Marlene and Joy, thanks for your comments....yes, I'm actually quite surprised how well we've done with the £100 monthly shopping budget, it's been relatively easy. That's mainly because we do have a lot of food in the freezers/larder and I've been making a conscious effort to use that, rather than buying more food indiscriminately. We have friends who've recently said they cannot get their WEEKLY food shop below £100 - admittedly, there are 3 adults in their household, plus a dog, but I'm sure they could spend less if they put their minds to it. They are quite fussy eaters too, which I suppose makes it more difficult.
Today I'm using the slow cooker to make a large quantity of savoury mince, using 2x500g packs of minced beef, mixed veg (a third of a kilo pack of peas, sweetcorn, diced carrots and green beans), mushrooms and red onion, all from the freezer. I'll add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, 2 or 3 handfuls of red lentils, beef stock cubes, splash of Worcestershire sauce, big squirt of tomato puree, water from the rinsed out tomato tins, a spoonful of Vegemite dissolved in hot water, mixed herbs and seasoning and a handful or two of oats to thicken (thanks for reminding me, Joy). It'll be portioned up when cool and frozen, to be used in the future for cottage pie, spag bol, lasagne, mince & dumplings, or chilli with the addition of kidney beans, smoked paprika and chilli powder. I'm expecting it to make at least 6 portions for the two of us and, depending on what I do with it, each portion will probably make 2 meals for us. So the minced beef, bought on special offer from the butcher at £1.69 for 500g (I got 10), will stretch to make numerous extremely economical meals.
I'm making fishcakes for lunch, using leftover mashed potato from Sunday, quite a lot of it (the potatoes were sprouting so needed to be used up). I was going to use a tin of pink salmon and tin of tuna, but when I went to get the salmon out of the cupboard yesterday, realised I hadn't got any pink left, only a tin of red. Well, I don't want to use that in fishcakes, as I love red salmon in a sandwich, so instead I'm going to use a couple of jars of cheap salmon paste along with the tuna. Husband discovered yesterday that my pot of parsley in the garden is growing again, I really thought winter had killed it off completely, so I can use fresh parsley instead of dried in the fishcakes. We'll have a couple with salad for lunch, I expect there'll be several to freeze as well.
For dinner tonight we're having cauliflower cheese, using a bacon, leek and cheese sauce I'd previously made double of and froze the other half. We'll have it with sautéed courgettes and yellow peppers.
So from the freezer today:-
2x500g packs minced beef
Mixed veg
Mushrooms
Red onions
Bacon, leek & cheese sauce
But...several mince meals and fishcakes will be going back in!
As always, very interesting ideas and sound yummy ,as well.
ReplyDeleteA friend told me a couple of years ago that she spent £120 a week on food for two of them. I told her she must be insane! Fortunately we are still friends.
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed how you can pull a few things from your freezer and cupboards and come up with such a big selection of very yummy meals.
ReplyDeleteYour mince recipe is exactly like mine. It's so delicious, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSorry to be late commenting.
xx
I love fishcakes!
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