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.....

[ILetHimKeep20Quid]

I'm always advocating buying a chicken and getting a few meals out of it but that's something else

[LoopyLupo]

I don't count stock as being a meal. That's like saying if you have gravy, you have a roast.

To make any meal using HM chicken stock, you need actual food. Thus the stock hasn't made the main part of the meal, it's just flavoured it.

[squoosh]

Medium sized chicken did us:
Roast dinner for 3 adults and 2 children^
Chicken and Chinese noodles for 2 adults and 2 children
Chicken sandwiches for 2 children
Chicken liver Cajun rice for 2 adults, 2 children + leftovers for one adult meal
Chicken risotto (using HM stock) for 3 adults and 3 children, + 3 leftover adult portions in the freezer
Enough stock still in the freezer to make soup for two adults

That must have been a magical mutant chicken! There's no way I could stretch an ordinary chicken that far.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

As I say, I've never made a chicken go that far but bar the roast dinner the other meals were mainly veg and carbs, the chicken went Really far as it was good quality and the flavor was strong. The stock alone ended up being bout 3L

[littlemog]

I hate your attitude towards animals loopy. It really pisses me off that people think like this.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

That far before but I always manage to get a roast dinner, several
Portions of risotto, soup and some noodle or rice based dish

[LoopyLupo]

Even if it did go that far, £28 is still a lot more than I spend on chicken and eggs in one week.

More than double actually.

So I don't even think it was a good deal. Definitely not within my budget anyway.

Not that I would want to live off chicken everyday either.

[littlemog]

It's not about being rich or poor just about giving a shit about something other than yourself.

[ivykaty44]

I make pizza once a week: Cheese tomato and sweetcorn and I only use mozzarella, I don't use cheddar on pizza.

The flour cost 80p for one 2ilb
The yeast cost 99p for one tin
The cheese cost 44p
The tinned tomato cost 37p
The frozen sweetcorn cost £1,50
Dried herbs to sprinkle on top £1.00

I use 11oz of flour and one teaspoon of yeast, all the cheese and half the tomato, one table spoon of the sweetcorn. To make one pizza. Next week I will have to pay 44p to buy more cheese - everything else I will have to make a cheese and tomato pizza and that will be the same the following week. So for three weeks I will be able to make pizza by only replacing the cheese and tomato.

So I agree if you make a particular dish or meal and buy all the ingredients it may be expensive the first time at £5.10 but add another 88p for the mozzarella and 37 p for another tin of tomato and you have another meal and so it goes on as you will not have to replace the flour, yeast, sweetcorn or dried herbs.

I buy a couple of kilos of potato, I will not use all the potato for one meal but for three or four meals.

I will make a tuscan bean soup

cabbage 80p
boroti beans x2 50p each from the world food isle or 70-90p else where int he supermarket
carrots £1 for bag
stock £2 for whole packet
tomato puree 38p
onion 50p
garlic £1 for puree
tinned tomato x 2 37p each

I will get 10 portions of soup for £7.40 - buy soup and it is £1.50 per portion.

Added to which I make the soup again the following week and I will not have to buy the garlic, carrots, stock, tomato puree or the cabbage. As all these will be left over to use again.

[WhiteandGreen]

I think everyone having a go at loopy is being really sanctimonious.

[littlemog]

In what way white?

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

Which is why we eat a mainly vegetarian diet and once in a blue moon buy meat I'm comfortable buying

Each to their own

[ivykaty44]

As for the never ending chicken - each portion of chicken is supposed to be 4-5oz. So a 3ilb chicken should produce around 14 meals portions that is allowing for the carcus to weigh in the final weight. So a family of four should be able to produce 3 and a half meals a week for a chicken without any difficulty.

Those of you that are not getting three meals form a chicken for a family how much meat are you eating at each meal?

[LoopyLupo]

I care little.

If I was loaded I would enjoy shopping in farm shops, buying beautiful cheeses and fancy meat whilst patting myself on the back I was doing the right thing by the animal.

However I'm not loaded and haven't stepped foot in a farm shop for years.

So my options are, buy meat off a supermarket shelf or become a vegetarian. I chose the former.

Shoot me.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

I don't spend £20 on a chicken every week!

But I do spend about £6 on a dozen eggs each week to ensure I'm buying animal produce I'm ethically comfortable with. We then use the eggs as eggs (omelette, scrambled etc) and don't "waste" them in baking - substituting other products instead

I do get your point loopy and I don't think it's right or fair of anyone I try to shove their opinions down someone else's throat. I totally disagree with your attitude towards animal welfare but appreciate a) I have kids that will eat pulses and lentils happily in lieu of meat b) I am not struggling for cash on a daily basis (not rich by any means but I can afford to later my budgets to spend quite a lot of money per week on eggs!)

Can't remember the poster but that weekly cool from scratch meal plan above that was all veggie sounded delicious IMO!

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

Phew IvyKate, thanks that you also make a chicken go further than one highly gluttonous meal!

[LoopyLupo]

£6 on 12 eggs

It's another world ...

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

Yup....then I rarely buy any other meat so my money goes much further on cheap veg, bulk bought rice and pasta, dried goods etc

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

And if scrambled eggs wasn't one of the few meals DD will eat, I'd prob only need a dozen eggs every 3 weeks instead of 1!

[LoopyLupo]

Chicken does a Roast and a curry in this house. So that's meals.

I use the wings to add flavour to my homemade gravy and I make stock which I use for soup.

[LoopyLupo]

*two meals

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

Stock totally can do a meal - that's what risotto is! Because the stock was vey well flavored I only need a bit of actual meat to bulk it out. Same for chinese chicken noodles

Assuming when you make a chicken curry there's at least one veg and some rice accompanying the chicken? No different to risotto then....

My point is, if you are able to afford once in a while to buy a good quality chicken it will go further and provide you with more meals than a 25p water filled chicken breast grown on one foot

[ILetHimKeep20Quid]

I used to eat free range and felt quite smug with myself. Then our earnings dropped by a third, so cuts were made. You do what you have to do and maintain the ethics you can afford.

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

And of course if you're prepared the rest of the time to eat a vegetarian diet

And as I've already said, my chicken came with offal so the Cajun rice didn't use stock or chicken meat, but the liver and kidneys you don't normally get with a supermarket chicken

[DoItTooJulia]

Ok, I've only read half of the thread, as dinner is on!

But I spent a fiver on lentils today....a fiver. And that was on just two types! (But admittedly huge bags)

We are veggie and I do a lot of from scratch cooking, but never eat a whole week of from scratch as I do shove oven chips in and fry some eggs for an easy meal. I never buy ready meals.

I spend loads on food. We are a family of five. Actually I spend loads in the supermarket, not necessarily just on food.

I admire your intentions OP. but the trouble is that I can cook from scratch on pennies, or spend a fortune doing it. I just prefer knowing what my food has in it. I'm a food inspector and see way too many bags of white powder in food factories!