Four days of meals

[Becauseisaidsookay]

Get paid on Monday evening, not much until then. I need to get dinners for tomorrow until Monday-two adults, one young Dc
Any ideas of cheap but yummy, as find it a bit depressing eating boring pasta on a Friday/Saturday night

Do you have any cheese or could you get some parmesan? Think a bag of around 100g is under £2.

Carbonara

• parmesan
• eggs
• pasta
• bacon/pancetta (optional and you only need a little bit for flavour)

Start boiling your pasta. If using bacon/pancetta then fry it off until crispy. Leave it in the pan with it's oil and put to one side.

While that's all cooking, mix two eggs into the parmesan. If it's looking clumpy then add some milk, a tiny bit at a time, until you have the consistency of a thick-ish cake batter.

Once your pasta is cooked, use tongs or a serving spoon to start ladeling it into the bacon pan. Don't worry about splashes of pasta water going in, you need that. If not using bacon then keep a mugful of pasta water before draining it.

Add the parmesan mix to the pasta and start slowly stirring to spread it through and coat the pasta - don't stir too quickly. If it's clumpy or sticky then add some of the pasta water you kept back. The heat of the pasta cooks the egg and melts the cheese to make a sauce.

Look at what's on offer in your local supermarket.

Do you have olive oil? Tomato puree? Stock cubes or powder? Tobasco /worcestershire/soy sauce? Peanut butter?
All useful store cupboard items for flavour plus
Onion
Leek
Jar of dried mixed herbs,
Garlic (powder or fresh)
Jar olives

Omelette with dried herbs and cheese (+ pepper/tomato/mushrooms)
Egg Fried rice with ginger, spring onion, soy sauce
Pasta with tomatoes, olives, aubergine, garlic and chilli
Lentil /chickpea dahl
Porridge with cinnamon and honey

Also broccoli pasta.

Cook some broccoli, remove from the pan and chop it right down.

Using the same pan and the same water (because, vitamins), boil some pasta. Top up the water if needed.

In a bowl, mix together around half a cup of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, parmesan if you have any.

Once the pasta is cooked, keep some of the water and drain the rest. Add the broccoli to the pasta and stir. Stir in the breadcrumbs mix and a splash of the pasta water, keep going with small sashes of water until the pasta is looking like it has a thin coating of breadcrumb "sauce".

-Potato + Tin tuna + salad = fish cakes
-Shakshuka with eggs, peppers, tin tomato. Add a tin of chickpeas for added protein/fibre
-Chicken pasta bake, tuna or salmon pasta bake, veggie pasta sauce with lentils

Tuna mayo & sweetcorn or tomato based

Egg fried rice is also good and filling.

cook some rice and let it cool completely. If not using in next half hour, put in container in fridge. We add seasame oil, soy sauce and peas to the fried rice when frying off. Can also add whatever you want to the basic egg fried rice mix. Leftover chicken, ham bits, bacon bits.Sweetcorn or other cooked veg.

Toad in the hole.
Cottage pie.

Must be just me, but struggling to see how 40 euro for four days meals isn't enough. How much do you normally spend on a weeks shop ?

I'd buy a chicken, a large pack of mince , and a load of veg and a bag of basmati rice, and have a chilli for two nights and roast chicken dinners for two night. And spend the rest on a decent bottle of sav blanc

40 EUR for 4 meals for two adults and a young child is loads. You could pretty much have whatever you fancy.

I'm assuming given the euro sign you're in Ireland? You could literally go into Dunnes and get 3 meats for €10 (pack of burgers, pack of chicken thigh fillets, turkey stir fry mix - availability changes but just as an idea). You could do homemade burger and chips, nandos style chicken with peri peri sauce, roasted veg and rice and a turkey stir fry.

Buns are a euro, oven chips are cheap if you buy what's on offer, frozen stir fry veg is a euro. If you have no rice/veg/noodles/sauces at home, let's budget another €10 for them (generous).

That leaves one meal, my go to cheapie is chicken wings. Usually €4 for a big pack of the free range ones, throw them in the airfryer for a half hour serve with homemade buffalo sauce (Franks, a knob of butter and a blob of ketchup gently heated on the hob). You could serve them with celery (€1) and homemade wedges (a €1 bag of baby potatoes cut up and seasoned). Franks hot sauce can be pricey but a bottle will do 4 big lots of wings. So maybe a tenner for this meal all in?

So there you go OP, that lot shouldn't cost you more than €35 and if you join a Dunnes voucher group, you'll get a fiver off €25 spend.

Another vote for Chilli. We're having Chilli with rice tonight and will have the rest on Saturday night, but I'll chuck a big bag of plain tortilla chips on a platter, tip the reheated chilli on top, cover with grated cheese and stick it under the grill until the cheese melts. Stick it in the middle of the table along with some sour cream, salsa and Guacamole so everyone can tuck in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/pasta

There are so many options for pasta, it is a matter of looking and seeing what you fancy. It is definitely not boring or depressing.

Try these OP -

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/budget-family-meal-plan

https://beatthebudget.com/all-recipes/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/budget_family_meal_plan_for_four

Tbf it does depend a bit on which country your in. I'm always gobsmacked by the cost of food in France.

You've got eggs, potatoes and some vegetables so there is one meal of Spanish omelette without spending any of your €40.
Buy some tins of mixed beans and some sausages, add any vegetable available, make sausage casserole. If you've got the ingredients you could add dumplings too.

Do a simple roast chicken dinner, including Yorkshire puddings. Use the leftover chicken in a chicken and mushroom or leek pie, or chicken supreme with rice, or chicken risotto.

Any remaining chicken can be used in an Asian style broth with vegetables and noodles.
All that should be well within your €40 I would think.

frittata with eggs, onions, potatoes and any other veg
risotto mushroom
sausage casserole in a yorkshire pudding
Quiche

I’d buy something like this and do a big pot roast with carrots, onions, potatoes and stock. Herbs/spices to taste. Should do two nice meals over the weekend.

Tomato sauce with harissa in it, homemade or bought, put frozen white fish in it and serve with rice or wee crispy potatoes if you’ve got a big bag

bag of frozen green veg of choice would go with both, and would make nice pasta with chorizo or bacon bits, and a bit of soft cream cheese, spoon of pasta water, as the sauce. Maybe a bit of paprika

Yes YABU.

So, you already have food in that would cover some meals, and have 40Euros to spend ??

What is the issue ?

@LolaJ87

“You could literally go into Dunnes and get 3 meats for €10 (pack of burgers, pack of chicken thigh fillets, turkey stir fry mix - availability changes but just as an idea).”

please don’t do this. Think of the animals. That’s far too cheap for meat.

Pasta, pesto and mushrooms, Chips, eggs and beans, sweet potato and chickpea curry. Pasta, pesto and mushrooms again on Sunday.

Grated carrots and also oats are AMAZING got making mince go further. So if you got 250grms of mince and then added grated carrot and oats you could easily make that last 2 or 3 meals.

When I was on a very tight budget I would get a small mince and then make spaghetti bolognese one night and then cottage pie the next with the same mince.
It also made enough for lunches the next day.

Then you can use the spaghetti and the potatoes again for the next two meals.
I would get a whole chicken and do potatoes, roast carrots and chicken one night with the same gravy you used for the cottage pie.

The next night use the chicken to make a pasta dish with a white sauce.

You can get those jarred sauces very cheaply.

So here you have two cheap proteins stretching to 4 meals (and if done correctly lunches also).

You essentially just need:
Mince
Chicken
Spaghetti
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes
Jar of red sauce
Jar of white sauce
Own brand gravy granules.

Provenance is a privilege. People on very tight budgets don't have the option of organic this or ethnically-sourced that. They have to buy what is cheap, can be cooked for the least amount of fuel, and can provide the most meals.

It doesn't mean they're not aware of the animals killed.

@MugsyBalonz you said this better than I could have myself.

@LuckySantangelo35 the OP has a limited budget until payday and needs to feed her family. Irish farms tend to be very good for animal welfare. Unless you're vegan or farm your own animals, you have no idea if the more expensive meats you're recommending come from happier and/or better treated animals.

Daal and nan breads and Spanish omelettes are two of our stretch dinners. If there are any floppy peppers, tomatoes, carrots etc floating around then we roast them in the air frier and have with pasta. If there is cheese, macaroni and a tin of tuna somewhere we’ll turn that into a pasta bake

A little vague. What do you have in the freezer, fridge, store cupboard. Without that info how can anyone help. However, if you make weekly menus (including lunches and breakfast) and shop to it you both save money and not have a dilemma about what to cook - anything on the menu is possible. Having a list also cuts down time in a supermarket (a consummation devoutly to be wished!).

I never understand how people can't really think for themselves a little bit. You are just 3 people. A fully cooked and flavoured chicken at M&S is just about 8 pounds. That alone would make two days of food. I mean you have a good amount and only 4 days to think of, you have the staples and really can't come up with any ideas😳