HELP. Can I buy one week's groceries for £10. Really need some advice please.

Old_Meanie

Hello Dazed

If you want some cheapie puds to make meals go further. Value tinned fruit in jelly is good. I use a tin of value fruit cocktail in juice make up a lime jelly to 3/4 pint then add drained fruit. Value fruit is about 29p and Hartleys lime jelly 44p this lasts us for two puds. Also you can pour boiling water on lemon jelly to dissolve and make up to 1 pint with evaporated milk and water if needed. Makes a good lemon mousse cost about 80-90p. Also value swiss roll raspberry flavour sliced with a tin of value raspberries over the top. Make up raspberry jelly to nearly 1 pint and pour over. This costs a little more but you could do it with fresh value strawberries be about £1 to £1.20. Serve with ice cream if it can be afforded. All these use tinned fruit which counts towards the 5 a day just the same as fresh and is low fat too!

Stephen_Leak

My vote goes for the cottage pie route for the mince - it should go twice as far as the Bolognese sauce. It can also be stretched even further by adding some grated carrot. Again, a nice simple recipe is available, if required.

I am going to make a prediction. Not only will the OP make it to the end of the week with money (OK, it may just be pence!) to spare, but also they will have eaten better than they did before.

recovering_spendaholic

For sandwich meat I would buy a ham shank - they cost abou £1 - £1.50 and you get lots of cold meat off it which you could use for sandwiches. Then with the lovely boiling water you could make a really thick and tasty split pea soup - use 500g split peas (39p in Sainsburys) for a big pan of stock, add a chopped onion and a couple of grated carrots and a bit of celery if you can run to it, a bay leaf and a pinch of mixed herbs. Cook until lovely and thick and have with crusty bread. This will make LOADS so you can have it for lunches on a couple of days too. Oh yes - soak the peas overnight first!

Another idea might be to buy a cheap frozen chicken for about £2 - roast it and take all the meat off the carcass and then make stock with the carcass and use it to make curry for one evening meal and use the cold chicken for sandwiches.

Sainsburys Basics pasta shapes are 19p for 500g (you could buy two bags) at the moment so you could get some of that and make bolognaise with the mince and also boil some pasta and mix with a tin of tuna and some salad cream/mayo, onion, sweetcorn and any other chopped salad veg you can run to - this makes a lovely cold salad for lunches. Or you could cook the pasta and make a cheese sauce (just get a small piece of the cheapest cheddar) and mix it all with a tin of tuna and grill until bubbly.

A packet of pizza dough mix is 59p in Sainsburys and this makes two large pizzas - basics chopped tomatoes are 21p at the moment.

I would buy some tinned fruit instead of fresh to save money and look for reductions on salad and veg or try aldi 59p range of seasonal fruit and veg.

Good luck - I'm sure you will do it!

essexgal

dazed_2008 wrote: »

I also have porridge,

You can also use porridge oats to make the mince stretch that much further - my hubby would be horrified to learn how much meat he DOESN'T eat.:D

essexgal

EssexHebridean

A tin of tuna for hubbies sandwich for one day - 37p a tin for value tuna chunks in Tesco. Another days lunch could be hard boiled egg sliced up, and if you're going to Tesco check out the deli counter for their pork Haslet. Dirt cheap but really tasty in a sandwich. As others have said the value meats are good value although watch the fat content in some of those.

Dried pulses are also very cheap and work superbly to bulk out stews, casseroles etc. You could make a curry with some of the pork and some pulses - add chilli or other spices to bring in as much heat as you want and a tin of value chopped toms (about 21p) for the liquid content.

Keep checking back here - people will come up with lots of ideas for you. You never know, you might decide that you can cut your budget a lot on a regular basis! Above all though, don't panic. I've been where you are now and the first thing I learnt was that you achieve a lot more when you stop saying "aaargh!". If you have a market locally with fruit and veg stalls head down there - late in the day if you can. Often the stallholders will be keep to sell produce rather than taking it home, and will be open to bargaining. Good luck!

metherer

Does your husband have to have sandwiches?
For lunch I often take leftovers, like a small portion of spag bol. (I love it cold as well as hot)

zarazara

penne pasta and frozen peas. boil together then drain, add a nob of butter and grind over some black pepper. this is what we have had for our evening meal.

Stephen_Leak

Just to show what results you can get from very little ...

GARLIC & OIL PASTA (AGLIO E OLIO)

Per Person

INGREDIENTS

1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon of olive oil
125ml of water
¼ of a teaspoon of salt
100g of spaghetti*
Ground pepper to taste

METHOD

Peel the garlic and chop it into tiny pieces.

Put the oil into a frying pan on a moderate heat. Add the garlic. Fry the garlic for about 5 minutes until it is brown, stirring to stop it sticking.

Put the water and salt into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Put the pasta into the water. Stir it to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Bring back to the boil and continue to cook, stirring to stop it sticking.

Begin testing it about 2 minutes before the packet instructions say it should be done. The best way to judge if pasta is cooked is to bite it. This is tricky, because if you fish out a bit and stick in your mouth you may burn your mouth on the boiling water. Wait a bit and blow on it, then bite it. If it is hard it needs longer. If it is chewy (or al dente, Italian for "to the teeth") it is ready. If it is soft it is overcooked.

Drain the pasta in a sieve or colander. Season with the pepper.

Always “take the pasta to the sauce”. Put the pasta in the pan with the sauce and stir until thoroughly coated.

ADDITIONS & ALTERNATIVES

Use any other long thin plain pasta, like linguine (thin and flat), tagliolini (very thin and flat) or spaghettini (very thin and round), instead of spaghetti.

TIPS

If you use enough water, add the pasta when the water is boiling, stir the pasta and don’t wander off (“Gli spaghetti amano la compagnia” or “Spaghetti loves company”) and don’t overcook it, adding olive oil to the water to stop it sticking is totally unnecessary.

* Under Italian law, dry pasta can only be made from durum wheat semolina flour. This flour has a yellow colour. Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and/or milling methods to make the flour. For example, pizzoccheri is made from buckwheat flour. Italian pasta is traditionally cooked al dente, Italian for "to the teeth". Elsewhere, cheap dry pasta is made from other types of flour, but this produces a softer brown pasta, which cannot be cooked al dente. If you prefer your pasta al dente, use 100% durum wheat pasta. If you prefer your pasta soft, use cheap pasta.

PS. I have seen this classic Italian dish on a restaurant menu for £8.50! And it wasn't in London, either.

sillyvixen

zarazara wrote: »

penne pasta and frozen peas. boil together then drain, add a nob of butter and grind over some black pepper. this is what we have had for our evening meal.

add some tomato puree for a veggie pasta and tomato sauce. also nice without the veggies if you dont have any - lovely with a crushed garlic clove if you have some left over from somthing else.

sillyvixen

metherer wrote: »

Does your husband have to have sandwiches?
For lunch I often take leftovers, like a small portion of spag bol. (I love it cold as well as hot)

does he have a use of a microwave at work - reheated leftovers make a change to sandwiches and the envy if all his work mates .. also cheap h/m soups are great for lunch (use a flask if no microwave available)