to ask you for your best skint meal ideas please? And what to buy at lidl to help this?

[Margaritte]

I did ask for lovely, budget, impressive looking meals last week.

However, the shit hit fan for us, financially, for the next month or two. So now I really need to know what I can buy & cook. Now it just needs to be healthy & dirt cheap and less impressive . Taste buds haven't died in this shit situation, so if its fairly yummy will help too, although I realise that's not the main priority.

I have to figure out breakfasts, lunches and dinners. My dc & dh take packed lunch with them, & dd & I eat at home. I have a bit in already, which I'm so grateful for, as it gives me a 'head start'.

I have got advice from StepChange today and they were great, so that bits sorted.

Just a bit of back ground ( so I'm not drip feeding) I am recovering from PND (mostly good days for a while) However, during having it, cooking / meal planning etc would cause me a lot of distress. I'm starting to get back into cooking now, and sometimes enjoy it. I don't want to slip back into the upset & frustration I used to have around the weeks meals, so as easy as possible would be helpful too.

How much is the cheapest yoghurts? SW have a nice idea called overnight oats which is really tasty and filling. It's oats and fat-free yoghurts topped with fruit (but you can get a bag of frozen apple slices from Farmfoods for £1) and left in the fridge overnight. You only get a small amount of oats on SW but you can use as many as you like and whichever yoghurt you like as you're not following the plan. I don't have it every day but I can't stomach eating the same breakfast daily.

We use Quorn mince for bolognaise sometimes as it is cheaper-500g bag of quorn mince (frozen) is £1.50 at the moment.

I should have added that's in Tesco -for the Quorn Mince offer!

I think also it's OK if you all have beans on toast once a week, or a sausage sandwich, no one is going to die from that. It's stressy trying to eat really healthily and balanced all the time. So chips from the freezer and an egg is OK...

Tinned mackerel is your friend - you can use it on toast, in pasta or on cous cous. Eggs are a staple and diverse to work with most things in the fridge as an omelette. You'd also be surprised what you can find in the pound shops for treats and even basics like packs of raisins for any kids. We've also got a few tinned fruits and blended them up as ice lollies - I got a can for 40p and we made 6 ice lollies!

Batch cooking with a slow cooker and freezing left overs will mean you always have something quick to hand rather than being tempted to nip out for something more expensive.

I think most people could live for a week or two using the things in their larder if they set them all out and had a think. If you have time perhaps you could make a list of what meat you have and look in the cupboards to think of what you can do without any more shopping? It can be quite fun if you let it (honest!).

So I have been dipping in & out of the thread (time allowing) and have just been back over it quickly. I didn't want to ignore questions, and only have had time now..

Gaspp0deTheW0nderD0g My DS2 will be entitled to free school meals (is in year 1) However, he wasn't eating it and they were just handing him a cheese sandwich in the end. Even on days where he like the dinner, they just stopped asking him I only found out through DS himself, and went in to speak to the dinnerlady. It didn't stop & so I switched him to packed lunch.

Dowser I don't know anyone the juices veg, no. Would have been a good idea otherwise

miffytherabbit3 I do have a market in the town near me, and will go down to have a look. I know they are open most week days so will find that out.

butterfly133 I have never heard of the social supermarket. I googled, and what a brilliant idea! We don't have one anywhere near us (seems to be only 2 anyway) I really hope they expand on that, and I will look into if they have any plans to do so.

Fastfoward2 'Cheap Eats' looks very good, and will be seeing if they have that in the local library. Do they have any of the recipes on their website?

Pointless I will be over to join you in June's thread, Unescorted as linked me to the right board, so should be easy to find?

I have bookmarked the links from Boomerwang, Fiendarinal & fatlazymummy so will look through those all later.

Here's an MN recipe for slow cooker rice pudding. I use the evaporated milk version with less sugar. Use normal rice (buy the cheapest you can find, does not have to be pudding rice). Evap milk from Aldi or Lidl. This is delicious and dead cheap. I had to stop making it as I just ate the whole damned lot. But I might just do it today now that I've sought it out to post here

So have yet to go through all the ideas with a pen & paper to make a plan of sorts (although have written down the 2 recipes I said I would try upthread)

I know I will buy the chorizo & is seems to be highly recommended on here, as does the lentil bolognaise recipe. AnastasiaBrown linked me to it, so will be trying that.

I have looked at a girl called jack's website & facebook page, and the Feed your family for £20 website too.

Lioninthesun That is sort of what I wanted to do anyway. How do you do yours? Just write down an inventory type list?

AnastasiaBrown Where can I buy pudding rice? Do lidl sell it?

Apologies if someone has already mentioned it, but if you can buy pulses dry they are much cheaper than tinned and bulk out soups, stews, etc really nicely. You do have to be a bit organised and soak them the night before though.

And chickpeas make everything better / more filling.

Don't buy pudding rice, OP, just use cheapest ordinary white rice. I buy it from Lidl in great big bags.

AnastasiaBrown I have just seen you have already told me, I don't know how I missed that

I've just been to Lidls instead of my usual Tesco this morning. I couldn't get everything as no bean sprouts for stir fry or gingerand also got a gammon out of my freezer for the weekend. For a family of four, including an impulse buy of a new £11.99 frying pan, I spent £67.00. That's fab. I was not even being particularly careful so I did buy a packet of crisps and a pack of parma ham. Find parma ham very useful for munchies. We are three adults and one teen. Both boys have hollow legs. Had I been super careful, I could have done the shop for £52, I reckon.

So. Flapping meals this week will be
Tonight turn yesterdays bolognese into chilli with addition of powder, maybe another tin of toms and a tin of kidney beans. Have with wraps

Tomoz. Possibly slow roast pork (cost £3.60) in Lidl or may save it for later in week. Or toad in the hole if I manage to stop them earing the sausages for lunch.

Sun. Gammon and parsley sauce with veg (its been frozed was an after Christmas reduced one)

Mon. Gammon and chips

Tues. Gammon carbonara

Wed. Something with baked spuds or a stirfry or do stirfry on tues and gammon bake/carbonara

Thurs. Probs slow roast pork

Fri. Pulled pork a nd mash

I'd invest in getting herbs and spices. With them you can turn even a dull meal of pasta and hotdogs into a quite tasty meal.

I got an Email this morning from V8 about their new recipes. Some of them do look pretty tasty and they help you get your 5 a day. Here's the link. v8juice.co.uk/recipes/

They've got a nice looking Pot Roast recipe that you should be able to do in the cheap. Plus you'll have lots of left overs for lunch the next day. They've got a Mexican chicken recipe that looks quite affordable.

Good luck for the next few months. I hope everything goes okay. X

The cheapest yoghurt is the kind you make yourself. Just Google homemade yoghurt for method. Milk is much cheaper than yoghurt and yoghury is just cultured milk. Then add frozen fruit from farmfoods for flavour. Also have you checked out A Girl Called Jack for seriously cheap, tasty food.

agirlcalledjack.com/category/recipes-food/

Don't biy fresh beansprouts. Soooooo expensive. Order a bag of mung beans and sprout your own. A lifetime supply of beansprouts in a small bag.

m.wikihow.com/Sprout-Mung-Beans

www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/11322096/Homemade-yogurt-recipe.html

If you make your own yoghurt it's healthier and cheaper than ice cream.

agirlcalledjack.com/2015/01/31/carrot-cumin-kidney-bean-burger-9p/

10p burgers

One of my favourite budget meals is;

Fry onions (I buy bags of frozen ones from farmfoods, large bag, less than £1), add garlic powder or any herbs or seasonings you like, add water, add lentils, cook until lentils are cooked

Blend as soup OR eat as is on jacket potato or add any other bits and bats of leftovers as a stew type bowl of goodness and eat by itself or eat as is with bread or wraps or whatever.

my kids love risotto, can use up any left over meat or veg. Use onion, garlic, rice, water, veg stock cube and cook until soft. Stir in finely chopped meat/veg or peas, etc, whatever you have. Add a little parmesan and it's done!

I'd take out a shelf at a time onto the surfaces and separate them into groups that give you meal ideas. I organise my larder with baking/sprinkles/fancy syrups etc on top, dd's chocs/all puds/snacks next shelf down, tins and jars next one down and flour/sugar etc in tins on the bottom. So, I'd pull out all tins and jars and see what ideas I got then put into groups, go to the fridge/freezer and check if you can do a variation with whatever meats/fish etc and then write out a list. You can put the jars/tins back into the larder in groups to remind you and refer to your list. Best way to do it is try to have time to get one or more going and then you can freeze them up and gloat over a less cluttered cupboard