On rations next week, what can I make from my cupboards?

[CornishTeaTime]

Really on the breadline next week, what can I make/meals from my essentials in my cupboards, fridge freezer This is what I have:

For about 10 days....for 2 x adults dinners in evening as breakfast will be cereal and lunch a sandwich. - teen is covered

✨️CUPBOARD
Sweetcorn
Tin of toms
Tuna
Chickpeas
Kidney beans
Branston pickle 😀
Pasta
Rice
Jar bolognese sauce
Marmalade
SR flour
Caster sugar
Bread yeast sachet
Tortilla wraps

✨️FRIDGE
Mince steak
Bit of butter
Carrots
Tomatoes

✨️FREEZER
Peas
Gammon steak
Chips
Sausages
4 x Frozen veg sachets peas carrot, beans
1 x beefburger
3 x chicken in breadcrumbs
Garlic bread

There's no beans or eggs on the list. I was looking for those.

If you were able to get anything else (borrow from a parent??) I'd prioritise eggs and do egg fried rice.

Spread the gammon out by making toad in the hole with leftover gammon instead of sausages, very filling food and you have sr flour.

Defrost the beef burger and make back into mince, to make the mince you have go further and hopefully make two meals such as bolognaise and enchiladas with the wraps. I'd use the chickpeas and make a vegetable curry
Homemade pizzas with the flour.
Tuna with pasta or rice
Sausage jambalaya or toad in the hole

Are you on the olio app? I often pick up free veg/fruit and ingredients.
Lots of people give away excess allotment/garden produce.

Tuna/sweetcorn/flour could make fritters.
Could you borrow eggs from a neighbour/friend till next payday?

You have the fixings for a bolognese - tinned toms, mince, jar of sauce. Assuming you have some herbs and spices? Garlic?

Use half that for one set of meals, then add the kidney beans, chop up some fresh tomatoes and add either smoked paprika or ground cumin to the mix and you have a chilli.

Tuna and sweetcorn with pasta makes a pasta bake - make a thin white sauce (do you have milk? Water and flour plus mustard if not, but you'll need to cook it out) and plenty of pepper for flavour.

The freezer stuff is obvious - sausages it gammon and chips with a veg packet. Same for the chicken - chips and veg.

Have leftover for lunch one day and have toasted sandwiches for dinner to mix it up.

Can you add anything to this list? ie buy a tin of baked beans and a cheap loaf of bread, and have beans on toast for a meal?

No we both work BUT even us workers find it hard sometimes with unexpected bills.

I think you've misunderstood - you don't have to be unemployed to access a food back.

Chatgpt is good for this kind of thing. Paste your entire first post into it and you should get a meal plan: chatgpt.com/

One meal I love in winter is a stew soup as I call it

Meat - anything left over - chicken, lamb or gammon is common for me. Lucky I can afford but I stretch so a portion of gammon for e.g. big enough for one person can stretch to two in this meal.

Prep any available veg, an onion and potatoes. Lightly fry onions to clear, add veg and some water and a stock cube - I tend to use chicken for everything but veg OK. Wouldn't do a dark cube. Add in the left over already cooked meat, cook till potatoes cooked through. If you are able to use a mix of old potatoes (floury) and waxy potatoes (smooth slice through) then do that as the foury ones add starch to cooking water and thicken it - otherwise a bit of cornflour mixed first in cold water than added about 10 min from end will sort it. We have this with bead. You can also use a soup mix from shops which is kind of split barley, lentils and other dried veg - its a good cupboard basic, but if you don't have something to look out for in the future. Don't be afraid to mix your meats either.

I see no extras at all in your challenge. Hmmm

Definitely borrow eggs and lentils if possible.

I can easily make lentil burgers or a lentil cottage pie or use lentils to stretch out mince meals.

And next pay day buy freezable bits and more lentils. I have a stash of pasta which I either use or eat but freeze bread too.

You can tell ChatGPT doesn't have tastebuds.

Just to say also don't be afraid to use less meat in things so a 500g pack of mine should feed 4, 2 sausages each shld be enough but add more bulk with carbs or bread and butter or yorkshires - eg sausage, yorkshires and veg with gravy doesn't really need potato as carb in the yorkshires

I do think there is plenty there and some of the add ons would be inexpensive ie 2 or 3 quid rather than 50 quid. Focus on veg - get online and check out who is cheapest for what this week and a few quid could get you some nice additions to fill out what you are eating. JUst to say top tip with this is take only cash in then you cant spend more.

Cook the mince, some carrots and bolognaise sauce. This then gives you
Meal 1 - Spaghetti bolognaise with 1/2 of it - add pasta
Meal 2 - Reheat 1/2 the remainder with 1/2 the can of kidney beans, add chilli if you have it. Serve with rice
Meal 3 - Use the remainder of the mix with the other 1/2 can of kidney beans, add chilli if you have it, make enchiladas with this, the tortilla wraps and some cheese.
Meal 4 - 2 x chicken in breadcrumbs, 2 x frozen veg
Meal 5 - gammon steak, chips and peas
Meal 6 - sausages, oven-roasted carrots and garlic bread
Meal 7 - tuna and sweetcorn pasta
Meal 8 - 1 x chicken in breadcrumbs, 1 x beefburger, 2 x frozen veg
Meal 9 - use the tin of tomatoes, chickpeas and any remaining carrots to make a sauce to use with pasta or rice, whichever you have left.
Meal 10 - At this stage I’d probably just make a loaf of bread and have cheese and pickle with it!

I'm thinking about what it's like to be going through all my cupboards and shelves and fridge and freezer and itemising everything I have in, then writing it into a post in order to ask for very specific help, and I reckon this would take me literally ages.

So yeah, I did facepalm laugh at your post!

Could you use the sausages and chickpeas in a stew? I always slice the sausages into the stew rather than keep them whole as they seem to go further that way.

Bolognese, chilli, burritos for the mince.

The tin of tomatoes could be turned into an arrabbiata or marinara sauce which you could serve with the pasta and garlic bread.

If you have, or can get, eggs then gammon, egg and chips.

I started with “ooh I love a puzzle”. But sorry I can only get to 8. I think I’ve used everything except the marmalade 😂

I would suggest spreading your meat meals out through the period and filling the other days with vegetarian recipes.

Roast chickpeas and some carrots (caraway or cumin both good if you have either), bit of sweetcorn, pasta.

Gammon and peas.

Vegetable chilli made with kidney beans, half tin of tomatoes and some fresh, and one of the mixed veg bags. With rice.

Toad in the hole.

Pasta bake with half the jar of sauce, tuna, sweetcorn.

Chicken and chips.

Vegetable cobbler. Bag of veg, half tin tomatoes and some fresh. sweetcorn. Make savoury scone mixture, roll it out quite thin, cut out rounds and lay them overlapping on the top. Bit of cheese in the scones would be nice.

Tortillas filled with mince, peas, veg bag. Roll up, cover with half jar of sauce and bake in the oven.

How much pasta do you have? Could you get another pack or two? I’d be mostly living on pasta:

Tuna pasta with the sweetcorn and tuna and just some salt and pepper is tasty (I don’t like mayo, I do usually put onion in too but it would be fine. One tin does 4 portions so there’s two dinnners

pasta mince bolognaise sauce grate some carrot in to bulk it. You don’t need much sauce I reckon you could get 3 x2 meals out of it with a bit of garlic bread and did you say some cheese?

bresded chicken sliced and in wraps with tomato. Not sure how it would be but perhaps burger too. So 3 chicken plus one burger in wraps - 2 more meals each.

gammon diced and through the rice with the peas. A sort of pilaf thing,

sausage pasta. Cooked sliced sausages with half the tomatoes.

chickpeas and kidney beans in the other half the tin toms for a stew type thing. Serve on top of the chips as loaded chips with a wee grate of cheese.

Thats ten. Bit repetitive but I’d eat them all. Ass the veg sachets as and when. If you could get some stock cubes and chilli powder it would all taste much better but you could cope without.

so tasty, quick and cheap. This website is great!

Do you have milk?

1. You could make cheese pasta/macaroni cheese type thing sauce use butter, flour, milk with peas

1. Make half the mince into Bolognese with half jar of sauce, eat with pasta add veg

3 Kidney beans chopped tomatoes, hopefully you have some spices, make a chilli type dish , chuck in veg eat with rice and cheese

4 Curry the chickpeas and other half of mince eat with rice and veg

5/6 Sausages, how many? Yes you can have sausage chips and veg/peas/sweetcorn , but if you can save a couple take the skins off and make mini meatballs you can make a second dish with the other half a jar of sauce cut the garlic bread length ways and have meatballs marinara subs

7 Wraps with two of the breaded chicken pieces sliced, with the tomatoes maybe some cheese. Could bake or George foreman with some of the chilli kidney beans if any left

8 Gammon are these steaks? How many? Gammon chips, carrots and peas

9 Tuna sweetcorn pasta with some of the cheese sauce you made earlier in the week

10 And then the last night just whatever is left, one burger, one chicken fillet, whatever veg/chips/rice you've got left.

They won't be amazing meals but you'll be fed. I don't know what your style cupboard is like in terms of herbs and spices that could help.

I also agree with PPs use a food bank or community larder, it's what they're for

You seem to have plenty of useful ingredients there, depending on the quantities, with plenty of variation too. How much pasta, flour, mince etc do you have?

Sweetcorn soup with gammon
Sausages and chickpeas stew
Veggie fried rice
Chicken wraps
Chilli con carne (with the burger)
Pasta bolognese
Tuna pasta
Cheese pizza
Chunky veg soup (add a bit of rice to make it more filling)
Loaded chips with one of the breaded chickens chopped up and some cheese

I have no idea what Branston pickle is 😁🤷🏻‍♀️

https://www.bringoutthebranston.co.uk/ Sweet pickle. Very nice in sandwiches. Adds a bit of oomph to savoury dishes if you like it.

Depending on amounts I would do
1spaghetti bolognaise
2use leftover bolognaise sauce and add kidney beans to make a chilli with rice.
3sausage casserole (can you manage to buy a bag of potatoes?)
4Chicken wraps with 2 of the breaded chicken.
5tuna and sweetcorn pasta bake
6gammon, chips and veg
7 get the beef burger and slice it and put it on the garlic bread and bake it with cheese on.
8 chickpeas, frozen veg mix with tin of tomatoes and the last breaded chicken halved on top (with rice or pasta if possible)

It didn't when first posted. OP went back and edited, as she says in her second post.