To ask for your tasty recipes

[LMW1990]

I'm trying to cut down our weekly food shopping and make the most of our budget, so buying bulk items for multiple meals etc. Obviously (decent) meat costs money and we don't do many (if any) meat free dishes because I'm never sure how to make them filling.

Please can I pick your brains for tasty, inexpensive, filling meals for in the week? I have a slow cooker and I'm looking into getting a 2nd hand bread maker.

TIA!!

Just oooh, I’m jealous of home reared pork! I worry I’d grow to love them too much though!

Cassoulet is great too. Hearty, filling, quick and super cheap as it's mostly cannellini beans! There's lots of great ideas here. Thanks for sharing and for starting the thread OP

Watching with interest!

I think I might try all of these over the next couple of weeks and post the results :) I love to cook but get stuck in a repeat recipe rut sometimes. I'm really looking forward to trying these!

Place marking to come back and add mine later

Try some ox liver. Now cows are slaughtered at a younger age it tastes much milder than it used to, and just tastes beefy. The texture is firmer than lambs liver.
I fry it with Knorr beef extract, then use it in a stir fry, or use it to pad out beef dishes.

Lentil soup. Add 2 mugs of red lentils and 2 litres of water (or veg or ham or chicken stock) to slow cooker. set to high while you chop veg. Chop 2 leeks, 4 medium carrots and 2 ribs of celery. Add to slow cooker and keep on high until it starts to simmer (or you need to go out!). Leave on low for at least 4 hours. Taste, season and blend. Eat or freeze.

Oh - you can use green lentils but that makes green soup which my family refuse to touch!

Pasta and chickpeas (pasta e ceci)

This is from my southern Italian family and is fab and fast!

Put pasta water on to boil.

In a wide and deep frying pan put a good glug of olive oil, a chopped garlic clove or two. Soften the garlic for a minute or two.

Add a drained tin of chickpeas - the Napolina ones are lovely and big but any kind will do really.

Heat the chickpeas and get them coated in the oil.

Cook your pasta - it should be a wide flat one ideally, but I often use penne or shells.

Add the chickpeas to the drained cooked pasta, stir.

Season and eat.

As a variation a few chilli flakes in the oil is good. Or some smoked paprika (totally inauthentic but very tasty!). And I usually add a dash of marigold stock powder too for flavour.

It's fast, tasty and cheap!

Paneer and potato curry with rice www.bbc.com/food/recipes/paneer_and_potato_curry_63584

It’s cheap, filling and tasty and is currently one of my favourite meals

I made this Instant Pot Mexican rice www.cookingclassy.com/instant-pot-mexican-rice/ (you can adapt it for stovetop cooking if you don't have an IP) and used it, with some cooked sliced chicken and refried beans (for moisture), to stuff tortilla wraps. I packed them into a baking tray, covered with a layer of passata and grated cheese and baked until it bubbled.

It was a huge hit with my mainly carnivorous husband, despite not having much meat in it! Which made it fairly cheap. You could replace the chicken with mince or mushrooms, and pad it out even further with kidney beans and/or more veg. The Mexican rice was one of the nicest things I've ever made, and it was very little effort to cook.

I would highly recommend the Hello Fresh website for recipes. Everything I've done from there has turned out well, and you can search by ingredient, eg chicken thighs. Many can be done in 30 mins or less.

Finding it hard to choose which recipe to go with first! House of picky eaters also! Except me... mouths watering reading all these!

Spicy bean wraps.
Onion, Garlic, Peppers, fry gently. Add a good pinch of chilli, a tin of kidney beans and a tin of tomatoes. Fill one of the tins with water and add. Add a stock cube, some mixed herbs and a dash of smoked paprika if you have it. simmer for ten minutes. Then add a cupful of rice. Meanwhile open a pack of wraps, lightly coat a large oven dish in oil, and grate some cheese of your choice.
Once rice is cooked, scoop into wraps with a dash of grated cheese, fold in half place in oven tray, overlapping one another, sprinkle a good helping of grated cheese on top. Bung in oven until cheese has melted, serve.

These are great. I love anything like risotto where you can use up a bit of left over sausage / chicken, peppers / tomatoes plus a bit of soft cheese, chorizo, frozen peas; whatever you have basically.

I’ve got a few go to recipes that are either veg or let me spread the meat over more days. All these serve 2 decent portions (my husband eats 2/3 so would serve 3 if one wasn’t a massive 6ft tree!)

Chicken and chickpea curry with couscous:
Shredded chicken (left over from roast or one large breast sliced) stir fry for a few mins and then add two table spoons of medium curry powder, a tin of chick peas and some dried apricots / almonds if you’re feeling fancy. Simmer. Serve with cous cous.

Butternut squash chilli
Stir fry cubes of butternut squash (sold frozen in places like Tesco) with a sliced chilli, add kidney beans, tin chopped tomatoes, jar of chargrilled peppers. Serve with rice or taco shells and grated cheese.

Veggie chilli:
Tin kindney beans, tin chopped tomatoes, Tin chick peas, tin backed beans, chilli and garlic. Serve with rice or taco shells.

Sweet potatoes and spinach curry:
Stir fry sweet potato cubes, add Thai green curry paste, spinach, coconut milk and simmer. You can make a vat of this and add meat to it the following day to make it last longer.

Spaghetti a la puttanesca (whores spaghetti)
Low fry tin of anchovies in their oil, add tea spoon of capers, half a jar of black olives and tin of chopped tomatoes. Simmer. Serve with spaghetti or linguine.

Jamie Oliver’s 5 ingredient crab linguine:
Medium fry a sliced fennel with lid on for 5 minutes. Add chilli. Add tin of cherry tomatoes or fresh tomatoes for 5 mins. Add tin of shredded crab for 2 mins and serve with linguine.

Eggs in pergatory:
Fry chilli and garlic in a pan, add two tins of chopped tomatoes for 5 mins on medium / high heat. Make Wells for placing eggs. This takes 5 - 10 mins. Serve in the pan with left over French stick, bread ends. Crunchy is what’s needed.

Frittata is also a good go to, along with risotto for left over bits that need using. I hate waste!

Sorry, that’s longer than I planned but I am definitely needing to be more resourceful. Prices are definitely going up!

Thank you for all your fabulous inspiration!!

We tend to eat a lot of bread but I really do prefer fresh loaves and nice crusty bread. Does anyone find that making either own is a) viable and b) cheaper? I'm looking at bread makers...

I make my own bread without a bread maker, just get a mix. Waitrose ciabatta one is really good and makes some lovely bread without that much effort.

I also make lots of pasta bakes, pasta with chopped tomatoes and pretty much any vegetables.

Pasta with streaky bacon and blue cheese is also a favourite but you could do this with just mushrooms as well.

Cook pasta as usual
Melt 100g ish of blue cheese and 100ml dbl cream togerher
Add in cooked mushrooms or bacon or whatever you have.

Dirty Rice. Mince, onion, any chopped up vegetables fried with garlic, chilli, cajun and paprika. Add cooked rice.

I'm not sure making your own bread is cheaper for quite some time. I have a Morphy Richards fastbake breadmaker which is one of the cheaper models at £52. Thats a fair amount of bread there.

I have bread in baking at the moment though, its nice to be able to make your own (and could be very useful if we have food issues come March....)

@user187656748 - this is very true! I never thought about off-setting the cost. Or March!! I guess all this kind of recipe planning might come in even more handy then!

So!! I picked up a bread maker worth £129 for £8 from Shpock on Monday. Made one loaf so far - it was delicious. I used a Wrights bread mix but there wasn't much variety in my local supermarket. Can anyone recommend any bread mixes?

Bargain breadmaker! I use mine on the dough setting and bake in the oven; I find it gives a better loaf. I’ve never used a bread mix either; just fiddled about with recipes until I found the right ones for us.

The absolute best and simplest pasta sauce you can make goes as follows:

Feeds 2

Put 2 tins of tomatoes, a whole onion which has been peeled and cut in 2, and a couple of tablespoons of butter in a pan. Add salt to taste. Simmer on a low heat for 40 mins. Remove onion halves and discard. Serve with spaghetti and grated cheese.

I know it sounds simple and basic etc but you truly don’t know how delicious and amazing it is til you try it.