Menu planners for next week what are your basic ingredients?

[jenk1]

i know this has been done to death but im starting my menu plan this week and ive got to do really easy/cheap meals as its direct debit week, im looking for cheap easy meals if anyone could oblige.
Tomorrow
spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese.
thats as far as ive got cos im going shopping on monday!!!!

TIA

Tuna, pineapple and iceberg salad with new potatoes.
Baked potatoes - prob with creme fraiche and smoked salmon, cos my poncey children loved it last week.
spinach pasta (spinach with cream and cream cheese)

That's as far as I've got, because I'll be shopping on Wednesday.

paella
spanish omlette
i do a dish called eggs flemenco that is really cheap (its onion, 3 peppers, tin tomatoes, chilli and garlic and a bit of tom puree, cook in a pan, then transfer to a dish. crack about 4 eggs on top, sprinkle with parmasan then bake until eggs are cooked, sever with crusty bread)

Buy a chicken roast one night and curry the next night.

our menu for the week is this
sat - pasta with pesto
sun - roast chicken dinner
mon - chicken salad with left over chicken
tues - shepherds pie
wed- mediterranean veg pie using leftover pesto
thurs - ham joint with potatoes
fri - quice made with left over ham and salad

you could do something similar but have lamb/beef joint on tues and make shepherds/cottage pie wiht the leftovers from it on wednesday. I always find it cheaper if something can make two meals.
Spaghetti carbonara is pretty cheap and easy. Any sort of veg or bean soup or stew if homemade will cost pennies and be really filling, if you have time make your own bread it costs less. bulk out stews etc with pulses.

discounting my veg box this is what I bought today for the menu above:

organic lamb mince 3.23
Organic chicken 8.16 (its huge) and will make mondays sandwiches as well as both evening meals
new potatoes 1.18
cream 79p
salad 1.49
pesto 1.89
parmesan 2.77
plus veg box at 20.00

everything else i need are store cupboard items for me. So if I hadn't bought all the other pointless crap that I usually buy we could have eaten for a week on £39.51. My veg box contains my fruit and eggs

What a great thread. I'm having to start planning in advance so great for tips thanks!

Jen you could make double of the tomato sauce and make pizzas with it as a topping? Either scone base or traditional type pizza dough are very cheap and filling to make

our shopping was super cheap a few week's ago because I went to sainsburys and got loads of stuff off their bargain shelf - don't forget to look there (wherever you shop - we got a pack of 10 yoghurts for £1!)

also, if yours will eat fish, tinned mackerel and salmon is very cheap and you can make a big fish pie that will last 2 meals

But to answer your original question, we are planning to have vegetarian shepherd's pie (cheap as anything, it is basically onions, mushrooms, brown lentils and mashed potato)

we'll have that twice during the week

one night we are eating at a friend's (they came to us last week)

salad with lettuce grown from our garden [chuffed], some kidney beans and avocadoes, plus new potatoes

butternut squash and lentil sauce from the freezer, which is basically onions, butternut squash and red lentils, served with quinoa

and dunno the rest of the week, probably something with quorn in to appease dp

grr at my rogue apostrophe

Message withdrawn

oh these are really good ideas, thanks very much

We usually have salad one day a week. There's so many different ones you can have, it's easy to keep it interesting. We have smoked mackeral, salade nicoise, tuna pasta, scotch eggs, deli quiche etc etc