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.

Yesterday was finally corn soup day for my lunch. It was so good with a slice of sourdough, I forgot to take a photo. I had apple, cinnamon, sultanas, seeds and pecan porridge for breakfast.

Tea was beef penang, with noodles and carrot drips, topped with a boiled egg and cucumber salad. It was tasty!

Tonight it's baked camembert. Already looking forward to it.

People. I made the sluttiest tea ever and it was so good.

Baked camembert finished with honey, fig chutney, candied pecans and roast apple slices.
Sausages with honey and sesame seeds.
Buffalo style cauliflower.
Yorkshire puddings.

Honestly, so much beige, so much joy.

That looks amazing. And not nearly as slitty as I imagined it would be. There’s veg and chutney!

I had to get some veg in somewhere. I can highly recommend a Yorkshire smothered in the camembert and rolled around a sausage.
Stick a fork in me, I am done.

Oh my god that looks amazing. I am definitely copying that.

The original Yorkshire camembert

I made a coconut and kale dal this evening. Everything except the coconut milk, lentils, spices and coriander leaves was free - this is probably my most favourite Dahl to cook. I added in half a grated courgette, some mange tout and some grated swede that I needed to use up. Subbed dried chilli flakes for the fresh chili. It was delicious

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/red-lentil-dal-coconut-milk-and-kale

Next week I'm planning

The gressingham half aromatic crispy duck is half price in Tesco for the next few weeks so I'm doing that with fried rice. Nice and easy and a real treat.

Then i fancy southern fried chicken thighs, with coleslaw, corn etc. leftovers go well for lunches and sides.

And for the rest of the week I've got the toastie machine out, I'm doing soups and toasties!
Chicken noodle with the rest of the thighs
Tomato and pepper with the last of the veg from the garden (it's still ripening, quite late this year!)
Leek and potato.
I've got gruyère, Emmenthal, mozzarella and red Leicester cheese. if anyone has ideas for combinations I'd be interested to hear!
The Other Person in the House has requested BBQ chicken toasties, which I can do without buying other ingredients but I can't think of a soup to go with it.
I just love melted cheese so I'll be really happy all week regardless.

I'm up to £37 so far for 2 people, and my budget is £45 this week.

I've got burgers, confit duck with dauphinoise (a half price buy a few months ago)and chicken chorizo and butter bean stew (i got the idea from this thread I think!) in the freezer if I suddenly fancy something more substantial.

That was last week's and I forgot to post it.

I'm a bit cheesed out now!

Ive got leftover stuff to do sofrito this week and im thinking stuffed peppers, then tacos with the leftover mince from that. More duck as it's my favourite and half price, but I'm going to get a cabbage and beansprouts too and do a few cheaper chinese dishes over a few days.

Beef in black beans, prawn tempura, fried rice with any leftover duck.

A jacket potato night with leftover taco sides.

Then I've got one more night to do, I'm on £34. I think I might have leftover ham from last week and do ham egg and chips but we will see. I fancy something light but I don't want to go for more ingredients. I have got lettuce tomatoes and cucumbers but dare I get more cheese with halloumi and do a leftover salad?! But I do like yogurt for breakfast and as I'm cheap I'd buy a kilo tub 🤭

I really like this thread.

The chicken chorizo and butter bean stew was amazing, so thanks to who recommended that!

This week:
Beetroot and feta rissoto with hazelnuts ( free from the tree)
Home made pizza
Cauliflower Pasta
Minestrone soup
Thai green curry
Tapas (tortilla), arancini, roasted veg.

Was £125 this week (3 of us, 5 on Friday) but lots of Xmas bits bought, so I reckon £74 without the extras.

That sounds good, will give it a go. Never thought about grating swede into something!

I made a delicious corn soup that would work with the bbq chicken.

Your soup week, and low spends sound amazing to me!

That risotto is foing on my mental 'to make' list, sounds like something I would love.
Also.great budgeting. If i bought stuff fir Christmas now it would get eaten. Or.was it gifts?

Sorry, been Mia. Husband had a gig o Saturday so ended up eating some left overs when a little tipsy on Saturday.

Last might we had a voucher for a meal at The Lowry Hotwl in Manchester, it was really lovely. Very traditional sunday lunch, not what we would usually have when we visit a city. So today we are heading for Chinese before going home.

Shopping arrives later, will have to look.up thread to see what I have planned, i've totally forgotten!

I think I actually did the famous MN chicken stretching trick! I did roast chicken for 3 yesterday, chicken burritos for 3 tonight and 2 extra burritos for lunch tomorrow. 8 portions out of a medium chicken!! Obviously the burritos were padded out: with rice, onion, sweetcorn, cheese and avocado.

Go @DiggoryVenn that's great! Burritos sound good to me.

Our shopping arrived today, there seems to be loads. We stopped by an Asian supermarket whilst in Manchester, bought Gyoza and noodlws, so naturally we had them for tea.

Here's the plan for this week's big cook tomorrow.
spiced lentil soup and another soup, probably roast veg.The roast this week is this chicken, bean and orzo one.This week's salad is the sweet potato with fetaI'm planning on paneer and pea dahl with potatoes with nigella and poppy seeds.Left over chicken will become this pie as I have puff pastry to useI've ordered pork mince and stuffing, I think i will make them into balls, bake whilst the chicken roasts and then serve on a different day with mash, veg and gravy.Sandwich fillings next week will be chicken, egg mayo or cheese. As usual I will be boiling eggs, baking a couple of jackets and his may be the week i finally get around to making oatcakes, which have been on my mind for ages!And pudding for the week is this.Breakfasts - beans on toast, omelette, porridge, pancakes.

It’s the only way I can get a free swede eaten in this house - grate it so it melts into whatever I’m cooking. I’ve even got away with it in stir fried rice

I will give it a try @Fiftyandme

I've been cooking for hours today, but loved it. This is how it started...

And now!

Today i made...

Pork and stuffing meat balls, Roast ppotatoes to serve with vegetables

Roast chicken with white beans and orzo
Roast vegetables for tonights tea. Loads of chicken left.

Roast sweet potatoes, candied pecans and feta for salad.

Baked potatoes for tea.

Coronation chickpeas for lunches.

Vegetable dahl with paneer ready to fry.

'Carribean curry' vegetables and lentil soup.

Cowboy beans with sausages.

Sticky chai apple cake.

Breton far.

Also trying chickpea meringue.

Wow well done.
My Xmas bits were stocking gifts.

Thanks. I didnt really intend to spend ao long cooking, but it was a miserable day and my husband was working.

The beans and orzo chicken we had foe tea was perfect comfort food.

Hello, sorry for being mia.
Followed the meal plan last week except for Thursday where we had loads of various leftovers so had those instead of jacket potatoes.
This week so far we’ve had pasta bolognese and what is known as “shit freezer food”, fishfingers and breaded chicken products. Not my favourite but after two busy days at work and a poorly dc I just could not be bothered. Tomorrow I might do soup and a toastie a la @Toastandbutterand or maybe Dahl and naan as I have some in the freezer then Thursday the jacket potatoes. Please can somebody inspire me for Friday-Sunday. I have chicken breast, beef mince, duck breast and pork loin steaks in the freezer. Lots of different veg and a variety of carbs.

Also if anyone has a good chicory (endive) recipe I’d be grateful. None of us can tolerate the bitterness but I forgot to edit my veg box. I’m sure I liked it when I lived in France but I don’t remember it tasting so bitter.

I love cooking too OP - im dieting at moment so am eating slightly less variety and cooking slightly less but still eating well - I’m afraid I cheat though twice a week and use the simply cook spice kits and recipes but my H has been very impressed and declared them all better than restaurant standard- apart from that I tend to do 1 stir fry, 1 roast, 1 fish cakes /fish and salad meal , 1 sushi and soup meal - you can eat well for not eye watering amounts but I think what it takes is plenty of time, ideally a decent freezer , and buying as few snacks and ‘stuff to grab’ as possible- a bit of planning really helps

@keffert I've not tried ot, but the couple of recipes I've tried from this account have been good.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBy_QsZqjQt/?igsh=MTA0ZzRsZ2psY3JoaA==