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 🙂

Noodle soup is a useful standby dish, as it's quick to make and versatile. Cook cheap noodles in any hot stock, home made or from powder etc. Add leftovers such as slivers of leftover chicken or pork, shredded cabbage, grated carrots, spinach or salad leaves, fried mushrooms, green beans, etc etc. Add a garnish of chopped spring onions, and a splash of soy sauce or sweet chilli sauce.

For cheap snacks try homemade popcorn with a savoury twist, forget the caramel sauce, and instead sprinkle the hot popcorn with black pepper, or celery salt, or cayenne pepper or smoked paprika (only a very little of those last two required!)
Cheese straws made with shortcrust pastry, or mini cheese scones are cheap snacks to go with a drink.

Don't forget that you can grow on spring onions in a jam jar of water on your window sill, so you will always have some to snip and add to omelettes, soups, or scatter over salads for a bit of colour.

For your herbs/spices question - a fajita or Cajun blend really jazzes up roasted veg or a tomato sauce. I use it in so many things and you don't need much for flavour. A mixed herbs would also go in a lot of things. I'd also try to stretch to a dried garlic or similar - it will liven up most things.

If you wanted single flavours I find the ones I reach for most are oregano (good in tomato sauces, with most veg, in chilli), cumin (lovely just added to stir fried veg or mince to go wraps or pittas) and paprika (similar uses to the others - adds an "earthy" depth to tomatoes.

I love the board and everyone's ideas!

If you have a local fruit and veg market ask what time they close and go around that time. Mine sold whole massive cardboard trays (not little tubs) of fruit for £2!!! E.g cherries/nectarines/plums etc that were only going to be binned that night as too close to sell by date!
I once made 10 jars of jam with plums which I put in old jam jars, a massive crumble and cut up and froze the remaining fruit.
You can freeze it in individual tinfoil parcels and defrost portions by pouring boiling water from the kettle on it and draining it.

I buy frozen spinach cubes from Iceland and defrost a load in the microwave by 'cooking them' in there for 5 mins.
I fry frozen prawns and mix in the spinach.
I use this as a pasta sauce which I sprinkle with mature cheddar.
It's a bit sloppy but spinach and cheese always compliment each other perfectly and it's very healthy. Some shops sell cheap atlantic frozen prawns in bulk.
Works best with thick pasta like taglitele if you have any but any will be fine.

Similarly if you buy cheap noodles and marinate strips of chicken or prawns you can just chuck them over the top with chopped spring onions and it's delicious.

I also make a lot of crumbles (using market fruit or cooking apples people leave out on their doorstep from their trees - some people have been doing that locally).
It's so cheap to make and you only need to mix a small amount of butter with flour and sugar to make the topping.

Aldi keeps being voted the cheapest supermarket but Asda and other supermarkets have been selling really cheap tins lately. E.g Sainsburys sells Hubbards rice pudding for 20p a tin.

@AWOL66
Brilliant ideas and you've reminded me.
When you buy cheap bulk veg or you grow it and you have a lot one of the preserving methods is to blanch or boil whatever it is. Then press into ice cube trays, when frozen you can then squeeze out into a bag/tub for the future.
If you don't have an ice cube tray you can do the same, then place tiny portions on a flat tray in the freezer, then bag up when frozen.
I've had many years where I couldn't afford to have/ run a freezer so then it's back to preserving things in salt etc.

Try making smash burgers for a treat. It's actually incredibly easy and surprisingly cheap. You need one pack of beef mince (ideally with a bit more fat, not lean), buns, the cheap orange melty cheese slices, ketchup/mayo and whatever veg you have at hand. Just roll the mince directly from the packet into balls, place between two squares of baking paper and press it as flat as you can with the base of a saucepan. No seasoning, nothing at all needed in the meat.

Then use the baking paper to transfer the patty into a hot pan and fry until well-done. Add some salt and pepper to both sides, and the cheese slices near the end so they melt. Transfer onto toasted buns, top with ketchup/mayo and done! If you have a bit of tomato or cucumber then you can easily stretch that for toppings since everyone only needs a few slices. Use a veg peeler on the cucumber to get thin ribbons.

This actually tastes just like the burgers you get from restaurants.

If you can batch cook (and freeze) that’s good.

Otherwise even just making a little extra for the next day (for lunch or dinner) can save a load! If I nip our to grab lunch near me it works out quite dear over the week (it’s all fancy coffee shops and chichi delis where I work).

stick to shopping lists. We used to throw loads of food out because we’d impulse buy, forgetting that we’d all be out during the week.

I have the Trilley app (it compared supermarket prices for foods). It’s not great for me because we don’t have an Iceland near us (they always come out cheaper) but my sister saved £30 on one of her shops using this app.

anyway - I’m off the the fruit and veg market today - best cherries in west London!

Trolley app… not trilly (sounds like budgie spotting)

Thank you and thanks for the great tips! I love the idea of creating my own vegetable frozen cubes. I tried to freeze some veg before but it didn't freeze well at all like the fruit did, as I didn't know that you were meant to blanch or boil the veg first! Now I know! :-)

Also go straight to the foreign food isle in your supermarket