£100 meal plan till Xmas!

[Waitinginthewings]

I have exactly £100 to last me till Christmas. This is for 1 adult and 2 preschoolers. We dont need every meal as staying with friend for few days, children are at nursery some days etc.
Can anyone suggest meal suggestions?
I've got a huge freezer and a slow cooker.
I do have basics in like rice, herbs, pasta, flour, frozen veg n a few frozen meals I've made.
Be grateful if anyone has time to post their low cost meal recipes. I'm not a good cook so would need recipes to follow.
Healthy recipes/ snack suggestions appreciated.
Thank you!

Just to add- £100 is just for food, nothing else.

I make a sausage and bean casserole.

Fry onion and sausages
Add baked beans and tinned tomatoes (equal quantities of both)
Splash of Worcestershire sauce

Cook in oven until all sort of thick and gloopy!

My dd also like plain pasta boiled with some mixed veg and a bit of grated cheese.

So you eat meat/fish? Does the £100 just cover food or also household items?

A roast is a good idea - lamb or beef (if you know when your supermarket discount foods you can pick up a bargain) as you can have the meat one day with veggies and make a tatie pot the next (slices of meat with layers of onions and potatoes with gravy slow cooked in the oven).

Soups are easy - chunky with bread is nice for lunch and lentil soup (nice with carrots) is ‘magic’ (it just gets thicker when left).

Make use of leftovers - so cook a little extra pasta sauce and use it in homemade pizzas (a good activity to keep kids busy too).

Chilli freezes nicely.

You can but large packs of cheap basics (rice and pasta etc) and buy larger bags of veg but just store them properly to last.

What things do you like to eat?

Yes- just for food (though if I can spend less than £100 that would be great).
Yes- we eat meat and fish. Though I never really buy fish apart from fish fingers, ready to eat salmon and tinned fish.
We arent very fussy eaters. Want to make sure we eat plenty of fruit/ veg too.

Mince is your friend.
Do a big bolognese in the slow cooker which can be used for:
Spaghetti bolognese
Lasagna
Baked potatoes topping
Pasta bake.
Add a bit of chilli powder and some kidney beans and you have chilli.

Mince in slow cooker with onions chopped veg and gravy used for:
Cottage pie.
Mince and dumplings
Mince and onion pie

Aldi do a version of boxed fajita kit it's less than £2 and comes with everything but the chicken. Also packet of skinless chicken thighs are less than £2.50.

I also use chicken thighs to make:
Chicken and veg pie
Chicken casserole.
Chicken korma
Chicken soup
Chicken and bacon wraps.

I buy veg cook it and freeze it.
So I will make a big batch of mash and freeze it.
I part cook veg and freeze that.

Eggs are also great.
Boiled eggs for brekkie.
Omelettes
Scrambled eggs.
Spanish ommletts (can used left over chicken and peppers from fajita day)
Eggy bread
Pancakes

I am sure others will be along with some great ideas.

Jack Monroe Tin Can Cook. I can do 2 adults and 2 kids for about £15 a week. Won't recommend specific recipes as I don't know what you like.

Though really all her books are aimed at decent food on a v tight budget. A lot of her recipes are available for free on her website.

So it’s about £25 a week with a couple of extra meals.
What do you have at home in the freezer and cupboards?
I’d do mostly veg stuff and split some meat over a few dishes.
So things like split some mince to add flavour more than as a main ingredient for some pasta bolognese (bulk with grated carrots, courgettes and tomatoes), chilli (bulk with cans of beans)
If you like Indian food (doesn’t have to have chilli in it) then curries and dahls are really cheap. Add rice or any flatbreads.

cookingonabootstrap.com/

Another suggestion of Jack Monroes recipes- I've added a link

Beans, chick peas etc are you friends. Pasta of course is a great option - 1 can chopped tomatoes, I tin anchovies, pinch of oregano and some crushed garlic makes a good sauce for about £1 and should give you leftovers too. Go to Aldi for basics if you can.

Sauté carrots, onions and celery. Can mixed beans, can chopped tomatoes, pinch of herb de Provence, garlic, paprika. Serve with sausages, 2 meals worth at least.

I would recommend buying a big pack of chicken, beef, mince or sausages and making a big casserole in the slow cooker (if your DC will eat this) and bulking up with lots of veg. Then portion them up to freeze. You can then defrost them and add rice which is cheap as anything.
Same for chilli, spag bol etc

Also, spaghetti is 22p a packet in Lidl, pasta sauce 48p and meatballs £2.49 for 12. This is one of our favourite cheapo meals.

Packets of frozen Richmond sausages are £3 in Lidl for 16 which we make for eggs and beans.

Eggs are fairly cheap so could do cheese and ham omelettes for tea, I always loved them as a kid!

I would also recommend shopping after teatime if possible as there tends to be loads of reduced food (perfectly fine as well) on offer for you to freeze x

Bacon and lentil soup is tasty and filling!

Bacon and egg pie made rolled pastry is nice and can be eaten cold. Costs about 2 pound to make a large and small (use plates!).

Similarly crustless quiche or frittata.

Shepherds pie, bolognese, chilli with 5% pork mince (1.99 in Aldi!).

Pasta abs pesto with peas.

Jacket potatoes with beans.

Meal plan and batch cook-soups and stews are easiest and go far.

Buy frozen-Iceland do cheap meats.

It will.be incredibly tight. You might need to live on pasta most of the time. If you've got a FarmFoods near you you can get frozen fruit and veg quite cheaply.

Is there any way you can move money earmarked for something else into the food budget? Even an extra £5 per week would help.

Nope there is no way of getting extra money unfortunately.

Dahl- the carrot and coconut slimming world recipe is delicious- google it. You could make a batch for about £3 to last 3/4 evening meals

My own bolognese sauce is a tin of tomatoes, stock cube, squeeze garlic and frozen onions, herbs, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and a half teaspoon of sugar.
You can make loads of this and use it with meatballs, mince, chilli, pizza topping.

I make my own meatballs with pork mince, some dried stuffing and and egg mixed in.

I made 15 portions of potato and leek soup yesterday. Cost £3 for the ingredients. That’s 15 lunches for 1 person. Porridge for breakfast is nutritious. Porridge oats are very cheap.

Can you get the TooGoodToGo app? Morrisons are starting on there next week and you can sign up to get £10 of food - fruit, veg and bakery I think - for £3. It will be unsold stuff at the end of the day but could definitely be turned into soups, crumbles, french toast etc a couple of days later

Drop the meat. It’s so expensive especially when you have a very small budget. Make veggie/meat free things of recipes you like already. E.g
Shepard’s pie
Enchiladas
Tacos
Pasta bake
Falafel
Burgers
Lots of soups
Chili
Veggie and coconut curry
Baked potatoes

I imagine if you made a regular sized cottage pie it would last you 2 or 3 servings. Freeze the extras and have the next week if you don’t want to eat it so soon again.

Keep breakfast simple if you eat it. Porridge with milk or water, some frozen fruit and some peanut butter for the fats.

Should add, tins of chickpeas are 33p in my Lidl, same for kidney beans, butter beans etc. Big box of porridge oats for £1, frozen bags of veggies for under £1, frozen fruit for £1-£2 a bag, etc.

Iceland suffers from terrible snobbery on this site, but with your amount of cash it could be a lifesaver.
Check out their multi buy offers on frozen veg (the cheapest way to buy “fresh” if you’re on a budget), biscuits etc. Their ready to roast turkey breast (and others) are 3 for £10. They would probably do 2 meals for your family, plus sandwiches.
Delivery is free over £30. Save yourself some petrol money and hassle.
www.iceland.co.uk

Four for £10. Even better!

Eggs are cheap, healthy protein that kids will eat. Microwaved and scrambled with cheese on a slice of toast is like 25p per portion.

Thank you so much for all the ideas. I've been taking notes! I've just signed up for the too good to go app. Will try it out next week.

Not been to Iceland in years...think I'll try doing next weeks shop there.

If anyone is reading this thread for ideas, Morrisons have just started doing a carrot and coriander soup veg mix for £1! Its basically some chopped/ prepared veg that can be turned into soup by following basic recipe on back (all ingredients are in it).
It was delicious! Made a tasty, warming lunch. We had 3 big portions with bread.

Soup and a stodgy pudding.