no problem, gracious of you to come back and apologise.
And thanks, Netto! Blimey, we are all being very polite aren't we? Must be Christmas cheer....
I get in exactly the same kind of rut. I can cook pretty much anything and dh is a good cook with a more - ahem -limited range. But every so often you find because of work/particularly skint periods/sheer tiredness that the same half dozen keep appearing.
We are less skint than we have been over last few years, but still loving cheap and cheerful food. I find it helpful to have several variations on a theme -
home-made macaroni cheese with bacon/ham, fried chorizo bits, fried mushrooms, stealth veg of broccoli and cauliflower for veg phobic ds. Dd's fave is tuna and/or small amt prawns stirred in.
Home-made chilli - usually do meat but am very tempted by Remus' veggie version on another thread. Always heavy on beans either way, and if can be arsed to soak, cook and freeze a few packets of beans it's so cheap. The frozen beans are handy to make a salad too.
Jacket spuds with beans/cheese/chilli etc. Posh it up with lots of salady bits in bowls for dc's.
Dd (4y)watched Nigella with me the other day - starting her early on food appreciation! She begged me to let her make the sausage meatballs and spaghetti, which was cheap as chips. I couldn't run to poncy italian sausages, so just used bog-standard bangers. Got dd to squeeze them out of skins and roll into teeny-tiny meatballs, fried them briefly in a little olive oil with a bit of chopped spring onion. Tip in a tin of chopped toms, some dried oregano and a squirt of ketchup. Simmered slowly for 20 mins and served up with cheap spag and some parmesan. Dd now thinks she is a cooking goddess and both the dcs and dh thought this was the best meal ever. An astounding amount of kiddie meatballs can be made from 6 sausages!
Now, my preference would be for "proper" meatballs made from scratch with decent quality meat, fresh breadcrumbs, egg and some stealth veg, ina more exciting sauce. Not as cheap but still makes a small amt of meat go a long way. See Nigella "How to Eat" for several versions. I also like a goulash-style meatball with pork mince, paprika and red peppers in sauce, but am thinking the sausage version of this would be great too.
More soups - cheap and nutritious, and nicer for work lunches than sandwiches.
Risotto? again stretches a small amt nice ingredients and feels like a treat. Even better with home-made chicken stock from carcasses - I make a huge vat and reduce down to v concentrated to freeze in ice cube trays.
Dd loves anything in a wrap since discovering these at school dinners - small amt leftovers and some salad and sour cream.
Keep meaning to make more bread or try making wraps - is the no-knead bread as good as it looks, Netto?