Cheap Meal Ideas - let's have your best suggestions!

[Ceolas]

We're going to be having a 'lean' month. Sure we're not the only ones!

Apart from beans on toast - any new suggestions for a meat eating family of 5?

Couple of quick lunch or dinner ideas which are really, really versatile:
Chop up various veg - I typically use onion, red and yellow peppers, chopped big and cherry tomatoes, chopped courgette, crushed garlic. Spray with fry light and roast in a medium oven for about 45 mins.
You could eat this once cooked hot or cold with a salad, or cous cous, or baked potato.
But for a variation you can turn it into ratatouille by adding some tinned chopped tomatoes and a tin of chick peas. Heat through and serve with salad or baked potato.
I usually make extra and then you could blitz the remainder into a really nice pasta sauce. Good for the kids as you can hide the veg in a pasta sauce! Done the ratatouille
for my boys and served it with cous cous and garlic bread - clean plate all round!

Hope I've explained this OK! Some great ideas on this thread - I quite fancy the lentil recipe. Might try that tomorrow!

sausage casserole (add a tin of baked beans at the end to thicken the sauce bulk it out and make it yummy)
macaroni cheese with bits of bacon
veggie stew with a teaspoon of marmite to make it taste more meaty
veg chilli
mushroom risotto
bake just cooked root veg with some chunks of just turning to stale bread and a cheese sauce (always used to be my day before supermarket meal as a student)

I am going to try the sizzling sausage recipe from the dinner lady cook book.

Sausages are a hit or miss in here, but pretty cheap!

jacket potatoes

jacket spuds philly and bacon
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sounds delish, dogsby!

omg it is

it smy " dh is away" kind of meal

Corned Beef hash :

1 tin corned beef, 1 onion, 1/2kg potatoes (we used Sainsbury's value ones and they were fine). Fry together. Poached egg on top. Served with beans.

Served 2 with leftovers for DD.

Lambs liver, and other offal is very cheap if your family like it. I haven't tried these because I loathe offal (though I do give my kids liver sometimes), but you could try kidneys and other similarly less popular more old fashioned "cuts", especially if you have a helpful butcher. We also favour baked potatoes, eggs (ommlettes or scrambled egg), and pasta or rice with bit of veg chopped in and a small quantity of tuna, chicken or sausage etc. If you strip every bit of meat off a chicken or other cheaper joint, you can make it go for several meals, and use the bones to make stock which makes eg bean stew much tastier.

Just remembered another one:

Beany chilli
Tin of baked beans,
Tin of kidney beans in chilli sauce,
Tin of chick peas

Throw in pan and heat through and serve with rice.
PS Stand well back afterwards, could be windy!

Lentil pasta...(super super cheap)
Fry onion in a little oil, add lentils, bay leaf, tinned tomatoes. Simmer until the lentils are all mushy. Serve with pasta and a little grated cheese. Really delicious.
If I make too much I freeze it in rubber muffin tray thing and then pop out cubes to spread on bread for lunch or put on baked potato.
Oh, and if you don't do it already, get your basics (pasta, rice, cheese, oil etc at Lidl or similar)

Slow cooked shoulder of lamb - very cheap - brown in a pan first, put in a casserole dish with some rosemary (start growing your own herbs in a pot) and pour over half a pint of stock or wine. Cover with foil and cook on a low heat for 4-6 hours.

Sausage and artichoke casserole - use tinned artichokes, they a fraction of the price of deli ones. Google "Nigel Slater Ssausage and artichoke casserole" for the recipe - really good and very cheap.

Make your own pizzas - either buy cheap bases or buy the flour and do your own. You hardly need any ingredients for toppings and you can use loads of leftovers.

Mushrooms are good for pasta sauces as a meat alternative. Again, try googling Nigel Slater - he does some great mushroom pasta recipes - one of them, can't find it now, uses mushrooms, parmesan, olive oil, butter, parsley and pasta and tastes fantastic.

Sausage risotto (rice, stock, tinned tomatoes, onions, sausages, anything else you've got available)

Corned beef hash already mentioned, and I think there was another thread on this elsewhere with various methods

Toad in the hole or yorkshire puddings with savoury mince

Soups - just put anything you've got in a pan with stock and cook. Either blend or just mash.