reducing monthly food spend

dylan2011

Here is an example of some of the things my partner eats.


Breakfast -


Overnight Oats - Oats (50g) Yogurt (200g) Berries (Frozen, handful) OR 3 x Weetabix, milk, fruit OR Bacon, Sausage, Mushrooms, Baked Beans etc when time at weekend, OR Omelette


Banana


2 x Eggs


Protein Shake


Orange Juice


Snack -


Protein Shake number 2 (after workout)


Homemade Flapjack (150g Butter, 100g Peanut Butter, 4 tbsp Golden Syrup, 50g Sugar, melt together in pan. Stir in 350g mix of oats, nuts, sultanas etc. put in baking tray, bake for about 20 mins at 180 – will get a good 12 slices from this)


Couple of chicken drumsticks or couple of sausages.


Lunch – Chicken & Bacon mayo with salad in a wrap. (Usually cook 400g chicken, 100g cheap cooking bacon, handful of sweetcorn, mix with mayo, get 4 wraps from it)


Slice of frittata (made with 6 eggs, about 100ml milk, 100g grated cheese, bacon and whatever veg I have, tin of potatoes) – slice into 6 pieces.


Piece of fruit


Snack – Pot of cottage cheese, crackers, some ham


Dinner -


Spag Bol, Curries, Roasts, English Breakfast type meals, stir fry, Fish and veg/salad/pots etc pretty much any standard dinner type meal – but I do cook everything from scratch – may seem daunting at first, but once you have a store cupboard of basics, its very easy to whip up a curry or tomato based sauce for example. Batch cook and freeze whenever you can to save time! Thats my biggest tip when busy. My partners dinner portion of meat will be 1 chicken breast, or 125g beef mince (I buy the lean 5% fat steak mince), or 200g steak. I will bulk with veg, but also lentils, beans, pulses all good for protein. He also drinks lots of milk, eats a couple of yogurts a day, sometimes has extra boiled eggs, sausages etc which I keep cooked in the fridge. He always has an evening snack as well, but it varies on what he has. Sometimes cheese and crackers, sometimes another flapjack, sometimes leftover chicken, handful of nuts etc. I buy big bags of plain hazelnuts, almonds etc and he just grabs a handful or two when he fancies it.


He aims for 3500 cals a day and 180g protein. Its all about being organised for me (Have 2 kids to cook for as well. And work myself. ) I write a meal plan weekly, I have a well stocked store cupboard of spices, tin toms, flour etc. I have a bake off day on either sat or sunday each day, kids help sometimes, make things like a batch of chicken and bacon mayo, fritata, flapjacks, boiled eggs etc then to last a good few days. I hope this helps. And good luck! If you need any recipes etc just ask.

NewShadow

Dan, Can I check - You said you were struggling to meet your calorie goals, but later said you wanted your calories to come from meat.

Could you give a quick breakdown of your calorie load (roughly when/what you eat in a day - pre/post workout for e.g.)

Might help with some suggestions for easy nutrient and calorie boosts to your existing meals

Tink_04

I was going to say I add lentils to everythibg to thicken things up - just chuck a handfull in whenever your cooking at the start with the liquid and they soak up some liquid and no body notices them in the meal either.

Well done for coming back with an update and to tryibg new things!

danlightbulb

Goldiegirl wrote: »

What I'd suggest is that you get a cookery book, that starts right at the beginning, like how to boil an egg or make an omelette (eggs are the ultimate convenience food). Then you can learn all the cookery terms, build a repertoire of recipes and gradually build on a solid foundation.


I understand that Delia Smith's How to Cook is very good. It's pricey, but maybe you could pick up a second hand one

Ive looked at cookery books before and always only a handful of things I like the look of, so I don't buy them.

NewShadow wrote: »

Dan, Can I check - You said you were struggling to meet your calorie goals, but later said you wanted your calories to come from meat.

Could you give a quick breakdown of your calorie load (roughly when/what you eat in a day - pre/post workout for e.g.)

Might help with some suggestions for easy nutrient and calorie boosts to your existing meals

I'm aiming for about 45% carbs, 30% protein and 25% fat as macros. Typically I eat evening heavy - I have never been a big eater at breakfast. What I find is when I think Ive eaten pretty well, such as today, I find myself short on calories and having to make them up late in the evening. Today I ate:

Breakfast - pint whole milk
Lunch - Chicken tikka sandwich, crisps, fresh cream eclair, pint whole milk
Dinner - Beef & potato cooked in slow cooker with slice of bloomer, pint whole milk.

..which I thought sounded ok, but its 2300 calores which leaves me 800 to 900 short. Now Ive got to go and find something to eat to fill that gap at 9.30 at night.


I was a little dissappointed with my slow cooked meal tonight. Here it is. It pretty much turned out to be beef and potatos in water with bread. It tasted ok with the oxo cubes and seasoning I put in, but I wanted something more bulky and substantial. I have calculated this meal to only be about 510 calories, although it was quite filling because of the potato and bread.

littlegreenparrot

Have a look in your local library for cookery books, so you can have a good look before you buy, or in charity shops so you havn't invested to much if you don't fancy much.

And of course the internet is your friend. There must be some foodie bloggers who are doing a similar programme.

dylan2011

Heres my beef stew recipe I do in the slow cooker -
400g ish of chopped up beef (I use this to feed the 4 of us, 2 adults, 2 young kids but I don't eat much of the beef, so my partner probably has about 150g of it) Sometimes we have a portion or 2 leftover which I make into a pie the next day.
1-2 potatoes, chopped into chunky pieces
1 sweet potato, peeling and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 parsnip (if I have any)
1 onion, chopped into 8 chunks
3 Oxo Cubes
3-4 heaped tablespoons flour
1 tbsp. Marmite
1 tbsp. tomato ketchup


I put the meat and onion in a frying pan and coat in the flour and crumbled oxo cubes. Then I brown off the meat. After a few mins of frying, add in the marmite and ketchup and carry on browning until the meat is just seared on the outside.
Then chuck it all in the slow cooker with all the other veg. Cover with boiling water. Then I let it cook on low for around 6-8hrs. Sometimes I add some green veg such as broccoli (really good for you when bulking) an hour or so before serving. If the gravy is looking a little thin near the end of cooking, then I thicken it with just standard gravy granules, a tbsp. or 2. If it looks to thick, then I add a bit of extra water. I like my gravy really, really thick! I always serve with dumplings, but it works well with bread as well.


Looking at your eating for today, I personally think you don't have enough meals. My partner has to eat 6 meals a day when bulking. Even if its just grabbing a couple of handfuls of nuts, or some boiled eggs from the fridge. Boiled eggs will keep in their shells for about a week in the fridge, about 3 days if you peel them. Well worth cooking up a batch to snack on. x

Pollycat

danlightbulb wrote: »

I was a little dissappointed with my slow cooked meal tonight. Here it is. It pretty much turned out to be beef and potatos in water with bread. It tasted ok with the oxo cubes and seasoning I put in, but I wanted something more bulky and substantial. I have calculated this meal to only be about 510 calories, although it was quite filling because of the potato and bread.

It does look a bit uninteresting, Dan, but if all you put in is meat, potatoes and stock that's pretty much what you'll get.

What about carrots, swede, parsnip, onions, leeks?

Or a tin of chopped tomatoes and sliced mushrooms?

Did you put any herbs/spices in?

I do a slow cooked meal with chicken thighs, sliced potatoes, onions, tin of chopped tomatoes, mushrooms and a bit of stock.
Sometimes I add pulses (maybe butter beans - you can mash some of these up to thicken the stew).
I roll the chicken thighs in seasoned flour and put any leftover flour into the slow cooker and stir it around the veg before adding the chicken and liquid.
I add herbs - maybe mixed herbs, oregano, bay leaf - and sometimes a bit of chilli flakes and drop in a bit of chopped chorizo towards the end to give it a smoky flavour.

Try adding a dollop of horseradish or dijon mustard or a bit of worcestershire sauce to your stews to give them more flavour.
If I were doing stewing lamb, I'd add mint.

NewShadow

danlightbulb wrote: »

Breakfast - pint whole milk
Lunch (700) - Chicken tikka sandwich (300), crisps (150), fresh cream eclair (250), pint whole milk
Dinner (540)- Beef (260) & potato (150) cooked in slow cooker with slice of bloomer (130) , pint whole milk.

Rough cal count for your food comes to around 1240 minus the milk

3 pints of whole milk is around 1100 calories (I assume you're drinking the last pint before bed making it around 1450cals)

If you are drinking the full 4 pints, you only need around 1500 to hit your 3000.

Add your food for the day and you're short c. 310.

Add two scoops of protein powder to your breakfast and have a post workout banana, you're there.

I am a little surprised you're not eating post workout.

I'd sub the eclair for a handful of post-WO trail mix and ditch the crisps for a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter.

I'm also a little concerned by the lack of fruit and veg - BBs tend to get a little 'uncomfortable' digestively speaking as they don't tend to consider the importance of fibre.

Can make for an uncomfortable workout - plus the addition of veggies and pulses can make for a more interesting dinner...

danlightbulb

This was todays dinner with kids. Again I'm not pleased with it. I thought the content was generally ok, but the steak (bought yesterday from butchers) was really tough. Neither the kids nor me could chew it. Now I have another 1.7kg of the stuff left to get through...

Kanichen

It does look a touch cremated - how did the butcher advise you to cook it? How do you normally have your steak? And was it definitely steak for slicing? Just that stewing steaks etc need cooking at lower temperatures for longer and will be horrid if cooked quickly.