How much is your evening meal costing tonight, per person?

[JuneOsborne]

We're having filled pasta.

Pasta £2.50
Spinach £1
Pesto£1
Peas 50p
Tomatoes 50p
Garlic bread £1
Handful of grated cheese, 50p

£7 ÷ 4 = £1.75 pp. There may be a portion leftover for a lunch for one of the kids....

You?

Very little. 2 big jacket potatoes with homemade cauliflower cheese.

£4.37 each as it's a Gousto meal

Tonight’s a cheap one for us!

Battered haddock fillets - can’t remember for sure how much they cost, but no more than £3.

White rolls .79

Garnishes:

Parsley (homegrown)

Shredded iceberg lettuce .15 for a small bag (yellow sticker item)

Lemon, negligible cost as it’s one of a bag for £1 and I’ll only use a squeeze or two

Tartare sauce negligible cost, £1 for the jar.

So I’m going to say £1.95 pp give or take a little. Although I didn’t double check my maths so who knows, I could be way out...

Really looking forward to it, it’s been ages since we had fish burgers.

More expensive than usual here tonight. We had homemade pizza, with homemade garlic bread and homemade coleslaw. I saved time buying frozen pizza dough instead of making my own, which is what bumped up the cost considerably.

6 pizza bases with mozzarella and pizza sauce, 1 roasted garlic cheesy ciabatta and a large bowl of shredded carrot, red onion, red cabbage and rocket with dressing. Came out as £3.25 per person.

Cajun Quorn Stew with Carribean Rice £2.83 pp

Quorn: £1.75
2 x Peppers: 90p
1 x onion: 10p
3 x spring onions: 37p
Garlic: 25p
Rice: 80p
Coconut milk: £1
Chilli: 20p
Lemon: 30p

Total £5.66 / 2 = £2.83

There were various herbs and

500g pasta - 40p
Tin of tuna- 90p approx I'd say
Tin of sweetcorn - 80p
Mayo - pence
Small amount of chopped onion pence
Large salad with its plum tomatoes, pepper, cucumber and lettuce probably about 40p worth max in in total, probably less

So about £2.50 max, for all 3 to eat and hopefully enough left for dd and I for lunch tomorrow. Handy meal on a night one needs to eat early, one needs to eat later and I need to eat whenever I get a minute. Bonus it's cheap too

Roughton estimates, having home made ragu:

Lean mince £4.50
Carrot 10p
Onion 20p
Tinned tomatoes 55p?
Tom puree 65p
2 beef stock cubes 20p
Pasta £1.60
Gran Padano £1.50

So about £9-£10

I spend too much on food but I love it!

@Biscoffee

Biryani.

The equivalent of

25 pounds for fresh tuna. About 3kgs.
About 15 pounds for the sauce all made from the fridge and store cupboard ingredients.
10 pounds for the basmati rice. About 10 cups
Saffron about 4 pounds
Chopped salad about 10 pounds

Total 64 pounds for approx 12 servings for today including one child and one not very big eater. There’s also some left that will be eaten tomorrow by my son when he comes off night shift.

I can’t understand these figures - it’s not the price of the tuna that’s bothering me, I can well understand fresh tuna to serve 12 is expensive. And saffron is expensive in those quantities.

But £1 per cup of basmati rice?
A chopped salad for 12 costing £10?
What’s in the sauce that’s so expensive?

And did the pp asking how we know, well I roughly guessed the out every of the items and added them up. Doing similar with my class of 6 year olds at the moment who aren't finding it too tricky!

Chicken Kiev x 4 pack £2.40
Savoury rice 25p each x two packs used
Corn on the cob pack of 4 frozen £1.10
£1.00 pp for family of 4

We had cheesy vegetable-y omelette, oven chips sprinkled with chili powder and salad.
I reckon around a fiver for 3 people.

Some excellent value meals on here.

DH is making a Big Chilli. He will make about 12 portions worth so that we can freeze the leftovers.

6 peppers - £2.70
3 carrots - £0.12
2 courgette - £0.80
Half a punnet mushrooms £0.90
300g Bag Quorn mince £1.50
1 Tin lentils £0.55
2 tins Black beans £1.10
1 tin red kidney beans £0.55
3 tins tomatoes 1.68
Difficult to estimate exact costs of the various herbs spices and other additional flavourings he adds (including usually some chocolate and a splash of tequila) so lets allow £3 for that to be on the safe side - I expect it's less.

Total=£12.90 so just over £1 per serving for the chilli, which we will have with jacket potatoes @15p each plus a dollop of creme fraiche at 25p each taking it up to about £1.45 per serving.

Tuna pasta bake. 5-6 servings to feed 3, so leftovers for tomorrow.

Gf pasta 25p (half of 50p bag)
2 tins tuna £80p (from pack of 4 from lidl)
1 ton chopped toms 36p
Mixed herbs and salt 5p?
Onion 15p?
Red pepper 30p
Mozzarella 49p
Grated cheddar 50p?

£2.90, so if we get 6 portions that'll be 48p each , better than expected !

one tin chopped Toms, not a ton

@Hoppinggreen

How do people even know this?

I was thinking the same. My partner is making a vegetarian chilli for me and a meat one for him. I'm not sure I know the exact coat of each item let alone how much it works out per portion.

Chilli con carne with wraps £1.60pp

I know the prices as I do the food shop and do it to a budget. Have managed to save about £200 a month by meal planning and shopping at lidl, hardly even noticed the difference tbh

Salmon with leeks and potatoes

Salmon - £6.50
Leeks - 60p
Mushrooms - 45p
Potatoes - 50p
Cream - 20p

It makes around 3 portions so around £2.69 each for us

Just me and DD at home this evening

Sausages £3 but used half a pack
Oven chips 50p
Half a cucumber 25p
Tomato 12p
Iceberg lettuce, about half 40p

£2.77 for both of us so £1.38 each.

We had pasta - cheap pasta! and still have some left for another meal. Plus jar of sauce. About 80p each if that

Chilli con carne

Mince £2.30 (yellow sticker)
Rice (pre cooked) £2.10
Beans 80p
Tomatoes 56p
Spices 10p
Onion 25p
Grated cheese 50p
Peanut butter 10p

£6.71 /6= just under £1.12 each

It was supposed to be meatballs but DS and I are exhausted tonight (he’s in his first term at school and I’ve had a full on month at work), so he’s had a bowl of Cheerios, an apple, a yogurt and 3 fig roll biscuits. I’ve not had anything yet, but think it will be peanut butter or avocado on GF toast later.

So... DS about... 60p? Me about.... £1.50, max.

Swede & pancetta spaghetti - well, bucatini actually, as we had no spaghetti:

Pasta - 75p
Swede - approx £1 (came in veg box)
Pancetta £1.29
Parmesan: say 60p worth
Onion: 10p??
Garlic: same?

Total £3.84 for 3, so £1.28 each

Bit more if you include olive oil but this was 1tbsp from a big bottle!