Money saving low carb tips??

[FusionChefGeoff]

The Venn diagram of food I want to eat and food my family will eat is a difficult one at best!

I am now trying to look at cutting costs which is both on cost of ingredients and cost of energy - so moving to slow cooker or stir fry type meals to stop using the oven.

I know going veggie would make a big difference but my family don't like hardly any of the low carb veg!! Aubergine, mushroom, courgette are all out - cauliflower I can just abut get away with.

All the cheap recipes bulk everything out with carbs! Either lentils / beans / chickpeas or rice / pasta / potatoes.

I really don't want to make lot of different meals for every night.

Does anyone have any ideas / tricks / advice??

I don't know but I'm interested in finding out! I've been low-carb for years and havr just been looking at vegetarian recipes thinking to cut some food costs (we are big meat eaters) and they're all either pasta and rice based, or have veg in them that the DC won't eat, or have melted cheese in them which DH hates. In many cases they combine all these things!

I found a lovely recipe for aubergine parmigiana but I'm the only one who'd eat it. I don't mind occasionally eating pulses/beans but I'd struggle to persuade the kids. We all love fish but that's expensive too.

I could really use some low carb and low cost inspiration!

I'm so glad you feel my pain too!!

I'm definitely going to have to compromise on low carb I think - I might be able to get the family to eat a vegetable curry / stew / chilli / pasta sauce but it would have to include carrots, peas, kidney beans etc

So maybe I need to be more flexible and relax my 'rules' to avoid all the complex / processed carbs but relax on veg and pulses??

"So maybe I need to be more flexible and relax my 'rules' to avoid all the complex / processed carbs but relax on veg and pulses??"

This is broadly what I do - although even then I don't have pulses or higher carb veg often or in large quantities - but if you're just starting to low carb you will find it much harder to lose weight and becone fat adapted that way. Of course you may be another long-termer or doing it for reasons other than weight loss!

@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal yes I've been low carb for 18 ish months now - for weight maintenance but also it's helping with peri symptoms and bloating / digestive issues. I also have binge eating tendencies and low carb removes all my trigger foods.

So weight isn't my primary focus but I don't want to be getting worst of both worlds - high fat AND going higher on the carbs!

Would it 'offset' weight impact if I went lower fat on higher carb days do you think??

No idea about the technicalities but I do what you are considering (avoid processed carbs but don’t worry about the carb content of pulses, veg etc) and I find it’s been good for my energy levels and so on. So you may find you retain those benefits 😊

"Would it 'offset' weight impact if I went lower fat on higher carb days do you think??"

That's what I tend to do, yes. So on days when I plan to have potatoes or pulses, I forgoe the cream in my coffee and either skip breakfast entirely or have a couple of boiled eggs (instead of buttery scrambled eggs or full fat Greek yoghurt).

Maybe try this book?

I have her first book and there are some lovely recipes in there, so hopefully her budget one is good too. Plus, she writes about British food, unlike so many books/blogs which are American - so use different ingredients/measurements, etc.

She also has a blog where she posts lots of other/new recipes

One of my favourite, cheaper meals is cauliflower + any other kind of veg I have going spare, baked in cheese sauce (just cheese and double cream), with slices of tomato on the top, along with more cheese.

Other veg that works well with the cauliflower:

• broccoli (like the cauliflower, steamed/boiled/fried before going into the sauce)
• shallots (fried first)
• leeks (fried first)
• broad beans - Sainsbury's frozen baby broad beans are 5.6g carbs per 100g, so a handful of these shouldn't be a problem - again, cooked before they go into the sauce
• courgettes (sliced and fried first - definitely don't steam/boil)

You could also make it more interesting with different types of cheese - not to say you should buy more expensive cheese than cheddar, but if you have some blue cheese left over, or any other cheese going spare, then chuck that in too.

There is a recipe on one of the Bootcamp recipe threads (I think it's in the meat thread) for stuffed cabbage leaves - from memory, it's blanched cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of pork, mushrooms and any other diced veg, and then cooked in a cheese sauce.

I use pork chops which are cheap, and which make a little bit of meat go a long way. You could also use chicken thighs.

What do you make with those pulses and veg?