Please share your fav budget healthy easy to cook / freeze recipes for busy working skint mums !

[fakeblondie]

Ok mine is one huge pan of healthy living minced steak browned with fresh garlic and onions .I add 3 or 4 tins of chopped tomatoes and whatever veg needs using up . freeze for the week ahead and decide whether to chilli it lasagne it or spag Bol it depending on what I have in the cupboard that night
Also love packet of whole meal pasta mixed when hot with half tub of garlic philli and throw in some steamed brocolli .
Getting a little fed up of the same things every night .
I get in from work around 6 and my lo aged 4 will have been fed but ds 11 and I need to eat . If I'm stuck in the kitchen tho it means I'm not spending that precious hour putting dd to bed and then poor ds and I don't get to eat until too late .
I do make sure we have one basic night , like beans on toast and I must admit I had forgotten about the good old baked Potatoe !

Apart from freezing requirement medjera meets the cheap, quick, delicious standards. It's an onion rice lentilly affair- I follow the ottolenghi recipe but a google will throw up loads. It really is lovely.

Another for me would be spinach and red lentil dhal, with flatbreads.

it's also the season for soup- minestrone, scotch broth, cawl, pumpkin ( really cheap for the next month or so ) chicken, leek and potato, broccoli and blue cheese, Han and pea, country veg, lentil and chickpea, endless varieties. With a good slice of bread soup is a meal many a night in chez pause. And most can be frozen for later.

Sausage casserole, made with onions, mushrooms, celery, carrots, stock and tin toms- flavoured with garlic and herbs is cheap and freezable, just make some chips mash to go with it when eating, or stir in pasta shapes and call it a sausage ragu instead of casserole. Or add a tin or two of mixed beans and serve as a thick sausage and bean stew.

If I'm really pushed for time I have been know to cook a pack of microwave rice, then fry it up with frozen peas, onions, 5 spice, and eggs - egg fried rice in literally minutes, which costs about 50p a head. But I doubt it counts as a proper homemade meal

Pizza- make the bases part cook and freeze. Practically instant when you want the just shove toppings on.

Pasta and pesto with whatever veg you have to hand - broccoli or courgette and mushrooms are favs here.

Roast or slow cook a chicken/meat joint when you have time then add to a jar pre-cooked (frozen and defrosted if necessary) curry sauce with rice, or tomato sauce with pasta etc. Also good as fajita wraps or pitta bread kebabs with some veg. This is taken from Jamie Oliver's money saving meals concept of spending money on a big piece of meat and using it wisely for several meals and reducing waste. It's working well for us atm.

Do you have a slow cooker? If so, prepare for the next day after the children have gone to bed, switch on in the morning and it will be ready when you get home. You can make a whole range of casseroles and one pot meals.

Omelettes. Batch cook tomato sauces for pasta. Gnocchi and pesto. Stir fry with noodles.

Meal plan, so you know what you are having when. That saves us more time than anything else.

I love the Mumsnet cookbook one of frozen prawns in soy sauce and garlic. Then add frozen peas and straight to wok noodles. Yum.

Alternate your current batch cooking of mince with cooking up a big cheese sauce
Make it with a small amount of low fat extra mature cheddar and even mix in cooked leeks finely shredded to boost the flavour ... Bit of mustard etc

Then prepare these dishes
Frozen broccoli and cauliflower mix (tescos do a nice one) cook the veg briefly, drain, put into dish, top with sauce, grated cheese of breadcrumbs And freeze

Very nice with baked potatoes
One bag of veg will
Make two dishes, if it's to serve 2

Also mske pasta veg bake ... Cook spiral pasta, mix with steamed carrots, peas, green beans, chunks of pepper, plus cheese sauce