DH lost job, need CHEAP meal ideas please

[griffintribe]

title says it all

dd a little constipated, another reason for my interest in apricots.

some of our most favourite meals are also the cheapest. We love veg bolognese and also beans, egg and chips - lovely!

oh god i'd love some egg, beans and chips.

I'd love to be able to eat and not feel sick or be sick hours later.

Mmm, chips.

Aitch I never had you down as a meal planner type

Griffin sorry about your dh's job, hope things look up soon

Some good tips here, I add beans or lentils etc to pretty much everything, can double the quantity of a meal that way.

Tht veggie curry sounds good expat.

Red kidney beans, carrots and onions are all very cheap.

The best way not to spend money is not to go to the shop. You HAVE to make dnner with what's n the fridge/CB even if it's a little strange!

Tuna Pasta bake value Pasta, value tuna, value tomatoes and fresh carrots.

ha ha smug! Just making tuna pasta now! And it's just as nice with cheap can of tomatoes, bit of Tpuree and a bit of garlic puree as it is with fancy dolmio sauce.

I usually sauté an onion in the sunflower oil FROM the can of tuna too! Save using any cooking oil.

no i'm rubbish at meal planning, clairey. every so often i try but it never takes. this bloomin' credit crunch, though, might tip me over.

apols to those whose dh's have just lost their jobs, that wasn't particularly sensitive of me, sorry. what a shitey time to be really strapped, with food shooting through the roof.

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i find it easier just to have storecupboard ingredients to turn out a cheap meal to hand.

plenty of staples like rice, pasta and couscous and always some tins of beans and plenty of tinned tom.

here's a great way to ponce up tinned tuna on the cheap:

itsWaitrosedahling

People are aghast at how much food I keep in the house, and never seem to believe me when I tell them it is cheaper to do that!

Griffin, sorry to hear of your situation.

If you can get yourself to an Asian or Oriental supermarket, get those 5 or 10 kg bags of rice. Rice is positively extortionate in supermarkets but here each sack costs only about £10-15 (even with recent price increases). Lasts forever and bulks up your meals effortlessly. If you eat rice a lot, it is worth getting a rice cooker.

Agree with other posters that you about pulses. Dh makes a dahl curry that costs next to nothing, can make vats of at a time, and is a huge favourite.

For meat, use cheap cuts. Chicken wings are inexpensive. I use them to cook Coca Cola Chicken (chicken cooked in soy sauce and Coca Cola). A great hit with my fussy children. The gravy is delicious and can be eaten with rice, noodles, as leftovers.

At butchers, you can get beef brisket, pork belly (Rick Stein has a fab recipe). We recently bought some gammon knuckle - £1.50 for more than 1 kg. It was very fatty so a little goes a long way. Slow cooked, the meat fell off the, erm, bone.

For bacon, I know Sainsbury packages the odd bits of bacon and sells them cheaply. You can use them chopped up in pasta.

In supermarkets, use the Basics range. I go to Sainsburys and buy tinned tomatoes for a song. To use in Bolognese sauce.

oh yes, i've enough to see us through a nuclear winter here, colditz.

can't recommend lidl too highly as well, OP.

This is a great thread on saving money too. Good luck x

Invest in some sauces and seasonings, too, like Worcestershire, fish sauce, osyter sauce, peanut butter, seasame oil, chillies, flavoured vinegars and the like.

These ingredients can give extra punch to cheap ingredients.

We go to Lidl for basics now and cut our bill by about £70/month.

blue shoes have you a recipe for the pork belly. I have some lurking in my freezer which it would be great to use.

bozza, cut it into thin slices, put it onto a baking tray and roast it on a low heat for a LONG time, until the flesh is deep brown and most of the fat has melted out. Serve is with potatoes and veg or rice and sweet and sour sauce.

It's nice with barbeque sauce on too!

I'd agree with the advice not to shop - I do a fortnightly shop now, and keep trips in between to a minimum, it forces me to use things up, and I always manage to make a meal. I'm definately spending less.

Will try that chicken wing recipie, the DC would love it.

If you have a garden then you could grow some veggies,
I have just started growing carrots, leeks, rocket and other salad leaves, in pots,
it amazing i had no idea that they would come up so quickly and seeds are soooo cheap.
I really don't have green fingers but they are all coming up so well.

another thing i do is to bulk out mince by using lentils (green or red) in shepherds pie, bolognese, etc.
as well as lots of veg.

don't buy ready made tomato based sauces, it is much cheaper to use tins of tomatoes and then add onion, carrot, celery, peppers, basil etc.

Bozza, if your pork belly is already in strips (I believe supermarkets sell in that way called 'streaky pork'), colditz's recipe works well. You can marinade the pork belly in a mixture of 4 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp of water, 1 tsp sugar and 3 tbsp of rice wine/sherry and leave it to slow roast in it, together with (optional) broken up cinnamon sticks, star anise, chopped ginger. I always put a little chopped bird's eye chillis as well, but I like spice with my food.

If your pork belly is in a slab (you get that from a butchers), Rick Stein's crisp Chinese roast pork recipe is fab.

Recipe is for a 1.5 kg/3 lb slab:

Spike the skin of the pork many times with a skewer or needle, going through the fat but not into the fat.

Pour a kettle of hot water over the skin, then drain and pat dry.

Fry up until aromatic 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns and 1 tbsp black peppercorns - or just use 2 tbsp black peppercorns. Grind to a fine powder. Stir in 2 tbsp sea salt flakes (or just normal salt), 2 tsp five-spice powder and 2 tsp caster sugar.

Turn pork flesh side up on tray and rub flesh with spice mixture. Leave aside cool for 8 hours or overnight.

Pre-heated 200 degree oven. Turn pork skin-side up on rack resting on roasting tin of water. Roast for 15 mins, then lower temp to 180 degrees and roast for a further 2 hours, topping up water where necessary.

Increase to 230 degrees and roast for a further 15 mins. This is to crisp up the skin for serious crackling.

Cut into bitesized pieces and serve warm.

Minum, if you are doing the coca cola chicken, another money saver is you don't even have to use coca cola, any generic cola will do. Put chicken wings in a big pot, pour soya sauce over it, enough to generously coat each chicken wing, then pour in a little water and enough cola to cover the wings with a dash of rice wine or sherry. Bring to boil with the lid on. When it has just boiled, remove lid, turn down the heat and simmer for, say, an hour or more, until the chicken is cooked and gravy thickened.

Agree with expat's suggestion re sauces andseasonings - and going to an Asian or Caribbean grocer. Some places do broken basmati which is really cheap too.

Use soya mince or chunks instead of mince (costs about 50p per bag in Sainsbury's), lots of pulses, vegetables etc.

Pesto pasta
Chickpea and spinach curry
Things like tinned sardines are cheap and nutritious

Good luck, hope things turn around soon.