Inspiration for cheap meals and snacks

[foodbankFun]

Low income and need to use food banks sometimes / shop cheaply and we do also have a wonderful local service that distributes fresh food from supermarkets most days to local residents in need.

Sometimes I have a strange mix of ingredients so have to be creative. Other times I’m just plain stuck as to what to make and it can be a bit of a disaster!

I thought I’d start this thread for tips and ideas and to share recipes or if someone has a weird selection of things we could maybe think up recipes together ?

Im not the best cook but keen to try anything that might make things a bit more fun at a rubbish time.

Tonight I made a roasted chickpea pepper and courgette sauce to have with cous cous. It was a cheap tin of chopped tomatoes and I roasted the veg we got given in the fresh box. There’s sauce/veg left over which I’ll prob add curry powder to and have with rice tomorrow.

We got oranges in the box too so they will be for breakfast.

One thing I want to do is have store cupboard essentials - where is cheapest to get spices and herbs? I only have mild curry powder at the moment but if I could stretch to getting a few I think it would add variety what is the most versatile ?

Any recipes etc please add and hopefully we can all help each other out 🙂

Oh I just like cooking!

bulk out meals with veggies - so if making a bolognaise sauce, pop on carrots, onion and celery - even some French beans. Even red lentils and courgette. I’m veggie but meat eaters do this with their mince meat version.

buy mark down veggies, wash and chop then freeze them for this type of thing. Save time when cooking too.

pizza can be good too. Just flour and yeast for the base and strain a tin of chopped tomatoes for the topping and add whatever is in the fridge.

essenrials for me - passata, pasta, rice, curry powder and Italian herb mixes (I get big jars at Costco), stock cubes, bread flour.

I hadn’t thought of costco I have a friend who goes there I might see if she can pick up the herbs. It’s one of those things I keep thinking if I had herbs and spices I could make things more interesting !
I want to get some cinnamon and nutmeg too, we often get oats from the food bank which I prepare for the dc with grated apple and I think cinnamon or nutmeg would make it taste nicer

i hadn’t thought to chop and freeze veg I had just been trying to think of ways to cook it and make it last 2-3 days but makes perfect sense to chop and freeze some.

Costco is pretty good if you have space! Things are huge - so bottles of cooking oil will be 1l rather than a 750ml and a lot cheaper. I buy herbs, oil, tinned toms, seeds, nuts, couscous… I get big bags of rice from a local ME store and they also do really cheap (but good quality) fruit and veg and fresh herbs. Also huge jars of pickles.

I do a lot of cheap meals for the DC. I find things like scrambled eggs on bagels with veggie sticks go down really well and take next to no prep or cooking. I buy lots of bakery items like the bagels/crumpets/wraps/rolls from aldi and make sure the kids eat plenty of carbs with each meal.

Avoiding meat makes everything cheaper

I finely chop and freeze any limp veg before it goes too far and add it to most things like pasta sauces

Eggs in all formats are my go to quick and easy

Also use eggs for egg fried veggie rice

Pasta with tinned tuna and sweetcorn with mayo or salad cream

Pasta with jarred pesto and salad - sometimes I chop ham and tomatoes up and stir so it's a one bowl meal, sprinkle of cheese on top

Macaroni cheese as a pasta bake with whatever veg I can add in, white sauce made from flour and milk, add in lardons for flavour if I've got them

Quorn pieces can be a good protein option with noodles and veg for stir fried (sometimes on offer at Lidl)

Chickpea curry with frozen peas and spinach, tinned potatoes and tomatoes (and chickpeas) is a staple favourite here. One pot/slow cooker. Freezes well too. Service with rice or naan

Jacket potatoes are cheap and filling. Can make loaded potato skins if you've got leftovers to combine

Hotdogs in buns with veg sticks - almost no cooking or washing up

Chopped veg sticks, chopped apple slices, bread sticks or toast fingers and pot of hummus with some cheese chunks if you've got it in

Cheese and tomato on toast with veg sticks

Thank you these ideas are great. I feel like I don’t use/have eggs as much as I should

And use what you have….

Tonight I couldn’t be bothered to cook for myself so I made a kind of stew with an onion, tin of canelli beans and a tin of ratatouille that I found in the back of the cupboard. With some pita bread it was actually rather nice and enough left over for lunch.

Look around to see if there are any of those "bring your own container" places near you. gram for gram, the spices and herbs are probably a bit more expensive. But you don't have to buy a whole jar, which means you can get a couple of different types or herbs for the equivalent cost of a single jar from a supermarket. I use a LOT of herbs and spices and it still take me ages to get through a full jar of anything.

Pepper and chickpea curry can be great. Fry your onions and peppers, add your curry powder (garlic and ginger if you have it is nice too). Add a tin of tomato and your chickpeas and a bit of vegetable stock or water. Simmer it down and serve with rice/couscous. Cheap and delicious.

Vegetarian fajitas are nice too if you can stretch to getting some paprika: fry strips of onion and peppers, ideally getting them a bit blackened. Add some garlic (or garlic powder), generous amount of paprika. If you have some oregano, add that. Also a teaspoon of sugar. Stir and see it start to caramelise then add a carton of passata. Let simmer for a few minutes. Can be eaten in tortilla wraps with grated cheese by itself or, if you can, add a dollop of greek yoghurt and/or a couple of slices of avocado. If you're feeling flush, one large chicken breast, sliced quite finely, can be added and quickly fried when the onions/peppers are ready so it's not vegetarian. But you don't need a lot of meat in this one.

Another one we had quite often when money was extra tight was "jazzed up baked bean stew". Fry a finely chopped onion v gently until soft. Then add some chopped chorizo or bacon (chorizo is strongly flavoured so you need v little - I could stretch a single chorizo ring to three meals for me, DH and DS). Once browned, add a tin of baked beans and a tin of cannellini beans (or two of baked beans or whatever combo/amount you require for your family). A little water or stock. A dash of vinegar (balsamic is best, but whatever you have is fine). And simmer. We'd have it with rice and a grating of cheese over the top. We had it often when money was tight but it's still a quick/easy store cupboard staple over here.

In Sainsbury's they sell Green Cuisine make your own falafels in a packet. They make around 14 for £1. I bake LOADS of different veg in the oven - onion, pepper, squash, potato, carrot, broccoli etc and have it with the falafels & houmous & pitta bread. You can make enough for 4 meals

If you have a large supermarket near you, the “World Food” isle can be a good place to pick up cheap spices.

Personally I would stay away from adding nutmeg to porridge. I think cinnamon is much nicer tasting, especially with apples, and a bit more versatile.

Another egg fan here but then I work on a egg farm! Good to see the egg love.

I make a lot of lentil soup.

how to you make your porridge with grated apple?

I'd be keen to hear peoples ideas for cheap snacks. Mine get bored of oatcakes and carrot sticks!

I make chapati type flatbreads with just plain flour, water and a pinch of salt. They're good for quick cook bread replacement and a single bag of cheap flour lasts us ages. If you can afford the oven on, I fill them with tinned beans and cheese or veggie chilli or stew, roll up then bake for 10, 15 mins. If not, I make quesadillas and fry them on the stove top. Again, filled with some beans, veggies, grated cheese.

Thick soup here.

If you have a slow cooker, they are excellent for cooking dried beans that have been soaked the previous night. The cooking water can be used for stock too.
Try growing some herbs in pots?

Naan with yoghurt flour oil are great.
Do you have an Indian community near you.there shops selling spices etc will be much better price and you can usually pic up some fantastic bits from their authentic shops.

Just a reminder re cooking beans in a slow cooker that some of them - red kidney beans for one - need ten minutes fast boiling initially to eliminate toxins. I sometimes soak and cook a large quantity of beans at a time, then freeze them in smaller batches; cheaper than buying single tins and they thaw very quickly in hot water.
Minestrone makes a filling meal using cheap veg, onion, celery, carrots, tin of tomatoes or carton of passata, veg stock, dried or fresh oregano or thyme, add some macaroni or other small pasta, borlotti or cannellini beans, shredded cabbage.

My absolutely favourite meal is pasta with olive oil , chilli and garlic.

Fry the chilli and garlic slowly while pasta is boiling. Then add the pasta to the fried garlic and chilli. Have a side of salad or vegetables.

Googled but can't find the mix. Have you got a photo to help? Thanks

Look for shops aimed at Asian shoppers for spices. I our nearest town can often get big packs for the price of a little jar in the supermarket. If you club together with others you could share out (we keep jam jars etc for storage) and save a fair bit. Ditto stiff like rice can be cheaper in big bags in Asian shops.

Something else that maybe some people in their life don't experience is trying not to use too much fuel, cooking something quickly or not having any fuel at all.
Anyway fermenting sauerkraut out of anything at all is a brilliant way to preserve something you might have a glut of. It's fantastic for your system and it gives a very very big kick to whatever you are eating.
All you need is salt, a jar and any vegetable or fruit.
Honestly the basic blandist of foods taste brilliant.
Frozen peas are good value (around 60p mostly) for protein and vitamins. Frozen vegetables can quite often be frozen on the day of picking and IMO more healthy sometimes than the sorry state of "fresh" veg some places sell.
I make a big mash of well anything I have, so it's usually mixed root veg and peas, all in the same pan, then you can always make them into veg burgers as well.
Seeking out what is usually called now "world food section" in a supermarket will find much cheaper spices in bigger quantities
Very cheap vegetable seeds can still be had in places like lidl, grow some things to eat as baby leaf or herbs on windowsill. Most pound shops do pound compost.
You can absolutely grow anything in normal soil if you can't afford compost just it will sprout weeds as well.
Pancakes !!
I don't think I'd still be alive without them, buckwheat (not a wheat ) is brilliant, I would class it as a superfood you can also try gram flour/besan (it has many different names).
You can also make hummus..sort of..out of besan flour although I settled on calling my concoction "a sauce"
Just flour and water for the pancakes that's all you need.
Porridge if you can have oats, cheap.
Finding something you can comfort drink yeast extract, stock, something
Brilliant thread !!

I buy the £1.50 Lidl boxes. My favourite thing to batch cook with those are the veggies cooked with some stock or chopped tomatoes, mixed herbs, top with mashed potato. It's like a huge vegetable shepherd's pie!

Soup as well. Cook the veggies and then blitz with a hand mixer. Can also be frozen in batches. Serve with bread from your Too Good To Go bags.

I put the fruit from the boxes either in a salad or mixed with cheap yogurt (buy a giant pot!) for breakfast. You could also use your oats for this and make 'overnight oats' (put oats, yogurt and fruit in a jar/bowl/container overnight and they all mix together nicely).

Lentils are great for bulking things out and are cheap.

B&M are doing three for two on seeds (just read PP!).

Oh! And buy the supermarket's own brand of Worcester sauce. Fantastic stuff on everything from omelettes to adding to sauces. Really peps things up.

I always pad things like spaghetti bolognese or curries with lentils. (Not just because they’re cheap and filling, but because they add fibre and have oligosaccharides that feed gut flora, supposed to help with immunity.) You can buy lentils, chickpeas and beans cheaply from oriental grocery stores as well as Costco. Also herbs and spices. Just make sure to either keep these things in the freezer or freeze them before storing in the pantry. I have had a couple of infestations of weevils and flour mites. Having said that, they can come from anywhere. Freezing dried storage items for 24-48hrs prior to putting them in your pantry will kill off any eggs.

You can buy tins of black beans, chickpeas, etc… Which are heavier to carry, but pre-cooked so you don’t have to wait. Buying biggest tins usually works out cheaper.

Also in oriental grocery stores you can buy powdered curry mixes. They are easier to carry than ones in jars. The only difference is that jarred ones are mixed with oil. That’s easily done at home.

I would look at recipes like Aloo Gobi (curried potatoes). You can use the recipe base for any veggies, add chicken or whatever later.

I know you’re coming into summer, but soups are nutritious and comforting. Pretty much anything can be turned into a soup. (Especially leftovers!)

Finely sliced berries mixed with watermelon and mint can be frozen in ice cube trays with water or lemonade. They are refreshing to add to glasses of water. I do the same with cucumber, lemon or lime juice and mint, too. Delish in sugar-free tonic water or mineral/soda water when you want something that feels adult bits don’t want the calories or the cost of an alcoholic beverage. I also make strong tea (Earl Grey is fab!), chill it in the fridge and mix with sugar-free lemonade and a couple of these when I want iced tea. (You can also experiment with different herbal teas.)

Miso soup is extremely light and very good for you. You can buy packets of dehydrated miso soup at most supermarkets (or Japanese/Asian grocery stores.) You can add chicken, tofu or mushrooms to make it more filling. (Or all of them!)
I don’t know if you live in a house or a flat, but most herbs are cheap to buy in pots, and easy to grow in a sunny window. You could start there too.

Just to say these falafel mixes seem to be spreading. I bought a couple in the reduced aisle last week for

@OldTinHat has just reminded me.
Red lentils Shepherds pie.
The very very basic things you need are:
Red lentils (because they go mushy and are quick)
Any green veg you have
Some type of root vegetables
Some stock, yeast extract whatever
its just boiling everything and the lentils are boiled with the stock/yeast extract to make the "mince" not too much water though
obviously anything else you can add to that is a bonus but it's good cheap healthy comfort food.

I have found the falafel mix now it is called simply green.
Nice to know there are others and will try them in my salad for work lunches.

Do you make the flatbreads? They sound amazing!