Can we have a new budget meals threads - lentil limited!

[Bumperlicious]

Hi all, just been looking through and we haven't had a budget meals thread recently.

Any family friendly recommendations? At least one of my children is pretty fussy so easy on the lentils!

Thanks :)

Bump

I came on to do just this.

One I do Is make a White cheese sauce with whole grain mustard

Fry of a bit of streaky bacon

Cook some frozen broccoli

Mix together

Top with cheese

Bake.

I'd be interested to find some more. I love to cook, and I'm finding trying new stuff is costing a fortune.

We are at our OD limit and simply can't carry on.

Ideally I need to feed 2 adults and a toddler on 50 a week. Which should be easy, I just need to shake my head and stop trying to create stuff we cant afford.

Ah bugger, I add cooked pasta to the above.

pasta with raw tomato, capers and chilli. Skin tomatoes, chop and put in a bowl with capers, sea salt, and chilli (flakes to make even cheaper) and a splash of olive oil. Toss pasta through. YUM
We had Hugh Fearnely Whittingstall's chickpea ketchup curry the other night. Literally a tin of chick peas, some spices and a dash of ketchup (will post whole recipe if you fancy it). Sounds odd but was really tasty.
One of our family faves is a cheap veg soup (think carrot, swede etc) with rice pudding for afters and to fill everyone up. Pence for two courses.

Chicken bashed to smithereens, cut into bits, tossed in egg and breadcrumbs, shallow fried chips (chunks, part boiled for 5 mins, fried in corn, rapeseed or sunflowr oil) (two breasts do me, 5 yo and 2yo) served with tomato sauce in a little pot to make it seem like a take away! If you want veg, serve with peas, but i only do this dor dd a ds wont eat veg! Handful of fruit whizzed with milk for pudding.

And for adults chicken bits, you can put chilli powder, herbs, other sauces into breadcrumbs to add different taste

Cheesy egg and potato bake.

Hard boil 6 eggs and shell and quarter.

Peel and dice 1kg potatos and boil until just soft.

Mix with cheese sauce and bake for 20 mins.

Surprisingly delicious.

*potatoes

Tuna Pasta Salad.
Jacket Potatoes with red/orange/yellow pepper and Philadelphia topping.
Pizza Bread.
Pasta with pesto and pine-nuts.
Veggie Soup (blend veggies, add milk/cream to thicken, add ham for non-veggies and look out for reduced crusty rolls at the end of the day).
Spaghetti and Sausages
Cottage Pie.
Courgettes and Tomatoes on puff-pastry circles with grated cheddar on top.
Mushrooms fried in mustard (these are so yummy!) with chicken and mash.

All cheap to make. :)

mushies fried in mustard sounds delish!

we just had pearl barley risotto (based on Hugh F-W's speltotto) - half a bag of barley for 4 people cost about 20p! you could have it with anything (we had leeks, savoy cabbage and a bit of goats cheese) but it did take a while to cook. would be a good one for the slow cooker