Idiot proof, convenient meal plan but not too expensive/processed - is this actually possible?!

[fuzzpig]

Seem to be starting threads all over the place lately - did ask this question on a longer food budget thread but it understandably got lost in the many posts.

Anyway, bit of background here (yes that's a shameless plug but no obligation obviously!) but basically things are really really shit and difficult ATM, both of us are exhausted/depressed/in pain in varying degrees. We have been following a 2wk meal plan and it had been going well but even that is too much right now, and it definitely will be when DH has surgery.

So I want to make a 1 week meal plan so I am getting basically the same stuff every time I shop (online). I would love to be the clever organised mum who nips out at closing time to grab yellow sticker bargains, who goes to the market or the various ethnic food stores, who cooks in bulk and freezes, etc... but for now it just can't happen.

I want really stupidly simple stuff that we can sort out even when we feel dead on our feet and that don't create too much washing up!

I can't think of much apart from jacket potatoes, pasta and sauce, beans on toast etc, would love some more ideas so we don't end up giving the DCs fish fingers and chips every night! I am quite off my food right now (VERY unusual for me as my weight indicates ) and would quite happily live on rice and grated cheese but I want the DCs to eat as well as possible.

Help! Please x

Haven't tried Morrisons as it is just too far without a car - a shame as we loved the one we lived near before. We were using Asda, and probably still would if we were shopping in person (again, with a car), but we found their delivery service to be complete shite and after sticking with them for a couple of years we finally switched to Tesco who have made more mistakes. I am going to have a look at Sainsburys though as they have some offer on for new customers ATM.

Erm, we do have a big slow cooker, but have we used it yet? it is definitely something I intend on getting to grips with, but possibly not yet as I CBA to try anything new right now. Bad I know. But I need to stick to foolproof IYSWIM. Ahem. I like the sound of the bung in the oven type meals, roast veg etc.

We get through shedloads of peppers so I will definitely give frozen a go! Frozen veg is a lottery IME - frozen carrots I find are really chewy, but we always have green beans in, and broccoli.

Starting to get an idea of a meal plan now thanks to all your ideas :) eg I put some pesto in this week's [online] basket as that's easy for pasta and the DCs love it, but was wondering what I'd do with the rest of it, and tadaaa! Puff pastry tart thingy the following day!

fruit

Convenient, quick, healthy, inexpensive foods....

Omelettes - Chunky 'frittata' types containing things like cooked potatoes. Eggs generally pretty cheap and versatile.
Stir-Fries - use frozen packs or odds and ends of vegetables. Small amount of meat only.
Fried Rice - Similar to stir-fries but stir in cooked rice at the end
Salads - Simple assembly job. No cooking required
Soups - Again uses up odds and ends from the fridge/freezer. Flavour with a stock cube or can of tomatoes. Thicken with cheap things like red lentils.

Kebabs - alternate meat cubes and chunky cut veg on skewers and grill. Makes a small amount of meat spin a long way
Grills - Fish, chicken, pork chops. Quick/easy cook

My favourite cheap pasta bake is:
*Jar of Homepride creamy tomato pasta sauce (or own brand)
*One red pepper, one yellow pepper
*One Mattessons sausage
*Penne
*Cheese for the top

-Boil pasta, slice up peppers and sausage. When pasta is cooked, tip all into a pyrex dish with the sauce, stir, top with grated cheese and bake in the over (alongside a stick of frozen garlic bread) for 20/30 mins.

Its tasty, cheap and lasts for ages. I used to tub up the leftovers for work too.

Gnocchi (love them - tempted to include them on my meal plan tbh!) that home pride sauce is down to £1 on Tesco so will be giving that a shot soon!

I do make a damn good tomato/veg sauce and bechamel, that's the kind of stuff I like cooking, but it will be good to have some quicker/easier replacements at hand especially that I know the DCs will eat (they have got a bit fussy lately)

The quickest meal I make is Quesedillas but it's not cheap. Put a flour tortilla in a dry frying pan, top with grated cheese, add whatever filling you want (I add ready cooked chicken, chorizo and peppers) more grated cheese and another tortilla on the top. As soon as the bottom tortilla starts to crisp up, flip it over til its all crisp and stuck together with the melted cheese.

Cut into pizza style slices and serve with a jar of shop bought guacamole to dunk.

Hi, i've had a look at the other thread you llinked, gosh poor you, you've got a lot to deal with at the moment.

It sounds like you are time poor as well as cash poor at the moment- when i'm like this things like stir fry recipes aren't ideal as although they 'only' take 20 mins and are cheapish its 20 mins when i get in shattered standing up in the kitchen, and i just haven't got the energy for it.

Have you thought about doing more roasts/ joints. Probably sounds daft but i do a couple a week and this generally means 1 day of cooking, 3 days of food with the need for very few new ingredients. this makes your weekly shop much cheaper, plus all the roasting time is not time i have to actually be in the kitchen.

Eg I do a boiled gammon / bacon- only £5ish from the supermarkets (£4 at lidl), shove it in a massive saucepan with cold water, an onion halved and a couple of peppercorns, and just bring to the boil and then let simmer for a couple of hours. Then about half an hour before the end i would throw in a complete bag of carrots, each chopped into three, maybe a swede chopped the same, lots and lots of new potatoes and anything else to hand. Half an hour later serve up with some of the broth and its amazingly delicious!

We would eat the same the next night, simply reheated. On the third day we would have either a bag of watercress chucked onto plates with the leftover gammon shredded, some tomatoes, beetroot etc and a nice chunk of bread, or a soup made by boiling an onion and some other veg including a potoato or two in the nice gammon cooking water (i don't bother browning the veg or anything, just chuck it all into the liquid) and then after half an hour blitzed with a hand blender and served with some nice bread.

Or i'll do a roast chicken, (again £5 ish or £4 from Lidl) just shoved in the oven with a massive amount of different roast veg added half an hour from the end (again if you use littleish new potatoes you don't have to bother with any of the preboiling nonsense, just shove em in) and served up for day 1 and reheated for day 2, when i would also shove the chicken carcass in a pan with cold watter and an onion and boil for an hour) . For day 3 i'd either do one of those flavoured couscous packets where you just add water to cook it (but i'd use some of chicken stock instead) with added salad stuff and leftover bits of chicken, or i'd do a soup using the stock i'd made, lots of veg and a tiny bit of chopped chicken as a garnish. Again soup just boiled up and blended, nothing fancy, but the stock makes it delicious.

So thats 6/7 days meals done with two meat joints and a bit of veg, plus very little hands on time.

I do similar sorts of things with a whole salmon if i can get one at a good price, pork joints, beef (again, when price is good) etc.

If you are interested, good books that seem to work along these lines of saving money by cooking one thing and using it over three days are the new english kitchen by rose prince, economy gastronomy by allegra mcevity and more veg less meat by rachel thample. Hope this helps

Thanks - more roast type things is a good idea. We did have one roast (chicken usually) on our fortnightly plan but it will definitely stay on the weekly plan as it does do other meals. Stir fry I might do if I go back to getting the precut packs although that seems to be one of the things that is always short dated when it's delivered someone earlier mentioned frozen though?!

If you do find yourself with spare time for shopping, give Aldi a try. Its cheaper than supermarkets (enough to make it worthwhile visiting) and has a lot of similar products. Obviously that may not be possible for you, but on the offchance.

I don't think we have an Aldi :( (unless TIY and TS can correct me on that?) have not been impressed with Lidl in the past due to bad labelling (a problem for DH due to gluten)

WE do a roast, and then use some of the left overs in a pasta sauce, which we have the next day, and some in sandwiches/boxed salads for lunches at work.

Scrambled eggs with chorizo and roasted baby toms. Delicious and v easy. ALDI do v v cheap free range large eggs (99p a box compared to over 1.50 at most supermarkets.)

Chorizo is worth having in as just a little flavours food very nicely.

Cheap (sustainable) frozen white fish is great to have in. Bung a large portion of fish each in a dish, tin of toms, white wine vinegar,olive oil, garlic and mixed herbs, then season. Microwave in two minute blasts until fish is cooked (takes around 8 minutes if it was frozen.) Ta-dah! Fish stew. V popular in our house.

Chops or salmon steaks with whatever veg is on ALDI special offer, plus some cous cous.

notyummy I also do a variation on your fish dish but as we don't have a microwave its a bit different. Last night for example - 2 fillets of river cobbler (cheaper than cod and in a dish like this it doesn't matter)and some cherry toms and a couple of rasher of streaky bacon chopped up. Bang it in oven for about 15 mins then in pan throw some spring onion, lazy garlic and olive oil - add herbs and butter at end and drizzle over fish - serve with new pots. I vary this depending on what I have in - sometimes I'll add a bit of chilli or some green beans. Main thing is its generally cheap white fish with leftover veg and herbs - on the table in 20 mins.

OP - we do lots of omlettes like cogito - again any leftovers and some sliced potatoes with whatever salad or veg there is left.

I try to use a bit of what I've made one day to help with another IFKWIM? i.e - If I do a chilli or a spag bol I'll take a couple of spoonfuls out before serving and freeze then on a day when we are short of time it gets defrosted during the day then stirred into some fresh pasta (spag bol) or put in a wrap (chilli) for tea. We don't notice the missing bit from our main meal and t gives and (almost) freebie dinner. Likewise I always save a bit of mash, then mix it with canned tuna / salmon for fishcakes the next day. If I do homemade pizzas I use any leftover dough, sauce and toppings to make a calzone for the freezer - again something quick for busy days. I find that by doing this I probably spend time cooking 3 days a week then manage another 3 days with stuff I've saved.

If I'm feeling really lazy I stick some sausages, tin of beans, chopped toms, paprika and onion in the slow cooker and have sausage casserole for tea. That is in fact tonights tea as I'm collecting DP from the train station at 8pm and cba to cook that late so it'll be ready when we get in.

Those couscous packets (ainsley harriott) are only 50p in asda/tesco at the moment, they serve two but I can split them in half in advance. We don't have that much freezer/fridge space at work but I'd like to think of what I can take in a week at a time (for example I take 5 little yoghurts so I don't have to remember them each day).

Cottage cheese is really lovely with couscous (I may be a freak in thinking that?) so maybe a pot of that or something.

I think the nearest Aldi is in EG which is a fair drive away and not accessible by public transport. Sorry.

I have a good recipe for a fruity curry using left over chicken form a roast dinner - if you want it - it is easy onions, tomato paste, stock and a bit of curry spices that you like with a tin of tomatoes an apple and sultanas.

last week the chicken roast and the curry lasted four days - so little cooking

One of the cheapest and easiest meals that I make is pasta with chick peas. It's even easier if you use tinned chick peas.

Cook the pasta. While it's cooking, fry 2 chopped onions with A LOT of garlic until soft. Add 2 drained tins of chick peas and heat through. Stir the whole lot through the cooked, drained pasta. Season well and top with a tiny bit of finely grated parmesan.

Another cheap, easy one is just to mix hot pasta with a couple of finely chopped avocados, some lime juice, salt and pepper. Or again to mix hot pasta with a 500ml carton of greek yoghurt into which you have beaten some curry powder, Serve it with chopped onions and tomatoes either on top or mixed through.

Scrambled egg rice - cook 1/2 cup rice per person in 2ce it's volume in water. Meanwhile fry 1/2 chopped onion and some garlic per person. When rice is done and onions are cooked, add rice and stir around for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper and then stir in one beaten egg per person. Cook, stirring, until egg is set. You can add peas to this with the rice so that you don't need to make separate veg.

Mushy peas - soak dried peas over night (2lbs at a time), Drain, put them in a large pan, cover with water and simmer until they are almost soft. Season well and add a spoonful of sugar. Keep simmering until the peas break down. Serve them on the first night with jacket potatoes and cheese. On the second night, fry a couple of chopped onions with some garlic and curry powder, mix through the peas and heat through. Serve over rice for a very simple dahl.

My kids love the creamed tuna and peas thing up above. it's very quick, cheap and easy. Another thing they like is fish spread on toast. Mash a couple of tins of sardines with a couple of spoonfuls of natural yoghurt, some lemon juice and black pepper. Another one they like is smoked mackerel cream. Mash a smoked mackerel fillet into a tub of philly type cheese, add lemon juice, parsley and pepper, serve on toast with rocket leaves or in baked potatoes.

A jar of peppers or antipasto is useful to have in as they won't go off. They just need quickly slicing and can go into pasta, couscous, to accompany meat. Pasta with some ham or other meat, peppers and a bit of cheese is quick and tasty. Buy whatever brand or type is on offer.

Are you up to doing a bit of bulk cooking?
If so Spag bol and Chilli are 2 good stand bys to have in the freezer. Similarly chicken casserole.

For quick meals I do the following:
Pasta pesto with roasted veg: chop onions, peppers, courgettes etc and roast in oven ( I use garlic oilve oil) with herbs. Meanwhile cook pasta. Mix togetehr and add pesto. ( I have frozen this sucessfully and then microwaved to heat through)

Bacon and leek and pasta: Dry fry some bacon (chopped up)add a chopped leek. Add creme fresh and lots of black pepper. Meanwhile cook pasta. Mix together.

Quick Ciabatta pizza: Slice a ciabatta down the middle. Spread with tom puree and sprinkel on herbs. Add toppings as you wish. Stick in oven for about 15 mins. I have also frozen them uncooked sucessfully.

HTH

Hope your situation improves soon.

consider doing monthly meals, you can find lots of menus here and then freeze. Preparing in bulk means less waste and quick prep time.

There are also a lot of blogs that show freezer meal for slow cookers: Make up the meal (in bulk). Take out the freezer the night before, shove in the slow cooker the next morning, et voila - hot nutritious varied food when you get home. look here

Ask a relative to take the kids for the day one saturday or sunday, spend the day chopping and preparing and shoving stuff in the freezer and then relax for the next 3-4 weeks knowing most of the hard work is done.

Maybe you could find a likeminded mum/dad and make it a bit of a social get together and prepare the months meals thing. I think Id be more inclined to do this if I had a mate round to share the prep work and have a laugh.

I double cook enough for two nights so we have same thing two nights running. So if I cook a lentil bolignese sauce there is enough for two nights. The second night I'll cook fresh pasta and reheat bolignese from fridge, top with cheese and have it with garlic bread. Great for budget cooking. I cook max three times each week.

Another quick easy pasta dish. Put the pasta on to boil and defrost about 100-150g of spinach per person in the microwave. Chop up as many mushrooms as you can be bothered with - 50-100g per person and fry them with some garlic (I use lumps of frozen minced garlic which is cheaper than fresh and can be found in the ethnic food freezer section). Drain the excess water off the spinach and add it to the pan with the mushrooms. When the pasta is almost done add enough cream or creme fraiche to your mushrooms and spinach to give it a creamy consistency (100-200ml) and some black pepper. Mix with the pasta and sprinkle with some parmesan.

Another thing that could save you a load of effort with cooking is knowing the easiest way to chop an onion - I can peel and chop and onion in about 30 seconds.

1. Cut the onion in half from root to tip
2. Peel the onion halves
3. Take one half of the onion and place the root end away from you.
4. Cut the onion in strips from the root end towards you
5. Rotate the onion so the root end is to your left and then cut in strips from right to left
6. Repeat steps 3-5 with the other half of the onion
7. Wonder why you weren't taught this in school because it would have saved you so much time if you'd known this before

Here's a in case that didn't make sense. He peeled the onion before cutting it in half which takes a lot longer to do. He also makes the horizontal cuts at about 1 minute in which aren't necessary unless you want really finely chopped onion.

Chicken and mushrooms with rice:
The harder work version involves making a sauce from chicken stock and cornflour/butter. The easy version involves opening a tin of Cambpells condensed soup (chicken, chicken and white wine, mushroom, or the low cal chick or mush versions) and stirring that in. (I do both, depending on time, energy and ingredients to hand).

Put on kettle while you assemble ingredients (and chop chicken if needed).
Chop up chicken into large chunks (pre-chopped strips are fine). Fry these until just cooked. Put boiled water into pot of rice to cook as you start chicken frying. Add roughly chopped mushrooms (can buy mushies pre-sliced and that's fine for this) and a splash of water into the chicken - cook with lid on for another few mins (5?). Add in soup, with perhaps a splash of cream, milk or white wine - even just water is fine - if you think it's too thick. Let that heat through well, drain rice and serve sauce over rice.

(Sorry if that's too ladybird, I was taking idiot proof to heart).

Baked potates with tuna mix over the top would be good too. Tin of tuna, tin of sweetcorn (use 1/3 to 1/2), some mayonaise, if you have it some chopped pepper, tomato and/or onion are nice. With grated cheese over the top if wanted. Leftovers are nice for sambos, with salad or as a toastie next day too. Lefotver corn can be a side veg for a fish fingers/sausages type tea next day too (different to frozen peas).

Frozen veg are great though, and so handy and healthy.

How about making a double batch of spaghetti sauce one weekend day (say a Sunday afternoon while cooking big Sunday dinner). Have the sauce on Monday for dinner, freeze the other half for next week (maybe a midweek night). Next week, make a curry on the Sunday and repeat, or a chilli. Also, use leftover spaghetti sauce to make a fast lasagne - even use the jar of white sauce if you need to from shop, or over baked potatoes. Or transform spag bol into chilli by adding chilli powder and tin beans.

Hope those ideas help.

Buying frozen chopped onion and garlic helps!

sorry for the stupid question, but do you have to defrost the frozen onion before you use it or can you just throw it in the pan?