I thought I’d start a thread to pick up more ideas for feeding my family of 3 (me DH and DS3), to share my meals, and for some moral support with COL! I try to budget £300 a month on food and household items but it’s getting harder! DS eats lunches in nursery 4 days a week, DH and I eat at home most days or take a pack up.
Here are some of my go to meals, but I’d love ideas to give us more variety (it is quite pasta and bread based). I try to get one bigger meat item a week, like a roast chicken, ham, 1kg mince and create meals round that for a week with maybe one smaller piece of fish or meat for another day and then supplement with veggie meals.
breakfasts - almost always weetabix, porridge with banana, sometimes I’ll make eggless banana pancakes if I’ve got time.
lunch - cheese and pickle sandwiches, egg sandwiches, beans on toast, jacket potatoes, homemade soup, we don’t tend to eat ham as I prefer unprocessed meat, we will eat ham sandwiches if I’ve bought a ham from the butchers and roasted it. I make my bread in a breadmaker as supermarket isn’t particularly close and it’s so much nicer - takes 2 minutes and I can get a 16kg bag of flour for £20!
dinners
main dinners - roast chicken, I then make leftovers into a chicken curry and do a paneer curry and dhal alongside, with homemade naan (breadmaker) or rice. The curries do 3 days so I keep 2 days out and freeze 1. Or make a smaller chicken curry and a risotto.
ham with parsley sauce, left over ham is used in a ham, leek and potato pie, and a ham and pea pasta bake, we also like risi bisi.
mince - I make a big vat of bolognaise and then make chilli by adding kidney beans, lasagne, sometimes we will have the chilli with jacket potatoes. I also do mince and onions with dumplings and cottage pie or a mince and onion pie.
other meals for around £1-1.50 a portion.
aubergine pasta bake
homemade pizza
sausage pie
tuna pasta bake
home made gyozas
spinach and ricotta pasta
chicken and broccoli pasta (using 1 chicken breast).
macaroni cheese with fried onions
sausage and home made Yorkshire puds with baked beans
corned beef hash
fish pie with green beans (Using frozen fish mix).
cheese and tomato risotto
for snacks I tend to make them, home made Welsh cakes, bara brith, cookies, fairy cakes. I do one batch a week and when they’re gone they are gone. Also make my own yoghurt as DH bought me a yoghurt make for our anniversary about 5 years ago and it saves so much money and really easy to use (romance isn’t dead)!
if anyone wants recipes let me know, but I’d love extra ideas. I’m doing a curry tonight and can’t decide what to do about the rest of the week - meal planning is wearing
me down.