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.

Bacon and veg stew thing

I used to make this a lot when I lived on my own; I'd make a huge pot in the winter and it would last for days.

• Bacon
• Potatoes
• Onion
• Veg e.g. carrots, leeks, swede, celery... whatever you've got hanging about
• Tinned tomatoes
• Stock cube
• Salt, pepper and any other seasonings you fancy

1. Chop onion and bacon; fry gently together until onion is soft
2. Chop potatoes and veg and add to pan
3. Add tinned tomatoes and stock cube and season
4. Simmer until veg is cooked to your taste
5. Eat :)

Sausage and onion pie

I packet sausage meat sliced into rounds
As many potatoes as you need for 4 people cooked mashed with salt and white pepper
2thinly sliced white onions

Just layer in a deep baking dish start and end with mash. Dot the top with butter and bake in slow oven for a couple of hours til crispy and golden.

Serve with apple sauce or baked beans

Carbonara

Fry pancetta or streaky bacon until crispy, add garlic, chilli flakes (to taste or omit if for kids) and spring onions.

Cook spaghetti.

Mix together one egg, two tablespoons of creme fraiche and some Parmesan. Stir into cooked pasta and pancetta.

Yum!

When I'm cooking Mexican but don't fancy rice, I buy the cheapo tortilla crisps, salsa, soured cream and cheese, chuck it all in a dish and grill for 5 minutes.

Not the healthiest, but I make up for that with tonnes of pepper (frozen bags of mixed peppers) and salad in the fajitas.

Plus the soured cream and salsa get used in the main dish so no waste.

Emergency cheap lunch:

any pasta
crushed garlic fried in a good amount of olive oil
chopped fresh thyme
black pepper
squeeze of lemon optional
grating of cheese, parmesan if you have it but cheddar otherwise

Leftover meat pie:

super basic and easy pastry: 4 oz flour + pinch of salt + pepper, 1 oz butter (or other fat). Breadcrumb together. Stir in 1/8th pint of milk and mould into a ball.

To fill pie:
leftover chicken - slice and chuck in oven proof dish with chopped onions, leeks, cabbage, mushroom or similar. If you have very little chicken a slice of ham, bacon or handful of lentils will bulk it up, otherwise just use veg.
For a sauce try white sauce: 1 oz butter, melt in a small saucepan, add 1 oz flour and stir in. add 1/2pt milk slowly, bring to the boil, stir in constantly and then simmer gently to thicken. Good herbs to add if you have them are tarragon, thyme etc.
Chuck the sauce over the meat and veg. Roll out the pastry and cover the pie.
Break one egg into a cup then brush over the top of the pastry (using fingers is fine) then do 3 small cuts in the top of the pastry.
Cook in the oven for around 20mins at 180dc.

leftover mince or beef, goes well with gravy (granules are fine, or you can use stock cubes) onions, mushrooms and carrots.

leftover lamb can be bulked out with potatoes, onions, carrots etc and again a gravy sauce.

This is a macaroni cheese variant that my Gran used to make when I was wee.

Make a roux then add a tin of cream of tomato soup and some milk. When this has thickened add as much cheese as you like and add to macaroni. It's actually nice.

Leftover roast pilaff: rice, peas, chopped onion,sultanas, split almonds. Big pyrex dish well buttered. Chuck in the last of the well shredded joint, the other stuff and boiling stock to cover. Bake 20 mins gas 4/ 170 C covered. Might need more liquid at the end, so back in for 5 mins. Season.

Bag of chips from the chippy.

B o p (bacon, onion and potato hotpot)

Cut bacon with scissors into small pieces. Chop an onion finely. Slice potatoes lengthways into thin slices. Make a white sauce, add nutmeg and pepper to taste.

Layer in a casserole, lasagna stylee. Pour white sauce over the top. Bake at 130degrees for an hour or so, then 20 mins with lid off until potatoes are soft when poked with a fork.

Aw, bless you HoneyDragon - excellent thread

Shakshuka (for two adults)
Tin of chopped tomatoes
1 Pepper
1 Onion
Some cumin seeds/ground cumin
Garlic
4/5 eggs (depending on hunger and size of eggs)

Chop and fry the pepper and onion until soft, adding in the garlic, cumin and other seasoning as desired. Add in the chopped tinned tomatoes (with a bit of water to thin the sauce). Bring to the boil, carefully crack the eggs in and reduce to a simmer. move some of the sauce on top of the eggs, and leave to poach in the sauce for about 10 minutes (less if you prefer a runnier egg).

Serve with bread or on it's own

Variations: with feta, fried aubergine (or other fried veg, e.g. courgettes), make spicy with chilli oil, some other kind of chilli sauce

I do a sausage, passata, onion thing. Just fry off and serve with pasta (I would always have dried pasta in the cupboard)

Although beans on toast with an egg is a great standby.

Creamy sausage pasta.
Skin sausages and roll into balls, put in pan with oil. Put pasta on to boil. When sausage balls are cooked add creme fraiche, dollop of mustard and some of the pasta water. Drain pasta, toss into meatballs and sauce. Same sauce is also good with pork chops and sliced apples. If I haven't got creme fraiche I've used soft cheese or double cream as substitutes.

Quick Shakshuka type thing.

Fry onion and garlic in oil, add chopped red pepper and mushrooms. Add tin of chopped tomatoes and harissa paste or whatever spice you like. Crack a couple of eggs in and leave on hob until cooked through. Serve with pittas.

Xpost with Absy about Shakshuka.

Soup. LOADS of types, and you can always add pulses of some sort.

Omlettes. These can both be done in 20 minutes.

You said FAST. There are lots more cheap and good that take a little longer.

Potato haystack

Mash potatoes (I use instant)
Chopped cooked bacon (I buy bacon pieces)
Grated Cheese
Tomatoes or beans(we prefer peppered tomatoes)

Fry bacon with a bit of dry mixed herbs
Make mash with a bit of dry mixed herbs
Mix together
Top with cheese
Bung in the oven until cheese is melted
Serve with tomatoes or beans

You can also add mushrooms & onions and stuff

Quick, filling & cheap

Spaghetti with Sardines, anchovies, fennel and sultanas. Fry up onion and garlic in oil in large frying pan for 10 mins, add sardines, anchovies and sultanas and cook for a couple of minutes more. Cook the spaghetti, and add thin slices of fennel to the pot of water for the last 4/5 minutes (trim the feathery bits off first and add then to the finished dish as garnish), drain and toss with fishy/oniony mixture in frying pan.

Fish should be tinned in oil not brine.

If money is no object then adding a pinch of saffron and some pine nuts in with the sardines/anchovies is nice, but if you're on a budget this is really cheap and healthy (a large fennel bulb, enough for a 4 person dish, should cost a quid, and tinned sardines are probably the cheapest and healthiest animal protein available).

I'm not entirely sure how cheap my cheap quick and easy go-to meals are these days!

10 minutes meals - tuna pasta and cheesy cauliflower pasta.

Shove the pasta into a saucepan for the 10 mins it takes to boil (GF pasta here).
Tuna pasta: add peas to the pasta for the last 2 mins of boiling. Then open and drain a tin or more as necessary of tuna, mix it into the drained pasta and peas, along with a large dollop of mayonnaise. If you want to get fancy, you can add a spoonful of capers as well, or some chopped chives.

Cheesy cauliflower and/or broccoli pasta: break the cauliflower/broccoli into small florets and steam over the boiling pasta for the 10 mins it takes to cook. In another saucepan, melt a tbsp of butter, add a tsbp of plain flour (or spelt/GF flour in my case) and cook for a couple of mins, without burning. Add milk slowly to make a basic roux sauce. Then add in a cupful of grated cheese (mix of cheddar and parmesan/grana padano) and mix until it's smooth.
Combine drained pasta with cheese sauce and vegetables.

DS1 loves both of these.

For a more luxurious version, i,e, not cheap, you can do smoked salmon pasta (are you detecting a theme here?) - pretty much the same as tuna pasta, except use chopped smoked salmon instead of the tuna, use tartare sauce instead of mayonnaise and dill instead of chives. Or not, depending on your preference.

I've never heard of shakshuka - will definitely try that though! Where does it come from?

And I like spaghetti with garlic and chilli - thinly slice as many cloves of garlic as humanly possible, cook very slowly in lots of olive oil in large frying pan until golden but no more, add a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, then stir in a portion of cooked and drained spaghetti and cook for a minute. Quick, cheap, store cupboard friendly and delicious, but I grant you neither healthy nor child friendly (not my DC anyway).

Sausage & gnocchi bake.

6 sausages, onion, gnocchi (just the dried stuff), tin of tomatoes, herbs.

Fry sausages until brown, slice onions & cook in the sausage juices.
Cook gnocchi for 2mins in boiling wAter.
Putt toms in oven proof dish, add herbs.
Cut sausages into chunks, add to dish.
Drain gnocchi, add to dish with onions.
Push gnocchi under sauce.
Cover and bake for 15-20 mins.

This always goes down well.

Bacon and egg fried rice. Cheap and filling with plenty of protein and veg.For 4 people, I'd cook up 200g of white rice.

Fry a large chopped up onion in veg oil with a clove or two of chopped up garlic, if you have it and about 100g or so of chopped up bacon. Add in half a pound each of chopped mushrooms and frozen peas and keep stirring until the peas are thawed and the mushrooms almost cooked. If you have a pepper shrivelling up in your fridge, that's tasty in it, too. Then stir in the rice, so that gets coated in everything else.

Scramble 4 eggs in another pan (I do it all in the same pan for a single portion) until barely cooked, then stir them in. Season with soy sauce. It's also nice if you have some 5 spice or mirin to throw in.

spicy split pea soup

bag yellow split peas
2 onions
potatoes
carrots
veg stock
curry powder

Bung peas, chopped onions, diced carrots and potatoes into a big pan. Add about 3litres veg stock and 1tblspn or so of curry powder. Season with plenty of black pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer until the peas have broken down and everything is soft. serve with crusty bread.

You can make this into dahl the next day when it has thicken up by adding some chopped tomatoes and frozen spinach and serving over rice.

Tomato Soup -adapted from AK
Fry chopped onion and chopped carrot in a little olive oil, add tin of toms, same quantity of water or stock and some white bread cut into small pieces. Season and add whatever herbs are available, simmer for 15mins or so then blitz and serve!

Spanish rice
Fry chopped onion with some chorizo, garlic and peppers (frozen are fine for this recipe) and add 1tsp smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes add rice (paella best but have made it with long grain when economising and it's fine) cover with chicken stock and stick in the oven at 180 for about 25 mins or so. When rice is cooked and liquid is absorbed, take out of oven, season and add a squeeze of lemon juice before serving.
This is great served with chicken or pork but just as nice on it's own.