to try and settle the 'which is cheaper, junk or cooked from scratch' debate once and for all

[IceBeing]

I have seen both sides of this recently on MN and on the box.

So. submit your meal plans here.

1. Choose junk or home cooked
   

1. Give a shopping list plus price for a weeks worth of food for a family of 4, assuming no reliance on a 'store cupboard' and no meal sharing.
   

1. Give an estimated weekly cooking time plus shopping time.
   

1. indicate if your plan relies on a local aldi/lidl etc.
   

Lets sort this the JEFF out please.....

[Smoorikins]

cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/
Sorry, clickable link.

[Smoorikins]

cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

£100 to feed four people for a month. Granted, the prices are out of date. It would be interesting to take the shopping list and update the prices.

[eastmidlandsnightnanny]

we had a 1.6kg chicken yesterday normal one from tesco roast in a bag one reduced to £4 it served 5 adults 1 child n 2 toddlers with roast potatoes n veggies. little chicken left to make one sandwich n carcass could have been used for stock but i didn't this time

[eastmidlandsnightnanny]

thanks bet mine taste nicer :)

[IceBeing]

wow...nearly as cheap as Iceland there....nearly.

[eastmidlandsnightnanny]

well i have just made shepherds pie with 2kg potatoes half pint milk n 125g butter - £1.50 n 454gm lamb mince 4 carrots 1onion 200gm mushrooms 200gm peas a leeks tin beans some gravy granules n 4 tablespoons ketchup - £2.50 ( mince was reduced ) so total £4.

i made 3 pies each will do 3 adult n 2 toddler portions

so for £4 i have 9 adult portions n 6 Todd ler portions

[prettybird]

Protein and fat will leaving feeling satiated for longer.

Carbohydrates like pasta may well fill you up - but you'll soon feel hungry again.

[noobieteacher]

I have now realised that my protein intake was unnecessarily high, so we had a stingy pizza yesterday, it was very satisfying but we all got hungry quite soon after. Now I remember why I prefer meals with higher protein content. Perhaps it's just something you have to get used to. I grew up in a large family with big tall men and teens, we had lots of meat as they would all have tantrums when hungry.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

I am sticking by my post eons ago about my medium (1.5kg) chicken that fed us indefinitely and think its totally because it was very high welfare.

Not massively cost effective still but is still the only meat we bought in August so we could afford it

[ABaconAndOnionTart]

I have cooked the stardard chickens in the past and they seem to come out swimming in fat. I have also read that chicken is less nutritional than it was 50 years ago due to intensive rearing practices. I guess if you eat a lot in a short amount of time you gain fat not muscle. Same for chooks.

[nickelbabe]

excellent nora can't wait to find out what the true cost is

[shrinkingnora]

Or just buy DH a loaf of bread and a jar of mayo to go with it. He looooves chicken sarnies.

[shrinkingnora]

I will get them all the same weight bracket if you see what I mean. So 'medium' probably. This will take me some weeks, mind! Or I may just have a chicken and beer party.

[garlicbargain]

You like roast chicken, then, nora?

Interesting experiment, if you can get 'em all the same weight. I had to post to keep this in TIO!

[shrinkingnora]

Nickelbabe - I think I might be just the boring obsessive needed for an experiment like that. I shall report back! I will do an Aldi standard, an Aldi free range, a tesco value and a tesco organic that I will make my dad buy for me and to top it off I will do a farmers market one as I can barter for that. On each I will try and give an idea of fattiness, watery crap in the roasting tin, raw weight and weight of cooked meat at the end. Plus taste if I can be arsed.

[nickelbabe]

ah, i'd never heard of cookeen so i didn't know it was veg

[Hullygully]

Haven't rtft, Ice, just wanted to say I love you for being such a total geek.

[noobieteacher]

Done some speedy research and vegetable shortening appears to be a trans fat. Not sure about the meat based variety though, can't find an answer.

[prettybird]

nickelbabe - that's why I sometimes use Cookeen/other vegetarian equivalent from Lidl - if I'm cooking for veggies or for the school fair (I make mince pies at Christmas).

but I have to admit to liking the lardy versions

[nickelbabe]

abaconndoniontart

that's interesting about the low-welfare chooks shrinking in the oven.

i wonder if that's why there are so many "how on earth do you get more than 2 meals out of one chicken?!"

I think an experiment needs to be had - same person, one who doesn't mind the low welfare, buys (consecutively, not all at once) the same weight in chickens of different standards and sees how much can be got from them. see if the cost really does make low-welfare chickens cheaper meal by meal.

[nickelbabe]

weighing in on the vegetarian side , I use half butter half /Trex or White Flora (or other generic vegetable shortening) for shortcrust pastry.

[noobieteacher]

Oh I might try Cookeen, it's 69p and Nigella uses it for pastry too.

[prettybird]

My shortcrust recipe is also half lard/cookeen to butter - but less than double the combined total of flour eg 10oz fats (5oz lard/5oz butter) to 18oz flour plus enough cold water to bind. Makes a lovely rich pastry. :) Will vary the proportions of fats slightly depending on what I have, how much I cut at the time.