Waitrose web series: add your tips and questions on everyday dishes and have the chance to win £100 of Waitrose vouchers

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Mumsnet are working with Waitrose to produce a six-episode web TV series that will launch in September and they want your feedback to help shape this episode on cooking everyday dishes for the family.

How do you make the most out of your weekly shop? Do you have a fail-safe dish in your repertoire that you always fall back on?

Whether you're offering advice or looking for it, please post here and we'll try and take the best tips and questions and build some of them in to the microsite where the web TV series is going to be shown.

Everyone who takes part in this or any of the Waitrose threads will be entered into a draw to win £100 of Waitrose vouchers.

And if you want to star in the web series, you can find out more and volunteer here. (link to recruitment page)

Everyday dishes: Make up huge batches of soup/bolognaise sauce and freeze for easy suppers. Soup is filling and cheap.
Bolognaise can be had with pasta/grilled polenta or on jacket potatoes, or made into lasagne.

Red lentils are great to have in to bulk out stews and soups and are very nutritious

LOL, you started two identical threads and LizzyLou posted on both of them

Minted lamb shepherds pie with carrots, sweet potato and regular mash on the top. Very cheap, freezes brilliantly (we bought five identical square ceramic dishes from the pound shop and make big batches and because they are square, they stack in the freezer).

My favourite "thai" salmon recipe has become our standby as we always have the ingredients to hand, except for the fish, which we can pick up quickly on our way home:

for 4 people:

Fry about 600g salmon fillets, skinless, cut into chunks in a little sesame or ground nut oil. When nicely browned, remove and set aside.

Into the pan put 6 thinly sliced shallots, a stick of lemongrass and a clove of chopped garlic and fry lightly. Once softened and starting to brown, add 2 tablespoons of soft brown sugar and mix well. When the sugar starts to caramalise, add 4 tablespoons of light soy sauce, the juice of 2 limes and a tablespoon of water. Let it bubble for a bit and as it starts to get rich and creamy (after about a minute), put the salmon back in and carefully mix.

Serve with brown rice and (optional) with chopped coriander, peanuts/cashew nuts. I like to serve it with spinach mixed with a little greek yoghurt, lemon and nutmeg (all things I always have as frozen spinach is always in the freezer) but some big chunks of cucumber also work.

grilled teriyaki salmon with noodles and peas / mange tout. superquick very healthy and popular with children. waitrose teriyaki sauce and wild atlantic salmon of course.

One of may fail safes is to roast a chicken which you can then add, juices skin and all, to either pasta or a salad. it's yummy, makes a lot, easy and reasonably priced.

Gammon joints are fairly cheap (£3.99 for a kg in Sainsburys at the moment) and when boiled and/or roasted make very nice 'nice ham' for sandwiches or to be eaten with potatoes and salad. Much cheaper than pre-cooked nice ham.

Trillian, no, I used the links from the site post at the top, thought that was what I supposed to do?

Just desperate to win something, never blooming do though.

I have no idea what we're supposed to do, but t were two threads in aactive with the same title and OP and you were the first poster on both of them and I thought it was funny. Not that you've done anything wrong, just unny than MNHQ can post something twice just like us mere mortals!

*funny

I don't care if I look like a Muppet, I just want a prize

If you click on the headings it starts the same thread, think MN towers have some bugs to sort.

The recipe that I always do, which seems to be successful from children to grandparents, is Italian meatballs in tomato sauce.
I use any 500g pack of mince, turkey, lamb, beef or pork that I have to hand and add breadcrumbs, grated onions, an egg, chopped fresh basil leaves- or dried mixed herbs in winter. Form into balls ,and quickly brown before putting in an ovenproof dish. I then either add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes,garlic puree, tsp sugar or a shop- bought passatta,and cook for 40 mins, adding sliced mozzarella for the last 10 minutes.Sometimes I add grated carrots, or grated celery to up the vegetable content.
This is popular served with pasta, rice, or jacket potatoes, with a mixed green salad, or chunky cucumber salad for the children.

Lasagne is the big hit here - and it has the added bonus of almost tasting better the next day, or if made in advance (so it's a good dish to make double and freeze half, or if like me you are at home in the day and LO still young enough for a daytime nap, make it while they're asleep and you just need to finish cooking it later).

I don't exactly follow a recipe - heat a dollop of oil, soften some onions (plus optional garlic, maybe a few carrots chopped small for extra veg, also mushrooms if you like), add some mince and brown it, add a can of chopped tomatoes and let it simmer for about 15/20 mins while you make cheese sauce. Put a couple of spoons of butter in pan and melt, add plain flour (about same quantity?) gradually add milk, whisking all the time and heat until it starts to boil and thicken, take off the heat and chuck in grated cheese. Assemble lasagne - half the mince, layer of lasagne sheets, some cheese sauce, then mince, lasagne sheets and cover the top with rest of cheese sauce (can sprinkle a bit of grated cheee on top). Put in fridge now if you want to cook it later, or else bake now - 200 degrees C for about 20 mins. Yum.

Lentils are a great thing to have in your store cupboard and can make a nutricious and delicious supper in half an hour.

One of our favourites is with chorizo (the small sausage type, not the thinly sliced stuff for sandwiches). You just cook the lentils in some stock (from a cube if necessary) with chunks of chorizo, potato, carrot, celery, garlic and a bay leaf. The chorizo's oil infuses the whole dish. It keeps well in the fridge and freezes too. What more do you want in a dish?

Our super quick fave meal is:
pack of prawns (I buy when on special offer, and then freeze, and cook from frozen). Heat through, add tub of creme fraiche, add frozen peas, stir round till hot, snip chives in, and add black pepper.

Serve with pasta, or if really pushed for time, thai rice noodles.

Quick and popular here: wholemeal fusilli with broccoli and anchovies.
You cook the pasta as on the pack, draining a little of the olive from the anchovies in to stop it sticking, then add the florets from a broccoli crown four minutes before end of cooking. Drain pasta and broccoli, add rest oil from anchovies, anchovies (snipped up), crushed clove of garlic and plenty of black pepper. Warm through to soften anchovies and garlic, then serve with parmesan. On the table in 20 mins.

quick, easy and kids like it too.

Pasta chicken pesto

Cook chicken and pasta. Mix in jar of pesto and a small tub of creme fresh. Stir. Serve and put some cheese on top.

Yummy, easy, and so easy even my DH does it.

Not sure that the idea is to steal borrow recipes from here, but I like the sound of the prawn recipe, CMOT.

My fallback recipe is actually from a waitrose card. (Does that count?) Fry meatballs, add a tomato based sauce, simmer for 10 minutes. Cook pasta whilst it is simmering, mix the two together, chuck mozzarella on the top and grill for 5 minutes. If you happen to have basil in that didn't expire 5 weeks ago, sprinkle over the top.

My other trip is to cook double of anything that will freeze, and freeze half for another day.

Our favourite quick meal:
Tagietelle with spinach grated cheese and seeds (pumkin, sunflower or pine as you like!)
Frozen or fresh spinach work equally well
We are veggie but Im guessing you could add ham etc for animal eaters

My picky 5yo dd always loves this

Frozen quorn and frozen mixed grilled vegetables, with garlic, can(s) of chopped tomatoes, chopped dried chilli, black pepper and dry lasagna are all in the cupboard/freezer.

To make a lasagna, add easy cheese sauce (throw tablespoon plain flour, knob of butter, half pint of milk in microwave for a minute. Whisk together and put back in for another minute, add chopped cheese et voila).

Beans on toast. Does that count?

Vegetable omlette - serves 2.

Cut 1 medium potato into cubes, boil til tender.
Gently fry 1 red onion, diced red pepper,handful of mushrooms in 2tbsp olive oil until browned.
Crack 3 eggs into jug with drop of milk, salt and pepper, mix well, pour into frying pan. Add potatoes, peas and sweetcorn if desired, then sprinkle on enough cheese to suit.
Cook on one side, then put pan under hot grill to cook the top.
Serve with salad.
Quick, simple and add/delete veg as preferred. Yum!

These homemade chicken strips work well every time, despite the suspicious looks from visiting children who can't believe they can be any good if they don't come out of a packet.
Cut up chicken breasts into strips (I bulk buy and freeze, esp when Waitrose have those large bags on special offer!!). Beat an egg in a shallow bowl. Put a couple of tablespoons of plain flour into another shallow bowl and add 1/4-1/2tspn each of celery salt and cayenne pepper (I think that's how much - I just shake randomly) and mix.
Dip each chicken strip in the egg then the flour, and shallow fry in a large frying pan in olive or sunflower oil.
Serve with mash or chips plus veg and, of course, ketchup.

Beef stroganoff - strips of beef fried up with onions (and mushrooms if you like) then add lots of sweet paprika, finish off with some creme fraiche and chives if you fancy! Serve with rice or potatoes. I like this recipe because it's tasty and really quick to make if you're a working mum and short of that precious commodity - time!