Frugal meal planning!

[frugalfuzzpig]

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?

I'm trying to make some treaty foods. I always kid myself I won't get them and then end up stopping at m&s or somewhere equally expensive to buy them and obviously and up spending more! I'm trying pizza, flapjacks, banana and chocolate chip loaf, cakes. I'm l

Oops! I'm looking through recipie books and online for more ideas!

I need to do that too Ellie. I am absolutely shit at baking but really want to try to learn basic stuff (it's a bit complicated as DH is a coeliac so some things are just for me and DCs)

Also want to try bread more often - I'll keep getting wholemeal bread for toast etc (kept in the freezer as we don't eat much) but I'd love to make the odd seeded roll etc.

I do buy some treats as well but now we are having a strict food budget it will ALL be accounted for and I think that'll help stop me going overboard. I have learnt over the last year to buy less though, by buying nicer things, eg I'd rather buy a little something from thorntons (or hotel chocolat if we had one!) than a big bar of cadburys for the same price. Same with ice cream - I am amazed how long my Ben and Jerry's has lasted (I get it on half price) because I only need a small amount.

That doesn't make me sound very frugal does it but I'm definitely saving money compared to before!

What I need to cut out is the buying stuff to eat on the way through the mall (I work in the town centre)

Frugalfuzzpig how long would you bake the ham and egg things for? DH would love these and it'd be a good way of using less meat for a meal.

They took about 25 mins I think - I was surprised they took so long tbh as I've not tried eggs in the oven before.

I'm wondering about trying a cauliflower cheese in the same way, in a muffin tin lined with ham?

You've reminded me though now that we are using bigger cuts of meat to keep for leftovers, I'd like to try to remember to use the oven for two things at once to save on power and time.

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

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.

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

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.

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? :)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 but the info about freezing and storing and cuts of meat etc seem useful.

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.

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

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

Marking place to read later

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 ) and I find it really stressful but I need to just get over myself and do it.

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.

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

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!

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).