To ask for your cheap, healthy and hearty recipes?

[Hungryandbroke]

I really need to save money on the food shop but struggling to find recipes that please my family, who mostly turn their noses up if there isn't meat and/or something really stodgy. Please could I have your ideas for recipes that are cheap, healthy and filling?

There's a question! I'm not sure really, I just add stuff. A box of oats (I just looked ours are 500g), a bunch of grated stuff (carrots and courgette), some fruit, a couple of eggs or bananas, and enough milk to make a stiff mixture. It needs to be thick enough to press down into the tray.
Just bake until it's cooked through, stick a knife or something in the middle, and an extra few minutes to brown.
Wait until it's cooled before you cut.

Sausage casserole using quorum sausages.

Brown them and mix with a small amount of chorizo if you like a bit of spice
Peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomato passatta, chilli flakes, tomato purée and a couple of tins of beans/pulses any kind really I've done with kidney, butter beans, chick peas, lentils etc.

Just cook up for ages until it's a bit sticky rather than runny. Great with pasta, rice, baked potato etc

I made Nigel Slater’s Chorizo and bean stew yesterday - it served 4, and I reckon it cost under a fiver, despite using a whole chorizo. I used 2 sticks of celery, two carrot sticks and one tin of beans, but you could add extra veg and beans to bulk it out, and that wouldn’t cost much more.

I forgot to say - it was utterly delicious, and really quick to make. I made it in the morning, and heated it up when dh got home.

scroll down for Felicity Cloake's chana masala recipe. Very easy to make , economical, healthy and perfect for this hot weather!

Maybe not the healthiest but you can make a huge meal and it’s cheap.

3/4 tins of tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
An onion
Generous grinding of pepper
Pinch of salt
If you’ve got them use a spoon of Italian seasoning and Italian herbs
A small tin of tomato purée

A pack of sausages, take the skin off and make into balls I do 3 big ones out of one sausage, plonk in a pan with whichever oil you use, with very finely chopped onion and garlic, throw tomatoes in, add pepper and herbs, allow it to simmer down for 15 Mins then add tomato purée.

Chuck your pasta on.

If you have cheese to hand grate some on top.

If really broke we don’t even have the sausage meatballs, we just serve with more cheese.

Oh and the PP who said putting beans in Shepard’s pie- YESS! I hate beans, but they’re actually really good in a Shepard’s pie and it don’t half make it filling!

And I can’t remember a recipe for it off the top of my head, but look for a cacio e Pepe recipe too!

All you need is butter, cheap spaghetti, pepper, cooking oil, a pinch of salt and cheese. It takes 10 minutes too!

This may sound a slightly odd combination of ingreds but it does work and DC love it:

A soup loaded with beans and rice.

Any soup I mean...

Oops, posted too soon:

Blob olive oil in frying pan, fry smoked bacon lardons and turn down heat and add good helping of garlic at end (don't let that burn). Cook large pan of pasta (penne regate or or whatever you fancy really). In separate pan cook broccoli (al dente - don't overcook) and frozen peas. Drain pasta, stir in good wallop of bacon lardons and garlic

Sorry, drain pasta. Stir in good wallop of good quality pesto I meant, then add bacon and garlic, stir in peas and broccoli (cut small) and top off with generous grating of parmesan. It really is good but relies on good smoked bacon lardon and garlic for aurhentic flavour!

Hope you can decipher that, spread out over several posts

Tin of potatoes
Tin of spinach
Tin of tomatoes
Tin of chickpeas
Tin of coconut milk
Vegetable stock cube
Tablespoon of curry powder.

Makes a delicious curry.

I make big batches of daal (lentil curry) and freeze it portions of it. I also make a big batch of chicken curry, serve half a portion of chicken curry (freeze the rest) and half a portion of daal. Family happy they've got 2 types of curry, without the moans I would get if I just served up daal.

Also make my own pizzas which works out loads cheaper than buying them.

Made a lush roasted vegetable lasagne - meat loving husband and son said it was possibly better that a meat one.

I agree with previous suggestions of using lentils and barley, they make meat go much further and taste good. Also use more beans/peas generally to either bulk out meals or make mixed bean salads or casseroles with rice. Dried pulses & rice/pasta are your friend when cooking on a budget. If you have a pressure cooker dried pulses can be cooked really quickly. Cheap cuts of meat cooked either in a pressure cooker or slow cooker are delicious.
Suet is cheap & homemade dumplings or suet puddings in winter are very filling. A vegetable casserole with mixed beans and herb & cheese dumplings is delicious and very filling.

This is a good recipe. I use Patak's Tikka Masala Spice Paste instead of the spices (except for the turmeric), I add at least 2 sweet potatoes, add 1 can of coconut milk (straight after the veg) and sometimes a tin of coconut cream, depending on amount of veg I've put in.

Another one here.

This is good too, can always reduce chicken and add puy lentils as well as the red.

This was lovely.

I had a fabulous salad this week on holiday. Puy lentils cooked in veg stock, drained, cooled and then mixed with half cherry tomatoes, salad leaves and tiny snippets of bacon. Then add a little bit of home made vinaigrette. Delicious.

My cheapo soup with cheese, serves 2 or 3 in this version: Two potatoes and two carrots peeled and diced small, chuck into cold water heating on the hob while you finely chop two celery stalks and any leaves, chuck that in. Then a head of broccoli, chop up into small florets, finely slice the stalky bits and add to the pot. Lots of garlic and herbs, boil until tender, mash until smoother. Serve in a bowl with a layer of grated cheese on top, but you don’t need loads of cheese, it’s pretty hearty anyway.

Thanks, I shall give it another go!

@Hungryandbroke I added something about the consistency just for you
cheaptastyandeasy.wordpress.com/oat-fingers/

Hope you tried them again and they turned out better.