€1.50 per serving or less

Xiney

Just thought I'd start a thread for those of us on smaller food budgets

I've been trying to keep the weekly shop under €40 per week. I've introduced more vegetarian meals, simpler (more old fashioned, maybe) food, and especially tried to cut down on waste.

If anyone has some favourite cheap recipes I'd really appreciate hearing about them

To start off, here are a few of mine:


Dhal (Curried Lentil Soup)
serves 6

• 1 cup red lentils, washed
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tbsp mild curry powder (try to buy in bulk at an asian food store)
• 1/2 tsp (or more) cayenne pepper powder
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
• 500 g baby spinach, washed (optional, but highly recommended)
• salt (to taste)
• about 3 cups water

1. spray a pan with non stick cooking spray, and sautee the onion and garlic
2. add the lentils 2 cups water
3. add the curry powder, cayenne pepper powder, tomato puree, lemon juice and salt
4. bring to a boil, then cover and simmer
5. if the lentils absorb the water before they're cooked, add more water, gradually, until lentils reach desired consistency
6. add spinach and simmer for a further 10 minutes
7. if you have some tomatoes in the fridge on their way out, you can chop them up and add them with the spinach

Split Pea Soup
Serves 8

• 500 g split yellow peas (cost €1.49 at the asian store, should have gone for a bigger bag tbh)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 knorr bullion cubes (I used vegetable, but chicken could work too)
• 5 cups water

1. pick over and rinse peas
2. combine in pot with onion, garlic, stock cubes and water.
3. bring to boil, cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour (until peas are tender)
4. blend, or, if you're like me and you a) like a more textured soup and b) don't like washing out the blender, use a potato masher
5. add more water or salt if necessary (be careful and add both in small quantities of course)

Garlic Chicken Pilaf
Serves 4

• 1 cup brown long grain rice
• 1 chicken bullion cube mixed with 2.5 cups water (or however much water you will need to cook the rice)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4-5 garlic cloves, pressed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 skinned & boned chicken thighs, diced
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• cracked black pepper
• salt
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano

1. fry the onion in the oil until soft and golden
2. add the chicken and brown
3. add the rice and fry in the oil until browned (be careful not to burn it)
4. add garlic, bullion/water mixture, lemon juice, tomato puree and seasonings and cook, covered until water is nearly absorbed
5. remove from heat and allow water to absorb into rice

Sparks

€1.50 a serving seems kinda difficult to me unless you have seperate budgets for monthly and weekly shops (monthly being spices, oils, raw grains, flours, other stuff that takes a month or more to use up; weekly being meat, dairy, eggs, bread, etc).

Still...

Cheap Thai Pea Soup
1 large onion, finely chopped
2-5 cloves garlic, crushed (depending on taste, but I use 5)
2 tbsp mint (dried's perfect)
500ml vegetable stock (from a stock cube)
2 tbsp Thai Green Curry paste
1kg bag frozen peas
400ml tin of coconut milk
2 tbsp oil (vegetable/sunflower/peanut)
2 tbsp yellow mustard seeds (or any other kind, but yellow is mildest)

Sweat the onion in the oil til translucent (a pinch or two of salt is good here)
Add garlic, turn up heat slightly
Add the green curry paste and cook for two-three minutes.
Add the mint.
Turn the heat up to full, add the stock
When stock boils, add in peas, all at once, still frozen.
Bring back up to boil then reduce heat and simmer for seven-ten minutes.
Take stick blender, go mad. Blend to smooth, no chunks.
Stir in the coconut milk.
Final touch, and this makes the whole thing, fry the mustard seeds in a very little oil covered with a spatter guard, until they're popping away like popcorn; then dump straight from the frying pan into the pot and stir to combine. That sizzling noise is good

Serve. A dollop of double cream or sour cream is nice if you have it.
It's a bit hot, but not too hot.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Hmm, well, I'll not count the spices into the budget because I'll assume they'll already be in the cupboard

Jamaican style bean yoke
About 1/2 tin of coconut milk
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper seeded and chopped
1 cup rice
1 large carrot -- cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1/3 cup sliced scallions (or use 2 onions)
1 1/4 teaspoons dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes -- 1/8 to 1/4
A tin of the cheapest beans, it's usually kidney. It's cheaper to use dried but a lot more effort
salt and pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons of the coconut milk in a large saucepan . Add the onion and green pepper and sauté until the onion softens.
Add 2 cups hot water, the remaining coconut milk, rice, carrot, scallions, thyme, allspice, and red pepper flakes. Cover the pot bring it to a boil, and reduce the heat. Simmer until the rice is done, 15 to 20 minutes.
Mix in the beans. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Let sit, covered, until you are ready to serve.

It's pretty quick, makes a few servings, really easy. Throw in some other veg if you want

Sparks

Next time I check I've posted the right version of the recipe

How about pizza?

2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup warm water, 2 cups bread machine flour (or as strong as you can find, the protein content is critical), 1 tsp yeast.

All into the mixer and mix for less than a minute to bring it all together;
Then walk away and leave it for twenty minutes;
Then knead with the mixer's dough hook for 15 minutes, or until the dough can be stretched so thin it's translucent without tearing (add flour if necessary but be sparing - it's meant to be this wet);
Turn out onto a floured countertop and work into a doughball.

Divide into three or four parts, cover in a tbsp or so of olive oil and wrap in cling film, then leave in the fridge for several days to rise (4 or 5 is good, but overnight can be okay in a pinch - add a little more yeast for that though).
Take them out, leave them for 30 minutes to come back up to room temperature and then work to a pizza shape and cook either on a pizza stone if you bought one during the boom, or an upturned cast iron skillet that you sat under the grill for a good 15 minutes on high, or on an unglazed quarry tile.
(literally, dump them on the surface brushed in a little olive oil all over the top, leave for two minutes to set, then take out, smear with tomato sauce if you want that or not if you want a white pizza, then add the topping and cook for another 5-8 minutes, you'll know when it's done)

Sparks

Or fajhitas!

Step one, find a good butcher. Feck Tesco, find an actual butcher who'll get what you order; then order inside skirt steak. It's dirt cheap, one of the toughest cuts going, and perfect for fajhitas. I'm not kidding about the cheap, I bought a good few pounds of it a while back for a BBQ and froze what I didn't use - and it was something like €20 for several pounds of meat, enough to feed about 30 people. Thing is, if you just chuck it on the pan and eat it, shoe leather would be nicer, so: marinade.

The marinade must have: Oil, Lime juice, Cumin, Garlic, Salt.
Nice to have would be tequila/beer, onions, chillis, tobasco, soy sauce, coriander (ground or leaves), and anything else that you like in tex mex flavours.

Take the silverskin off the meat (ah, shaving meat, fun for all the fingers...) and cut to managable sizes, dump in the marinade and leave for at least an hour (hell, dump it in the fridge overnight if you can, just cover over the bowl or seal the bag). Then drop right onto the coals in a bbq or onto a griddle pan and sear the daylights out of it for a few minutes on each side, then make an envelope from tin foil and stash the meat there for a good five to ten minutes to rest.

Remove, and slice against the grain - monumentally important to do that or you'll be chewing all night - and toss back in the envelope into the sauce that'll be collected there.

Then just heat the tortillas and assemble the fajhitas.


Oh, and for tummy's sake, put some rice in the fajhita. Mission-style fajhitas are utter heaven.

About the only thing you have to buy ready-made there is the tortillas, and if you shop around, you can get them fairly cheap.

Xiney

I do take into account staple ingredients - for example each serving should use no more than €1.50 worth of ingredients total, not that you could go into a shop with €1.50 and buy what you need.

Sparks

And there's risotto - a bag of short-grain rice isn't that expensive and a stock cube is dirt cheap as well, and after that, you're just stirring for a while and you wind up with the ultimate in leftover wrapping. Chuck in whatever's handy - peas or mushrooms or ham or, well, nearly anything. Or nothing at all - risotto's nice plain.

Dizzyblonde

Scotch Broth
1.5 ltr Chicken or Vegetable Stock
500g Diced leftover ham
50g Barley
100g Red Lentils, rinsed
100g Diced Carrot
50g Diced Leek
50g Diced turnip
100 g Shredded Cabbage
Chopped Parsley
Salt and Pepper

In a large pot place the chicken stock, barley and lentils.
Bring this to the boil and reduce to a simmer for about 50 minutes.
Now add the meat, carrots, leeks and turnips. Season with black pepper and very little salt.
Return to a simmer for a further 20 minutes or until the carrots are almost cooked. Add the cabbage and cook for another 10 minutes.
Add the chopped parsley and serve in piping hot bowls.

Sparks

TBH Xiney, I don't think it's really the recipes that keep the budget down. They're a factor, but they're not the critical factor. Critical stuff is things like planning out your week's food, knowing where to shop (not always lidl either), and trading off your time and effort for money (so less ready-made stuff and less of "Delia's shortcuts").

Helps if you bought decent tools as well
(ie. Slow cookers - throw the stew into one inthe morning and leave it cook all day while you're at work, and it'll be mouthwatering that evening)

Sparks

Oh, and if you live in wicklow, find out who the local hunters are and try to source venison from them; there are massive overpopulation problems with deer in Ireland right now and everyone is trying to cull the herds down before they over-consume and trigger a wave of starvation in the herd; so venison is going cheap these days. Hell, I've been given a deer's worth just because the lad I know had run out of space in his freezer for the meat (hunters hate waste).

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Sparks wrote: »

TBH Xiney, I don't think it's really the recipes that keep the budget down. They're a factor, but they're not the critical factor. Critical stuff is things like planning out your week's food, knowing where to shop (not always lidl either), and trading off your time and effort for money (so less ready-made stuff and less of "Delia's shortcuts").

Yup, supervalu and tesco are always worth a look. Figure out which day they get their deliveries and go in the day before-in Tesco on a friday you can get bean sprouts for a euro, bags of chopped veg for 90 cent or thereabouts, they do a root vegetable soup mix which you can get for a euro when it's reduced-obviously you'd have to eat or freeze it that day or the next, but you could get two or three people's worth of soup out of that bag so I'd say it's worth it

Also
Bean Bake
couple of cans of different types of beans-butter beans, kidney beans, chick peas, whatever
A can of chopped tomatoes
1/2 to 1 onion chopped finely
1 cup chopped bell pepper
Chopped chilli pepper to taste (careful now)

Drain and rinse the beans, put all ingredients into a baking dish and bake on high for about thirty minutes-the original recipe of this mentioned putting a crust of some sort on top, but I could never be arsed

Xiney

Well, for people who know all the planning & shopping stuff already, simple recipes with frugal ingredients are the final step

Sparks

True

Degag

if you have uktv food, every day on the prgramme market kitchen they cook a "food for a fiver dish." Usually works out at less than 2 quid per serving.

Xiney

Don't have cable at all - but I googled it and found it online

Minder

Tuna with linguine and a garlic, parsley and lemon dressing.
Boil and drain the pasta.
Fry garlic in a little olive oil.
Add tuna.
Add equal quantities of lemon juice mixed with olive oil.
Add chopped parsley and mix.

Xiney

canned tuna?

Minder

Canned tuna.

John Mason

Sparks wrote: »

Hell, I've been given a deer's worth just because the lad I know had run out of space in his freezer for the meat (hunters hate waste).

OMG, do you know my cousin :eek::)

Dizzyblonde

Chop a few rashers, an onion and a handful of mushrooms.
Fry gently in olive oil, add crushed garlic (and chilli if you like).
Add 2 tins of tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of sugar, very little salt and some black pepper.
Add fresh or dried basil and simmer until it thickens and goes a deep red colour.
Serve with pasta and parmesan.
Very cheap and very tasty.

rubadub

Tesco have a new range of foods out. It is like an "own brand" label but it has a "brand name" (can't remember, I think the names change on different stuff). The tesco branding is very discrete on them, only in the small print.

Tesco usually had value, normal, and "finest" ranges. Going up in price & quality. But now I find these new brands can be better quality (IMO) than their standard stuff, yet cheaper than the standard, possibly cheaper than the "value" ones. They do prepacked cheese & hams really cheap, and the ham has a higher meat content than the standard.

They do a fresh peperonni pizza for just €1.69, that is not an offer either. Looks like a 9" one, supposed to be for 2 people, loads of pepperoni on it though, no skimping and tastes fine. The amount of peperroni alone would seriously probably cost €1.69 on its own at their deli.

Not recipes I know, but it is cheap possible ingredients, they do curry sauces etc really cheap and taste fine, and are not watered down like most "value brands", in fact it was loaded with cream & coconut, as much as premium brands.

olaola

I have to say Chorizo (I think a loop of 'del sol' is €2.50 in our local Spar) is a handy and very tasty thing to have in the cupboard. Cheap too - and you get a lot of flavour out of a small bit of the sausage.

Sparks

pink fluffy bunny wrote: »

OMG, do you know my cousin :eek::)

Not unless he's originally from Cork and doing his PhD in TCD

Sparks

The choritzo idea's good, the stuff lasts a fair while as well.
In fact, having small luxury things like that on hand lets you use really cheap staples for the bulk of the meal, and keeps cost down.
For example, get a bottle (a small one) of truffle oil. Lasts for well over a year, and all you do is make a risotto with a stock cube and ordinary short-grain rice, and then put a teaspoon or so of the oil into the bowl and serve. Turns a reasonable risotto into a wonderfully tasty meal for about 5 cents worth of oil. Just remember to store the oil properly (no direct sunlight, no extremes of temperature).

Xiney

olaola wrote: »

I have to say Chorizo (I think a loop of 'del sol' is €2.50 in our local Spar) is a handy and very tasty thing to have in the cupboard. Cheap too - and you get a lot of flavour out of a small bit of the sausage.

Yeah, I made a nice pasta sauce with chorizo (which is very cheap from Lidl) a couple of weeks ago. I still have a couple of meals' worth left in the freezer.

Pasta sauces in general can be made very cheaply and are great on a budget.

Malari

I think cassoulet's a real store-cupboard based meal. I love it, specially on day two This serves two but if you double the quantity it's probably even less than €1.50 a serving.

Cassoulet
Tin of tomatoes
Tin of beans
Half a coil of Chorizo
4 sausages
Chopped onion
Garlic clove
Dash of balsamic vinegar
Squirt of tomato puree
Half tsp of sugar
Half a glass of red wine if you are feeling lush (not necessary)
Lardons (not necessary)

Sweat the onions and garlic, cook the chopped sausage, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 20 mins.

Serve with a baked spud or some crusty bread.

Xiney

2 sausages and 1/4 chorizo per person? jeez. I'd hate to see the calorie count on that one - still, sounds lovely.

Might just double the amount of beans and tomato, leave out the sausages but keep the chorizo.

Seaneh

Curried Parsnip and Apple Soup.

750g Parsnips pealed and cut chopped.
3 Cooking Apples Pealed, cored and sliced.
1 onion finely chopped
3 teaspoons curry powder
3 large bakign potatoes
2ltr Stock (I use chicken, veg is fine).
1 Bouquet Garni
slapsh of cream to finish.

melt a little butter in a pan and sweat the onions, add the apples sprinkle with the curry powder and once they are starting to go soft add the parsnip and cover with the stock, add the bouqurt garni and bring to the boil, once its boiling reduce heat to meduim and simmer for 35 mins.

in a seperate pan boil the spuds and then mash them with a little butter and salt and pepper (as if you were gonna eat them normally) and keep to one side.

When the soup has been cooking for 35 mins remove the bouquet garni and skim off any excess fat, blitz with a hand blender untill completely smooth, add all the mashed potatoe and blitz again untill mixed fully, add a splash of cream and mix through. makes over 3 liters of soup for bugger all. serve with crusty bread and you have a perfect winter snack/lunch.

Malari

Xiney wrote: »

2 sausages and 1/4 chorizo per person? jeez. I'd hate to see the calorie count on that one - still, sounds lovely.

Might just double the amount of beans and tomato, leave out the sausages but keep the chorizo.

Eh, are we supposed to keep it under €1.50 or 150 calories? Anyway, cooking for someone with an appetite like my boyfriend, there's no way I get half!

SheroN

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3097/couscous-with-chorizo-and-chickpeas

This dish is lovely, cheap and quick to prepare.