I need help with making this food last please.

Butterfly_Brain

hollyh wrote: »

Due to Ds1's 16th Birthday and my car breaking down this month I am really skint. I need to make this food last as long as possible. I have £30 to spend to add to it and I need to spend wisely.

I can't think of anything but 2 meals so I need some help. I know you're all fantastic at this sort of thing.

This is all the food I have in the house and I will need cat food, rabbit food, sawdust, hay and cat litter to add to my shopping list too.

Stock cubes
gravy granules
1 egg
1/2 pk lard (which looks mockingly at me for not being able to make pastry)
2 onions
1/2 swede
Loads of pasta
Loads or rice
1/2 pk risotto rice
Flour all types including bread HM Pizza, bread and Calzone make plenty of fairy cakes and biscuits
Yeast
A billion herbs and spices
Cocoa powder
10 small potatoes
2 tins of sweetcorn vegetable curry
1 tin of chickpeas " "
1 tin of kidney beans
1 tin of mushy peas
2 tins of beans & sausage
1 tin spaghetti
2 tins beans (thought these could be lunches on toast)
Veg oil
1 loaf of bread
2 apples
1/2 bag oven chips
1 battered cod fillet
1 pk frozen mixed veg
1 pk frozen roast potatoes
4 bread rolls
2 mini baguettes
6 sausages Cook and slice the sausages, add lots of mixed veg of choice and mixed herbs and make either a sausage stew (gravy granules) sausage toad or a sausage pasta tin of tomatoes and some mixed herbs which are 19p in Asda)
1 chicken & mushroom pie large or small?
3/4 bag frozen peas
3/4 bag frozen carrots
Pk glazed parsnips
4 Yorkshire puds
3 fish fillets Fish and chips
6 wraps
1/2 pk diced beef Casserole, just bulk out with a tin of beans and vegetables or make a beef curry using plenty of veg and serving with plain boiled rice or even a veg and meat pie
2 fishcakes
1 chicken breast Cook and slice and use in a stir-fry with plenty of veg
1 pk BBQ chicken Cook, slice add vegetables and risotto rice for barbecue chicken risotto
1 pk BBQ pork As above or chop up add to pasta or rice
Weetabix
Oats
Little bit of milk

This has to feed 3 for all 3 meals because it's the easter holidays. I'm going to shop online I think because the petrol/delivey fee will be about the same. There's a market tomorrow that does really cheap fruit and veg so I will get that there.

So far I can think of fish pie and sausage, chips and beans.

I hope this gives you a few more ideas. I wouldn't buy Clover I would buy Aldi's buttery spread @ 89p for 500g so £3.56 it is just as good

hollyh

I've just been to the market and have got 2 bags of pears, 1 bag of apples, onions, mushrooms, courgettes and peppers for £7.

angelpye

Roast some of the veg with garlic and add tinned toms for pasta sauce - great as pasta bake. I pur!e it down as kids not keen on the veg but will eat the sauce! Good luck

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Onion soup?

Slice and soften the onions in some marge/butter (only a spoonful needed) on a low heat for ages, until they go brown and sticky. Add a small amount of flour, then hot chicken or beef stock (make the stock from boiling up any bones from a roast or use a 14p box of stock cubes - you only need one or two), cook, then serve with a bit of HM bread and some cheese toasted on top.

paulineb_2

Last night I made a mushroom stroganoff with mustard mash (if you dont have mustard just make the mash). Put some mushrooms into a wok and put in a stock cube, added some onions and courgettes and water, let it boil and then simmer, added a bit of salt. Boiled up some potatoes and when they were ready took half of them out of the pot, mashed them, added mustard and dairy free spread (I dont eat dairy). The rest of the potatoes, I added a couple of stock cubes to the water, added another courgette, some leftover onion, blended them to make soup. The rest of the courgette will go along with the onion into pasta with some pasta sauce and I have enough onions left to make onion and lentil soup. I make a lot of soup, cheap and filling, my blender is hand held and cost me a fiver.

suki_na_tomodachi

Could you mash some potatoes and use them to top off a casserole dish with baked beans in, or the tins of beans and sausage? Could add some onions, either with the mash or in with the beans themselves, some cheap ham shredded if you either have some or could buy a cheapy packet, could be a beans cottage pie sorta thing.

Also saw someone talking about a baked bean lasagne, on here somewhere i think, in fact i think both are (hope noone minds me reposting it here), i've been fancying making both cos they sound lovely. Anyway, you could get a cheapy pack of lasagne sheets (39p value from T's) or cook your pasta and put a layer of cooked pasta at the bottom of an oven dish, cover with beans/beans and sausage, then another lasagne sheet/layer of pasta, then more beans and top with cheese or again mash, or even substitute on layer of pasta with a layer of part cooked sliced potatoes?

Could get a few meals out of that.

[Deleted User]

Look for an online blog called 'A girl called Jack 'she is brilliant at making something out of nothing and has lots of recipes on there for pennies

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I'd also buy more milk and a large box of eggs. That gives you omelettes, scrambled, boiled, quiches, egg and chips (a plain, simple but great meal when you're skint) plus any amount of baking for when sweet cravings get too much to bear, plus pancakes/yorkshires batter/toad (equal volume egg, flour, milk).........


You've got a pretty respectable amount of food there, as long as you plan, rather than (like some people I know) complain you want chips but refuse to eat potatoes because they need cutting up and go and buy a whole bag of oven ones for every meal, wasting at least half by cooking too much (I'm not kidding, there are people like that) - you'll do pretty well.

hollyh

Thanks, there are some more good ideas. We're doing ok, sticking to the meal plan. I made homemade oven chips last night and they were really lovely. Much nicer than the frozen ones.

Ex has given me a gammon joint for Sunday because it's Ds2's favourite meat. So the chicken I bought can be used for something else.

Ds2 has a friend coming over tomorrow so i'll need to do some baking so they have something to snack on.

purpledonkey

Usually when I'm on a tight budget I make a list and look up items on the mysupermarket website. It compares all of the items and tells you where it's cheaper/on offer. I wish it had Morrison's on it though. If you have bread flour, you could make some pizza bases/pitta bread. They freeze pretty well and make for plenty of meals. Hope it goes well