People with 'average' families who spend £60 - £80 a week on food and meal plan ......

[pollycazalet]

......would you mind sharing your plans? Particularly if you don't eat meat!

I am really struggling to get the costs of the supermarket shop down and I need to.

Work full time so have real problems going to multiple shops (eg Aldi, Lidl, poundshop, local markets).

I only shop at Sainsburys and manage to keep to £70 a week for two adults and two children (including nappies for the youngest and pull ups for night-times for the eldest) and it covers all the meals as I make packed lunches. We eat very little meat (I don't eat any at all). I have to admit that I get bored sometimes with the food that we eat and have a blow-out week with watercress and avocado salad and nice wine. :) Other weeks I go super frugal and we spend £50 to make up.

My tips:
Eat baked potatoes with baked beans and cheese once a week, every week.
Swap as many "ingredient" products for the basic ranges as you can (peanut butter, honey, peppers, orange juice, blocks of butter, tinned tomatoes, tinned kidney beans, parmesan etc.).
You can swap out cottage cheese for ricotta too, when used in cooking. If you have the time you can sieve it to make it more realistic, but I don't bother.
Swap out as many fresh veg for frozen that you can stand.

What sort of stuff do you like eating?

I have recipes for risotto primavera, Normandy potatoes (a gratin thing), and chickpea curry. I also make soups for dinner with Basic part-baked bread, so that it feels like a treat. This is also yummy and cheap -
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1364/spicy-root-and-lentil-casserole

I can happily survive on 'student food' Mrs T - love lentils, pulses etc and could live on veggie stews and soups but my kids are far more fussy (specifically DS 11). We already have baked potatoes once a week as it's one of his favourites! He might go for chickpea curry tho.

We don't eat meat at all at home although we do eat fish.

Two meals that are super cheap are home made pizza and potato bake. I got the potato bake recipe from this book www.amazon.co.uk/Paupers-Cookbook-Jocasta-Innes/dp/0711222401
and it goes roughly like this:

Slice one large potato per person plus one for the pot, and layer in casserole dish with one or two sliced onions and some chopped bacon. Make white sauce, with or without cheese and add half sauce halfway though layering, then add rest at the end. Cook for 1 hour with lid and 30 mins without. Surprisingly gorgeous!

I see you don't eat meat, but i think this recipe would probably be good with smoked mackerel. I'm going to try it next week anyway!

Potato recipe as requested:
1lb potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 oz butter and 1 tbsp oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 dried chilli (optional)
1 oz flour
1 pint milk (warm)
black pepper to season
1oz parmesan cheese
3oz cheddar cheese

Boil the potatoes until tender (takes no time at all as they are so thinly sliced). Fry the onions in the butter and oil until soft, add the chilli if using and cook another 2 mins. Add the flour and stir until well absorbed. Pour in the milk slowly, stirring continuously. Season with pepper and the parmesan. This should now be a lovely oniony sauce. Add the potatoes, mix well and cook for 3-4 minutes. Pour into a dish and top with cheddar. Bake for about 20 minutes at 200degC.

This amount will serve two hungry adults and two children if served with a vegetable. I usually do cabbage, but frozen peas would work too.

I'd forgotten about home-made pizza! It's something that I do as a fun activity with the children at weekends sometimes. They really like kneading the bread dough. I also make a lasagne with tomato sauce (made with Basics tinned tomatoes) and spinach sauce (frozen spinach, thawed, with cottage cheese, nutmeg and black pepper). I top it with a simple cheese sauce made with cheddar.

I tend to spend around £50 for a family of 5. I make things such as ..

Macaroni cheese with peas, sweetcorn & gammon through it

Fruity pork served with rice

Roast chicken & veg & potatoes

Leftover chicken from roast made into soup, then a pudding (kids love soup & pudding night!)

Ricotta & spinach canneloni

Sticky sausage tortilla wraps & salad

Pork stroganoff

Plus the usual bolognaise/lasagne/fish pie.

We never make pizza - will try that.

Potato dishes look good (and similar...)

HowToLook, is that £50 for everything or purely food?

Either way its really good. We are a family of five vegetarians and I never seem to get our shop under £85 a week these days. Mind you ds1 is gluten free and the gf bread and porridge etc costs an arm and a leg and he doesn't eat potatoes either, which kind of limits meal options.

I would love to shave at least £15 a week off that if not a bit more really.

Sorry to hijack OP.

I buy the 3 meat packs for £10, always include a whole chicken which stretches to 2 meals. The side veg we have is whatever is on special in Morrisons (quite often do veg deals for 30/50p a pack). I use Home Bargains for all condiments, snacks etc We only eat pudding once a week. I keep a stocked larder, which has taken a couple of years, but it means you rarely have to add those annoying ingredients like wine vinegar/soy sauce/various spices because I already have them in. I grow my own herbs. It all helps :)

Get the huge bags of rice. These are often in the ethnic foods section of supermarkets, rather than the rice section. A risotto type dish with onions & veg chopped in is so easy to do & very cheap.

Use lentils - these are really filling & cheap.

Pearl Barley is another great ingredient to pad out soups & stews.

Frozen veg can work out cheaper than fresh veg & you never have to throw any of it away.

Moosemana - Have a look at the Gluten free recipes on www.elanaspantry.com. They are so much nicer than any of the gluten free foods you can buy in the shops & will be cheaper too.

Sweet and sour sauce - just mix honey and vinegar and water and flour. Costs about 2p where a jar costs £2

Peanut stirfry sauce - peanut butter, sesame oil, soy sauce, water

Good side dish is a butternut squash, just need to slice it up and stick it in the oven, costs £1

It's obvious but bulk buy stuff when it's on cheap, we have about 1 million tins of tuna in the cupboard atm

You can freeze cheese! Cheese is often down to about 50p from £3 for a massive block in my co-op so I buy loads and freeze it.

Do you shop online? I find that that stops me buying shit I don't need and if you use mysupermarket.com you can find out what's on offer.

Thanks, HowToLookGood. We only do puddings on a Sunday as well. We don't have a Home Bargains, or Wilkos or anything like that round here unfortunately. I used to love going to Wilkos for bargains before we moved here. Condiments all have to be gluten free, which usually at least doubles the price.

PostBellum, Thanks for the link. We only buy gf pasta, bread and condiments really, as I tend to cook from scratch, so new recipes are always welcome.

I do shop online, only pick the cheapest delivery slots and spend hours working out what the cheapest deals are - comparing cost per kg etc. I tend to bulk buy things like tinned tomatoes when they're on offer, but we're very limited on space for storing food.

Dh and I use to love adding barley etc to soups and stews to bulk them out, but we can't do it anymore because they're not gf. We do add lentils to lots of things though.

Our standard meal round looks like this:

Pasta with home made veg and tomato sauce

Vegetable risotto - various combinations of veg

Cauliflower and broccoli cheese

Various veggie soups

Root vegetable stews

Various Lentil and veg bakes

Quesadillas or Fajitas with home made salsa, using spices from home rather than a mix

The dcs' favourite is macaroni cheese, but I limit that to once every couple of months as cheese is so expensive. (We get the Co-op cheese deals as when when they're on, but the freezer's always full of blooming gf bread. )

We do home-made pizza about once a month

Dh and I eat baked potatoes regularly when the dcs have pasta etc
Roast veggie dinner and pud on a Sunday

We all eat porridge and fruit for breakfast every day. Ds1's gf stuff is expensive, but the rest of us have bulk bought cheapo oats. So no expensive cereal etc.

I will also admit to keeping a bag of oven chips and some veggie burgers in the freezer, as I have health problems that means occasionally I am just not up to cooking and we need a quick, easy option.

We did do Aldi for the main shop and then Tesco just for the GF stuff for a few weeks, but only made a tiny saving.

When I look at a lot of the advice on threads about cutting the cost of shopping, I tend to think I am already doing as much of it as I can. Maybe I'm kidding myself, because I must be going wrong somewhere.

I do think a blooming great chest freezer would make a huge difference, but we have nowhere to put one - no garage, tiny house with tiny kitchen.

Home made veggie soup but with yorkshire puddings to dunk instead of bread.

great to read about other veggie families... i would love to lower our food bill, it seems huge alot of the time, i have been trying a fortnightly shop (normally around 120) and then picking up 'bits and bobs' eg extra fruits, veg, bread etc in between, so not sure what it all comes to.

our meals look abit like this...

=spaghetty with homemade tomato, hidden veg, mascapone sauce or homemade tomato sweetcorn olive sauce a new favourite

=vegetable lentil stew with dumplings

=homemade soups - sweet pot or squash and carrot plus afew lentils
- parsnip and apple
- green soup (any veg in season... plus afew spuds)

=baked pots with baked beans and cheese ;)

=baked pots with homemade ratatouille and beans

=nut patties with roast pots, peas, sweetcorn, other veggies etc

=salad plates -avocado slices, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, cheese, apple, afew cashews, potato salad, egg mayo etc

=cheap bought pizzas with extra mozarrella olives tomato purees thrown on top

=grownup food - miso soups, tom yums, stirfries, curries and dals,

this week have made a frittata (very unpopular :( ) and a bean lasagne for tomorrow night.... but could really do with a few extra meals in my whizz-it-together-in-a-flash repetoire!!!

will watch this thread with interest.....

Mash potatoes and put in a casserole dish. Whip up two eggs with some milk and make a 'well' in the middle of the mash.

Pour the egg mix into the well. Put into the oven for fifteen minutes with the lid on and sprinkle grated cheese on the top then bake for another fifteen minutes with the lid off.

Cheap and filling. I also add veg to the mash. Spinach is great but so is carrot, cabbage etc.

Masuki, frittata is really unpopular with my dcs as well. Dh and I love it, so we tend to have it on one of their pasta nights.

I'm keen to have a go at a few nut roasts, but despite being veggies there are very few nuts they'll eat without complaining. They don't want to eat meat though, so things like beans, nuts and lentils are non-negotiable really.

Mine all love risotto, especially if I let them have grated cheddar on top.

Ds1 has ASD and really can't eat certain foods for sensory reasons, ie he can't stand the feel of them in his mouth, although in some cases its the smell rather than the texture. His list includes potato, peas, sweetcorn, baked beans and avocado, peanuts. He has also flatly refused to eat omelette ever since dh snuck some potato into one, before that he loved them - I warned dh that would happen. He has just recently started to eat roast potatoes and chips, so at least that's something - I don't think he'll ever manage mashed potato though, which means I can't do thinks like shepherdess pie, or cheese and potato pie. It also means he won't partake of lovely bubble and squeak on a Monday. He really can't cope with change, so would be happy to eat an endless rota of pasta, macaroni cheese, risotto and homemade pizza if we'd let him!

Its a bit of a nightmare really, but I refuse to cook two separate meals every night, so have to work round his dietary problems (gf on Paediatrican and Dietician's say so) and sensory issues, whilst trying to find enough meals that we can all eat and enjoy without everyone else getting bored.

My target budget at Tesco's is £75 a week, and that's normally enough. This is for two adults and one toddler, and includes all toiletries, nappies, household items etc. We love to cook so it's not exactly basic food that gets ordered, but what helps is this:

• Cheapest brands for stuff where it doesn't matter.
• Cook for multiple days - somehow it always works out cheaper. Small left over portions get frozen for DD's lunches.
• Build your meal plan around the offers available, so you always start with cheap meat.
• Invest in a few basic herb plants for the garden (parsley, rosemary, thyme) - good for flavour and saves buying those ultra-expensive small packages of fresh herbs.

And be ruthless in removing anything from your shopping list that you don't really need - I shop online and normally remove at least 2-3 impulse buys from the basket before checking out.

This thread is great! Would you all mind sharing your lentil recipes please? Being veggie I should eat a lot more of these, but never know what to do with them!

Many thanks,

Liz

I just tried another great recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly "Everyday Student Cooking" which I bought for about £8 years ago. I love it. This recipe was for "Morrocan Chicken" but you could substitute Quorn for the meat. I was vegetarian for several years, but am anemic at the best of times and went back to meat before I became pregnant. We do eat vegetarian 3 days a week.

Anyway:

Moroccan Chicken with Couscous

Prep time 10 minutes, cooking time 10 minutes, serves 4

1/2 cup (125ml) vegetable stock
3/4 cup (150g) couscous
1 small red onion, sliced thinly
1 1/2 cups (240g) shredded cooked chicken
1/4 cup (35g) chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup (40g) sultanas
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 cup (125ml) bottled fat-free French dressing

I cook chicken breasts under the grill while I make up the stock and then pour it onto the couscous. After 5 minutes, fluff the couscous with a fork. The recipe says to chop up the onion and add to the couscous, but that's too crunchy for my toddler, so I saute the onion in a little oil with the cumin seeds and pine nuts while waiting for the chicken to cook. Chop apricots and add with sultanas and mint to the couscous.

When the onion is clear and soft, add that mixture to the couscous. Chop chicken finely and add to the couscous. Drizzle the dressing all over, fluffing with a fork as you go. I made this for dinner tonight and we didn't have mint in it or pine nuts, but it was great and my toddler ate it - probably the sultanas did the trick!

LizinFrance The book I just mentioned, the Australian Women's Weekly "Everyday Student Cooking" has great meals with lentils, falafal, couscous and potatoes (as well as meat meals). I plan the whole month's cooking in advance before venturing forth to the farmers' market and supermarket, online shopping, etc and I find I am making more and more of the recipes from this book. Great for all kinds of meals, on a budget, and they all have a good flavour (not boring because they are veggie or cheap).

I think I need more hobbies or to get out more, but here is what I do:

A few days before the end of the month, I make a list of what meat, fruit, veg, we have in the freezer, and what pasta, rice, dried foods, tins, etc we have in the cupboards. I think meal plan as much as I can for the following month for what we have in stock. I just use an A4 piece of paper with lines drawn for 28 days. Then I fill in the blank days with favourite recipes, and ones I've wanted to try awhile.. I keep a stack of 7 or 8 books beside the computer. I create a shopping list as I go, for the ingredients I'll need for those recipes, this is helped if you do your online shopping at the same time. I also put the things in that don't feature in the meals such as toiletries, loo roll, washing powder and so on (and random snack food like bagels). I make a note of what things from the shopping list I will get from the Farmer's market and keep that on the fridge where I'll not forget to actually take it with me.

It only takes about 3 hours to plan the entire month's meals, do the online shopping (we only order once a month), work out what we'll need from the Farmer's market. We've gone from spending £300 a month on shopping to about £170-£180. (And that includes partner's lunches for work, no additional money for that - he takes leftovers).

I ring the changes in where I shop so Aldi sometimes, Asda and then Tesco and Sainbury - only 1 a week through -
baked pots once a week here too
pasta and tuna is another good one - tuna, olive oil, lots of black pepper and cheese
DCs have scrambled eggs and we have frittata - with tinned new pots
sausages and oven chips - not a good from stratch meal but very popular
cook things like a roast dinner or stew at the weekend -normally enough for left overs one day
fish finger also good ..

Moosemama you are managing brilliantly given that you have to work with being gluten free. Plus the other requirements.

Excellent tips on here - we used to do more veggie meals (though we aren't veggie overall) and need a new strategy now. Something with oven chips, if you get the oven chips on offer, is always a good fallback along with mac cheese, jacket and beans, even good old beans on toast.

The other thing (which I admit is harder if you work FT) is the "little extras" which really add up. Snacks seem to be particularly bad for this. You can make a big batch of things like fruit loaf or flapjacks and use those instead of the vending machine at work, or the danish pastry. But that means more time in the kitchen, of course.

Other things I do - I never buy fabric softener, I make my own surface cleaner (water, white vinegar (depending on how hard your water is) and a small amount of washing up liquid), I almost never buy drinks (juice, pop etc.), we don't drink much alcohol, I eat porridge instead of boxed cereal, I only buy deodorant and toothpaste on sale... It all adds up.

Thanks EightiesChick - I wish someone would tell my dh that.

Cheese - if you buy a big block and grate it you can then freeze it in small portions and use it in cheese sauce / on top of shepherd's pie etc from frozen - it makes it go much further. Look out for the two for a fiver deals on the big blocks of mature Cheddar - again, by buying the strong stuff you need to use less.