Cheap recipies to feed 5?

[CardyMow]

I'm trying to cut down my shopping bill, would anyone have any ideas on good, nutritious recipies to feed a family of 5? I do have a slow cooker if that helps.

I have one child that will not eat peas, but will eat most other things. I have one child that will not eat anything 'tomatoey' (which is a big problem), he doesn't even eat ketchup, he doesn't like fresh tomatoes or tomato soup. I have another child that will not eat anything remotely spicy, dislikes rice, dislikes cous cous. I do not like eggs and am allergic to kidney beans. DP hates fish. HELP!!! Oh and none of the DC eat green beans/mangetout/butter beans.

[frenchfancy]

You don't make it easy for yourself (or us) do you; I thought it was difficult to work around my lot.

Favourites in our house are - Roast chicken - we do this mid week because a chicken doesn't cost that much, they all eat it, then I make chicken pie with the leftovers.

Homemade Pizza - I'm sure you could come up with a pizza idea that didn't involve tomatoes

Boiled potatoes served with ham, tuna mayo, and peas. Quick, cheap easy and they all eat it.

Pasta pesto

Alot of our other regulars are tomato based.

I'll watch this thread with interest as I can always do with some ideas to feed the family cheaply.

[MiasmARGGG]

Baked potato with pesto and salad

I make a mean curry with sweet potato, spinach and chick peas with a tin of coconut milk and some korma paste, its not really spicy at all. We have it with naan usually so ok for rice haters

When you say not tomatoey does that rule out things like lasagna ? I've just made 3 mince meals for us for less than a tenner but they all have tinned toms in.

Jamies recipe pasta with creme fraich and Parmesan and pancetta and peas is another cheap but yummy meal.

[MiasmARGGG]

Sorry meant to say you could swap peas in the pasta for spinach or asparagus or anything really.

[MiasmARGGG]

Blimy, re reading your first post I haven't been much help at all have I !

I'm racking my brains now.

[lizziemun]

I started doing pudding as in homemade cakes with custard.

Do you eat stews/cassoroles ?

I use chicken wings/legs and baulk out with veg/pots or pearl barley.

[CardyMow]

Nope, no lasagnes or anything with any sort of tomatoes in. I do tend to cook a meal and they eat it or go hungry, but if I cook a dinner on monday that DS1 won't eat, I have to cook something on tuesday that he will eat IYSWIM. And DS1 actually eats anything else except tomatoes, so he's not particularly fussy, it's just the ONE thing he hates makes it hard to cook just about anything!

Oh, I also forgot to add - no-one in the house except for DS1 will eat anything that tastes remotely of coconut.

[CardyMow]

I do make a pizza that uses pesto under the cheese instead of tomato sauce.

rubyrubyruby - DS1 doesn't eat tomatoes, he tries something tomatoey every time I dish it up - but he ends up literally vomiting. Yet each time he will still try it. I don't think that's 'fussiness' per se as he will eat any other flavour.

[CardyMow]

You have 'leftovers' from a roast chicken?? I think that is an alien concept in my house. 'Leftovers', what is this 'leftovers' that you speak of? One roast chicken does ONE dinner for us!

[lizziemun]

I dish up more potatoes and Veg also always do yorkshire pudding and stuffing (sage & Onion with sausagemeat).

I also don't 'cook' one night a week(fridays) and we have things like tinned soup, poached egg on toast.

[CardyMow]

That's true, ruby. It's just causing me such a headache now, mostly because I am 32 weeks pg, and soooo tired that everything is, erm, easy-cook junk food at the moment, when usually I cook from scratch. I just cannot think of full decent quick meals, think it's probably baby brain as I don't normally have this problem. We had a pork casserole tonight, but that was only OK because DS1 is at his dad's this weekend.

[defineme]

I do chicken thighs in slow cooker with white wine/stock/barley/herbs/carrots/celery/onion/parsnip/whatever veg we can find.
Serve with bread or mash or noodles

We have jacket potatoes (value pots of course) with value beans and value cheese and veg-dh doesn't eat the beans.

For pudding We have the cheap bags (£1.30 ish in Tescos) of frozen berries with custard or ice cream or yoghurt (lanchishire farm dairy 99p litre from Asda is fab).With value muesli mixed in if they're really hungry.

One of mine has their homemade pizza with pesto instead of tomato ( have you tried delia smiths wholemeal scone based pizza base recipe- really nice).

We all love wraps -you can have them with stirfried chicken and salad bits- I put out bowls of grated carrot/spinach salad/cheese/tomato/cucumber and mayo/chilli sauce and they help themselves. Wraps always seem to be on offer and you can get wholemeal ones.

I mix up pasta with grilled chopped up bacon+ fried mushrooms/onions /any other veg/ have added sweetcorn and they put cheese on if they like.

Give yourself a break sometimes- a family of 5/6 is hard work- those packs of fresh tortellini are my saviour on swimming lesson night -they're often 99p a pack and 3 packs with veg/nuts (smart price cashews are 99p a pack-who can afford pine nuts these days?)/cheese added is a 10 minute meal.

Shepherds pie is a good make 2 and freeze one meal.

I freeze liquid left over from slow cooker meals and use it to make soups with lentils and extra veg added.

[CardyMow]

TY. Am open to any suggestions from anyone else too!

[MerryMarigold]

One I discovered recently using leftovers:

Soft cheese (like Philadelphia, but own brand), cream, tin of tuna, sweetcorn and peas (not the peas in your case).

Heat it up. Mix pasta into it.

All THREE of mine ate it and .

It's prob not v healthy for adults, but I think kids will burn off/ need the fat levels! Mine are all like string beans.

[zam72]

Things with mince would be your best bet -

Shepards pie

This one pot - hot pot (I've been meaning to do this in the slow cooker but not tried yet)
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1702/cold-weather-hotpot

Sausage casserole

They always say that boning a whole chicken and using that to make a casserole is cheaper than buying it already cut up (altho' I've never been faffed to do that). But the cheaper cuts of chicken - thighs and llegs might be worth a bung in the slow cooker - red wine casserole (onions, mushrooms, red wine, stock).

Macaroni cheese with bacon bits and some broccoli (seen a mac and cheese with cauliflower and broc too)

Big vat of scotch broth, plenty of filling pulses (you can buy pre-mixed bags), big loaf of bread, cheese.

Sausage and new potato bake - www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2396/dads-special-supper I do this but tend to add white wine as I never usually have cider. Very yummy.

Day after Sunday with any leftovers - Baked Potato night - cold meat leftovers, salad, huge big baked pot.

Some sort of cheesy pie like this www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1763/cheesy-leek-and-potato-pie I've been wanting to do something similar but with ham/bacon and cheese/leeks.

You might want to check out the Love Food, Hate Waste website as they have lots of thrifty ways to use up leftover bits and pieces of stuff and turn something out of nothing.

[PercyPigPie]

When my DC had allergies including egg and fish I roasted a lot of meat. Left overs can be used with noodles the next day.

[MerryMarigold]

Spare ribs are really, really cheap. Cook with soy sauce, garlic and onion in oven for an hour or so...meat falls off bone. Very yummy. Serve with noodles (as above)