Trying to catch up..

BrassicWoman

ooh loads of veg there! let's add
- cashew stir fry
- julienne courgettes and carrots to use as vegetti
- or courgette lemon and garlic soup is ace
- spinach and butter bean curry
- stilton and mushroom pie
- and best get on with making load of salad!!!

RedCola

Took longer than I thought - is done now finally! I have updated my list to include all freezer food.
Ready for all ideas and will be meal planning, to make it last as long as I can!

Tink_04

Sometimes in the begginging its about learning to stay afloat rather than keep adding to the debt - so aim for that and any other money saved is a bonus till your in your feet.

What would you normally eat based on what you have bought? How many meals can you make from what you have in & most importantly - what meals do you like?

RedCola

I think that most the food we have in is a random collection of yellow stickers, deals and bargains! So I really wouldn't know what we would normally make from it.
I dont know about how many meals either - I was hoping to get advice on that
Meals we like? Everything! Pasta, burgers, spicy mexican, cottage pies, roasts, BBQ style. Anything!
I'm not the best cook either, so is a learning curve for me.

RedCola

Love the idea of stilton and mushroom pie. Sadly my husband would not, so any other ideas for the stilton would be great. Its not the nicest stilton I've had, so probably best in a recipe of sorts.

BrassicWoman

OMG you have about 2 months worth of food there!

Stilton always goes well in brocolli soup, blue macaroni cheese, you also have everything you need fro blue macaroni cheese!

Stovies are delicious - potatoes beef fat and leftover beef

RedCola

Two months?! I cant see it - please help me put it into some sort of order!
Would be great if I could manage to get it in to stretch that far.

nursemaggie

You certainly have enough for two months if you use a bit of imagination.

Depending on the size of them your two cartons of lentil and bacon soup would make a good basis for an interesting pasta bake.

One or two of the cartons of lentil & bacon soup, put them into a pan and heat them for about half an hour to reduce them a little. You could add extra lentils.

cook enough pasta shells for all of you, add them to the lentil and bacon, now add some of your diced red peppers, peas, and sweetcorn, do not cook any more you need the colour. Turn into a large oven proof dish, top with grated cheese, you could use some of the stilton with this but don't over do it.

If you have a top oven use this unless you want to make a sweet in the oven. Bake at 150 c for 20 to 30 mins. Serve with a green salad.

Don't buy the soup again make your own next time if you liked it.

There are endless variations for past bakes. You can use leftovers little bits of veg when there is not enough for you all.

Cheese sauce is easy to make look on you tube. Tomato sauces are good too. Don't try leftover chicken in tomato sauce it just does not work. I tried chicken lasagna and it was horrible.

BrassicWoman

I'd use perishables first, then freezer, then storecupboard. Think the starter ist is about 30 different meals, unsure how many you are feeding, if just 2 of you then some of these will do more than one meal/ you have enough to make them twice.

• Squash risoto - squash, onion, stock, rice
• Cabbage doesn't do much for me other than coleslaw so let's have it as a side veg
• French onion soup
• Caramelised onion tart with your pastry
• Nectarine crumble or sponge pudding
• Make a big chopped salad with cabbage, lettuce, mixed peppers, add some nuts and a nice dressing
• Stir fry the mushrooms and pak choi and sugar snaps and have with noodles
• Spiralise the courgette and carrot and add to spagetti for a healthier spag bol
• Lots of leftover leaves to add to sandwiches! and so much bread!
• Spinach curry with any kind of beans or lentils
• Kippers plus eggs plus rice for kedgeree
• Pad your meat balls out with carrots, chilli powder and tomatoes and serve with pasta
• Anchovy pizza - flour dough base, tomato sauce, cheese
• Lentil dhal
• Use mince for lasagne
• Macaroni cheese with veg through it
• Cornish pasties and veg
• Add leftover fresh veg to stewing steak to stretch it
• Worth getting baking potatoes to have with beans
• Tinned salmon for fishcakes

frozen meat and fish - I'm veggie so not the very best person to advise but these look like decent cuts? So just serve with veg.

• Do the prawns with rice and stir fry veg to ake them go further.
• Topside joint
• Frying steak - fajitas?
• BBQ chicken breasts
• Fish fillets - go further as fish pie
• Salmon steaks
• Smoked haddock with butter x 6 fillet

• Then I'd do tuna pasta salad a couple of times adding veg and mayo, or a hot pasta tuna bake
• Kidney beans + random veg + chilli = veg chilli
• tinned new potatoes + spinach + flour = spinach gnocchi, just sprinkle some cheese on top
• cous cous add nuts, sutanas, some chilli and cinamon or tumeric depending on your taste

Not sure you need 3 kinds of rice, I would make rice pudding until it is all gone. Then I'd move on to making macaroni pudding til all the pasta was slimmed down.

• Make your own nut butters by whizzing them in the bender and serving them with some of that bread mountain in the freezer
• Use all your odds and sods of onion rings, pizza pockets etc by calling it "Iceland Tapas" - think you have enough to do that 2 or 3 times.

You seem short on eggs and yeast which would let you make your own cakes and bread? That's all I'd be topping up with for now. Add roast onions or nuts or olives or whatever to your bread dough and call it artisan.

RedCola

These are helpful :beer:

I have to make it do dinner for 5, we have 3 children. It ideally needs to include some kind of lunch for every one to take to school / nursery / work, I eat at home though.

Agree regarding perishables - spinach / pak choi / tomatoes / nectarines are all on the turn. Think I've lost the leftovers now, and need to throw those away.

We do have eggs; I forgot to put them down, as they are on the counter top, not cupboard / fridge.