Showing posts with label cheap meals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheap meals. Show all posts

13.3.15

A frugal feast

I keep peering hopefully in the fridge, which is a bit mad.
Last day of the Challenge though, and even with an empty, echoey fridge, no one's gone hungry.
I thought I'd quickly whisk through how we've managed to stretch out our £15 supplies this week.

One of the first things I made was a tomato sauce, using the tinned toms, onion, sugar and a squeeze of ketchup (plus the end of a carton of passata). Very handy for pizzas and pasta, and I'm hanging on to what's left for the grand finale pizzas tonight.

Bread. Such a joy. We wouldn't have got through the week without homemade bread. I mixed the plain cheaper flour I bought with half a bag of strong white and some wholewheat flour from the cupboard. Worked a treat I've got to say. One kilo for each batch - enough for two decent sized, (flattish-looking) loaves. I did all the kneading before school pick up, and by the time we got home they'd risen, and were ready for the oven. Warm bread with a (rationed) slither of butter. So good.


The oat cookies kept the kids happy on the way home from school. We all decided they were better than my usual ones; probably because the porridge oats from Lidl are a bit finer than the oats I normally use. 39p a bag too - definitely be buying those again.

AND the 30p a bar dark chocolate. Of course no one noticed a change in the brownies; they disappeared just as quickly. No cries of, 'Mummy, I simply can't eat brownies with such a low cocoa content!'
Can you imagine.

A few spoonfuls of mango chutney livened up the mild chicken curry, so that's worth doing again too. We could have managed without splashing out 40p on rice - we didn't use much and I had a little left in the cupboard. The 40p could have gone towards getting some more milk…. I had to buy extra after the 10 year old (the only milk drinker) knocked the bottle over at breakfast. I hate cleaning milk off the floor, especially at 6.30 in the morning.

Making pancakes is another thing I don't really want to be doing at 6.30 in the morning - but the kids loved them, and for about 10 minutes I was the best mum ever.

The gnocchi was a revelation. I've never made it before - there only appears to be 3 basic ingredients (potato, flour, egg), but, frustratingly, ever recipe I found was different. So, I just mashed some spud, added an egg and mixed in flour until it looked sort of like dough. It was messy- even messier than my bread making, which is saying something, but everybody liked it. Even the fussy one.

I suppose I've missed fruit and a bit of green - our meals have been a rather samey yellowy orange colour… you've probably noticed. But we've all had plenty to eat; it's just meant more planning and more making for me. I've liked being one step ahead - though, as I've learnt from previous years, not quite enough to change my bumbling-along ways!

Still, I've picked up a few useful ideas and we've raised money for Comic Relief, so that's all good.

Fish and chips tomorrow.


12.3.13

Frugal food - Charity Challenge day 4

I've had to plan meals down to the last grain of rice so I can stretch the food bought with my £12 budget across the week. I don't really mind the planning bit, and it's less daunting than last time, because things like making bread don't phase me as much as they used to. I make it regularly now, thanks to the very lovely, talented Recipe Junkie and her tutorials on growing and using a sourdough starter. I wasn't totally sure what a starter was to be honest; now I have a jar of bubbly, yeasty goo sitting on my window sill, constantly reminding me to make bread.

sourdough starter

So, this week breakfast is bread or toast, and lunch for me is some kind of orange soup (lentil/carrot or to spice things up carrot and lentil..)  I have packed lunches to make too: my fussy one has them all week - the others have a mixture of packed lunches and pre-paid school dinners. I'm giving them ham and cream cheese sandwiches, a muffin, 2 cream crackers with marg, and a carrot.
They are going to be sick of the sight of carrots by friday.


So the family meals work out like this:

Saturday      Lunch: Lentil soup and bread
                       Tea: Homemade ham and mozzarella pizza and garlic pizza
                       (sauce: one tin chopped tomatoes, half the passata, onion, tsp sugar, seasoning)

Sunday         Lunch: Tomato, mozzarella and ham pasta
                       (leftover cheese and sauce from pizzas + chopped up ham)
                       Tea: Roast chicken, potatoes and carrots

Monday         Spanish style frittata
                       (chopped and fried up potatoes from day before, half an onion, a little ham, 4 beaten eggs + cheeky handful of peas from freezer for a splash of colour..other than orange..)

Tuesday        Savoury chicken rice
                       (leftover chicken pieces, half a leek, half an onion, carrot, stock)
                   
Wednesday   Tomato and ham pasta
                       (another batch of tomato sauce made with spare tin and rest of the passata - save about half for friday pizzas. Maybe add a dollop of cream cheese to pasta sauce)

Thursday       Leek and carrot soup with cider bread 
                        (Cider bread is really worth a go - so quick, easy and delicious. I'm using some cider I keep in the fridge for this recipe - but no cheese or butter)
                     
Friday            Ham pizza and garlic pizza

I bulk out the meals with bread, and after-school snacks and puddings are muffins. Peach, carrot or banana on offer this week. Squirrel is having break.


Snackless squirrel

The homemade pizzas on saturday night were a great success



375g of flour made dough for 4 bases (2 tomato, 2 garlic)

We even had enough to feed a hanger-on; and apart from one slightly tense moment as I watched my son's friend carefully pick all the precious pieces of ham off his pizza, everyone was happy!

Sunday roast is always a winner - and there's enough chicken left for savoury rice tonight, plus a big bowl of fresh stock. I cut the potatoes up really small for the frittata yesterday, but they were spotted by my fussy potato avoider.
spanish style frittata
Still, he did eat it. Very slowly. Every single thing has to be eaten up this week!

No one's going hungry, that's for sure, and I keep reminding them we're doing it for Comic Relief - but think the novelty might be wearing a little thin..

You can find out more about our Charity Challenge here