Why o fecking why is decent food so bloody expensive???

[mamadiva]

Trying to get more into the mode of cooking from scratch but would rather use free range food although am on vey limited budget

Bloody cheaper buying frozen shite ARGH have to feed 3 adults and a toddler for about £50 a week how the hell am I meant to o that...

Sorry but Tesco has pissed me off now

For example, this weeks meals include: sausage and haricot bean casserole; cheese and bread pudding; pasta with tomato and lentil sauce; pork meatballs (homemade) and rice; and butter bean and bacon casserole. Hardly expensive recipes...

Dairycrest milkman

Re food texture issues, I wouldn't push it TBH. If you think it might be a phobia rather than a sensory issue, wait til she's old enough to express herself better and try to tackle it then. LOL this is advice purely from watching that Freaky Eaters prog on Channel 4! Seemed like they all went through some pretty life-changing psychological changes to beat the phobias so no point trying to force it on kids.

Mamadiva, does your DH not feel he is missing out on life with his food phobias? Seems such a shame!

FuriousGeorge - all credit goes to Horton for the dahl recipe!

Wait until you've tried it before crediting me! You might hate it!

I hate this too. I checked our account only to find its on zero so no shopping for us tomorrow.
Plus I shop at lidls once every two weeks at a cost of £65 and get £25 worth of farm bred/butchered meat a month.
I am struggling with making 12 packed lunches a week in total and all other meals. There are only 4 of us now but it will be 5 when bubs comes along - thank god for breastfeeding.
Its crap and I hate it

Hortn - currently cooking your chicken with saffron (am now thinking I didn't add enough - what a cost!), tomatoes, potatoes, yellow split peas, garlic, onions and spinach to chuck in at the end. It smells lovely atm!

Oh good, glad it smells nice. The saffron is crazy expensive but the rest is so cheap that I reckon you can have one little extravagance!

Recipe was a great success - thanks!

Well I manage on £30 a week for me and two Dc's. You just have to be careful, shop around a bit and search bargains out.
Tesco yesterday were doing a lump of 'farmy' cheese for £2. They have 3 chickens for £10(mum and I share the cost and chickens)and I know they aren't free range, but hey!

Value stuff is lovely if you look around. IME, tinned sweetcorn is good from all the big supermarkets. tesco beans are great, so is the spag.
I could carry on, but YOU need to get in there and look.

Oh and just to add that Ds is 10.6 and eats more than I do!

horton - your recipes for stews and things sound fab - would you mind emailing me too with them? i want to cook more 'earthy', healthy kind of food like that and stews with chickpeas etc and a bit of meat sound perfect... if you wouldn't mind

shellybaby_1 at yahoo dot com

I live near Hounslow in W Londow which has a big Indian population and therefore excellent food shops!
We go there every so often and stock up on big packs (and sacks!) of rice, pulses, nuts, spices, fried onion, popodums etc. I also buy the veg which is very well priced and good quality, and they also do the exotic stuff.
We buy bagfuls and it is very reasonably priced and very very tasty.
They also sell oil by the vat.

You just have to be organised enough to remember to soak your chick peas and pearl barley etc the night before you want to eat it!!!!

For meat I use the local farmers market, we buy a couple of month's worth in one go and get a big discount. Excellent value, always talk to the stall holders, then you get discounts!
Mind you, we only eat meat at the weekends and during the week it's one bit of fresh fish and a single pack of bacon...eeked out.

This has been really interesting to follow. I'm another one who refuses to shop at Tescos. Really do try and get to your local butchers, grocers. markets..etc. Since doing this I have not only found food shopping to be more interctactive but it has made me really appreciate where my food is coming from and to suport buying seasonal and local produce too. It's cheaper too. I've now also started growing herbs on the window sill and am starting my own veggie plot to save money there. Have found loads of lovely advice on gardeners world as I am a complete novice!

Today I refused to buy cakes with our weekly shop and came home & made 2 banana cakes with the over-ripe bananas, & a chocolate sponge cake. I only bought a box of icing sugar instead!

Budgeting with food is sooo tiring

Oh yeah, Asian supermarkets are great if you like cooking for bulkbuying longlife basics and also have more interesting fruit and veg.

Any fussy cheddar fans out there? It is possible to get it for less than £6/kg. Asda do a nice one called Full-flavoured cheddar for only £5/kg and in Sainsburys and Aldi their grated mature cheddar 500g bags are way cheaper than the 500g blocks! Co-op often have good deals on it too, same as the tastier margarines.

I keep bottles of milk in the freezer. Just rotate it every so often. I get 6 litres, but if you buy a couple of smaller bottles, clean them out and split the big bottle, it takes less time to defrost. If you can't stand them upright in the freezer to freeze them, make extra sure that the lid is on tight.

beanie, the recipes are earlier on in the thread!