Meal planning, sharing recipes and ideas to make the weekly budget go further.

[Seaside3]

Ok, snappy title, I know.

Having recently loved a thread where the op bemoaning the price of minced beef, (i didn't love that) and seeing how helpful people were, I decided to start my own thread.

We are a large family, but currently just 4 of us live at home. 2 adults, 2 teens who eat adult portions.

I aim to spend around £70 on average a week, we do eat out a couple of times a week, but £70 should roughly cover it.

New shop arriving tomorrow, hoping it will cover the week.

To start though, tonight we had Asian style pork, rice and garlic broccoli.

Asian pork - minced pork, onion, grated garlic and ginger, Chinese five spice, carrot, courgette broccoli stem, sweetcorn, peas, dark soy, chilli flakes Fry, add a little water if required.

Garlic and ginger broccoli... fried sliced garlic and root ginger, red onion, broccoli florets. Added a couple of splashes of water, soy and a sprinkle of sugar. Would have used honey, but didn't have any. Fresh coriander leaves.

Basmati rice

Added a fried egg.

Served 4 for dinner, 2 extra servings for lunches.

Would love to hear others go to family meals.

That sounds like heaven. I wish my husband liked lamb. Instead I will either abd pretend I'm eating your shepherds pie!

Things we have eaten this week:

Mango, cucumber and roasted chicken salad.

Asparagus and mozzarella puff pastry 'pizza'.

Bbq with halloumi and courgette skewers, burgers. Then s'mores

Failed peach melba cake. Liked the concept, so trying with a different batter

Swede pasta

Oats and sultanas cookies

Things we will be eating next week:

There's quite a lot in the freezer, lots of cans and vegetables, so hoping to do a smaller shop this week.

Already in the house-
Beef chilli with sweet potato wedges.
Black bean wraps
Chicken curry and rice
Egg, chips and beans
Chickpeas for falafels, cous cous, salad
Soup
Beans on toast
Baked potatoes to eat with smaller left overs from freezer
Cereal
Toast

We need: more salad stuff, cheese, Greek yogurt, fruit, eggs, sugar for baking

The 'smaller' shop came in at £60, but £14 was wine for a meal at my brother's.

So far we have had some sausages and mash casserole from the freezer. I added some extra sausages and vegetables. Followed by saucy lemon pudding.

Chicken and spinach curry, cauliflower, chickpea and potato for the non chicken eater. Finished with rice and cucumber yogurt.

Cheese and onion omelette salad for lunch. Beef chilli from the freezer for chilli bowls. Strawberry and dark chocolate for pudding.

Tomorrow - we are out visiting universities, so taking a picnic for lunch and will have tea out.

Wednesday blackbean ta os with sweet potatoes

Thursday chicken, potatoes and veg (pie for the non chicken one)

Friday to be decided. Will definitely need a shop, so will have a look at Instagram for.my inspo.

Yesterday we had thai for tea whilst visiting Newcastle. It was so expensive, but nice to be out with the kids. Glad we took sandwiches to cover lunch time.

Today i made houmous for lunch wraps, boiled some eggs and new potatoes for lunches/snacks., For tea i made roast chicken and sausages with new potatoes, carrots and peas. Also lemon, raspberry and white chocolate muffins. Left over chicken for daughters lunch tomorrow, alongside potato salad.

Tomorrow I'm raiding the freezer, friday food is being delivered.

Next weeks menu includes:

Homemade chicken kyiv
Marry me lentils
Some kind of bean stew
Beef curry
A 'lasagne' done in a pan
Risotto

Sticky toffee bread and butter (no idea if it will work), coffee and walnut cake

Salads
Corn soup
Wraps

As ever, if you want a recipe, let me know

Hi! Hope everyone is doing well.

This week I've been finishing up some frozen stuff I had as I wanted a smaller shop (£60). Yesterday we had the last of a sweet potato and peanut soup with home made houmous and carrot in toast for brunch. For tea I found a few different curries in the freezer, and some rice. Heated it all up, made a dahl from tinned lentils. I made a flapjack with prunes, walnuts, seeds and sultanas in. It was delicious. The freezer, fridge and cupboards are all pretty bare.

The shopping arrived today for next week. £99, but included washing powder, shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste.

Tonight's tea was a pan lasagne with leeks, broccoli and either chicken or mushrooms. It was bloody tasty.

I need to start restocking the freezer to allow a cheaper week again. But all if tonight's tea got eaten, so I guess I'll start tomorrow!

Sounds fantastic, I love your thread.
Do you have recipes for the flapjack and the lasagne please?
Thank you

Also, it's a weird place to say this, but I wanted to tell someone and didnt want to be accused if virtue signalling, but here's a lovely thing that happened on Tuesday in Newcastle.

My husband and son (19) had spotted a homeless person sleeping in the stairwell of the multi storey carpark we were parked in. When they returned to put mire money on the car (to allow us yo eat out) they decided to help him. They bagged up some bottled water, packets if crisps, fruit and chocolate biscuits that we had left from our earlier picnic and left ot with the sleeping man.

I honestly couldn't be prouder yo have such considerate people in my life.

Thanks, that is so kind.

Here's the flapjack I just added all the extras, plus some treacle for depth of flavour. Actually, I halved the recipe.

Here's the lasagne I used about 1 tbsp of soft cheese instead of cream. I received dried pasta sheets in the shopping, so I just snapped them up and parboiled them in a pan first. I used cheddar instead of mozzarella.

Brilliant, thanks so much

@Seaside3

Could I please get your recipe for:
Marry me lentils
lemon, raspberry and white chocolate muffins

Your pictures always look so good!

That’s lovely

Of course.

The muffins I made a half batch of victoria sponge, my simplified version :

125g butter
125g sugar
Melt together
125g flour (sr or add baking powder)
2 eggs (3 if medium eggs)
Mix.
Add the Juice and zest of 1 lemon
I think about 75g frozen raspberries - it was just the end of a pack, jusge by eye, too many will make the muffins fall apart.
White chocolate buttons, again, I had some left, around 12 large buttons that I shared out. Add more if you have!
Bake at 180c until golden, the skewer is clean and they are coming away slightly from the tin edges.

Hope that all makes sense, let me know if not, I am a 'by instinct/whats available' cook and know that doesn't suit everyone! You can sub any flavours in- different fruits, chocolates or nuts all work.

Here's the recipe I will be using for the lentils.

Thanks @florenceblack they made my heart very full, I have to say. X

@Seaside3 thank you!

I've been away a lot this week. Before I went I cooked and mashed some really old potatoes and added to some cottage pie filling that DS brought home from work, so that's in the freezer for an easy meal another day.

Also froze some breadcrumbs, some pesto breadcrumbs to sprinkle on pasta (just made too much), and some mackerel pate that DS made whilst we were away.

@diggoryvenn Isn't it great to have things like breadcrumbs in the freezer? I made aome croutons a whole ago, then whenever I got a frozen soup oit, I grabbed a handful of croutons too. Makes a simple meal feel fancy. Pesto breadcrumbs sound great too, do you juat mix the breadcrumbs with Pesto?

For the pesto breadcrumbs, I toasted the crumbs, then added basil, seasoning, lemon juice and garlic. Whizzed up in a food processor. It looked very much like the contents of an ashtray but tasted way better 😄!

Thanks, I will try that some time.

Speaking of breadcrumbs, tonight I made chicken kyiv for tea, served with new potatoes, carrots and peas. Lunch was bacon and feta salad. According to my son it was the best salad ever.

Today - feta and sundried tomato wrap for brunch. Also made some sundried tomato houmous and egg mayo for this weeks lunches.

Tea was leek, mushroom and spinach risotto. My daughter hates it, so foe once I made an alternative. She had a sort of Spanish omelette, using the left over new potatoes from yesterday and the egg yolks (plus 1 full egg where the egg you'll broke) from a pavlova i made.

Pavlova - made with soft brown sugar (I ran put of caster), filled with cream ans topped with cherries.

My son "this is amazing. What is it? Am I going to get diabetes or something?"

Following an egg mayo wrap for lunch, A simple tea today.
Chicken (or halloumi) with salad and potato wedges - both sweet and normal.

Tomorrow, marry me lentils, Thursday pur older boys are visiting, so planning spaghetti bolognese, salad, maybe garlic bread. Possibly tiramisu for pud.

Friday, husband gigging, so out.