British families that go on these BBC save money shows can't be real

[Rufusgy]

Eat well for less.

A mum sends three children to school with shop bought microwaved pancakes laced with nuttela everyday

They spend 5 mins explaining how to use a bit of left over chicken in a stir fry, basically just chop up eveything and stir fry it. As if stir fry and woks are some newfangled invention

They can't afford a house deposit and have zero savings, but won't even consider not buying a brand

Slicing chease is 'too much work"

Seriously is any British family actually like this? Who the fuck is stupid enough that they need a prime time BBC show to tell them proccessed food is expensive and its cheaper to make it yourself.

frequency- same here- kids kneading the pizza dough is all part of the fun.

I'm afraid boffins " half baguette spread with passatta and a bit of grated cheese on the top" would have the kids looking at me as if I had lost my marbles.

half baguette spread with passatta and a bit of grated cheese on the top
called a fancy cheese toastie in our house, not pizza

Would be left untouched in our house I'm afraid.

you can freeze raw pizza dough & it defrosts very quickly.

I make it with 1kg flour/semolina at at time and freeze half. It's actually super quick to make if you don't count the proving time, and the pizzas cook in 10 min and are delicious - much nicer than cheap pre make pizza bases, in fact much nicer than pretty much all pizza bases you can buy.

I make a raw tomato sauce base - blitz ripe tomatoes, garlic, herbs, squirt of tom puree and whatever with a hand blender. Takes seconds.

the thing about cooking from scratch, it isn't just the cooking, its all the cleaning up too.

It can make for a big job in the evening esp if you've been working all day.

Thankfully my DC have dinner with their CM so I only have to cook them 2-3 dinners a fortnight (they are with their Dad every other weekend) and holidays etc.

We usually do pizza for one of these - and the other meal is still a drama as if one DC likes a meal you can be sure that the other one doesn't.

Still at the end of a day's work, re meals and washing up etc, every shortcut can make a big difference.

DP makes homemade pizzas and they are nice but I don't see them as a substitute for the stuffed crust ones I buy in the supermarket.

We could be on this show. I saw a bit of it and said to DP 'that's so us' when the couple had a full trolley but the presenters said they hadn't bought any actual meals!

DP goes to the shop to get bread and milk, spends £50 but there still won't be anything for dinner. And tbh I'm not much better (unless I buy pizza).

We can both cook well but have just fallen on bad habits.

Our food bills are double what they should be.

We have expensive tastes (especially me) and all eat different things at different times.

We don't eat junk (fizzy juice/crisps/chocolate) but eat pricy versions of meat/veg eg mange tout rather than frozen peas and sirloin steak rather than sausages.

If I post our weekly menu I think some mners would faint in .

DP makes homemade pizzas and they are nice but I don't see them as a substitute for the stuffed crust ones I buy in the supermarket.

Really? I think HM pizzas are far nicer- we make stuffed crust ones too.

Back in the late 70s and 80s my Mum reliably informs me that it was terribly fashionable to use a lot of convenience foods among her and her naice friends, with their luxury shag pile carpets and tall glass jars filled with dried pasta in the kitchen.

indeed. And I have a lot of friends that I can make sick instantly by saying "tinned mushroom soup casserole".

It seems practically the only culture that prescribes a poor diet through choice is late western neoliberal capitalism

it's full of processed food.

Go on lightbulb post it

post it post it post it :o I won't judge, I'll just be jealous.

Anyway I agree with this:
I also agree with Bogey that it's a leap of faith to try something untried and untested if it's costing you quite a lot of money to do it.
And even if the money isn't the whole issue it is still rather soul-destroying if it's taken you a lot of effort and it goes to waste.
I'm really trying to make a bigger variety of meals but don't try new ones all that often - certainly wouldn't ever get ingredients for more than one new thing on each weekly shop. I do save on some things though by not getting certain store cupboard ingredients - I have learned to use spices effectively for example, and am now confident with soy sauce (sounds bizarre but we never had it growing up so it seemed very new when I decided to try seasoning my own stir fry!) but I really really don't like dried herbs like basil, so any recipe that includes them I just leave out. I only get fresh basil for making a huge batch of pesto, although I'd like to try making some creamy sauces with stuff like tarragon.

Re: variety I agree, I did feel a bit disgruntled when we started planning to have the same things each week. But I'm finding that if I put more effort into making really good meals (eg I've finally learned to make a chili - it was only my second time using the slow cooker so I was on edge the whole day :o) I don't resent the lack of variety so much.

Goblinhat- I've never had a hm pizza that has that doughy ness good supermarket/ takeaway ones have.

I think hm works for people who like very thin crust pizzas but not people who like softer, spongier ones.

Also hm tomato sauce although it tastes nice & healthy we can't seem to replicate the taste of the commercial ones (probably need to add salt & sugar!).

Bigkids- an example of a really expensive meal I like is a £3.25 supermarket pizza with a cut up sirloin steak on it (c. £5) plus dip £1.20. If I'm feeling healthy I'll have some baby spinich too.

Add in a glass of wine which is probably £2 that's over a tenner on one 'normal' middweek dinner for one person.

Times 4 of us, 3 times a day plus snacks then add in 'special occasions' we can easily spend £7/800 PCM on food & drink.

light- that's why I prove my dough for 6 hours.

Great mouthfeel and chewy texture.

Lightbulbon, we're pretty similar. We eat out rather a lot, a bad habit we got into back before we were married and DH was working long, erratic hours so couldn't guarantee what time he'd be home for dinner and I was lazy and disliked cooking anyway

14 years and 2 DCs later we still always eat out twice at weekends, sometimes just a cafe brunch or an early tea at our favourite gastro pub. Then one evening mid week we always have take out.

I buy a lot of M&S food, which isn't cheap but its saving grace is that we always eat every single last mouthful. I also bulk buy from 'Cook' and keep the freezer stocked, for when I can't be arsed. But I'm choosy with their stuff, as some is absolutely delicious but some is pretty meh.

Hand on heart I probably only cook a home made hot dinner maybe twice a week? Cooking day in and day out simply holds no interest for me. Never has.

And DH is useless at grocery shopping. Send him into Sainsbury's and he'll blow £75 on fancy bread, loads of anti pasti stuff, some pricey salt & pepper grinders, a few tubs of his favourite ice cream and an armful of computer magazines.

Not a single meal to be cobbled together from that lot!

Oh yes, it's so hard to go into a supermarket and only buy what you went in for!

Non food is the worst for temptation. A couple of magazines are £8 now.

What we have started to do the last couple of weeks is to do online food shopping to see if that helps us.

Goblin, mine treat me like a culinary goddess if I present them with baguette pizzas in the name of dinner. I get hugs and everything.

You should have brought yours up to be more plebeian

Cooking is like fashion: people keep claiming we've moved on, but actually every woman is still secretly expected to be into and good at those two things. Men aren't expected to do them at all, so never get shown the ropes even if they are interested.

I think everyone should choose how much time and effort they can afford or are prepared to put into food and cooking. The only thing is, if you choose to do things the expensive way, please please don't moan to the rest of us about being hard up.

Lightbulb I like the cut of your jib

MyFavourite

I don't agree, leastways not for NZ where I live. While it is true that cookery programmes tend to have a female audience, it's quite acceptable to cook badly, to put it bluntly, as long as there is something on the table. And it no longer matters whether it is the father, mother or one of the children who ruins cooks the food.

Not read the whole thread, but years of WWmean that 500g mince does make 8 portions of bologna use / chilli here, and each chicken breast (from butchers) will do 2 meals: it's simple, we bulk out with (cheap) veg - mushrooms, carrots, sweetcorn, courgette etc. makes the meat go a whole lot further, and decent, healthy meals are cheap too.

I guess the how much meat depends on what else you eat. I don't eat pasta, potatoes, bread or rice so my meat/fish portions are probably bigger to compensate as such! Also weight train so try to hit at least 100g of protein every day

Watching the 2nd episode now. I was kind of excited to find out about the microwave risotto but I'm not entirely convinced. Might give it a try.

EUWWWW at the wotsit dipped in curry sauce though.