Four days of meals

Pasta, pesto and mushrooms, Chips, eggs and beans, sweet potato and chickpea curry. Pasta, pesto and mushrooms again on Sunday.

@LolaJ87

“You could literally go into Dunnes and get 3 meats for €10 (pack of burgers, pack of chicken thigh fillets, turkey stir fry mix - availability changes but just as an idea).”

please don’t do this. Think of the animals. That’s far too cheap for meat.

Yes YABU.

So, you already have food in that would cover some meals, and have 40Euros to spend ??

What is the issue ?

I’d buy something like this and do a big pot roast with carrots, onions, potatoes and stock. Herbs/spices to taste. Should do two nice meals over the weekend.

Tomato sauce with harissa in it, homemade or bought, put frozen white fish in it and serve with rice or wee crispy potatoes if you’ve got a big bag

bag of frozen green veg of choice would go with both, and would make nice pasta with chorizo or bacon bits, and a bit of soft cream cheese, spoon of pasta water, as the sauce. Maybe a bit of paprika

frittata with eggs, onions, potatoes and any other veg
risotto mushroom
sausage casserole in a yorkshire pudding
Quiche

You've got eggs, potatoes and some vegetables so there is one meal of Spanish omelette without spending any of your €40.
Buy some tins of mixed beans and some sausages, add any vegetable available, make sausage casserole. If you've got the ingredients you could add dumplings too.

Do a simple roast chicken dinner, including Yorkshire puddings. Use the leftover chicken in a chicken and mushroom or leek pie, or chicken supreme with rice, or chicken risotto.

Any remaining chicken can be used in an Asian style broth with vegetables and noodles.
All that should be well within your €40 I would think.

Tbf it does depend a bit on which country your in. I'm always gobsmacked by the cost of food in France.

Try these OP -

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/budget-family-meal-plan

https://beatthebudget.com/all-recipes/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/budget_family_meal_plan_for_four

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/pasta

There are so many options for pasta, it is a matter of looking and seeing what you fancy. It is definitely not boring or depressing.

Another vote for Chilli. We're having Chilli with rice tonight and will have the rest on Saturday night, but I'll chuck a big bag of plain tortilla chips on a platter, tip the reheated chilli on top, cover with grated cheese and stick it under the grill until the cheese melts. Stick it in the middle of the table along with some sour cream, salsa and Guacamole so everyone can tuck in.

I'm assuming given the euro sign you're in Ireland? You could literally go into Dunnes and get 3 meats for €10 (pack of burgers, pack of chicken thigh fillets, turkey stir fry mix - availability changes but just as an idea). You could do homemade burger and chips, nandos style chicken with peri peri sauce, roasted veg and rice and a turkey stir fry.

Buns are a euro, oven chips are cheap if you buy what's on offer, frozen stir fry veg is a euro. If you have no rice/veg/noodles/sauces at home, let's budget another €10 for them (generous).

That leaves one meal, my go to cheapie is chicken wings. Usually €4 for a big pack of the free range ones, throw them in the airfryer for a half hour serve with homemade buffalo sauce (Franks, a knob of butter and a blob of ketchup gently heated on the hob). You could serve them with celery (€1) and homemade wedges (a €1 bag of baby potatoes cut up and seasoned). Franks hot sauce can be pricey but a bottle will do 4 big lots of wings. So maybe a tenner for this meal all in?

So there you go OP, that lot shouldn't cost you more than €35 and if you join a Dunnes voucher group, you'll get a fiver off €25 spend.

40 EUR for 4 meals for two adults and a young child is loads. You could pretty much have whatever you fancy.

Must be just me, but struggling to see how 40 euro for four days meals isn't enough. How much do you normally spend on a weeks shop ?

I'd buy a chicken, a large pack of mince , and a load of veg and a bag of basmati rice, and have a chilli for two nights and roast chicken dinners for two night. And spend the rest on a decent bottle of sav blanc

Egg fried rice is also good and filling.

cook some rice and let it cool completely. If not using in next half hour, put in container in fridge. We add seasame oil, soy sauce and peas to the fried rice when frying off. Can also add whatever you want to the basic egg fried rice mix. Leftover chicken, ham bits, bacon bits.Sweetcorn or other cooked veg.

Toad in the hole.
Cottage pie.

-Potato + Tin tuna + salad = fish cakes
-Shakshuka with eggs, peppers, tin tomato. Add a tin of chickpeas for added protein/fibre
-Chicken pasta bake, tuna or salmon pasta bake, veggie pasta sauce with lentils

Also broccoli pasta.

Cook some broccoli, remove from the pan and chop it right down.

Using the same pan and the same water (because, vitamins), boil some pasta. Top up the water if needed.

In a bowl, mix together around half a cup of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, parmesan if you have any.

Once the pasta is cooked, keep some of the water and drain the rest. Add the broccoli to the pasta and stir. Stir in the breadcrumbs mix and a splash of the pasta water, keep going with small sashes of water until the pasta is looking like it has a thin coating of breadcrumb "sauce".

Look at what's on offer in your local supermarket.

Do you have olive oil? Tomato puree? Stock cubes or powder? Tobasco /worcestershire/soy sauce? Peanut butter?
All useful store cupboard items for flavour plus
Onion
Leek
Jar of dried mixed herbs,
Garlic (powder or fresh)
Jar olives

Omelette with dried herbs and cheese (+ pepper/tomato/mushrooms)
Egg Fried rice with ginger, spring onion, soy sauce
Pasta with tomatoes, olives, aubergine, garlic and chilli
Lentil /chickpea dahl
Porridge with cinnamon and honey

Do you have any cheese or could you get some parmesan? Think a bag of around 100g is under £2.

Carbonara

• parmesan
• eggs
• pasta
• bacon/pancetta (optional and you only need a little bit for flavour)

Start boiling your pasta. If using bacon/pancetta then fry it off until crispy. Leave it in the pan with it's oil and put to one side.

While that's all cooking, mix two eggs into the parmesan. If it's looking clumpy then add some milk, a tiny bit at a time, until you have the consistency of a thick-ish cake batter.

Once your pasta is cooked, use tongs or a serving spoon to start ladeling it into the bacon pan. Don't worry about splashes of pasta water going in, you need that. If not using bacon then keep a mugful of pasta water before draining it.

Add the parmesan mix to the pasta and start slowly stirring to spread it through and coat the pasta - don't stir too quickly. If it's clumpy or sticky then add some of the pasta water you kept back. The heat of the pasta cooks the egg and melts the cheese to make a sauce.

Chicken and veg tray bake with potatoes and peas
Chilli with either just beans and mushrooms, or beef with rice.
Leftover chicken made into fajitas with salad and cheese.
You could make a potato topped pie with the leftovers of the chilli, like a shepherds pie. Just add some gravy.
Thai style pork meatballs, with greens and noodles or rice, of you have enough cash left for the ingredients?

Agreed re buying a couple of whole chickens. Once you've eaten all the meat I roast the carcass and bones etc and then simmer it for a few hours. Then add garlic, Chinese 5 spice and any shredded bits of chicken you may have remaining. Then add noodles and pak choi or Kale or any veg you may have..strips of carrot or peppers maybe. Chinese chicken soup! Of sorts!

40 euro is quite a lot.
A large chicken for two adults and a little one will last 3 meals, roast it with root veg and make boulangere potatoes (potatoes, onion, stock, a splash of milk)

Left over roast chicken in a risotto with mushrooms and peas/tenderstem

Left over chicken in a curry, with chickpeas, peppers, onions, depends how well your slice cupboard is stocked I always have garlic, ginger and a variety of spices but if not a curry paste and some tinned tomatoes will help.

Fritatta with the eggs, some veg/cooked potatoes (you can use left over boulangere it's delicious), some bacon/chorizo serve with salad

What pasta dishes do you usually make?

Chicken and sweetcorn soup (can be made with just sweetcorn if you prefer)

• chicken, only needs to be a little bit so leftovers or cooked slices are ideal
• tin of sweetcorn, drained
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• cornflour
• chicken stock
• egg

Put your chicken, spoonful of sesame oil, spoonful of soy sauce, and enough chicken stock for however many portions of soup you're making (I make this in a mid-size saucepan and fill it about two-thirds full to feed four).

Once it's bubbling, add sweetcorn. Mix around 2tbsp of cornflour with water and tip it in.

Whisk together two eggs. Lower the heat on the pan and dribble in the eggs while slowly stirring. The heat of the soup will cook them and you'll get lovely long ribbons of egg (don't worry, it won't taste eggy, it just thickens the soup and gives it a silky texture).

For being simple, this is really filling because of the protein in it and it tastes good too. Takes around 10 minutes to make if using cooked chicken, you can make it with raw chicken too, just boil it for long enough to cook the chicken.

Make a big bowl of chilli and get cheese, sour cream, salsa, salad etc

• day 1, toasted chilli and cheese wraps (with salad)
• day 2, nachos or chilli and rice

Make a huge pot of lentil and carrot soup and get some crusty bread/rolls and bacon

• day 3, soup and bacon rolls
• day 4, soup and cheese on toast

Not overly exciting, but filling and cheap.
Make chilli and soup in slow cooker if you have one.