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.....

[MrsKoala]

i think it's called being british Noobie

I read once the difference between a French woman and a British woman was that if you said to a French woman her dress looked nice, she would take the compliment and allude to the fact it was probably very expensive and stylish (even if it wasn't). The same comment said to a British woman was likely to elicit a and 'what this old thing? i only got it from primark for 10p...'

[shrinkingnora]

Just realised how that sounded. Sorry! Didn't mean to go into competitive frugality

[shrinkingnora]

Plus yours had fruit in it. Mine just had lots of sugar and syrup...

[noobieteacher]

Have a pice of this MrsKoala

I must say my cake had cream, cherries, was dusted with sugar and we had humungous portions.

[MrsKoala]

noobie - that sounds so YUM! The picture tastes like my computer screen tho

I must say you can start becoming obsessed with saving money. I find i get competitive with myself - setting challenges to spend even less every week. I have to have a bit of a word sometimes and say 'look Koala, you fool - eating and cooking isn't supposed to be a joyless social experiment, it's supposed to be life affirming and pleasurable'.

[shrinkingnora]

Bugger. I thought life was a joyless social experiment.

[MrsKoala]

nope - it's for running naked thru a meadow and eating cream cakes ;)

[shrinkingnora]

Sounds good. Presumably you save money on clothing as you'll have no wear and tear. Might even be enough to fund the cream cakes.

[MrsKoala]

yes, altho it can get chilly sometimes.

[LoveSewingBee]

Anyone who has watched 'The men who made us thin' and 'The men who made us fat' on BBC2 (see i-player) will know that junk food (highly processed food) is cheaper than freshly prepared food with good ingredients. Highly processed food is full with stuff which makes your body crave more and more, makes you ultimately fat, possibly ill, but is dirt cheap.
The most interesting thing is that diets do not work and cannot work long term as the diet industry people more or less acknowledged. Exercise doesn't work either in so far that it won't keep you slim if you eat junk in the long term. However, fat people tend to exercise less, which makes it worse.
All quite shocking and watch the series and I am pretty sure you will be a lot more careful what you eat. The program maker compares the food industry with the tobacco industry as they knowingly engage in very unsavoury practices in the hunt for higher and higher profits whatever the cost to the individual.

[ABaconAndOnionTart]

Lumpy I cooked a medium chicken (free range - only saying this as i find lower welfare chucks shrink considerably in the oven) on Sunday and fed 2 adults and 2 children. My mother took a leg, which gave her two meals, and I shredded the rest of the meat, boiled the bones for stock and made risotto for 3, with a huge portion left over for the freezer (for another night when DH comes home starving).

So I make that 10 portions. I just add lots of veg :-)

[shrinkingnora]

Forgot to take lunch for me and DH to work both yesterday and today but instead of buying expensive sandwiches I bought a loaf of bread and some spread. Luckily we have a toaster! So have spent another £1.50. Think I might start a blog and stop boring you lot though!

[noobieteacher]

Thought I would get some butter for pastry today.

Cheapest 'saver' block was 99p. When did that happen?

[sparkle12mar08]

About 2-3 years ago noobie , real butter's been at least £1 per 250g block for years and is usually £1.20-£1.50 for own brand, and up to £2 a pack for premium.

[stressedHEmum]

Real butter is expensive now. If you have an Aldi nearby, you can get 500g for about £1.80, but that's the cheapest that I know of.

All the staple things seem to have gone up exponentially in the last 2 or 3 years but, not the junk food or unhealthy snacks. It's no wonder lots of people live on a diet of chicken burgers and crispy pancakes.

[shrinkingnora]

I use half baking marg and half lard. Makes really nice pastry and both are about 50p for 250g.

[MrsKoala]

i usually do half butter half lard for shortcrust.

[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.

[noobieteacher]

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

[nickelbabe]

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

[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.

[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

[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.

[Hullygully]

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

[nickelbabe]

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