Sunday Roast for 8 - Help!

HoplessCase

Hi there everyone!

I am a single person and since the New Year have been living off £15 a week for all my groceries. I usually only spend about half of this so I am quite happy, but...

This weekend I am cooking Sunday lunch for 6 or 7 guests! :eek: I have asked one to bring a pudding and everyone else to bring wine to keep costs down but that still leaves me with a starter (probably do a soup) and a main to do. Can this be done cheaply?? I don't have a freezer so cheap frozen veg are not use. Any ideas??

Thanks

Mrs_Toxy

Do you live near an aldi? They have savoy cabbage for 39p and their spuds are really cheap. Otherwise I got 2kg of value carrots for 99p from my local sainsbury a couple of weeks ago.

Do you need to do a starter? That would save some money

purpleivy

Providing a soup might be a good way of keeping cost of expensive stuff like meat down. If you take the edge off peoples' appetites with a tasty soup, which was made of budget/leftover ingredients, you won't need to worry about providing as much meat.

Was a good idea to ask someone to bring pud and wine.

JoeyEmma

You could make carrot soup- thats a cheap starter- Value bags of 1.5kg are about 55p in Asda.

I use Darina Allen's carrot soup recipe. I sweat off an onion, a diced potato and about one and a half pounds of peeled chopped carrots in a pan with a big knob of butter in a covered pan for about ten minutes. If you have greaseproof paper you can make a cartouche (piece of paper cut to the same size of the pan) and place this directly over the veg before covering with the pan lid. Then you add hot stock (chicken or veg, whichever you have lying about) about a litre and a half. Cook the soup for about 15-20 minutes and then blend. I season and add a little bit of milk to creamy it up. Darina says you can add fresh coriander or toasted and ground cumin seed for either carrot and corinader or carrot and cumin soup. If doing either of these omit the milk!

Also, I would go for cheaper cuts of meat, such as shoulder of lamb or brisket, that can be cooked for a long time and you can cook your spuds around them to reduce the number of pans you use and the washing up!

Bongedone

Broccolli and cauliflour are only 50p each at the moment in ASDA.

Carrot and corriander or potato and leak soup are dirt cheap to make. The trimmed leeks are only £1 for 5 and that is plenty enough to make your soup.

Do Yorkshire puddings as well to fill the meal out.

tanith

A large chicken goes a long way when you do loads of stuffing , yorkshires veg and gravy..

Penny-Pincher!!

Hiya!!

I would do a Leek and Spud soup as its dead easy to make and stretches well as you dont need a huge bowl of it. I would serve it with a bread roll (HM if you want) and this will fill guests up, so you shouldnt need to serve too much meat.

I would serve Chicken as this can be better value than some other meats. Sainsburys Value spuds are quite big and cheap and you could make huge roasties only needing 2/3 roasts per person and you could always do mash as well ....value stuffing is about 12pa packet and tastes fine but you may need a couple of packets. I would stick to carrots, cabbage and frozen sweetcorn as this works out cheap and most people are familiar with them IYSWIM.

Pudding could be HM crumble? Do you have any tinned fruit? I sometimes use tinned peaches or the fridge fruit, drain excess fluid, then place in oven dish with crumble top (flour, butter and sugar) and place in hottish oven for about 20 mins and serve with either custard, ice-cream or cream.

Do you have any jugs you could put iced water in to serve at the table?

HTH

PP
xx

HoplessCase

Wow thanks guys! You've been really helpful!

Sadly I can't stand carrots, so the carrot soup is out but I like the sound of the leek and potato one - could give that a go. And bread rolls should help fill them up!

So is chicken the cheapest option for a large roast usually? Does anyone what kind of size I would need for 6 people?

I LOVE yorkshire puddings but don't have a bun tray (or freezer for frozen ones) so I will have to see what I can find at Asda...

And 12p stuffing?! Genius!!

tanith

I'd just buy the largest one you can afford and then just make it stretch to however many people , cook it early on in the day and then strip all the meat off and you will be able to share it out equally that way.. Parsnips are quite cheap and sprouts, with lots of stuffing and roast it will be a fine dinner.. don't forget the gravy YUMMY!!! can we join in :rotfl:

theamazinggem

you could always hang out at the reduced section of your local supermarket tonight?

i got some lamb shanks for next to nothing the other day, and if you can get a leg/shoulder all the better - could do a version of the jamie oliver slow lamb thing, basically brown, chuck in a bottle of wine (or stock is fine fine, and obviously cheaper) whatever you can grab by way of herbs (some reduced fresh ones, or just some dried would be grand) and miscellaneous root veg in chunks, cover in foil and cook v.low for about 4 hours. comes out all goey and soft and lovely, and can be served with bread (and obviously the root veg that's in the gravy anyway).

if you can't get anything reduced, then i'd go chicken for definite.

Stephen_Leak

ASDA do lovely little part baked petit pains, but they are in packs of 6, which is a nuisance. Their ready made Yorkshire puds are dead cheap. The single giant ones are just 37p each.