If you had £20 to feed a family of four, for a week (10 meals), what would you make?

[LaChatte]

Two adults, one pre-teen with a moderate appetite and one 5yo who doesn't eat much.

How would you go about it? Everything else has been paid for, so it really is just to buy food with, and I'm trying to meal plan but lacking cheap ideas!

No meat or fish intake is required, as 4 days a week we all have a full lunchtime meal at work/school (already paid for). We have store cupboard basics (seasoning etc.).

A huge pot of soup based on aldi super 6. This week broccoli and celery are on so broccoli soup - maybe with a sprinkling of crispy bacon bits ( small pack of the cheapest bacon slowly fried and crumbled) so onions 69p, broccoli 2x39p bit of a celery from a 69p packand a couple of spuds to thicken , stock cubes from the cupboard and a loaf of nice aldi bread 99p plus some of a approx £1 pack of bacon - max £4 for at least 8 poptions.

Celery soup - 69p celery, some of the onions and a spud plus indulgent 69p cream (but you'd only need half a pot max) and more bread - that's another 4 portions for around £2.

Pasta and pesto is cheap, or home made sauces as above ( ir us you are working from my list chop the left over bacon, fry with onions / celery / any other veg leftovers - fresh ir frozen, herbs and a couple of tins tomatoes. That's almost free except the toms as its all remainders from the rest.

Heck youd be able to splash out of a bit of cheese to top it too.

Puddings- what ever fruit is on offer - aldi usually have something at around £1/ bag and value yoghurts are good.

So that's 3 soup days and 1-2 pasta days ( if you have time/ energy maybe make the pasta into a pasta bake - 500g pasta plus a generous amount sauce will make a huge bake - much better than serving it straight somehow) and you are done for main meals.

Breakfast got to be porridge , absolutely the cheapest thing . I actually like it best with water but as ive spent less than £20 on main meals you can have milk for it and even golden syrup.

If you don't fancy soup the. The same super 6 veg cooked with onions , a tin of toms, curry paste and lots of red lentils will make a yummy dhal - a bag of lentils and a bag of value rice go a long way ( add a tin of kidney beans or chick peas for excitement!).

I think part of the budget secret is my secret to surviving as a home cooking working mum- there is nothing wrong with having the same meal several days running or alternate days. I make 2 big pots of something on a Sunday and thry, with maybe a bean / egg based meal will see 5 of us through the week ( and are very amenable to teenagers who aren't home For family meal times )

You have a great store cupboard, you'll be fine!

What can you source cheap locally ? Suppose it's the wrong season for farms to be chucking miss shaped veg at passers by from the farm gate, or memorably as we did on a gite holiday, to acquire a large quantity of quails eggs for nothing with a Gallic shrug and " they too big, too small. Not wanted"

It's a pity no meat / fish required, as if you bought a magic mumsnet chicken, you'd be feeding 5,000 for twice as many days.

Not much going cheap locally in the way of fruit and veg. I'm planting seeds this weekend for our garden (cherry tomatoes, aubergines and peppers), but they obviously won't be ready until the summer!

Lots of great ideas here, do you think I can make lentil soup with a mixture of lentils?
I'l going to buy some big potatoes to do as jackets. I also need to buy some fruit, but we're going to have to cut back there too (we usually get through about 3kg of apples, 10 bananas and god knows how many satsumas a week). I hadn't thought about tinned fruit, I assume it's cheaper than fresh (I only recenty realised frozen veg works out cheaper than fresh).

Ooh, I can feed 5000 on a single chicken for a year? Brilliant! I must have missed that thread!

I'm going to make a batch of American pancakes to freeze, that will make a difference from the monotony of porridge! I didn't include breakfast in my 30 meals, I hadn't even really thought about it, I've told DS he's going to have to curb his cereal habit as I've just worked out how much it's costing

• Boston baked beans (uses onions, beans and tomatoes; requires seasoning, good on a jacket potato)
• Quiche Lorraine with beans on side (uses the bacon and eggs; requires pastry)
• Vegetable Korma (uses rice, carrots and some of you frozen veg; requires cream or coconut milk and curry powder)
• broccoli pasta
• Pesto and Creme fraiche can be very nice in a jacket potato if you get tired of pesto pasta
• use the mixed lentils in a mixed lentil and vegetable soup with carrots, onions and potato

1. Carbonara pasta
2. Cauliflower cheese and rice
3. Houmous with carrots and peppers
4. Fish fingers, peas and disgusting mashed potato
5. Fish fingers, oven chips & flat beans
6. Omelette
7. Lentil soup
8. Jacket potatoes & baked beans
9. Pasta & pesto

10. Pasta & pesto 11. Pasta & pesto 12. Pasta & pesto 13. Mixed veg soup 14. Rice and veg curry 15. Cowboy stew

I can squeeze in all those meals (using what we've already got) plus fruit, for about £10.

zzzzz I absolutely have to have spanish omelette at some point next week!
That sounds utterly divine.

I make felafel as my go-to veggie meal for DD (we live in France too so veggie options are thin on the ground.). Tin of chickpeas, a chopped onion, some parsley, some spices, a spoon of flour, whizz in food processor and then shape into patties and coat with a little flour. Takes just a few mins and I reckon they are about 50 centimes a portion.

Have you seen Jack Monroe's blog? It's chock full of recipes you can make for pennies. I love her bean burgers.

agirlcalledjack.com/category/recipes-food/

I have done this recently and just shopped on a daily basis and bought the last offers.
So on monday bought for monday and tuesday.
veg on offer bought on bb date will keep for next couple of days.
Meat will be ok the next day.
i just cooked meals with what I found and it cost about £15 or so.

lachatte you can use your 'disgusting' instant mashed potato to cook with. I use it to make gnocchi, potato bread (those triangle things that you have with fry ups), bubble and squeak, fish cakes, etc. It tastes fine when you mix it with other things.
Here is a recipe if anyone is interested. It's so cheap! www.thriftylesley.com/gnocchi-made-dried-mash-15p-a-serving/
I added a bit of spinach to mine as well, they came out really well.
Lots of other cheap recipes on that blog, as well.

I think it's probably going to be gross even disguised! I've bought instant mash before and it's been fine, just this stuff is properly horrible. I'll give it a go though.

In that case I'd save it as my last option.
I can remember a few years ago when I was really skint I had a box of findus cod in parsley sauce in my freezer. It just didn't look appetising at all.I was really dreading having to eat it but I was always able to come up with something else.

bean cheese and rice burritos are filling and good

buy some beans or seeds to sprout for salads and sandwiches, cheap source of veg.

We used to buy chicken when we were poor, I would roast it one day and we would have a roast dinner, then we would use the trimmings for another meal and then use it for stock for veggie soup and I could usually get a small amount to add to cheese toasties or sarnies as well so that one chicken would be in four meals.

Cream of tomato soup with toast is one my kids used to love. Canned tomatoes in the blender with some herbs, S&P and a little bit of cream. Then heat in microwave. Cheap as chips and very quick and easy.

I also buy a pack of bacon or sausages and use them as a condiment rather than the main star. This way they last a long time but make the food tastier.

One sausage cooked and crumbled and added to red cabbage and apple (one cabbage and one apple and some vinegar and fat) makes it less of a side dish and more of a main.

Two strips of bacon chopped up will flavour a whole pan of tomato sauce for pasta or a pot of veggie soup.

Jackets with beans and salad are good.

Using mince and lentils to bulk you can make chilli con carne and burritos.

Can you make soup with cauliflower leaves? I'm just making the cauliflower cheese for tomorrow night and it seems like a waste to chuck all the leaves away.

Lachatte
If you buy tinned fruit in own juice it's much healthier. Also think better to get veg in then fruit. Frozen veg is perfect.

If your stuck you can add a little bit of water to carton of milk and you won't notice.

yes - you can use the cauliflower leaves OK, they will be fine in soup or curry - you can also make the pesto go a lot further by adding a bit more oil to it. If you can get cheap pasta sauce or canned tomatoes you can make baguette pizzas with what you have in stock already. The instant mash can be used to thicken soups, stews and curries.

I don't know where in France you are - but the wild garlic and nettles are coming out now here in my bit of the UK - and yes I know it's a mumsnet cliche and all that - but I LOVE nettle soup (cross with myself that I waited so long before trying it). Nettle tops, potato, onion and seasoning. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2137636/nettle-soup

good luck!

I think you can use all the cauliflower (including all the stalk). Thats what I do with broccoli now, one small head of broccoli (about 49p) makes about 8 portions of veg.

I second the value sausages as meatballs!

I get 8 sausages and use 4 to make meatballs and I make a sauce with tinned tomatoes, basil, garlic and salt and blend it with my hand blender, fry the sausage meatballs and add the sauce and leave for about 20 mins and serve with value spaghetti, this feeds me, my husband, his uncle and my baby son.

Another cheap dinner is pasta with pesto and a cheap frozen pizza on offer with a 50p hothouse lettuce, I have the leftover pasta for lunch at work the next day.

I agree that if you have an ok spice cupboard lentils are great, I have found though that I can make equally nice Daal using chicken stock cubes, red lentils, onions and curry powder. It's basic but really comforting.

I always buy the cheapest cuts of meat and manage to get good results from them by cooking them right, I always buy skinless boneless chicken thighs but really chicken for us is a bit of a luxury.