48 hours, 1000 posts consisting of FAST, CHEAP and GOOD, over here please.

[HoneyDragon]

No smugginess, no social commentary or judginess.

I want EVERYONE'S go to, cheapest stand by meals that they use, on one cosmic, love in thread of sharing and nicety.

Lets help each other out with a bit of inspiration.

Pasta puttanesca -

Chop garlic and onions, fry in some olive oil

Chuck in tin of chipped tomatoes
Ass capers, anchovies and chilli
If they're knocking around, I sometimes add sliced red, yellow or orange peppers or courgettes etc to up the veg content, but essentially, I always have Tina of tomatoes and anchovies, a jar of capers and some kind of pasta lurking about so it's v quick and cheap. Can serve with salad or stir in spinach too (I always have a bag of frozen spinach for adding to dishes - much cheaper than fresh spinach an great for extra nutrition.)

Pasta and pesto -
Boil pasta, drain, add pesto, ends of yesterday's roast chicken, maybe a bit of ricotta, mascarpone, cream or cream cheese if there's ant in fridge, sometimes spinach from freezer etc - again, basically whatever is in the fridge / freezer

Big vat of bolognaise -
Fry onions and garlic
Ad mince and brown
Chuck in chopped toms
Add diced carrots, mushrooms, courgettes, peppers or whatever is in veg drawer
Chuck in some herbs and simmer for a couple of hours

Then I Separate it into tubs to stick in fridge or freezer and use as a base - sometimes have with pasta, sometimes add red kidney beans and chilli an have with rice, sometimes use to make lasagne.

Mushroom pasta -

Fry onions and garlic with chopped mushrooms
Add cream, tarragon and splash of balsamic vinegar
Serve with pasta

Last one, chorizo stew -

Fry onions and garlic
Skin and chop chorizo, add to Ian and fry for a while
Add chopped tomatoes and a tin of any kind of White beans or lentils
Add some chopped herbs - rosemary or thyme
Simmer for half an hour

I'm lucky that we have a cupboard full of herbs and spices and large bushes of thyme, rosemary, oregano and sage in the garden, which can quickly turn even the weirdest odds and ends into a really lovely meal.

Roasted veg quinoa:

Roast some veg (quartered onions, whole garlic, quartered deseeded peppers, sliced butternut squash, courgette, anything you can find...). If I have cherry tomatoes to use up, I put them in with the veg about 15 mins before it's done.
Sometimes I add smoked paprika, cumin or cinnamon to the veg before roasting. Sometimes just olive oil and a bit of salt.

Cook quinoa (or couscous/barley/rice) with a stock cube.

When veg is cooked, roughly chop it all smallish and mix through the quinoa. Serve with anything -- usually venison sausages in our house, although not particularly cheap.

Yum! Got to do meal planning so will try a load of these,

One of my faves is salad, fried halloumi in pitta with chilli jam, mmmmm!

Pork and apple burgers.

Pack of pork mince. 1 apple, 1 onion, half a chilli, an egg and some breadcrumbs. Grate the apple and onion and chop the chilli. Mix, shape into burgers and chill if you've for time. Fry or bake.

Scrambled eggs on toast with peas as veg.

Fried mushrooms & onions on toast.

Frozen spinach cooked then mixed with ricotta & grated cheese (whatever's left) mixed in with cooked pasta & then baked.

Tomato & mozzarella salad with bread.

DHs concoction - chicken and rice.

Cook rice. Heat up a can of chicken and mushroom soup. Stir soup through cooked rice.

Using up leftover rice:

Heat some oil in a pan until it is v hot (but not smoking). Add the rice, stir to get it coated with oil then add chopped spring onion and beaten egg and stir furiously until it is all cooked. Serve immediately.

You can add things to make this more exciting and a meal rather than a side dish e.g. (i) a sprinkle of soy sauce; (ii) chopped chilli; (iii) prawns (or better still, brown shrimp); if available, but it's not necessary.

This only works with leftover, chilled rice. If you use freshly cooked rice you get eggy mush.

Fast and cheap, delicious but not good. Five mins from packet to plate - frankfurters in rolls!! That was us today for lunch as we were in a frantic hurry.

But we usually eat better than that! Will read properly and post again....

Fry up some onions, mushrooms, chorizo or ham end from the fridge and a pinch of dried red chilli & thyme, add risotto rice, some stock and a tin of tuna or white crabmeat from the cupboard. Simmer until the rice is cooked & serve with some garlic bread (love Aldi's) and loads of black pepper. Should feed 3-4 and takes about 15 mins!

Crispy fish:

Bake portions of white fish in the oven with some butter and seasoning for 20 mins, remove, sprinkle plain, crushed crisps over the top and grill for a few mins.

Quick chilli

Fry frozen, chopped onions, add mince, seasoning and chilli powder with either a tin or 2 of chopped toms or a jar of bolognaise sauce. Cook rice by bringing water to the boil, adding the rice then covering and turning off the heat for 15 mins until cooked. The pièce de résistance is to stick a plain tortilla into a metal sieve (or something oven-proof) in a bowl shape and oven cook for around 5 mins so it crisps up. The rice and chilli is served in the tortilla 'bowl'. Bit of cheese sprinkled on top completes it. This was shamelessly stolen from a previous post and my kids love it!

Keema curry

Official ingredients below:

450g lean minced lamb
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2.5cm piece fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
1 fresh green chilli, seeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp curry paste
2 tbsp tomato purée
350ml lamb or vegetable stock
225g frozen peas, thawed
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander
salt and freshly ground black pepper

But I tend to cook it with just onion, garlic, minced lamb, peas, curry powder and tomato purée plus seasoning and it's still delicious. Quick, easy, great with rice or a jacket potato.

How about Mumsnet publishing some of these and selling copies in aid of a MN charity-spread the benefits far and wide.

Fish, rice and tomatoes. Boil white rice, drain, add a tin of sardines and some cherry tomatoes and soy sauce. Eat.

I ate loads of keema as a student, smoothie. I had a little Indian recipe book from The Works - best 50p I'd ever spent. Lots of simple spicing, rather than elaborate pastes

Baked eggs

Crack eggs into a greased ramekin, top with a little milk/cream, thyme (optional) grated cheese and bake for 12-14 mins. Toast to dip in and veg sticks for vitamins.

Mushroom risotto

Sauté pack of mushrooms with one diced onion, stir in risotto rice, add a slug of white wine if any knocking around then slowly stir in stock. Top with Parmesan.

Love this, favourite comfort food tea and cheap.

On such a tight budget now we have to make cheap meals - great to get new ideas :)

Spicy bean bake

• Olive oil
• Whatever veg you have
• Tin of mixed beans
• Tin of chopped tomatoes
• Harissa paste (or chilli powder/flakes)
• Mozzarella

Cut up the veg and fry in olive oil until cooked. (Typically I use things like courgettes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, sweetcorn, red/white cabbage, carrots).

Stir in the tin of tomatoes. Add some harissa (or chilli) to taste. Drain and add the beans. Stir it all together and let it heat up for a couple of minutes.

Transfer to a Pyrex/casserole dish. Sprinkle a generous amount of mozzarella over the top.

Bake at about 180 for about 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden.

Love all these ideas!
Here are my two quick pasta dinners

Smoked salmon pasta
Cook pasta - half way through add thinly sliced courgettes to the water.
Once cooked drain and add packet of smoked salmon trimmings, zest of 1 lemon and lots of black pepper. Then stir in tub of creme fraiche and the juice of the lemon. Its delicious and really quick.
Nice with chilli flakes added too.

Bacon, pea and mint pasta
fry chopped bacon, add frozen peas and big spoonful of mint sauce
drain pasta and stir in half tub of cream cheese add bacon mixture and serve.

Enjoy!

Mixed bean chilli

Tin of mixed pulses (drained), added to sautéed onion (also tend to chuck in whatever other veg is looking sorry for itself!), garlic, chopped tomatoes and chilli (fresh/frozen/dried) - serve with rice/couscous/jacket potato and sprinkle with cheese

Starving now, going to prepare my day before payday tea! This week it is diced left over veg gently cooked with garlic, stirring in last bit of a jar of balti paste, chopped tomatoes, red lentils, some lime juice and stock if needed. Have a little creamed coconut in fridge so will stir that in as well as a dollop of mango chutney (also last bit in a jar)!

My poor fridge is so empty

Will add more as I think of them as meal planning later :)

I'd forgotten how good chorizo is for adding meaty flavour. Will do keema next week

Ginger pork -

whatever cuts of pork happen to be cheap, sliced if there's enough for one each or diced if you need it to go further. fry off with a bit of garlic and brown sugar.

Pour in a ginger beer (non alcoholic is so much cheaper) and then simmer til it's become a caramelized sticky sauce. There's a moment mid-simmering that it all foams up and you think "shiiiiit it's all gone horribly wrong" but then it calms down again.

Fab with any veg and sticky rice, and good for the non-tomato/onion eaters out there like my bastardingly fussy DP

Marking my place for lots of inspiration!

pasta bake

Handful dry [pasta per person
2 tins of tomatoes or passata
2 large spoonfusl philly type cheese,
dried herbs
anything else that sounds nice (tuna and sweetcorn, chicken and bacon, leftover veggies, peppers)
chuck in the oven for 30 minutes
Take out of oven, sprinkle over some grated cheese and scrunched up packet of ready salted crisps if liked
Put back in oven until cheese melted

Tonight we're having minced beef cobbler.

Cook the mince with onion, garlic and whatever else you want. I'll be using up some celery, mushrooms and butternut squash (which I will grate because DD hates it and won't eat it if she knows it's in there!), along with a tin of tomatoes and some frozen spinach.

Make a cheese scone dough, cut it into rounds and top the mince with them. I usually make a double quantity and cook the rest as scones while the cobbler is in the oven. Sprinkle some cheese on the top if you want, and put into a hot oven until the scones are cooked (15-20 mins).

We're having blackberry and apple crumble for pudding because we foraged a load of fruit from the garden earlier.