 cooked thighs from tesco's @ £2 ( mainly because i'm 37 weeks pregnant and can't be bothered to cook some nights!) sauce, onions and mushrooms from market, boil in bag rice, and bag of 50p popadoms)
5. sausage casserole ( sausages from the farm my brother works on, all previous veg, gravy sauce, mash or home made chips)
6. Sausage, mash and veg and a balsamic vinegar and honey onion gravy.
7. Tuna pasta ( tuna, pasta, mayo, onion, mushroom, pepper, sweetcorn, peas, mix of value tins and market food)

and then pudding varies between tinned fruit and custard to cakes and fruit ( we have fairy cakes torn up and pineapple and custard tonight mmmm! ) Oh and the dog has a bag of dog biscuit with scraps.

Oh and we don't like fish apart from tuna, and i have a slow cooker but i don't want dinners that take half hour to prep then a hour to cook needs to be quick and easy as i'm not chef just don't agree with chips and nuggets and beans every night lol

Thanks in advance

ms_night_ryder

Fajitas, special fried rice, soup chicken and rice, make your own pizzas, stir fry, jacket potatoes, toad in the hole somebody will be along with more.

Wornoutmom

Beef Goulash works well in slow cooker - with value rice and a cheap cut of beef you can do for quite cheap.

Gammon joint can be used for two meals - we have Gammon Egg and cheaps one day and then cheese and gammon filled jacket spuds the next. You can even stretch it to 3 meals probably as only 3 of you. Another one I do is to layer potatoes, leek, cheese sauce and leftover gammon and bake.

Tuna Fish cakes? Usually use a white fish but you could use tuna

Pasta bake or lesagne instead of your spag bol, use the same bolognaise with a cheese sauce.

Make your own burgers - only need mince and egg, maybe a few mixed herbs/onion/grated apple you can add what you have . I usually bulk a bit with breadcrumbs so goes further.

Your own chicken nuggets and chips - I coat in flour then egg then crushed cornflakes and bake in oven.

Enterprise_1701C

Toad in the hole? I make mini toads, I use the big yorkshire pud pans, chop up the sausages into about 4/5 pieces, put them into these pans and whack in some batter and cook till done to taste. The advantage is that I do a batch of these at a time and they freeze really well.

redfox

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I'm sure the Old Stylers will be able to help with meal ideas and suggestions

hilstep2000

Macaroni cheese, cassoulet, toad in the hole, fish pie.

ChopinonaBudget

You might want to rethink you're problem with slow cookers - I don't use recipes, they seem more trouble than they're worth! Just chuck a load of ingredients in (I'm vegetarian so veg, chickpeas etc), but whatever meat, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, some herbs (I like experimenting, but if you're not sure then a really good mix is mixed herbs, paprika and chilli), a enough water to cover, stock cube, a few teaspoons of cornflour mixed into a paste with a couple of tablespoons of water. Switch it on. Ignore it. I like cooking, but I can be lazy sometimes, and my slow cooker is for my lazy days as it takes me literally ten minutes to prepare. I have friends who have slow cookers who tell me the same: don't bother with fancy recipes that tell you to precook the ingredients- just chuck it all in and switch it on!

ChopinonaBudget

Tacos! Value mince, value nachoes, value salsa, lots of lettuce, tomatoes and cheese yum!
(My veg version takes a fair bit of prep, but I make mince version for my daughter and she loves it)

A really tasty alternative to mash is polenta - make sure you buy the instant stuff (not the block, but "quick cook" packet polenta) or it takes forever, but mixed with butter and grated cheese, it cooks in five minutes and I think is nicer than potatoes it goes really well with sausage casserole.

quintwins

I would def consider using your slowcooker more, i've never spent 30mins preping anything and it just runs by it's self all day so no hastle also it's alot cheaper to run than an oven.

Have you tried buying value chicken thights and cooking them in your slowcooker, you'll easily get double the amount for the same money!

I tend to do very similar meals to you and that have been suggested so can't really help with that with ideas.

pollyskettle

I made this this week and, whilst it may take 50 minutes, it's worth each and every one of them. I can honestly say it is the nicest recipe I have found on the bbc site. It's easy to do the next bit of prep as each bit is cooking, it only uses one pan, and I left out the cherries as we didn't have any. I also only used 2 chicken breasts for 5 of us and it was plenty, so with Aldis 'super six' BNS and served with plain boiled rice and no feta, it was really cheap too.

Boodle

I agree with the adive regarding the slow cooker. I tend to only use mine for 2-4 hours on high by putting it on before I go out for the afternoon school run. I do the same as Chopinonabudget, but use plain flour rather than cornflour. If i can't be bothered to prepare vegetables (for all the effort a couple of carrots and an onion takes ) I just tip in frozen.