No idea how to get through the next month

Butterfly_Brain

This is a lovely soup served with HM bread.
You could make a big batch and freeze it and it is ideal for packing into a flask for a hot lunch.

http://ginodacampo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/gino-dacampo-speedy-minestrone-with.html

And this is heavenly
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/simply-italian-recipes/farfalle-with-mozzarella-and-tomato-sauce-recipe

In our skint years I found that A whole chicken, mince, sausages, gammon hocks and mozzarella were brilliant to conjure up cheap and filling meals.

crispycreme_2

So tonight kids are having marmite spaghetti (Nigella)

Uniscots97

There's some great recipes on the Aldi website:


https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/recipes/recipes-by-category/


I hope this helps.

crispycreme_2

Sorry for any confusion. I just pposted a meal plan up until Sunday. The phone rang whi, st I was doing it, came back, posted it. Then alised lots of other people had posted in that time. Also my plan wasnt too good anyway. So deleted everything other than what the kids are having tonihht.

So itcomes across rather rude and odd. Sorry about that! Off to catch up on thread and redo meal plan.

RAS

Hi

If you are going to be skint long-term, avoid buying kits and ready mades and make from scratch.

crispycreme wrote: »

Ok, my list of food we have in

Fresh
2 huge sweet potatoes - roast veggies or soup, or both?
Bag of onions - ditto
Garlic
Large bag of potatoes - how large?
Salad bits; spring onion, tomatoes, lettuce cucumber

CUPBOARD
SR flor
Plain flour
Strong bread flour
Dried yeast
Light brown & dark brownsugar
Cocoa
Gelatine sheets
Dried yeast extract
Bicarbonate of soda
Almond & vanilla extract
Molasses sugar
Castor sugar
Icing sugar

Ready to roll icing
Basics sponge mix - small cakes for lunch packs - add fruit or dried fruit?
Porridge Oats - how many? Breakfast, and flapjacks for lunch-boxes.
Fruit/seed flapjack kit - lunch packs
Basics mix fruit bag ( currents etc)
Trifle kit
Hundreds thousands etc

3 tins tuna - pasta bake, lunch sandwiches, fish cakes
3 tins chopped tomatoes
Baked beans
2 tins kidney beans - chilli?
2 tins mushy peas - soup
Large tin pineapple slices

Jar mince meat from Xmas -
Usual condiments ( ketchups, range of mustards, horseradish, cranberry etc)
Honey
Lemon juice
Couple of stock pots ( beef, veg and fish)
Rendang paste
Hoi sin pouch
Lots of sage stuffing mix
Oyster sauce
Chicken bisto
Fish sauce
Packet white sauce mix
Bag n Season biryani mix
Steakhouse seasoning
Beef granules
Red wine
Mix of herbs,spices and leaves etc

Pearl barley
Red & green lentils
Egg noodles
Tonnes of lasagne sheets
Arborio rice
Litle amount of long grain
Couscous

FRIDGE
Pickles ( beetroot, onion, gherkin, olives)
White wine - keep for rissotto
Fresh parmesan
Apricot jam

FREEZER
Frozen veg ( broccoli, cabbage, spinach, corn on cob)
Mixed berries
Apple slices
Yorkshire puddings
Puff pasrty
Large rump steak - How large - aim at 60g person per meal
Leftover grill pack ;
( 2small loin lamb chops, tiny bit of lamb kidney and pig liver,2 gammon steaks) - split this -
gammon steaks could be made into a gammon, onion, and apple bake for 4 or one used for a frittata
Lamb chop - morrocan style stew with the meats and some veggies over couscous
The kidney and liver might be a bit more of a challenge but the liver would stirfry or do it with a tomato and youghurt sauce, fried very briefly, over rice?

2 sirloin steaks - you need very little meat for a stir fry - assuming your older children will eat them, use this for two evening meals at least.
Tuna steaks - how many?

OK So you have

at least two lasagnes in there.
Plus a rissotto or two,
pizzas,
a stir fry or two
and you can make a rissotto style meal from the pearl barley
and a pie with the pastry (or pasties).
Plus a couscous based meal
and something like green lentils and bangers?

You are going to have to be very disciplines on the meat; at least one non-meat day every other day. And at least one soup and pudding day a week.

I can see a corn chowder, tomato based soup, lentil soups, mushy pea soups, and roast veggie soup in there.

danih

When padding out your meat, add a stock cube to keep meaty taste - for example a beef stock cube to mince padded with lentils.

EstherH

How are you getting on? I'm just reading through your earlier threads and you survived those so you will survive again. Did you got to a food bank when you were pregnant? Is that something that could be an option again in a couple of weeks when your supplies run down a bit?

We are in a tight spot ourselves at the moment so all the advice is really helpful. Just a reminder of what can be done.

Just checking but do you have to make that £90 last 6 weeks until the end of March?

Someone suggested a business deal for the car. Is that a solution that might be possible?

It's probably already been mentioned somewhere, but a little bit of ham, gammon or bacon is all that is needed in pasta to make it seem as if you have meat in a meal. You can get ham off cuts sometimes very cheap in places like farm foods or B&Ms, or buy a gammon joint in Aldi for £2.99. Use for a meal with mashed potato and beans or new potatoes and salad, and keep a little back for using with pasta. Two meals for the price of one.

Esther x

crispycreme_2

So many good ideas and links are great. Thank aou for everyone who has taken the the time to post.

EstherH: sorry you are in the same position, horrib le isnt it? Just had a look through the old posts you were talking about.. that wss begining of last year, seems so much longer since then. That was an awful time.. to fill in since then.. I got very down about the whole thing, and vowed to sort my life out after a month of self pity! we moved area, I had baby (a lovely little girl) and dp started his own business. We decided in November to start paying of all our debts ( dec posts) and I started looking into learning to cook again. Seemed to have lost the ability (weird!)
Anyway, we started to pay of debts etc, then lose the car. As time has gone we have lost more and more money from the business which is barely on its feet anyway. Luckily dp has an evening job too, in case such things as this hapepen. However, its barely keeping us up, and we decided car is a must. So that on top of our losses have us in dire situation this month.

Sorry for the long side track, just I totatally forgot about my thread begining of last year. People were so helpful, I just wanted them to know that I appriciated every bit of advice, even if I did just disapear. Like I said, they were bad times.

patchwork_cat

You say your car was written off and you can't afford to replace - was this accident your fault and you had third party insurance? Or am I misunderstanding and it developed an irreparable fault?

EstherH

I think that when you take a few knocks and your confidence goes, or you haven't done something for a good while, you tend to forget that you can do it somehow. So the cooking just needs you to try and experiment a bit and you will get there.

Have you anything you could sell on ebay? Any way of getting a little extra money to eek out what you have? Not money that you would have to pay back though as that just adds to the problem.

Keep posting and let us know what you are eating each day. It will help you to keep motivated knowing that others are here to help.

Esther x