Nourishing meals on a budget

Thanks Ww, I eat quite a lot of soup with various ingredients or whats on special offer. Also eggs in various forms. Because of my tum, I can only eat once a day, so try to have lots of protein and not much fibre. Which is a bit pants as fibre is filling!!

I'm halfway through cooking a frittata. It's:

a couple of potatoes, par boiled and sliced up.
an onion.
some baked beans.
a bit of old cheese.
a bit of ham
a few eggs.

Fry the onions till soft. Place spuds on bottom of pan on a high heat in oil or butter. Put onions on potato together with beans, ham, and eggs (I leave mine whole).

Place lid on pan and cook until eggs are done.

Substitute or add ingredients as wished to use up any leftovers.

Eat hot or cold.

I have just made 2x2 cottage pies, one for tonight and one for the freezer. I used 500gm lean mince, one large onion and then emptied the fridge veg drawer and chopped up one small courgette, quarter of a red pepper and 4 carrots which all went in. Topped with mash and I will put grated cheese on the top when I cook it. I have some sprouting broccoli to go with it. All but the meat left over from other meals. Not leftovers , just not used up.

Eat well for less (as seen on tv) has some good budget recipes including an oven cooked frittata and a white fish cooked from frozen in a parcel in the microwave. I think they are costed, they certainly are on tv.

Thanks getting and annsixty These both sound great. I love using leftovers and I will try them out if I don't lose the scrap of paper I've written on in the meantime !

Tarka Dhal

Ingredients
(4 portions)

•850cc water
•320g red lentils
•400g tin of tomatoes
•200g onion, finely chopped
•20g oil
•2 fresh chillies or 15cc dried flakes
•10cc cumin seeds
•10cc turmeric
•2-3 cloves or 10cc dried garlic
•5cc garam masala
•5cc ground coriander
•30g of fresh or 5cc dried ginger
•600g dry weight brown rice

1.Measure out and chop ingredients.
2.Dry-fry the cumin seeds over a medium heat until toasted and fragrant (no more than a couple of minutes). Set aside.
3.Place the lentils and water in a large pan and bring to the boil. Skim off any scum and stir in the remaining dry spices and tomatoes. Reduce to a simmer, cover and leave to cook gently.
4.Gently fry the onion (and any fresh spices) in the oil, and mix in the toasted cumin seeds once golden. Start the rice. Add the onion to the lentils once it is completely softened, and simmer until the rice is ready, stirring regularly.


£0.68 per portion
£0.82/1000kcal
Energy 831kcal
Free sugar 1%
Sugar 4%
Fat 12%
Sat fat 2%
Salt 0.22g

I agree the eat well for less prog is very good.
When eldest DGD started Uni last year her Mum , our DD1, found her a cookbook called NOSH which is brilliant.
DGD hated cooking but immediately was sending photos (as you do!) of her meals prompting us to ask "who are you and what have you done with our DGD?" .

Thanks Newquay, I've just ordered that cookbook for my son to take to uni. I will have a scoot through and if I like the recipes, then I'll order one for me too.

Liver is cheap and good for you. About 50p per portion.

If I want beef mince I buy a big joint when on special offer and mince it myself - very good value.

Pretty sure I have posted this before, but Morrison's sell a whole turkey leg, both the thigh and the drumstick, for £3.

Have it roasted with veg, then there is usually enough left over to make a pie (I cheat and use condensed cream of mushroom soup for the "sauce" and add some mushrooms to bulk it out ) ) and last time I cooked one there was also enough left for risotto!

BTW, that was for 2 of us, and we both have good appetites!

A small chicken cost £3-4 can provide 3 meals for 2, then you can use the carcase for soup with whatever vegetables you have. Meat can be made to go further with the addition of pulses, and I often add nuts to a salad instead of meat.
A small piece of ham or gammon can be used in lots of ways too.

Aldi sell a very nice small gammon for about £3. I cook it in my small cooker and we have it hot one day , cold the next and there is usually enough to put in an omelette with cheese on the third.

Plus one for Aldi small gammon joints - excellent, and good value for money. ?

I do a M&S gammon usually about £3 in the slow cooker. Hot with parsley sauce and new potatoes ,cold with salad and then in a pie with leeks or much rooms or chicken and mascarpone to make a sauce.
I have a collection of soups and always make chicken stock in the slow cooker when we've had a roast. I have Lindsey Barehams book of soups as well and follow her in the tImes every day.

Mushrooms stupid iPad again

We're vegetarian and use nuts and pulses for protein, this week our meals are (we meal plan and try to cook most things from scratch)

Spinach and potato bake
Herby mushroom polenta
red pepper and leek pots
quinoa and courgette fry up
harissa baked veg with a kale pilaf
Birds eye veg fingers with sweet potato wedges (bung in the oven tea for when we have our grandson over
"lefts night" :-) - usually a frittata/risotto/pasta dish using whatever we have in the fridge before the weekly shop

We have a salad/crusty bread with some things and a glass of wine with a lot!

If you want the full recipe for anything let me know

We had jacket potatoes last night, with the centres scooped out and mashed up with some garlic& herb cream cheese, some grated cheddar and a couple of lightly cooked leeks, then piled back into the shells and grilled until golden. With a big salad it was delicious and probably cost less than £2 all in.

I love the sound of the tarka dhal recipe further up the postings, definitely going to try that. And the frittata one, using up all sorts of leftovers - we call it "MishMash Omelette" and again with salad and crusty bread it's gorgeous.

There are some really good recipes on the website: www.nhs.uk/Change4Life
They're all supposed to cost less than £5 and I find I freeze half (or just half ingredients) as recipes are mostly for 4 people.

Start the day with porridge too - a great filler, extremely good for you and takes me up to about 2 without feeling hunger pangs. About 4p per serving I understand (and cooked in the microwave.)

Omelettes too are a wonderful cheap meal - as others have demonstrated you can throw in almost anything and even upgrade them to a 'frittata'!! Delicious with salad/baked potato.

Have you looked at thrifty Lesley blog? all costed meals most under £1 per person and there are several meal plans in the archives

Have you looked at thrifty Lesley blog? All costed meals around £1per person there are weekly meal plans in the archives

One of our family favourites that is now favourite for several of the GC is pasta and lentil bake. Red lentils cooked with onion, garlic, tin of tomatoes and herbs into a sauce. Layer of pasta lentil sauce on top, rest of pasta with cheese sauce over the top baked until bubbling. We had little money when the children were growing up so bought Rose Elliott's book A load of Lentils or something like that. Now one daughter is veggie and we only eat meat twice a week.

Love the recipes on the Change4life website. Thanks Spallam!

I buy my DS chicken pieces as he likes to cook his own meals from scratch. However, there are sometimes some portions left at the end of the week. Last week I sauted them with carrots, celery and onion from the fridge, simmered it all in the slow cooker for a few hours and whizzed it all up in the blender. It make six portions of delicious soup, some of which I froze for later.

When he left some again this week I pinched some leftover red wine from the DH and used up old onions, ham and a bouquet garni sachet to make coq au vin. I had to get some mushrooms for 99p to add to it but it was a top dinner for bargain basement price.

The slow cooker is worth its weight in gold.