Give me your best cheap meals!

[MollyBloomYes]

Unexpected bill, not much left for one more food shop this month. I need some cheap meals, to feed 5 plus a toddler. I'm pretty useless so usually do pots of stuff with rice or pasta. So far I've got a bean goulash, jacket potatoes and fillings, leek and bacon pasta bake, I need four more. No dietary requirements but one diner won't even eat cumin as it's 'too spicy' (yes this does make meal planning trickier!) Please inspire me lovely mumsnetters!

Tortilla wraps
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
? cup vegetable oil
1 cup warm water
Mix flour and baking powder, add water and vegetable oil and mix. Leave to stand for about 20 minutes then roll into even sized balls. Roll out each ball into about 2-3mm thick wraps. Heat non stick pan on a medium heat. Each wrap takes around 30 seconds each side. They will store in the fridge for a few days.
Fill with whatever you have handy.
The original recipe has salt added (1tsp I think) but I make these for DS 8 months do don't use salt in mine.

*I meant plain or wholemeal flour.

PPs were right to say that making your own bread is easy and cheap - I mean, a 25cm pizza for less than 70p!

Here's a post on my blog with a few suggestions and recipes.

And I agree, dhal one of the cheapest (and quickest if you use red lentils) meals around, it's also one of the tastiest!

Tuna pasto is a favourite in our house. Cooked cooled pasta, tin of tuna and tin of sweetcorn(or frozen), mixed together with some mayonaise .

Loving this thread!

If you have any spices/curry paste/Sauce then a cauliflower and egg curry.

Fry an onion, and spices/paste, and chopped and balanced caulifower, can of tom, water, and simmer to reduce. Meanwhile boíl eggs, I have 1 and DH needs 2, then serve over rice with the eggs halved and arranged on top. Or add a handfull of lentils if eggs are not an opción.

Pan haggerty britishfood.about.com/od/psrecipes/r/panhaggerty.htm
I love this just on it's own but you could add a bit of bacon if you wanted.

I've just read through that recipe. I cook it on top in a frying pan with a lid on. It's quicker that way.

Some lovely ideas!
I cooked crumpets this morning, but broke with tradition, no butter but Brie and Bacon, it's only me and him here this morning...
Grandparents have DD ??

With a bag of self raising flour in the cupboard, you're never out of bread, or pancakes, or tempura batter, or dumplings and more.

Soda bread:
1 cup s/r flour
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1/3rd cup water

Mix into a soft dough, knead a few times, shape into a round, place on a baking sheet, cut a deep cross in the loaf and bake at 200C for around 15 minutes. To see if it's done, check with a skewer - it should break apart cleanly. Cost approx 4.5p for the ingredients.

Pancakes:
Mix s/r flour and water into a batter, not too thin - and that's it! Cost 1p per pancake.

As a vegan, I've experimented a lot with ingredients, and I've come to the conclusion that eggs are unnecessary in a great many recipes. They're certainly not needed in the pancake recipe.

And they're not necessary in this cheap chocolate cake - 70p for an 8" cake, done in the microwave.

150g s/r flour
150g sugar
75g veg oil
250g (ml) water

Mix together, pour into a silicon cake former and microwave for 6 minutes.

Recipe here - and there's also an adaptation of a 'cake in a mug' on my blog, which youngsters can make from start to finish.

another shamelessly placemarking so as not to lose this! income has reduced recently so looking for tips!

Place marking too!

American style pancakes
3 large eggs
120g plain flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
150ml milk
1 pinch salt
25g. caster sugar(if making the sweet version)

Separate yolk from whites. Whisk egg white until stiff/peaks. In another bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt then add milk and egg yolk, mix to make batter. If making the sweet version add the caster sugar before next step.
Fold the whisked egg whites into the batter.
Heat non stick frying pan to a medium heat then add some of the mixture being careful not to put too much in as it spreads! Cook for about 2-3 minutes then turn over to cook other side.
Pancakes should be a golden brown in colour when cooked. You can serve with fruit,maple syrup, bacon or whatever you fancy. Mixture makes around 8 medium sized pancakes, they will keep in the fridge for a few days.
I love these as they are thicker than traditional pancakes.

I haven't rtft so really sorry if I'm repeating but here are my cheap meals for when money's tight :

Mackeral (smoked fillets) with potatos and any veg you might have or rice with veg thrown in.
You can get salmon trimmings quite cheaply and mix it with pasta and cream cheese (most supermarkets do a basic cream cheese which is quite reasonable)
If I roast a chicken then I get 2 or 3 meals out of it with the leftovers being used in a pasta dish or a curry. The bones can be made into chicken stock or chicken broth (broth can be served with bread or dumplings to make more filling)
There's a nice shepherds pie recipe which uses very little mince and you pad it out with lentils which you can buy quite cheaply in bulk add extra veg too.
I also always find veggie meals are cheaper so I'll do a veggie curry with Chickpeas or even just jacket potatos wih baked beans.
I know tuna is expensive but I usually have it in my cupboard and forget it's there so if I don't want to buy much meat I can just do a tuna pasta bake or a jacket potatos with tuna Mayo

Hope that helps and I'm going to read through the full thread tomorrow and get some inspiration as well!

I haven't tried these, but I thought they sound very healthy, cheap and easy www.food.com/recipe/2-ingredients-eggs-banana-pancakes-501408

Oh and I forgot! You can make really nice mini pizzas and do with just salad or home made chips. You just buy the cheapest English muffins (sainsburys basic ones are great and not expensive) put some tomato puree on each one and then sprinkle cheese over it (cheddar is fine!) Top with any veg you have Mushrooms or sweetcorn and grill them for 5 minutes or so just until the cheese melts and browns a little really. Really quick and easy and not expensive at all as no meat involved.

Fab thread...Once a week I use all veg that needs using up. Cook some value pasta... Chop or grate the veg, add somr herbs/garlic black pepper. Fry up together adding a tin of value tomatoes. Once soft add to pasta in large oven dish top with cheese and melt in oven.
My family love this.

If needed i add frozen sweet corn and/or kidney beans.

Loving this thread, especially the Austerity Housekeeping blog! Thanks, BoffinMum!

Bacon offcuts are brilliant, they add loads of flavour to cheap vegetable and pulse based dishes and a little goes a long way. Same with chicken wings or cooked chicken carcasses leftover from a roast. Thrown into thick soups stews and pulse based dals etc makes them seem meaty and flavoursome without actually requiring much meat.

Place marking too

Love this thread, marking my place to come back later.

Lentil stew. Red lentils and a vegetable stewpack (hopefully reduced to about 50p).
I like to sweat my veg first, for about 10 mins, to bring out the flavour. I also add a bit of cumin and smoky paprika. Add water and lentils and simmer to the lentils go soft. Add about a teaspoon of marmite (I prefer it to stock), simmer till it's cooked to your liking. Serve with your carbs of choice (or you can just bung a few chopped up tatties in)
You can add a bit more water and blend it down to soup if you prefer.
All good tasty food.

And one more suggestion.
A roll of sausage meat (like what people buy at Christmas) can be roasted in the oven for a really cheap roast dinner , along with yorkshires and roast potatoes. My kids used to love this.

Another good meal with sausage meat is to roll it, spread it with mango chutney and wrap it in puff pastry. Cooked for about 20 minutes until meat is hot all the way through and pastry done but not burned.