Cooking on a Budget

leedsfan88

Hey all, I’m looking for a few receipts for dinners that i can do on a budget.

Preferably I’d like receipts that use similar ingredients so i can benefit from economies of scale:D

I'm currently living out of home and work has dried up so I’ve decided to tighten the belt, so any advice would be very much welcomed...

I like all sorts of food, fish, cricken, mince, steak...you name it i like it.

I'm trying to stay away from potatoes, and trying to stick to wholegrain pastas

kaki

Super economic: Make a big batch of bolognese sauce (you save by buying ingredients in bulk, rather than buying for each meal you make).Brown off some minced meat, add chopped onion and finely chopped garlic, sweat them off, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, basil, origano, little bit of olive oil, cook over a low heat to let the flavours develop for a while.

Now, once your done you can freeze this into portions. You can make a pseudo-cottage pie, by lining an oven dish with a layer of your bolognese sauce, and topping with mashed potato. Cook in ove till crispy on top. You can have it on pasta. You can make a lasagne with it (either buy besciamel sauce or look up a recipe, it's pretty easy just milk, butter and flour). You should be able to get wholegrain lasagne sheets at the more speciality Italian/healthfood shops, or if you want to give it a bash making your own, it's not so hard, just a bit timeconsuming.

You could also (although purists would eat me alive for this) add some red kidney beans, chilli, cumin and coriander to the sauce and hey presto: chilli con carne! Serve with brown rice if you prefer it to white.

The Hill Billy

Exactly what Kaki said. Bang on. Just beat me to it.

olaola

The freezer is defo your friend when saving money.
Our local butcher sometimes has specials on - like 1kg of roundsteak (minced or cubed) is €7.50 and it's really great meat. I portion it out and freeze them seperately. There will usually be specials on other items, I think grab them while you can and pop them in the freezer. Things like two chickens for the price of one etc etc. This website is good for posting the current deals: http://www.shrewdfood.ie/sf/Super_Offers.html
Check out the Aldi & Lidl specials, and try to make your dinners using these ingredients.

If you had the space in the freezer, and knew someone you can get whole lambs for next to nothing. Butchered of course!

the beer revolu

Find a butchers that sells pork hocks (Galonkas in Polish) you'll get one for under €2 and it will feed about 3 people. Just season and put in an oven dish in a slow oven for about 2-3 hours. You can also add beer, wine, stock, herbs , garlic etc.
Great with mash and something green and a bit of mustard.

Shin beef is great for stews and very cheap too.

Use chicken legs instead of breasts - tastier (by a long way IMO) and a fraction of the price. Grill, fry or roast or casserole them.

Pork belly is super tasty and very cheap too.

Supervalue often do deals on legs of lamb and lamb chops and sometimes sirloin steak.

I wouldn't recommend round steak for anything!
It is tasteless and has a very dry, cardboardy texture.

olaola

the beer revolu wrote: »

I wouldn't recommend round steak for anything!
It is tasteless and has a very dry, cardboardy texture.

It's the way you cook it

Meant to clarify there, the roundsteak from the particular butcher I visit is great. Not all butchers are as good.

the beer revolu

olaola wrote: »

It's the way you cook it

Meant to clarify there, the roundsteak from the particular butcher I visit is great. Not all butchers are as good.

I've never found a way to make it tasty.
Awful stewed.
Awful as mince.
Awful Roast.
Awful Slow roast.
Awful fried.

Maybe it's just me?
I think people buy it because it looks lean and red and is reasonably cheap.
But then I have a severe problem with skinless chicken breasts too!!:o

Sparks

the beer revolu wrote: »

I've never found a way to make it tasty.

Try cooking club week 24

The thing with cooking cheap is that cooking and engineering have a saying in common: "Cheap, Fast, Good. Pick any two". Cheap and Fast is the chipper. Fast and Good is steak au poivre or, well, any steak really. Cheap and Good tends to be some of the best food out there, but it takes time to cook it. Braised dishes, for the most part, are your best friends. Crockpot cooking is good. Beans (not Heinz) are your best friends and main protein source. Lentils can be good.

And I'm personally a fan of the idea that you can cook with cheaper ingredients if you splurge on one or two ingredients, used sparingly. The chilli recipe uses a jar of adobo sauce that goes for around a fiver, but it'll do for at least three batches (which means around 25-30 dinners). The trick is to use stuff that will stretch like that and which brings a monumental wallop of flavour.

kylith

Don't overlook offal. Lamb heart, kidneys, tripe etc. is generally very cheap, nutritious and delicious.

the beer revolu

Sparks wrote: »

Try cooking club week 24

Is rump steak the same as round?
Twould be better with shin - I make a very similar chili with shin and let it cook right down into stringy paste.

Sparks

Rump and round are the same so far as I know, though I'm more used to the US names for cuts.
Not sure I'd use shin. Chilli should be chunky, not paste. I mean, you could use it easily enough, I just wouldn't like the texture

the beer revolu

Sparks wrote: »

Rump and round are the same so far as I know, though I'm more used to the US names for cuts.
Not sure I'd use shin. Chilli should be chunky, not paste. I mean, you could use it easily enough, I just wouldn't like the texture

Shin will be chunky if you don't cook it down so much.
It is basically a great stewing cut - just takes a little longer to tenderise than some.

leedsfan88

kaki wrote: »

Super economic: Make a big batch of bolognese sauce (you save by buying ingredients in bulk, rather than buying for each meal you make).Brown off some minced meat, add chopped onion and finely chopped garlic, sweat them off, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, basil, origano, little bit of olive oil, cook over a low heat to let the flavours develop for a while.

Now, once your done you can freeze this into portions. You can make a pseudo-cottage pie, by lining an oven dish with a layer of your bolognese sauce, and topping with mashed potato. Cook in ove till crispy on top. You can have it on pasta. You can make a lasagne with it (either buy besciamel sauce or look up a recipe, it's pretty easy just milk, butter and flour). You should be able to get wholegrain lasagne sheets at the more speciality Italian/healthfood shops, or if you want to give it a bash making your own, it's not so hard, just a bit timeconsuming.

You could also (although purists would eat me alive for this) add some red kidney beans, chilli, cumin and coriander to the sauce and hey presto: chilli con carne! Serve with brown rice if you prefer it to white.

What kind of ratio between tomotoes and mince and things like basil and origano?

Cheers in advance

kaki

Hmm... for a pound/500g of meat to a can of chopped tomatoes, one onion, 2/3 cloves of garlic. For the herbs, I personally never measure it. Like, the mixture shouldn't be green when you're finished. A good shake of each, maybe 1/2 teaspoon - 1 teaspooon if you want to measure it.