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Frugal meal planning!

56 replies

frugalfuzzpig · 02/01/2014 22:14

Hope nobody minds, but as a lot of the other savings/debt destroying/frugal threads have a lot about cutting food budgets it might be useful to have a separate dedicated chat thread to share ideas?

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bbcessex · 13/01/2014 13:43

I'm so glad I saw this thread.. it's been so useful, also because I am trying to provide 'healthier' food for the DC's, so putting thought into it has really helped. I've always given them home-cooked meals, but what I would call pseudo-healthy food before, like loads of bolognaise with pasta and cheese, homemade lasagnes etc.. 'wholesome' but not healthy when given loads in one sitting.

Two lots of batch meals made:

Chicken pot pie - leftover chicken from yesterday's roast (deliberately left over half - before, we would have eaten it all just out of habit). 1 tin sweetcorn, 2 x tins of Campbells soup, 2 x heads of steamed broccoli, some garlic & herbs chucked in. Simmered on low for a while. Put in to 3 oven dishes, topped with 2 sheets filo pastry each.

I think this will do 3 meals if served with more veg / wedges.
1 for this week, 2 for the freezer..

Mince & Lentil Shepherds Pie with Cauli Mash top:
3 x 500g packs lean steak mince, browned off, mixed with a tonne of red lentils, garlic, passata, onions, beef stock cubes, random herbs.
1 x bag of frozen mash from bottom recess of freezer! 1 x large cauliflower, steamed, mashed & mixed with cooked frozen mash, bit of parmesan thrown in.
Mince mixture put in 4 oven trays. Topped with the Cauliflower mash. 1 for this week, 3 ready for the freezer.

I'm sure I could do this cheaper if need be, but I am happy with the savings I'm making, plus the DC are really benefiting from less pasta / spuds to fill them up.

Glad I found this thread :-) have just moved Credit Cards to 0% balance transfer, will be upping the direct debit with savings made from reducing frivolous food consumption!

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FrugalFashionista · 11/01/2014 12:04

The slab of meat is still a mystery Shock but making a soup of back of the fridge/cupboard ingredients - potatoes, turnip, carrots, half an onion, half a bouillon cube, peppercorns, bay leaf, a pack of wieners (sliced) and some peas and parsley from the freezer. A breeze in a pressure cooker and a virtually free meal! Grin

I'm also a big fan of lentils and beans! And have leftover salmon in the fridge as well...

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bakingaddict · 11/01/2014 10:21

Buy meat joints when they are on offer and cut into portions. Pork joints are quite economical and you can do pulled pork, pork roast and a favorite in our house in pork escalopes. Cut the pork into thin slices and then coat in breadcrumbs, serve with new potatoes and salad

Homemade potato gnocchi, the stuff in the packet is horrid, is quite cheap to make and then you can use up bits of veg and cheese to make a gnocchi dish

I had some smoked salmon leftover from Christmas and made lovely salmon fishcakes last week. Served them with poached eggs and chips. You could use smoked salmon trimmings or substitute with a cheap white fish

If I have left-over meat from a roast dinner, normally beef or lamb, I usually bung it in with some veg and gravy and do a puff-pastry lid type pie. If you have left-over chicken it works best with leeks and bacon in a white sauce

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ohmymimi · 11/01/2014 09:57

festive Love your lentil idea. I've used kidney beans to bulk out casseroles. Green/brown
lentils are delicious with pasta (plus plenty of garlic and olive oil), no cheese required, either

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FrugalFashionista · 11/01/2014 08:03

Hi I'm usually active in S&B, but about to do an archaeological mission in my freezer and kitchen cupboards. The aim is to slowly empty them while eating tasty, healthy and fruit & veg rich meals.

Found an unidentifiable piece of meat Grin, let's see what it is when it thaws...

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TheOnlyMrsW · 10/01/2014 19:15

Our menu is starting from tonight, a mixture if freezer stuff & shop from Asda yesterday. I'm determined to make the most of it as the Asda shop was much more expensive than Aldi but our Aldi isn't open late and yesterday evening was the only time I had this week to go Hmm.

Friday - cheeseburger & salad
Saturday - chilli for lunch and picky tea
Sunday - slow cooked lamb shoulder
Monday - curry made with the leftover lamb
Tuesday - pasta
Wednesday - stuffed chicken breast
Thursday - fish gratin
Friday - I'm off to my friends so a night off hooray!

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bbcessex · 10/01/2014 07:08

Liver and bacon last night:

Cabbage: steamed savoy cabbage (aldi - 39p) then fried it with bits of bacon, onion & garlic
Liver: coated in flour, dried rosemary & dried sage - cooked in the George Foreman.

Kids and DH loved it (I don't eat liver so just had the cabbage and bacon which was yum)..

I was going to do mash but there was so much cabbage etc. that it didn't need it.

Approx £2.20 for the whole meal, and the meal was MASSIVE (and probably quite healthy, fat wise).

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Nahmate · 09/01/2014 23:25

Hi all!

I've de lurked to get better with food budgeting/meal planning.

I've spent the evening looking in cupboard's/freezer. I've managed to make a meal plan starting from Saturday. Couldn't believe how much I found..[Blush]

Sat: gammon (Dh's Christmas tip!) with new potatoes,Cabbage and carrots
sun: day off! At mils for dinner
mon: tagliatelle (sp?) with mushrooms/sweetcorn. Left over gammon with garlic bread (from freezer)
tues: jacket potatoes with cheese/beans/salad
Weds: homemade lamb burgers ( rolls,onions,herbs and mince from freezer)
Thurs:scrambled egg on toast/muffins
fri: toad in hole with mash and peas

As I said earlier I can't believe how much I found forgotten I had!. There's rarely left overs hrre dh and ds1 have massive appetites!

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eastmidlandsnightnanny · 09/01/2014 19:29

Rice
pasta
stock cubes
herbs
tinned tomato
beans
spaghetti hoops
rice pudding
gravy granules
stuffing mix
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
ketchup
bbq sauce
cereal
porridge oats
flour
sugar
icing sugar
raisins/sultanas
teabags

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frugalfuzzpig · 09/01/2014 18:11

Oh and does anyone have a list of essentials they always have in the cupboard/fridge/freezer? Trying to compile one so we can then plan a bit more effectively! It would also make it quicker to do our online shop if I have a regular list to add automatically.

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frugalfuzzpig · 09/01/2014 17:14

Amazingly omelettes went down well with both DCs - they cracked the eggs etc so felt very grown up. That's one thing I really want to increase - cooking with the DCs so they get more involved as it does seem to increase the likelihood of them trying stuff. We don't generally do any kitchen stuff with them as our kitchen is TINY (you can't even swing a hamster in it let alone a cat Wink) and I find it really stressful but I need to just get over myself and do it.

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Mum2Fergus · 08/01/2014 21:31

Marking place to read later Smile

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eastmidlandsnightnanny · 08/01/2014 19:18

Also u can freeze peppers we buy aldi ones when 69p n slice up n freeze n when not on offer the big value bag in asda n do the same

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eastmidlandsnightnanny · 08/01/2014 19:17

Good veggie meal is jacket potatoes with beans n cheese n side salad

One dish we find cheap is spicy sausage stew/casserole

12pk aldi sausages we use 10 n freeze 2 for sausage stuffing for a roast.

We chop each sausage into 4/5 n marinate in bbq sauce we use reggage reggage or nandos or asda bbq casserole sauce all spicy then we add passata onions carrots mushrooms peas n sometimes beans

cook on hob for 30mins n par boil 250gms diced potatoes with skins.

Take half casserole mix n set aside to freeze

other hall mix with potatoes n bung in oven for 30mins n serve with garlic bread - this does 2 adult dinners n 2 adult lunches ( serves 2 adults n 2 children for dinner )

If u had a dish u can freeze u could make up the other casserole with potatoes n then freeze we actually have some pyrex dishes with rubber lids so freeze alot in these then can defrost on side all day whip lid off n bung in oven

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northender · 08/01/2014 16:57

I'm in!
Don't know whether it'll help anyone but I'll post my meal plan for the next 7 days:
Today: "Mum's special rice" (passata, rice, any veg lying around, a spoonful of pesto, a bit of salami and the last of Sunday's roast chicken)
Thurs: Fish pie (using frozen fish fillets from aldi)
Fri: Scone dough base pizzas (everyone tops their own with home made tom sauce, veg and ham/salami)
Sat:Toad in the hole with onion gravy and veg
Sun: Roast beef (brisket cooked for about 3 hours in a pot with about half an inch of water), Yorkshires, veg and gravy
Mon: Leftover beef, potatoes and veg
Tues: Spag bol from the freezer (bulked out with lentils as all my mince dishes are now)

It's a bit heavy on the red meat but we had roast chicken on Sunday, leftover chicken curry Monday and soup last night so it balances out. Need to try to get more veggie meals in though.

fuzzpig will be interested to hear what you think of Jamie's book.

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frugalfuzzpig · 08/01/2014 15:42

How's everyone doing this week?

Have to admit I'm struggling for ideas.

I borrowed save with Jamie from the library though. Looking through it I'm not convinced it's particularly low budget Hmm but the info about freezing and storing and cuts of meat etc seem useful.

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dizhin79 · 06/01/2014 00:50

another vote for a girl called jack, her blog is brilliant and she's now a columnist for the guardian. In fact she wrote a blog about how not cheap the SWJ meals were!

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mamapants · 04/01/2014 21:08

There is a recipe for sprouts in River Cottage baby and toddler book that looks good. Basically just blanched sprouts with cheese sauce and breadcrumbs.

Also came across a veg curry recipe in slow cooker book today which uses sprouts sounds good. Fry a leek and garlic. Add mustard seeds, cumin, garam masala, turmeric. Then add 375 stock. Put in slow cooker with tin toms, sweet potato cubes, carrot cubes and tin coconut milk. Cook on low 4hrs. Add sprouts and tin chick peas 40 mins high. Either freeze now or add 155 spinach and coriander and serve.

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KandyBarr · 04/01/2014 20:27

I have just rescued a bag of sprouts and half a cabbage by braising the lot with bacon, shallots and garlic with a splash of orange juice and chicken stock. Freezes really well and perfect in January with sausages and mash.

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Kinect · 04/01/2014 19:34

You can freeze the hard stemmed herbs like thyme, rosemary, etc and sage, parsley & coriander & use straight from the freezer.

I try & buy frozen pureed garlic & ginger from supermarkets that sell asian produce. Not the teeny packs, but big packs, where the ginger / garlic is in big ice cube sizes.

For chilli, I keep a big tub, (old large nutella jar), of crushed chilli / seeds from a big bag in the asian store / supermarket aisle.

Yes you can freeze flavoured butter.

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frugalfuzzpig · 04/01/2014 18:12

I'm just wondering how to use my freezer to greater effect. We don't have much space for a lot of batch cooking but having seen references to freezing things like herbs I was wondering about freezing 'flavour mixes' for things like stir fry (ginger, garlic, chilli, spring onion)?

Does anyone do that sort of thing? I never buy things like fresh herbs because I don't use them often enough so they go manky. Whereas if I bought one knob of ginger, bulb of garlic, bunch of chillis, bags of herbs etc and did it all in one go it'd be worth the faff.

So would I freeze them in oil or on their own, or could I freeze say parsley/garlic butter?

Any ideas/wisdom please? :)

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ancientbuchanan · 03/01/2014 21:42

The old fashioned way is to bulk out with carbs, eg potatoes, yorkshire pud etc.

I too use lentils and carrots. Also, surprisingly, baked beans. In a stew they lose the baked bean taste and add fibre and protein. Ds has also used them in lasagne to great effect.

Boston baked beans are a very good cheap meal.

And I recently redid my student casserole of sausages, baked beans, kidney bins, tinned tomatoes. Sausages cut up. With grated cheese on top and a salad, boys enjoyed it. Cost, minimal.

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Mum2Fergus · 03/01/2014 21:23

Mix sprouts n lardons with some mash potato for a bubbles squeak type dish?

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Lesshastemorespeed · 03/01/2014 21:20

still mulling over what to have with sprouts n lardons (suggestions please, sorry if I've missed any).

tonight we had spaghetti with homemade sauce (tin of toms, garlic, red onion), left over sausages, cheese, garlic bread and salad.

I gave half portions of pasta compared to what we usually have. No complaints and no waste either.

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mrspolkadotty · 03/01/2014 13:32

Thanks! I'll put these on the menu plan for next week as i've got lots of Christmas ham leftovers in the freezer Smile

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