Frugal vegetarian / fish meals

[aufaniae]

Any ideas?

Trying to go on a saving money drive, but also want DS to be eating well.

Could do with some new ideas, any help would be much appreciated!

We are really poor at the moment, so keep having pasta meals... pasta with pesto.. pasta with various veg, pasta with tuna... But that's not very inventive!

Battered fish (from frozen), cabbage, sweet potato fries (just chop up, brush with oil, bung in oven with the fish).

Cauliflower and macaroni cheese

Quorn mince spag Bol/pasta bake
Quorn mince fajitas/enchiladas

Fish pie (and cabbage/peas/carrots)

Spinach and feta pie (Spinakopita) - super easy to make, can make lots and its lovely cold the next day. I reckon 6-8 portions from £5.

Tagine with butternut squash, red pepper, shallots, served with couscous. Put chickpeas in couscous for extra protein.

Dunno if your DS would eat them but frozen squid are actually really cheap and really really quick if you just fry the with lemon and garlic.

beans on toast?
cheese on toast?

we got no money for another 2 wks I feel your pain.. we are not vegetarians but always seem to be for last two weeks of month!! pasta and veg, home made pizza,

Soup? Lentil and carrot, spicy bean, squash and chickpea

I've started making vegetable, tomato and queen mince sauce to have with pasta, then either adding a tin of chilli beans to make chilli, or making into a lasagna using home made cheese sauce which is really cheap. I use corn flour and can make it in 5 minutes.

I quite often buy the bags of ready chopped stir fry veg. These a usually £1 in asda and last 2 means for the 3 of us. I usually add a couple of scrambled eggs to the rice, or some cashew nuts to the stir fry. It's also quick to make, so doesn't use much gas.

Our local bakery sells pizza dough at 80p a bag and is enough to make a pizza to serve 3. I mix some tomato purée with some dried herbs and a bit of water, then smear over the rolled and stretched out base. I think bargain mozzarella cheese is 40p a bag from Asda, so you can make home made yummy pizza for £1.50. If there's only 2 of you this should last 2 days.

Have you tried growing some of your own veg from seed? Our tomatoes have done really poorly this year, but our courgettes rhubarb and cabbage have done brilliantly.

Even if you you just grow some mustard and cress or leaves, it can brighten up a sandwich.

This recipe is delicious and using a 1 kg of value frozen veg it is very cheap to make. We love it. I've gone a bit further in that I keep a bag in the freezer and put in every bit of left over veg and potatoes and when full use it for this recipe. You can make it as spicy as you like :)

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1306/easy-peasy-lentil-curry

Chop and fry all your manky veg and add 1/2 a carton of passata or tin chopped toms (lidl and aldi are same price more or less but I think passata make a nicer sauce for this ),add herbs, to make a ragu style sauce. Add a small tin of pilchards/sardines in tomato sauce and mash down - think anchovies in the posher recipes. Put pasta on to boil. When pasta nearly done add 1/3 tub of basic philly/creme fresh/cream to the red sauce. combine pasta and sauce and serve. You can feed four for about £1-£1.50 and it doesn't taste cheap. I think the addition of the cheese is the way to go.