What's for dinner? Budget version

[LottyD32]

I thought a budget dinner thread might be a good idea for inspo and ideas.

I'm having soup tonight:

Shredded chicken
Onion
Celery
Garlic
Ginger
Turmeric
S&P and herbs
Water
Stock cube
Worcester sauce
Tinned mushrooms
Frozen broccoli, spinach and cauliflower

Cheap, easy, goes far and has load of immunity boosting ingredients.

And I'll probably add a couple of flour and water dumplings or flatten and fry them into flatbreads the whole reason I eat soup

I used my leftover roast and gravy, plus some old wine and tomatoes I wasn't using, to make a long - stewed beef ragu

I had some frozen beef curry, decorated that and smothered it on crispy oven chips. It was better this time around than when I first made it!

Scrambled eggs with some leftover Mexican style veg and feta, on a bed of lettuce with an avocado that was about to go off.

Yellow sticker pies with homemade baked chips, bisto and frozen peas.

I had fajita chicken again, without wraps, and a little bit of salad.

Cauliflower and black bean curry.
Cauli needed using up so used half of that and roasted the other half for my salad tomorrow
My ginger was looking a bit wilted but it was fine when I made my ginger paste. Same with the tomatoes when making the tomato and onion paste but it was all good!!

Fried up some prosciutto that was about to go off and turned it into pasta with cream, peas, and cured pork - except I didn't have any cream so I used evaporated milk. Not bad...

I had dorito's and chocolate banana's for dinner yesterday 😳

A substantial minestrone tonight - tin of chopped tomatoes, tin of cannellini beans, onion, celery, orzo pasta, stock cube, tomato purée, and plenty of whatever veg I’ve got, diced small or shredded.

Probably with garlic bread (homemade) out of the freezer.

Doritos and chocolate bananas sounds like fun, Lotty!

I had the remnants of a mumsnet magic chicken last night. I bought a half-chicken on Sunday (part of M&S meal deal) which we had roasted for Sunday lunch between three people, and then last night I picked off the remainder of the meat and gently fried it with loads of garlic and stirred in cooked orzo (for 2 of us). Garlic makes anything good.

They were delicious but now I'm tempted by junk again tonight.

Soup & homemade flatbread (which I should have) or
Air fryer chicken croquettes & chips or
Spinach and ricotta tortellini & pesto, but the half tub of pesto is frozen.

@Justanotherobserver

One that I started making in 2020 is bacon and onion roly-poly pudding. It's incredibly filling and you don't need a lot of bacon in it. Make a dough with SR flour and suet - roughly twice the amount of flour to suet, I use 280g flour to 115g suet. Roll out about 1cm thick and lay on bacon slices, finely chopped onion, white pepper. Roll up, seal the edges and wrap loosely in grease-proof, tie ends shut with string. Steam on low for two hours. It looks horrible but is really tasty. We have it with gravy and vegetables.

The first time I cooked this, it gave my digestive system a bit of a shock and I had to go for a lie down after eating

My mum used to make that and it was delicious. Thanks for reminding me about it. One of my favourite winter recipes is beef stew using beef shin with onions and carrots, cooked in beer. We have a Rayburn so it goes in the slow oven overnight. Add brown sugar and beef or onion gravy granules to take away the bitterness of the beer. I serve it with dumplings and it's a real rib sticking meal

@notacooldad

Cauliflower and black bean curry. Cauli needed using up so used half of that and roasted the other half for my salad tomorrow My ginger was looking a bit wilted but it was fine when I made my ginger paste. Same with the tomatoes when making the tomato and onion paste but it was all good!!

This sounds delicious! Would you have a recipe for it please?

@halfpasteleven.
Heres the receipe.
There's a lot of waffle before you get to it but there should be a jump to receipe button. It's dead easy. I make my own paste which takes seconds.

holycowvegan.net/cauliflower-and-black-eyed-peas-curry-low-carb-vegan/#recipe

[quote notacooldad]@halfpasteleven.
Heres the receipe.
There's a lot of waffle before you get to it but there should be a jump to receipe button. It's dead easy. I make my own paste which takes seconds.

holycowvegan.net/cauliflower-and-black-eyed-peas-curry-low-carb-vegan/#recipe[/quote]
Thank you so much!

Toad in the hole with yellow sticker sausages, side dishes that I got from Cook in a post Christmas clearance sale