food planning on a budget

[ska]

Does anybody have any ideas for budget meal planning? We are on a tight budget right now and I need to save some money on my food? I have bought an organic box of veg and did my shopping online to avoid temptation (as advised on a thread I found here but can't find again!) but I still see to have spent £130 and I want to try to make it stretch for 2 weeks at least. Any ideas? I have the basics - mince, sausages and lots of cans/rice/couscous now but I'd love some ideas. Any menu ideas or else recipes to share? I do seem to have a lot of organic potatoes! I have 3 kids (13, 11 and 7) with bif appetites and an always starving husband! I don't supose I did this the right way round - should have had ideas and then shopped....

Like you say, plan the meals then buy the food but...

Scour your recipe books for things that use hte ingredients you have OR enter those ingredients into the sainsbury online recipe finder. Yummy potato recipe from Delia:

Peel 900g potatoes and cut into thinnish slices.
Finely chop a large-ish onion
Butter an oven-proof dish
Arrange a layer of pots. over the base of the dish, then a sprinkling of onion and salt and pepper. Then another layer of pots. etc till all used up and finish with a layer of pots (about 3 layers of each, maybe 4). Pour 150ml of hot stock and 150ml of milk over it and dot with 25g butter. Over Gas 4/180C for approx 45 mins until pots. cooked and top layer golden brown.

And Delia again, yummy soup:

4 large leeks, finely sliced
2 medium pots. peeled and diced
1 medium onion chopped small
50g butter
850ml light chicken stock or water (I use a chick, stock cube)
275ml milk
s+p

Melt butter, add all veg, stir, cover and cook low heat 15 mins (or longer if you are me). Add the stock and milk, bring to a simmer, lid back on, simmer v gently 20 mins then liquidise. It is so silky and yummy!

Yes, deffo plan the meals first then buy what you need. Do you have a Lidl's near you, they're really good and cheap.

You can get at least 3 meals out of a rast chicken:
1 - Roast
2 - pick all bits of meat off and do a curry with carrots, tin tomatoes, stock and curry powder or paste
3 - use carcass to make soup: boil with veggies and herbs (i cheat and add a stock cube too), then add potatoes until cooked, cream and blitz.

Thanks to you all - the recipes look yummy! I'm about to try to do tonight's tea using up stuff from last week's veg shop - (so not THIS weeks') and then I will plan the rest of the 2 weeks. And yesterday I roasted a whole load of about-to-go-dodgy veg and have frozen them - will add can of toms for a quick rataouille with couscous when i next need an instant meal.

Have rediscovered rice pudding as a cheap filler pudding. I used my slow cooker and gave the kids a spoon of jam with it. They loved it! Any other ideas for places to look for slow cooker recipes?

Next time I will plan, then shop I promise. I love mumsnet - so non judgemental

Go to 'search all messages' at the top of the page, put in slow cooker in the 'words in thread title' bit (sorry, can't remember exactly what the prompt is, but you will know it when you see it), don't choose any dates and choose food and recipes from the subject list - you need to press the arrow thing to get these subjects to appear on the right hand column - you'll see what I mean when you get there. Loads of handy threads. Happy eating!

take a look here some interesting bits and pieces

pmsl, I read the thread title as..........

Food poisoning on a budget

well food poisoning on a budget could be about right as i'm making my kids eat up ALL the food in the fridge before buying new....
impressed with my ability to 'use up' food though - made chicken last 4 meals and that felt very good (I'm a sad individual!)
not buying anything extra except stuff to try to get a head start on xmas.

does anybody else have a problem with bullying/teasing at school because my dd takes haelthy lunches/flasks filled with soup/pasta etc and she's getting teased and has asked for cheese sandwich like everyone else?
please let me know.
slo cooker ideas great though shock at butchers at price of 'cheap' cuts of meat. will have to go back to the drawing board on that one!

lidl - no none near, we have an aldi i think though - is that any good?
and i find online shopping stops me impulse buying BOGOF offers that no-one really wants anyway.
Thanks to all, please keep it coming!