What's your favourite frugal meal?

[Clearlymisunderstood]

We try to eat as frugally as possible but am feeling despondent at the moment as we seem to be eating the same old boring dishes on repeat (pasta pesto anyone )
So was just wondering what your favourite frugal meals are (read: I am going to steal your ideas)

Lentil mush. Red lentils boiled up with a stock cube, chopped onion and garlic. Add carrots or tomatoes if you want. Eat on brown bread with or without grated cheese on top.
It's ridiculously tasty.

Pearl Barley and tomato risotto

Make like you would a normal risotto - onion garlic stock, but swap the rice for pearl barley cos it's half the price, and whack in a tin of cheap chopped tomatoes. Bit of cheese, very nice, lovely nutty flavour from the pearl barley. Feeds four for about a quid.

And pasta w anchovies - cook pasta, drain, then whack a few tinned anchovies in the pan with a little bit of the oil, cook gently til they've dissolved, stir in a wee bit of butter then chuck the pasta back in and coat it all, shovel in your mouth with gay abandon. And some broccoli if you can be arsed.

Houmous pasta with veg is really nutritious (and super easy )so doesn't feel lazy!

I make a big vat of chilli & add loads of veg as well as mince sometimes and it's really versatile freezes well so goes with pasta/rice/jackets. Lasts a good few nights.
Onion garlic + carrots/swede/butternut squash/parsnip/peas/sweet corn/cauli anything you have in chopped toms kidney beans and stock cube + chilli powder,cumin, paprika some herbs. Simmer for ages or slow cooker

Pasta with a bit of butter and grated cheese on top tastes nice but isn't terribly nutritious.

Fried egg and chips, pie made with baked beans topped with mash and grated cheese on top, bean and cheese burritos (you can make the wraps from flour and water to save money, mix in whatever leftover veg you have and add spices too), cottage pie made with lentils instead of mince, and mac and cheese also with added veg are nice.

There are lots of free apples about at the moment which can help as a supplement and a few straggling blackberries as well where we are (north of England).

Sweetcorn fritters, made with frozen value sweetcorn

Any homemade soup

Thai fish cakes made with value sardines

Heuvos Rancherros
Red pasta sauce (veg, herbs, basic philly and small tin sardines)
Omelette
Veg curry with chapattis
toad in the hole
egg and chips
These are all my CBA and I'm skint recipes.

puff pastry pizza. For the two of us I use a quarter of a pack of of puff pastry or half and it lasts two days. roll it out really thin so it fits a baking tray, score round the edge so it has a Margain to puff. add tomato puree and any left over veg etc. Little bit of cheese and serve with salad. feels a bit classy too

Pea, bacon pasta.

Fry chopped onion in a little oil.
Add bacon (I normally use up whatever in the fridge say 6 slices for 5 of us) when crispy add a couple of handful of peas.
Cook spaghetti about 75g per adult and 50g per child. When pasta cooked add to pan with bacon mix and a little of the pasta water.
You can add Parmesan if you have it. But it doesn't matter if you don't.

Then things like

Egg fried rice
Vegetable rice - with either rice dish you could use any leftover chicken/pork.
tortilla with whatever veg is dying in the fridge.
Soups and bread

Agree with the previous post for the Spicy Root Veg casserole - serve with basics naan bread.

Broad bean & Lemon risotto - frozen broad beans, lemon, onion, parmesan. H said it was as good as restaurant standard food.

www.greedygourmet.com/recipes-by-course/main-course/broad-bean-lemon-risotto/

Home-made soup - butternush squash (very filling), pea & ham (a favourite in this house) - just fry up an onion and use a bag of frozen garden peas for ease (but you could soak marrowfat peas etc), throw a few bits of ham / left over gammon if we have that.

Thai chicken noodle soup - use this recipe but replace the rice with noodles and stretch this recipe to feed 5 of us. Cocunut milk at B&M bargains / Aldi is about a third of the price of Tesco.

www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/283723/annabel-karmel-s-thai-chicken-soup

Home-made pizza

Pasta with a homemade tomato sauce (tinned tomatoes / onion / garlic all whizzed up)

Spaghetti carbonara - with homemade garlic bread (using Aldi's part baked baguettes)

Marking place too for the soup recipes. I'm aiming to eat a lot of soup this winter.

Soups currently in the freezer:

Spinach and potato - fry up an onion and chopped spuds until softened, stir in a big bag of spinach, add veggie stock (marigold bouillon is what I use), season with salt and pepper, simmer for 20 mins, whizz with the stick blender.

Mushroom - as above but with slightly less spud (it's still good for thickening though), and 700g mushrooms rather than spinach. tarragon's nice in this if you have it, but it's tasty without.

Leek and potato, unsurprisingly, somewhat similar to the above

Broccoli and stilton's another favourite, using frozen broccoli as said above, stir in some crumbled stilton at the end.

you can add cream to them, although i tend not to. Makes at least 4 portions and freezes well. I love autumn, and soup!

Chickpea and pasta soup. 2 tins of chickpeas, the tomatoes from a tin of whole plum tomatoes (not the juice), slug of olive oil, sprig of rosemary, stock, few cloves of garlic squashed a bit. Cook this up for 10mins or so until the flavours mingle then add pasta and continue to cook until the pasta is done. Serve with parmesan and a drizzle of chilli oil.

It's really delicious and very very comforting.

Tis too warm for soup atm but am looking forward to making celeriac soup and broccoli n stilton.

green lentils parboiled (maybe 10 mins) then add rice for another 12 mins so all cooked enough with water absorbed and not too soggy. fry loads of onion and garlic and spread on top. never calculated the cost but a big saucepan feeds 4 and probably only costs £1-2. lebanese/greek dish. bargain and a meal of choice in this house not just to be frugal.

All of these are amazing.

But you cannot beat poached eggs on toast! Granary toast, loads of butter, soft poached eggs. Cup of tea. Heaven!

Or my dads cheese on toast - again, granary toast, butter, tomato purée then the cheese. Thin slice of red onion on top. Worcestershire Sauce. Tea again. English mustard on the side. Heaven again!

Ours is spicy pasta. 500g packet of pasta, aldi's spicy pepper and tomato sauce - cook the pasta, heat up the sauce and mix them together, you can chuck some ham in if you fancy it although we often have it without. The sauce is about 75p I think and the packet of pasta is about 45p and it will easily feed, me, dh, and 3 kids. Not bad for £1.20!

I buy dried soya mince from the health food shop and it goes a long way. I make a chilli with pasatta and loads of tins of beans, which can make a few different meals. I usually make a big batch and can make enchiladas, or serve with rice or jacket potato.
I also use everything up, my fridge is full of bits of leftovers usually made into a frittata and served with chips and salad.

Baked potatoes (cheese & beans)
Healthy Egg & Chips
'Homemade' pizza (Morries pizza mix 44p (I cannot make my own base, its a nightmare, but using this packet mix works for me lol), pouch passatta 48p, ball mozzerella 44p and anything random you like on it, I usually put frozen sweetcorn and a couple slices ham torn up, DH likes jalapinos (sp) on his half); I double what I buy and thats us and two kids nicely fed :)
Bangers, mash and beans - frozen sausages are actually ok

Macaroni peas:
awaytogarden.com/macaroni-peas-from-river-cottage-veg

Scrambled egg and egg friend vegetable rice are firm favourites for dinner too :)

we love sausage pasta bake a recent thing due to cutting back and when we have sausage and mash we only use decent sausages but for pasta bake we use the cheapo ones.

we buy the 12 for 98p from aldi and use 6 and freeze the other six.

cook the sausages and chopped them up into chunks
chop a large onion and cook with sausages
Boil a 500gm value pasta
(add any left over veg in fridge that needs using up as well if you wish such as mushrooms, courgette, peppers or tomatoes but not essential)

Have two cooking dishes and put half pasta and sausages/onions into each, add a tin of tomatoes to each (or aldi cheap jar pasta sauce)

grate small amount cheese and mix with some breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the top, bake for 30mins in oven

we find this makes two pasta bakes and does 2 adults and a toddler plus my lunch for the next day, we usually serve with some value garlic bread.