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?

Not really, but I've never been so glad to be a vegetarian and cook loads from scratch. Mind you, the price of dairy products especially has shot up, so I'd be even more smug if I was vegan.

It did, but in a different way - whatever was affordable now is 20-30% more expensive, and all the free range/organic/bio produce is "only" an additional 10-20% on top of that so I might as well buy it? If I am being forced to pay 30% more with no other option at least I am paying it for something "better" then. Obviously very grateful to be in a position to be able to afford it, but still adopting tactics of putting snacks/biscuits in a drawer and only getting a few pieces out on a small plate, rather than keeping the whole pack within easy reach, buying block cheese because everyone is too lazy to cut it (sliced one gets instantly inhaled) to make those fancy bits last longer. Planning menu ahead, only shopping by the list, utilising leftovers in all sorts of pies and sandwiches.

No but we’ve never bought puddings (I don’t make them either, just never occurred to me to eat them on a regular basis) or many branded things anyway, and I’m a vegan who doesn’t like meat substitutes so our meals have always been based around cheap pulses. DP still eating oily fish once a week and occasional meat.

I am cutting back on ribena though, now that it’s £2.75 for a big bottle which just seems extortionate.

It’s very sad 😢. I’m at death’s door 🤣

Lol. I’m with you on this one, Plumbathread. I laughed out loud at this one 🤣. In my post, I said that 3 meals a week are cheaper now. We eat cardboard for the other 4 - not really. Beans, eggs and jacket potatoes have replaced some fish/meat meals. SAD?? What planet are some people on? 😂. Maybe she was genuine and shops at Waitrose - hang on! So do I!

Heinz spaghetti hoops deserve a CBE they’re so fucking good. They definitely don’t make people sad.

Yes but actually in a healthier way but that is also down to some health issues I've had over the last 2 years.

I used to have a lot of pre-made stuff like ready to cook meals from supermarkets. Now I have very simple food which is actually much cheaper - marinaded chicken thighs with flatbread and a simple salad (lettuce, carrot, red cabbage etc) or salmon fillet with jacket potato and salad. Basically a lot of salad and meat or fish but cheaper cuts of meat generally as they are tastier! I also eat a lot less snacks which saves a lot.

Same here - we have eaten so much home grown corn this week and it tastes a lot better than store bought.

yes definitely - we have an electric cooker, which costs a ludicrous amount
of money to have the oven on say for.a roast dinner

There are many foods we just do not buy now, weaned ourselves off them,
cold turkey on wine, beer, spirits, attendant extras, which has made a huge difference to our budget and health, alertness, sleep better, skin better,
purse better

Monday I take money from the bank and shop with cash. This is a well proven means of making the HK money spin out, as long as you don’t cheat, a real challenge some weeks.

also writing down shopping, honestly, makes it easier to see extravagances,
unnecessary purchases, bargains

No fish and chips, kebabs from our prize winning kebab van, stay off the food market stalls with their inflated prices, buy bread from our excellent bakers,
how versatile is a loaf of bread ?!

spaghetti hoops! great with good sausages and real mashed, not creamed potatoes
or as you described, one of my grandchildren’s favourite teas, with mug of weak tea as its thirst making - as they have real dinners at home, this is a ‘treat’ same as beans on toast with an egg on top, fruity brown sauce, or egg and chips,
Ive even considered buying a chip pan.

We also stay off YT cooking channels, stopped picking up Waitrose food cards,
resisting M&S Foodhall, on the list for an allotment, drinking more water from a
filter jug, being conscious that we need fresh greens, salad, oranges, always hungry

My goodness, you put my meagre efforts at economising to shame! Definitely agree about cutting down drastically on alcohol: great for health and wealth. And food shopping with cash is a whole different world; makes you weigh up every single purchase. Good luck with the allotment 😊

Snack food is ridiculously expensive compared with the basics like chicken and vegetables. Grated carrot on salad is colourful, healthy and so cheap. I buy at least 1 kilo of carrots a week (2 of us), sometimes more. I dice them to make mixed vegetables with other veg, grated in salad or in a sandwich, finely chopped in bolognese sauce, left whole in casseroles, mashed with potatoes and other roots to make bulkier, tasty mash. My God, I hope carrots don’t go up in price!

No alcohol at all. No squash/cordial - water or milk or tea/coffee.
no visits anymore to the local fish and chip shop. Oven chips and frozen waffles instead.
salmon only for the children. No prawns. No joint of meat.p for a Sunday roast.

I make a rice pudding in the slow cooker, crumbles and cakes from scratch. Not every week though.

No gluten free bread for one adult in the house now, far too expensive.

home made soup now a weekly event.

Thank you to everyone who has responded. Some good ideas here for economising on food. The people for whom I have the most sympathy are those who were only just managing before the COL crisis: those who were already struggling to provide meals and who never had steaks, salmon fillets and the more expensive fruit and vegetables.
Food banks. This country should hang its head in shame.