Has your regular ‘menu’ changed since food prices hike?

[Ilovecleaning]

Mine has. I was never a chicken-nuggets-frozen-pizza mother but a cook-from-scratch cook. This continues into retirement. Now, around 3 meals a week are something like:

• egg, chips, beans
• Heinz Spaghetti on toast with a poached egg on top (I can’t believe it myself 🤣)
• jacket potatoes and whatever I can scrape together from the fridge/freezer

Generally:

• I serve smaller portions of meat, fish, chicken.
• bolognese/chilli bulked out with finely chopped vegetables
• use minced beef to make pies as it is much cheaper than chillis/bolognaise which use a lot more ingredients.
• add diced potatoes to meat pie filling to bulk out even more
• drastically cut down on bought puddings- I make more jellies and rice pudding - far fewer snack food/biscuits/cake in the cupboards.

Has anyone else’s cooking habits changed?

Yes we are eating a lot more 'beige food than we were previously and more frozen/less fresh.
Really not keen on texture of a lot of frozen veg but it will have to do!

Sorry to say also a lot.more cheap supermarket chicken as opposed to maybe once a week from the butchers..unfortunately ethical standards have slipped..! Both kids like chicken and its filling and easy to make meals with.
Previously we would eat nicer meals just for us after kids had gone to bed. Now we are more likelt to have what they're having. Saving energy costs as well.

More sparing with toppings e.g. very small amounts of parmesan (or none at all) on a pasta dish instead of the heaps I used to have

Also far fewer nice puddings and treats out e.g. coffee and cake.

Not really but I'm buying the really cheapy cheap ingredients now instead of standard price. Can't say there's an huge difference. You don't have snack anymore though!

Yep. We used to eat salmon fillets about once a fortnight, and beef stew about as often in winter. Now it's fishcakes and chicken stew. Otter similar swaps elsewhere. I'll buy 1 box of posh cereal a fortnight (mini Weetabix) , and it's Tesco-fake-shreddies when it's gone. Started making my own hummus, and generally using a lot more pulses.

Me, too with the cheese. I don’t want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs but have you tried doing big tray bakes of roasted veg? Can be topped with thin strips of chicken near the end. Or even grated cheese. Use herbs, spices, honey. Can be very tasty. But I know using the oven is costly.

Same here with the salmon fillets 😊. Now it’s breaded fish.

Yes. I now buy 20% fat minced beef. 500 grams makes 4 homemade burgers. And I use the easiest recipe ever 😊

Same with the salmon but generally, we've not changed what we eat that much.
I've always been careful about what we spend on good and try to make healthy meals. I'm spending more though, like others.

I'm giving the dcs filling food after school so they're not hungry, hunting around for snacks.
Things like eggs, wraps, pasta/rice salads or pancakes with apples or bananas.

Now it's getting colder, I'll be doing porridge and soups more regularly so that will save money.

I bake cakes too for after dinner and lunchbox snacks. Just simple ones like lemon or carrot. I make a couple a week and put them in the freezer.

Foods higher in nutrients are more filling and there's less tendency to overeat so I find it's worth the effort. The kids are often tasked with the baking because it does take time.

Yes, we add chickpeas to curries and reduce the meat.

We dont have salmon anymore.

We wat cheaper meats and cuts of meats.

Lots more jacket potatoes and eggs.
Reducing the about of mince and topping up with lentils.
Trying to make Sunday’s roast chicken drag out a lot longer, peak mumsnet.
Doing a lot more batch cooking to get the economies of scale but it also means using the oven and dishwasher less. I’m thankful for the time it’s saving me!

Yes and No.

I was on an extremely tight budget a few years ago and we managed with own brands, a lot of home cooking of things like stews and pulses etc, and careful use of the freezer. Circumstances allowed us to spend a bit more for a few years but I'm back to being careful again, saving as much as I can.

Like PPs, I'm buying less meat, and making it go further when I do. I cook my own rice, but keep one packet of the ready to reheat stuff in the cupboard for egg fried rice on those "shit we need to eat in 15 mins" days. I have an instant pot so I cook dried beans in larger quantities and then freeze them in portions, ready to be chucked into stews etc. Chickpeas especially are way cheaper done this way, as long as you can keep the cooking time down.

We have a treat like ice cream once a week, max. We buy supermarket own brand wholemeal bread, or I make a quick soda loaf. I make my own pizzas, using either a packet mix (Tesco brand dry mix, you just add water and it's actually pretty nice) or make the dough in my breadmaker. I then top with whatever I feel like - none of us like mozarella so I use a cheap cheddar style cheese, mushrooms, peppers and cheap green olives on a base of cheap tomato puree/tomato ketchup mixed with italian garlic seasoning. It's unconventional and totally inauthentic, but it works for us.

We are definitely eating less salmon and I can't remember the last time we had steak. I'd say we're probably eating more "freezer food" too such as oven chips and fish fingers. I used to love making big fresh salads to take to work for lunch but that seems like such a luxury now! I'm much more likely to take a ramen noodle pot or a basic sandwich.

No more steak or prawns. Ready meals about once a month rather than weekly same with takeaways. Rarely buy bread anymore as we never finish it and I don't want to throw it out.

Rarely use the oven anymore. Mostly cook on the stove top or air fryer.

Would love to cook cheap meals like eggs and chips or jacket potatoes topped with beans, but my husband doesn't think they are real meals. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The extras have gone. We used to have sides like yoghurt with a dahl, or guacamole with fajitas, or parmesan and garlic bread with pasta. All stopped. Meat once a week, replaced with pulses. Can't remember the last time we had salmon (used to be weekly as the only fish DC will eat).
Last time I thought of giving the DC a treat for pudding, the mini puddings were £3.20 for two, and custard £2.90. So £9.50 for pudding!! (family of 4). It used to be the kind of thing I stuck in the trolley, even adding some raspberries on top. Not any more!!
We're eating ok compared to many but it is a bit fucking joyless.

Also stopped the salmon and prawns - that's become a luxury treat.

I’m having more chickpeas, beans and lentils and leaning into homemade curries and French cassoulets. We would have had salmon and steak in our regular rotation. I’ve become much more adept with cheaper meat options.

We used to roast a chicken, now I’d boil it, with veg, and add potato to the water at the end for soup. I pick the carcass clean and save the bones in the freezer to make broth/stock later. We’re more likely to have chicken fried rice/ stew/ pasta/ soup/ sandwich/ fajitas/ curry than to be eating a whole breast/leg per person, to make it go further.

I’m much more thoughtful about fuel consumption too. The oven only goes on if I can cook several things at once. I use the steamer pot, and let things finish cooking in residual heat.

It works out cheaper to make puddings at home. I buy supermarket brand ingredients and cut down on sugar and sometimes even one less egg doesn't make a difference to taste.
There's a carrot cake recipe on bbcgoodfood and I use less oil, sugar and eggs than the recipe states. I increase the carrots and it's still a great tasting cake.

I'm baking if I've got the oven on for our main meal (once or twice a week).

DH is a gardener so needs fueling, and he was eating 2 or 3 cereal bars every day. I now make a batch of flapjack with nuts, seeds and dried fruit in it once a week, and he eats 2 or 3 pieces of that a day.

I also make a pudding a couple of times a week at the moment, as we're lucky enough to receive lots of fruit from his customers with excess. Last week I made an apple and plum crumble. Today I'm going to bake an apple cake as a neighbour handed in a bag of cookers yesterday and I'll have the oven on for our dinner (pie) tonight anyway.

I don't think I've changed that much, I'm just a lot more aware of using things up and making sure the oven is filled the times it's on. I'll roast a tray of veg if I have to, and can use that as the basis of meals for a day or two. I don't have an air fryer but I do have a small, very fierce top oven that pretty much does the same thing, so can use that instead of the larger oven if I don't need more than one thing baked.

I'm also steaming a lot of my veg in the microwave, and cook my rice in it now, too. I make a double batch of rice and use it the next day for egg fried rice with loads of veggies.

Bulking out mince/stew dishes with red lentils, and I've just bought some pearl barley for adding to a beef stew. My DM used to use it in the 80s when times were tough and I remember loving it 😋 The lentils dissappear, but I remember pearl barley has a lovely bite.

We're eating the same, food bills have doubled though. We've cut back on eating out a bit to try and make up for it.

The Asda yellow label fresh salmon isn’t bad you know if you’re missing salmon, its salmon filet off cuts but you still get 2 decent portions and a mini one which is ideal for us and DD. It cooks lovely in the airfrier. I can’t face paying £9 for a side of salmon anymore and tbh there was always waste anyway.

We are a mix of vegetarians and meat eaters, so most of our meals have a lot of veg and pulses with meat added.

Getting better at using up leftovers and some meals are open sandwiches with things that are open and need eating.

We're quite fortunate but I hate doing a ££££ "weekly shop" and then running out of food four days in. Or getting an expensive and not very good takeaway just because the basics aren't in the fridge. Or excessive spending on snacks outside the house. So now really trying to meal plan thoroughly, think about who will need to eat what when, take water bottles with - just be more conscious about when I'm putting my hand in my pocket.

We would always have a whole side of salmon once a week , it's once every 2 weeks now the same with lamb. My food shopping bill is crazy

We’ve not changed . We eat very little meat anyway and I buy salmon / haddock fillets in large packs from Costco and then freeze them in portions . I am looking forward to the cold weather though so I can start doing more stews and wintery meals .

We now buy the majority of our stuff frozen from Farmfoods. No more cooking nice meals from scratch. It’s all beige processed shit. With chips.