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.).

Chicken is very cheep at the moment thanks to all the crap in the news about the risk of food poisoning ( all is fine if you cook it properly ), I picked up a huge chicken for just under £3 at Morrisons yesterday, the is will feed us ( and a bit for the dogs ) for 2 nights and could easily make soup with the bones, also worth buying them to portion out as it's cheaper than buying individual breasts and legs.

I also raid the 'almost out of date' section in supermarkets, a lot of things can be put in the freezer.

This should use up a baguette or two. Its a brilliant dish.
I would think you can juggle about with the ingredients according to what you have, and its a doddle to prep and cook!

Nigellas Three Cheese Strata

Call your bank. It will have been taken under the Direct Debit, so you have the Direct Debit Guarantee on your side. It works like credit cards - any nonsense from a company becomes the bank's problem to solve for you. We had idiocy from Talk Talk a few years ago (we moved house and transferred the line to the new owners, successfully. This meant that they wouldn't talk to us because of data protection, despite the fact that they were still taking the £ from our account as they had never updated that! And we couldn't persuade them that the emails they sent us, with all the info on the new people's phone calls, were perhaps a rather bigger breach! Our bank took it up and got the info altered and all the money back very fast).

I strongly suggest Yorkshire pudding - filling and feels quite decadent.

What about loads of veggies (I got a bag of veggies for 70p - swede, onion, leek, carrot, some other bits), chuck a tin of tomatoes, bit of herbs and stock in a pan, simmer for aaaaages and then throw some pearl barley / lentils in and a bit of bacon etc if you have it (I used some pulled pork which needed eating). This did DH and I 8 meals (when we got a bit bored, I added spices and we ate it with tortillas as fajitas) - it's thick enough to be either a thick soup or a stew and so deliciously filling.

Pauper's tea - pasta with butter, garlic and a sprinkling of cheese.

What about flavoured rice (stir in some of the veggie stuff above) stuffed into roasted peppers?

1. agirlcalledjack.com/2014/11/13/minestrone-soup-19p/ with toast
2. agirlcalledjack.com/2014/01/31/smoked-mackerel-kedgeree-89p/
3. www.netmums.com/recipes/lentil-spaghetti-bolognese
4. agirlcalledjack.com/2014/05/13/mixed-bean-goulash/ don't rinse the beans 5)pizza - using pitta, make a basic tomato sauce, mozzarella, frozen spinach. The better your tomato sauce the better this will be. All sainburys basics range, bar the mozzarella. The rest spend on a gammon to cook for sandwiches, cheese, bread, long life milk and frozen vege.

Bacon spaghetti is a great cheap meal.

2x rashers of bacon (freeze the rest), cut up into bacon 'dust' - rinds as well as it adds flavour.

Cook that off slowly (I don't add oil) with as many onions as your family will eat, diced finely.

Add oregano - or Italian herbs, and lots of black pepper once onions are soft.
Add 1/2 tube of tomato puree.
Use this as a stir in sauce for a packet of spaghetti.

It's really tasty and my fussy eater daughter eats it, you can add any veg, garlic, hard cheese, tinned toms, pulses (if you have them) you want also (I add peppers quite often but they are ££).

Serve with basics garlic bread. It's lush :)

Mince should do 2-3 meals easy, bulk out with tomatoes and veg. Whole chicken: roast on day 1. Chicken pie on day 2 and make soup from the rest.

Oh and cheapest meal ever carbonara! Pasta, 2 eggs, bit of cheese and some cheap cooking bacon.

Oh honey, been there, done that!
The most basic soup, stew, casserole etc as long as it's well seasoned, is made into a gourmet feast with the addition of home made bread - This is my no fail go to bread recipe ANYONE can make and it will easily feed 4. BTW from 1 bag of 90p bread flour you can make 6 of these loaves. Plus lidl sell 2 sachets of yeast for pence which mill make 4 loaves.

250g white bread flour
4g or half a teaspoon of quick yeast
175g warm water
5g salt

mix yeast and water a bit, add flour and salt and mix together until you have a smooth dough with no floury lumps. Cover with an old carrier and leave to rise at room temp for 1-2 hours (or in the fridge overnight). Once risen scoop out the dough and shape into a round shape or plop into a greased 1lb loaf tin. Preheat oven to 200c (180c fan) and allow you loaf to rise for as long as it takes your oven to come up to temp (or about half an hour). Bake for 40 - 50 mins. For variety you can add spices, seeds, herbs, dried fruit, cheese, anything you may have in your store cupboard. Hope this helps.

Find out what day your supermarket's bargain shelf is filled. I am amazed at the stuff that is less than half price but most of which could be frozen on the day !

Large chickens for 2.50 mince, sausages etc... Thurs morning seems to be the best time when its full and not been picked over for some reason?

I add lots of chopped carrots and basics peppers to bolognaise to bulk it out, usually get 2 days out of it. Or carrots and parsnips and frozen peas to mince for shephards pie.

We don't like cauliflower soup but do like cauliflower cheese. I just trim the really rough bits off and use the whole thing.

A cheap tin of tuna with finely chopped pepper and or onion if you have it made into fish cakes will deal with some of the evil spud powder.

lidl's fresh bread is, for the price [I think say 85p a loaf] fantastic.

say a loaf of that and, if your £20 limit allows you to on top run down stocks of stuff like olive oil & whatnot, a bag of these would allow you all to have a decent meal of onion soup & bread for about £1.

www.lidl.co.uk/en/1970.htm?action=showDetail&id=21640

rather than averaging it all out at say £2 a meal I'd definitely be looking to have some meals for more like a quid [say beans on toast for all] & then some for more like £3 [say with a little bit of cheap meat or whatever].

Veg stew! Base of onion and potatoes, add other veg you like, stock, then dumplings on top. When you serve put a dab of butter on top of the dumplings. So delicious, easy and cheap.

All of the above. Buy fro Lidle/aldi and saver lines. Spuds/beans/porridge/ flour/eggs/onions/cabbage/spring greens. Avoid 'flown in' veg. Use tinned fish. Very healthy. Good luck.

My mu always bulked out mince with porridge oats so a 450g pack lasts for 2 meals. You can't tell.

Some brilliant ideas people, thank you! DH is going to speak to Orange tomorrow, the guy who came out definitely said we wouldn't be charged as it was their fault., but I seriously doubt we'll get a refund until next month.

I've worked out a shopping list for tomorrow for the week which comes in at €20 (new adjusted budget).

We are going to bulk out chilli with lentils and batch cook to freeze.

Next week I'm actually not going to be at home, so that will mean a little less food to provide.

Can use up some mash in blinis?
www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/potato-cakes-with-smoked-salmon-recipe.html

Disgusting instant mashed potato is perfect for two things, fishcakes ( no, you don't need to deep fry them, you can either fry or bake) and potato scones. You can have the latter with poached eggs and then honey/jam for s high tea. Clings to children's ribs, like pancakes. And you don't need much fish for fish cakes.

Proper Boston beans are great. Again, make enough for two meals. If you don't want to buy treacle brown sugar will do.

Multi bean chilli is excellent. The beans will give you protein. You don't need meat. With rice and some eg economy frozen peas you have s well balanced meal. Same concept as curry.

1. pasta, soft cheese spinach and mushrooms. Total £3.70 in asda - can add chicken
2. jacket potato cheese n beans n poss tuna £5
3. chicken soup (last 2 days), carrots, celery, onion and stock cube. Chicken soup (buy a cooked chicken at end of the day so reduced). £5.50
4. rice (u already have), carrots (bought with second meal), coriander, refried beans, garlic, sweetcorn. - £4
5. tuna pasta - already have the tuna and the pasta. Add sweetcorn already have, and mayonnaise xx

Do you have a convenience version of a supermarket close by? These tend to have better reductions at the end of the day.

I work in a small co-op where we have certain fruit and veg at 59p a pack. We've been sent loads more than we'll ever sell so when that day's reductions have been done we've been left with huge amounts of veg at just 15p a pack. Today I had packs of 4 baking potatoes, carrot batons, button mushrooms and kiwi fruits left over. All just 15p.

ooh cheg your no.1 has given me a craving!

Blimey, that's not a lot! I admire you if you can manage that. My wife and I spend more than that on our fags a day.....

Get yourself over to jack monroe's blog if no one has already suggested it.

When I was living on £10 a week I used to 'invest' in jalapenos and wholegrain mustard. Both can really transform a meal and make it taste more luxurious. Chorizo is similar - expensive but a tiny bit makes a big difference. We also found meals with a little kick of chilli were more satisfying.

The mustard could really help the disgusting mash along, maybe with some onion?

Great tips here. We do the bacon as seasoning thing. A pack lasts for ages and livens up pasta dishes, risotto, tray bakes, all sorts.
You mentioned tinned fruit - go and look for the cheapest value varieties and you can get this very cheaply. Works well on its own, with value natural yoghurt, or in a crumble type thing using porridge oats

Finally, porridge feels luxurious with either a little cream added or honey. Get a cheap tub of each and you'll be a lot happier on a porridge diet. You don't need much of either.