Please help with meals...hard times

SUESMITH_2

shame you're not closer, i could drop you some stuff off. i found when we were really hard up that we ate lots of carbs as it was cheap. can't offer any more advice except it will soon be over. x

Butterfly_Brain

carlymummy wrote: »

Hi everyone firstly I am sorry I don't post as much as I maybe should but I am a long time lurker of the OS board. Also apologies for my long and rambly post I am worried and can't think straight at the moment.
We are a family of 5 myself, DH and DS4, DS9 DS12. We always find managing on such a tight budget hard (in IVA also) but especially so as DH has just been moved onto monthly pay from weekly which has completely thrown us, our mortgage etc leaves the bank tomorrow and child benefit doesn't go in until next Thurs so we literally have about £15 to last until then. DH wage will not go in until 23rd August!!! So the child benefit won't last long either.
I have just gone through my fridge/freezer and cupboards if any of you have any suggestions of how I can spin this out into meals for us for at least 2 weeks I would be eternally grateful and any suggestions of what to buy with the small amount we have to spend for topping up ingredients.
Fridge
1/2 tube of tomato puree
4 pint semi skimmed milk approx.
1/2 tub spreadable butter and 1/2 tub stork, 1/2 block lard
2 small red onions
1 pack of peppers (red, green, yellow)
1/2 bag new potatoes
small pack of cherries
5 carrots
Freezer
Frozen veg sweetcorn, broccoli, peas, green beans all half full bags approx.
1 pack of basics white fish fillets skinless boneless approx. 6 fillets
2 boxes basics fishfingers
1 pack Richmond thin 12 sausages
6 baps
2 small naans in pack
1 pack YS bagels
4 YS wholemeal loaves
Store Cupboard
I have herbs and spices, yeast, baking powder, bicarb, all flours although half full inc strong white for pizza/bread, stock cubes chicken and veg
3 tin baked beans
2 tins spag hoops
1 tin hotdogs
2 tin chopped tomatoes
choc spread
1 tin potatoes
1 tin pears and 1 tin mandarins
1 tin evaporated milk
1/2 pack rice
2 bags penne pasta
1 pack dried spaghetti and 1/2 pack lasagne sheets
1 pack instant noodles
porridge oats approx. 1kg
golden syrup 1/2 jar
1/2 box of shreddies and 1/2 pack of bran flakes
1/2 box of breadcrumbs

I normally shop at Aldi, I enjoy to cook and normally cook from scratch. We don't eat much meat usually buy a small chicken for a roast and then strip remaining and use it in a pie etc.
I was thinking of buying milk and eggs to top up but also need toiletries and toilet roll?!
Please help if you can.
Thank you in advance :A

Edited to add I also have potatoes growing but they aren't ready yet I'm pretty sure as they haven't flowered and my onions bolted

I have a few recipes that you might like to try, I used these a lot when we were in the same position as you, the children were small and DH had to wait 5 weeks for his wages :eek:

Fishfinger pie serves 5/6

600g (about 6 medium) potatoes
Milk
Butter
12 fish fingers
1/2 an onion chopped
1 tin of tomatoes
100g peas
1 tbsp tomato puree (Don't worry if you don't have any use ketchup instead)
1 tsp sugar (To take the tartness of the tomatoes away)
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 200c

Peel and dice the potatoes and put on to boil, then grill the fish fingers
Fry onion until soft, then add the tomatoes, peas, sugar, puree and seasoning. Bring to the boil and then simmer for a couple of mins
Lay the fishfingers in the bottom of a dish (like you would use for lasagne)
Pour over the tomato mixture
Mash the potato until smooth and add some milk and butter (If you only have new potatoes don't worry about mash just slice them and lay them on the top) They will be a bit like chips this way
Spread the potato on top of the tomato mixture and bake for 30 minutes.

Sausage Pasta
Spaghetti or penne
cooked sliced sausages or hotdogs
Tin of tomatoes,
1Tbsp tomato puree
1tsp sugar
sliced pepper
sweetcorn
garlic or garlic powder whatever you have

Cook the sausages and slice
In a large pan put the tomatoes, tomato puree, sugar, pepper, sweetcorn, sausages and garlic, cook through on a gentle simmer for 15 - 20mins until heated through, meanwhile cook the pasta in boiling, salted water, drain and add the sauce

Sausage lasagne

6 hot dogs or sausages, cooked and sliced into medium size pieces
2 tins baked beans
lasagne sheets
HM cheese sauce (add a little mustard if you have it to bring out the flavour of the cheese) a little grated cheese for the top

Cook and slice the sausages and mix with the baked beanslayer with lasagne sheets and sauce, top with grated cheese and pop in the oven for 20 mins until the beans are heated through and the grated cheese is golden heated.

Sausage Toad
Make a sausage toad with the rest of the sausages, make sure that you slice them up so it looks like there is more than six sausages, top with batter and scatter half a sliced onion on the surface.

Sausage Casserole
Cook and slice sausages, add vegetables of choice add gravy and top with sliced potatoes. Cook in the oven until the potatoes are golden (If you put the potatoes in the microwave for a minute they will cook through quicker in the oven.)

All of these sausage recipes can be altered to using cooking bacon for variety.

Try making a simple Macaroni Cheese with bacon or slices of pepperoni and peppers added.

Vegetable pasties with a cheese sauce, onion sauce, mushroom sauce or gravy.

The fish can be used in a fish pie or cooked and flaked and made into fishcakes with sweetcorn and chilli to taste for flavour.

Eggs are so versatile and are useful for making cakes , quiches, omelets, frittatas etc.

Make some twinks hob nobs with the porridge oats and syrup

Hobnob Recipe

8oz sr flour
8oz sugar
8oz porridge oats
8oz margarine
1tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp hot water
1/2 tsp bic soda

Mix the flour, oats and sugar, melt marg, syrup and water in a pan. Stir in bic soda and add to dry mix.

Then mix well and make into smallish balls which you then put on a greased tray and flatten slightly with a fork. Put in the oven at 180 degrees C for 15 mins... and cool on the tray. The aim is to get them golden in the oven not brown.

And I can highly recommend D&DD's apple braid which is just as good with chocolate spread

One of our faves is an Apple Braid,looks quite posh, til the kids see it :rolleyes: so perfect for guests.I'll put in the large recipe as it is great for freezing too.
Dough.
1 sachet yeast
15 oz strong bread flour
3/4 tsp salt
4 tbspn sugar (less if wanted)
4 1/2 tbspn butter
2 eggs
6 fl oz milk

I find this comes out a bit on the sticky side sometimes so you may need a bit of extra flour to hand *I make this up in my MR haven't tried it in the Panny yet!*
Set for white bread dough..
Filling.
2 eating apples
1 1/2 tsp plain flour
2 tbspn sugar
3/4 tspn cinammon
34 tspn lemon juice
3 tbspns sultanas

Peel,core and chop apples into small pieces toss with the remaining ingredients.

Roll out dough to 1/3 inch thick rectangle shape.Mark lightly from top to bottom into thirds without cutting!! On the outer thirds make diagonal cuts about 1 inch wide.

Place the filling down the centre of the dough then plait the dough over the top.

Cover loosely and rise for 30 mins then bake for approx 30 mins til golden brown.Gas mark 4/180 c/350


You can also make it using a food mixer or by hand

HTH x

jackel

BB - thankyou for the Apple Braid recipe. Looks really good and one I shall certainally try. jac x.

Butterfly_Brain

Here are a few more...............
Broccoli and potato bake
Potatoes
Broccoli
cheese sauce
breadcrumbs
A little grated cheese
peel and slice the potatoes
peel, slice and then put the potatoes in the microwave for 1 minute.
layer in an oven proof dish with the broccoli
Pour over cheese sauce and top with grated cheese and breadcrumbs cook for 25 mins at 170C

This is just as good using pasta as a pasta bake
You can add sweetcorn and carrots if you want to.

Using the pears make a pear and chocolate pudding , whip the evaporated milk and serve with it. You could do the same with the mandarins using a vanilla sponge with a little coconut added.

Pizza, buy a cheap pasta sauce and use as the base 39p top with mozzarella 44p and anything that you have to hand.

enabledebra

One of my favorite cheap and easy meals is penne arrabiatta. It's very tasty despite having few ingredients:

For 2 large servings

fry some chopped garlic, add a tin of tomatoes, a tsp or 2 of sugar, salt/pepper, chilli powder/dried chilli to taste, a squirt of tom puree if liked and reduce to a thickish sauce. Just stir into cooked penne

carlymummy

Thank you so much for all your replies. I managed to shop and just top up 'essentials' only came to £10 so have a little over now for emergencies like toilet roll!
BB thank you for those lovely recipes too we shall definitely be trying some of those.
Planned the meals for the week and they are pretty much exactly what you have all suggested So far so good and managing to keep my 3 hungry boys filled up with a batch of cheese scones that I baked then froze and a big batch of flapjacks
Thanks again

Butterfly_Brain

Glad to be of some help. Please keep us posted how you get on x

carlymummy

Will do BB thank you, just off to go and make some toad in the hole for lunch for the family with some tinned fruit for pudding x