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?

[TheOnlyMrsW]

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 .

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!

[FrugalFashionista]

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 , let's see what it is when it thaws...

[ohmymimi]

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

[bakingaddict]

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

[FrugalFashionista]

The slab of meat is still a mystery 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!

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

[bbcessex]

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!