Feed The Family For A Fiver
- Thread starter el_starkos
- Start date
PacificOcean
Unhinged User
I am going to give this a go myself. Though I don't think I am confident enough to make pastry. I always balls up with the ready made stuff let alone make my own!
However, surely that lot will be more than a fiver?
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
Yes, it will I'm afraid. I posted the recipe because el_starkos said he wanted to have a go at a quiche/tart. Good luck!
Looby
Well-Known Member
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
I just priced it using Tesco online. Using the cheapest choices and assuming you already have salt and pepper in, it's £7.16 if you make it from scratch (and you'll have loads of flour, butter and lard leftover to make something else with) and it's £6.20 if you buy a pre-made pastry case. So no, not that much more.
Sweaty Betty
Hemo rising!
Dont do the sainsbury JO pork noodle stir fry____RANKARAMA1!!
fractionMan
Custom Title
I'm going to do this with pictures at some point. I only cook for one but I can eat for four.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
This is utterly yummy
1 pack of smoked salmon trimmings ( about £1 in tesco- Im sure you can get similar elsewhere)
Tagliatelle
1 red onion
1 lemon ( juice and rind)
2 cloves garlic
1 tub of low fat fromage frais or creme fraiche
Freshly ground black pepper
small bunch of chives finely chopped.
Chop the onion v v finely, crush the garlic and fry gently in a tiny bit of oil. remove from heat and put in a large bowl
Boil the tagliatelle
when the pasta is done drain and add to the large bowl,add the smoked salmon trimmings, lemon juice, rind and chives, and stir through with the fromage frais.
return to the pan to heat through a tiny bit ( no heat or low heat) while you grind on loads of black pepper
Total cost- about £3.50 serves 4-6
1 pack of smoked salmon trimmings ( about £1 in tesco- Im sure you can get similar elsewhere)
Tagliatelle
1 red onion
1 lemon ( juice and rind)
2 cloves garlic
1 tub of low fat fromage frais or creme fraiche
Freshly ground black pepper
small bunch of chives finely chopped.
Chop the onion v v finely, crush the garlic and fry gently in a tiny bit of oil. remove from heat and put in a large bowl
Boil the tagliatelle
when the pasta is done drain and add to the large bowl,add the smoked salmon trimmings, lemon juice, rind and chives, and stir through with the fromage frais.
return to the pan to heat through a tiny bit ( no heat or low heat) while you grind on loads of black pepper
Total cost- about £3.50 serves 4-6
cliche guevara
Well-Known Member
Made missfran's potato and pea curry last night, was delicious. There was enough for four people easily, and the whole thing cost less than a quid to make (excluding the spices).
1927
Funnier than he thinks he is.
yeah, if you don't feel up to wrangling with your own pastry then ready made is a certified Delia Cheat Ingredient
it's less than £1 in a block from the chiller cabinet and £1.20 for ready rolled stuff in my local tesco.
Life is really too short(no pun intended) to make your own pastry. The frozen stuff is fine. We often have homemade pie, but its a lot easier to make it as a casserole and then cook a piece of frozen pastry and bung it on top on the plate!!
Here's a few of my economy tips...
- Don't buy premade sauces or sauce mixes - there is no sauce that can't be made easily and much more cheaply than you'll get in a jar. Learn to make a bechamel sauce, and you've got the basis for all kinds of other sauces. And it's dirt cheap - a bit of flour, some butter, a few seasonings, and some milk.
- If you're using tomatoes as a base for a sauce, just get tins of the cheap ones - two reasons for this. First, if you always make sauces with nice fresh tomatoes, or expensive tinned ones, you'll get used to it and it won't taste that special. The cheapo ones really aren't that much different, and will do for day-to-day economy cooking. Also worth watching out for reduced-price dented ones!
- Buy your pulses (lentils, red kidney beans, etc) from your local Indian supermarket/grocer - if you get your lentils, etc., in 2kg bags, you're probably going to be paying not much more than a quid a kilo. Get 'em in Tesco by the half-kilo, and expect to be paying at least twice that. Dried pulses are an extra faff, as you will have to soak them (except the red lentils) for 24 hours, and they need cooking properly (especially the RKBs)...but hey, we're saving money here!
- Buy your spices from your local Indian supermarket/grocer - look at the price of a jar of Schwartz spice, and the amount you get in it. Now pop down to the subcontinental grocer's and have a look. OK, it usually means buying 5 times as much spice (probably for the same money as the Schwartz jar!). If you don't think you'll use it fast enough, do a deal with your friends/neighbours and operate a little spice co-op.
- Batch cook - you'll save energy and time. If you're going to cook up a nice red bean chilli, do the job properly and make 3 litres of it! Then portion it up and freeze it. Once you've done this once a week for a few weeks, you'll have a nice selection of frozen "ready meals" to hand. Do remember to label them unless you like randomness
- Food Storage - you can go and buy lots of tupperware style pots to stick your portions of frozen cookings in. They'll cost you somewhere between 60p and a quid. Or you can be slightly wasteful and just use plastic sandwich bags. Weigh/measure your portions (200-300 grammes is a good size, I find) into the bags, squeeze them gently to get the air out, and knot the top. I find that you can then snuggle them up nicely with each other in old ice cream tubs, then when they freeze, they're in a nice tidy space-efficient block. At 1-2p a bag, you're going to have used your tupperware 20-30 times before it pays for itself. Do the sums...
- End-of-date Food - find out which supermarkets are best at marking down their food when it gets close to sell-by dates (round here, Somerfield are pretty good, and make deep markdowns on sell-by day). Also find out when in the day they tend to do it. Then make a point of drifting through about then and snap up bargains. Tatty, slightly elderly veg are fine to make soups with, and if you're going to cook up meat and freeze it, it doesn't matter that it's on its last sell-by date.
Just watch out, if you're bothered about such things, that it isn't stuffed with hydrogenated fats. Last time I looked, ready-made pastry was a bit naughty for that kind of thingyeah, if you don't feel up to wrangling with your own pastry then ready made is a certified Delia Cheat Ingredient
it's less than £1 in a block from the chiller cabinet and £1.20 for ready rolled stuff in my local tesco.
It may have improved since, because transfats have been getting some well-deserved bad publicity...
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
Life is really too short(no pun intended) to make your own pastry. The frozen stuff is fine. We often have homemade pie, but its a lot easier to make it as a casserole and then cook a piece of frozen pastry and bung it on top on the plate!!
While bought pastry works brilliantly, I still love making my own. It really feels like you've made the food yourself then. And it's fun! You learn about how ingredients work, rubbing the fat into the flour so it's evenly distributed, you really get to engage with the food. And put a bit more love in there
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
While bought pastry works brilliantly, I still love making my own. It really feels like you've made the food yourself then. And it's fun! You learn about how ingredients work, rubbing the fat into the flour so it's evenly distributed, you really get to engage with the food. And put a bit more love in there
Having JUST said this, I went to roll out some pastry for the cornish pasties I'm making today and found it was much too short and despite my best efforts crumbled at every turn. So I had to go out and buy some ready-made
newme
Giant in Pastyland now
Red Kidney Beans can be had 340g (240g drained iirc) for 12p at Tescos and dont require soaking.
Having JUST said this, I went to roll out some pastry for the cornish pasties I'm making today and found it was much too short and despite my best efforts crumbled at every turn. So I had to go out and buy some ready-made
Quality
Pastries one Ive never much done well with, other than when ickle making jam tarts 
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
Make huge casseroles of veg'n'meat, then divide into portions and put in the freezer- this can keep you going for days (saved me lots of times!)
If you're a meat eater, less good parts like liver goes for dirt cheap- throw in a pan with some spinach and leftovers, and voilà: full dinner.
If you're a meat eater, less good parts like liver goes for dirt cheap- throw in a pan with some spinach and leftovers, and voilà: full dinner.
mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
This is all supposing you have a freezer of course !
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
confusedDon't everyone have a tiny 'freezer' slot on top of their refridgerator nowadays?
(Still supposing people have access to a refridgerator, though
)Made Butternut Squash soup yesterday, squash was 69p at Aldi.
roast squash, sweat with potato, carrot, onion, red pepper (69p for 3 at Aldi) add stock cube, pint of water, salt and pepper and a bayleaf, handful of red lentils, simmer 30 mins, blend if you like it that way.
Made 4 good bowlfuls, nom nom nom
roast squash, sweat with potato, carrot, onion, red pepper (69p for 3 at Aldi) add stock cube, pint of water, salt and pepper and a bayleaf, handful of red lentils, simmer 30 mins, blend if you like it that way.
Made 4 good bowlfuls, nom nom nom
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
The little shoe-box bit at the top of my fridge does fine.
Things in the freezer like bread, or stuff, can just be put outside or in the shed/garage, if the little shoebox freezer is full.
psycherelic
I'm not an old hippy!
Thanks for the curry recipe missfran, I made it tonight with sliced green beans instead of peas and it was absolutely delicious, got loads left for lunch tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it 
psycherelic
I'm not an old hippy!
Roast veg with pasta is a favorite easy and cheap meal for me: Just roughly cut up some onions, peppers and any other random veg you have around, season and toss in olive oil. Roast in a oven dish in a med-high oven for 25-30 mins. Cook some pasta shapes, I like fussilli but penne and shells also work well, drain the pasta and mix with the veg in the pan If you're feeling rich add pesto, if not just oil, pepper and herbs.
Fried rice and veg can be made very cheaply and easily in lots of variations and almost always tastes delicious
Fried rice and veg can be made very cheaply and easily in lots of variations and almost always tastes delicious
Get down the market and get some cheap veg. Fuck off butternut squash for sweet potato, tis cheaper, or cheaper still carrots.
If you live in the country go scrumping, there might be some spuds left in the fields still.
There's fuck loads of people floggin apples off cheap this tie of year.
If you live in the country go scrumping, there might be some spuds left in the fields still.
There's fuck loads of people floggin apples off cheap this tie of year.
mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
Yes but people are talking about bigger portions than can fit in a tiny freezer......
and i don't have an outside !
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the curry recipe missfran, I made it tonight with sliced green beans instead of peas and it was absolutely delicious, got loads left for lunch tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it
Excellent
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