If you love cooking but you're on quite a tight budget

[foxessocks]

Have you got any tips? I love to cook but a lot of fresh ingredients are expensive, I've switched to a lot of frozen veg recently as I find it cheaper some times (depends what it is but it also equals less waste). I already cook a lot of vegetarian meals so only cook with meat a few times a week really. But we do love fish and all seafood which is expensive but it is so good for you. I love salmon but it costs us £7 for all of us for one meal. Also fresh herbs are more expensive than dried but taste better.

It got me thinking because I wanted to try a Jamie Oliver recipe next week but it needs so many fresh herbs, vine ripened tomatoes , posh potatoes etc!

I usually shop at Asda and I budget £50 a week including toiletries, cleaning products etc basically everything. And then I do a couple of top up shops usually about £20 in total over the week I suppose (more when school holidays and my dd comes along!!). Top up is just bread milk fruit usually. We are a family of four but my children are young so don't eat huge amounts yet.

Try Miguel Barclay’s One Pound Meals series. His Fast and Fresh one is amazing.

Grow your own herbs in pots on the windowsill - expensive to buy the compost, pots & packs of seeds at first, but you will be quids in after the first couple of months. Mint, basil, coriander leaf & parsley are worth growing fresh. Oregano, thyme, bay & tarragon are fine dried. All spices obviously use dried. I buy whole spices by the bag & grind as I need them, rather than using pre-ground - much fresher, cheaper & they last longer.

Have you tried growing your own herbs in pots in the kitchen or a sunny window box? They look lovely and they do make things taste nice. And it's easy to grow tomatoes in pots too, although it takes a bit longer.

Sorry @Jozxyqk cross post!

One thing I've tried recently which is saving us a fortune is to work out the menu for the week, do one shop for all the ingredients as much as you can and stick to the menu. Saves waste too!

Can you grow at least some of your fresh herbs?

This time of year there ought to be decent tomatoes which aren't ridiculously expensive and you can ripen further on a window ledge.

Thanks for the herbs idea - I didn't know if they'd be easy to grow as I'm really not green fingered! We do have some tomatoes growing and some green beans (dh did those!)

Velo I do meal plan (I love to meal plan!) and i get a whole weeks worth of meals in one go and then I can tweak certain meals if it goes over budget. Problem is at the moment I'm struggling to get any seven meals in budget!

Btw our tomatoes in our garden aren't ready yet they aren't doing too well I don't think!

You don't say if you have any outside space but you can grow more than just herbs on a windowsill. I grow beansprouts (mungbean, alfalfa sprouts, lentils etc) in sprouting jars, these need a dark cool place or they can go bitter. They take about 5 days until they're ready to eat, you just soak them for 12 hours & then rinse them very well, twice a day. I'm also going to do radishes which apparently take about 4 weeks, & mixed lettuce leaves. Some ideas here.

look I'm going to look at those recipes now thanks!

Joz Yep we have a garden and dh grows a few bits already but I'm not very green fingered myself so never grown anything personally! Willing to try though!

Batch cook. We save loads by doing it cheaptastyandeasy.wordpress.com/cook-off-main-page/

If Jamie Oliver says vine ripened tomatoes just use normal. He's got the money for fancy stuff, not everyone does.

If you don't have outside space you can grow herbs in cups of water.

Loving the look of Miguel Barclay recipes I'm putting his book on my Christmas list!

Aha - if you do have garden space, think about what things cost relatively quite a lot of money or are difficult to get, but are easy to grow. For example, yellow courgettes, plum / cherry / beef tomatoes, spaghetti squash, quince (a longterm plant but they're basically impossible to buy at the supermarket & are fairly hardy plants - mine has survived several very hash winters including germinating through 5 inches of snow). Beetroot, shallots - fairly minimal maintenance. Garlic, especially elephant or rose garlic. Rainbow carrots.

diggerty how does batch cooking save money people often say that but surely you have to buy more ingredients upfront so it would even out? I know things like mince are cheaper in bulk but I do that anyway and just portion it up and freeze it. I'm genuinely curious as I'd be happy to try it!

Thanks joz that's helpful. Garlic would be great especially.

I read that frozen veg were equally as nutritious as fresh.

Lots of sources if you google, but here's one: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/01/are-frozen-fruit-and-vegetables-as-good-for-you-as-fresh

We buy 1.5 kilos of mince and 2 chickens. That makes 18 meals. It can be cheap if you batch cook and freeze. I'm in Spain but I priced it up and on tescos it worked out £33 or something like that. Much cheaper than buying daily meals.

If you get into the habit of including lentils, dried beans and chickpeas (soaking at home, not ready to use) as part of your basic, everyday cooking you can save a significant amount of money which can then be spent on more exotic ingredients occasionally. They’re also tremendously ‘good for you’.

If you can grow more stuff it will be very satisfying - particularly fruit - but not necessarily always cheaper.

If you've got a garden then definitely grow chives, rosemary, sage, oregano, thymes and mint (that one in a pot else you'll be overrun). Those are all easy and hardy.

Yes definitely get in the lentil habit. Also adding grated courgette, carrot and onion, bulks out and tastes nice.

Sorry if this sounds a bit defeatist, and it depends where you live of course, but I think you are budgeting pretty well if your shop for a family of four comes out at £70 a week including all toiletries and cleaning products, even with young DC.

Would only add that I agree home grown herbs like thyme, sage, mint, rosemary and basil are pretty easy and cheap to grow. Basil needs sunshine though!

And only buy fruit and veg in season.

And use lots of red lentils, haricot and cannelloni beans and chickpeas to bulk things out. Was going to suggest you cook veggie two or three times a week but see you already do that!

Not sure if there are many other savings to be made tbh! Do you have one meal a week that is snacky such as baked beans or scrambled eggs on toast or Welsh rarebit?

Watching with interest for other suggestions!

What’s the Jamie Oliver recipe? If you post it maybe we can come up with some cheap substitutes.

My thrifty DM used to add some red lentils and pearl barley to mince recipes to 'stretch' it.

I think one of the advantages of cooking a larger quantity is that - apart from saving time and energy - it's easier to divide the result into the portion sizes you want esp. if some of you are smaller than average. Recipes which say 'serves 4' would definitely make 6 servings in our family.

What’s the Jamie Oliver recipe? If you post it maybe we can come up with some cheap substitutes.

I'm always doing this - I love his recipes but cba with all the fancy ingredients.

I use these sprouting jars. Very good, I've had a pair of them for years. I got them from my health food shop though, I'm not necessarily advocating you buy them from Amazon. I did try the sprouting tower but it was harder to rinse them properly & had a few batches go mouldy so I binned it. Much easier to get a proper rinse with the jars. There's loads of information available online regarding which types of beans & seeds can be sprouted - the only type I'm aware of that can't be sprouted are kidney beans, which contain a toxin which is only destroyed by boiling.

rafferty not defeatist at all - you're right, and I don't think I could do my shop for less really, I just struggle when I want to make a particular recipe and it has things like fresh herbs or other things that cost quite a bit and I worry I might not use them all up, that kind of thing. Basically any little extra thing I might want for a recipe chips into my already quite small budget! Disclaimer - I know lots of people would have an even smaller budget and I don't mean to offend anyone.

I do use beans and lentils fairly often but I always buy pre prepared - never really considered buying them any other way so that's a great tip, definitely going to shop around more for them from now.