Food on the cheap

sax11

Having a look around the net and there are lots of ideas for feeding people for very little money. All well and good if you like things like pasta, rice, pulses and horrendous veg like squash.

However, i'm incredibly fussy and do not like what is ever suggested on the low budget planners - does anyone have any suggestions or ideas where to look.

(nothing involving leftovers in curry/pasta i don't like either) :rotfl:

Mrs_Rachel_Trelfa

What sorts of foods do you like? Perhaps knowing that we can work 'backwards'

redfox

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Beenie

Sax, you say that pulses etc. are 'horrendous' but have you actually tasted them when properly cooked?

Part of cooking and eating cheaply (and healthily) is to learn to love these staple food items. It's how you flavour them, how you cook them and how you present them that makes all the difference.

As a suggestion, why don't you try some 'bean burgers' which when popped in a bun with tomato sauce, onion rings and some lovely home-made oven chips are really fab and I defy anyone to realise there is no meat in them.

(There are umpteen recipes for bean burgers on the net - my favourite is by Rose Elliott. They cost pence each)

VfM4meplse

Starvation is another cheap option

I wouldn't recommend it to sub-Saharan African population, but might actually do some of us in "developed" nations some good!

Mrs_Cheshire

I second the suggestion, write a list of the foods you do eat and some of us might be able to come up with some ideas!

craigywv

do you have one of those cash for clothes shops they give you 60p a kilo ,gather up old shoes ,boots coats things that weigh heavier belts and bags they take everything and they don't check every item as they weigh the bin bag they brought in how do I know well my mother in law made me go and bring her stuff lol so its not great but it will get u food

culpepper

Well I know they are not always massively cheap but there are lots of Paleo recipe sites which dont use pasta or rice so they might be of interest by mixing and matching the ones you find you do like the sound of.
Quite a lot of war time recipes too dont use pasta or rice.

Soworried

Make meals around what you do like from the Lidl weekend offers and the Aldi super 6 for veg.
This week we have had pork loin chops with stir fried onions, mushrooms, spring onions etc. All for under £2.50 for 4 of us. You don't have to eat horrendous foods you just have to eat and plan around what is on special.
Today the super six will have potatoes, sprouts, parsnips. You can prepare them in 100 different ways and they are only 69p each.

sonastin

Have you looked at the various recipe threads on here? I guess the post wasn't originally on the old-style board but it has loads and loads of different recipe ideas. The grocery challenge thread that is always at the top of the board has a long list of inexpensive recipes right at the beginning. Obviously some will work out cheaper than others but there is such a huge variety that I defy you to say there is nothing that you'd want to eat!

If you really don't like the sound of any of them, perhaps the problem is psychological rather than fussiness - has your brain automatically decided it isn't going to be nice because its "cheap". I don't mean that to sound critical - I have a similar issue when it comes to clothes shops; I'm convinced it is a bad fit if I'm trying something from an outlet-type store. I don't think it is always the case but my prejudice stops me liking it! So back to your fussiness, if the only foods you like are caviar and oysters, we can spend hours suggesting alternatives that are similar but lower cost but if your brain is going to say "yuk that's not proper caviar", you're going to have to find a way to save money elsewhere! (I know, extreme example simply to make the point)

If you're a meat-and-three-veg kind of person, there's a lot that we can help with.

SarahB1989_2

I can't stand pulses mostly either, but if you use them to bulk out meaty meals instead they're a lot less noticeable and still cost saving. Just take your standard stew/casserole/chilli whatever and gradually reduce the meat content to replace some of it with pulses.