Budget Pantry Challange

I am sure we had a related thread a few months ago, but I just can't find it 

Vicky

All of my suggestions have already been mentioned!

I'd just like to reiterate how useful a slow cooker (crockpot) is. You can buy cheaper cuts of meat and they will still cook up to be very moist and tender in the crockpot. I'll throw whatever veg I have in the slow cooker with some seasoning and a brisket in the morning and you'll have  a lovely beef stew at the end of the day that you can get quite a few meals. I also put a pound of mince turkey, a few cans of chopped tomatoes, some passatta, onions and garlic in the the slow cooker to make my own bolognese sauce. You'll get a big batch out of this, too.  You can use tht sauce as a base for lots od dishes, including chili.

A few vegetarian meals a week are a good and nutritious way to cut your budget. Mashed broad beans with cumin and tumeric served with sliced tomatoes and bread is heaven!

 I also buy my fruit and veg on market day for the week at a cost much cheaper than Tesco.

I am sure we had a related thread a few months ago, but I just can't find it 

Yes, it was started by Rvnscarlett and was called Healthy Eating in the US or something.  I'll try to find it....

edited: The thread was either in Grievances or Food, but I can't find it.  Rvnscarlett is no longer on the members list.

edited again:  Sorry Rvnscarlet, I simply spelled your name wrong--you are still around! 

Not knocking convenience foods - we do utilize them maybe more than we should. Hell there are frozen fish sticks and pizza in the freezer now for a day I can't be bothered to cook.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't knocking them either, as I have them too, we all do! I just try and limit them as much as possible, but sometimes you just don't want to cook! 

Bingo!

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=38321.0


Vicky

Just to clarify, she's not spending 400 pounds, she's spending 400 Dollars!!! That's 200 pounds a month. We spend more than that though we are a larger family. Scarlett, does that include things like cat food/litter and cleaning supplies? If so, I think your issue is food planning rather than expenditure. You can probably cut down what you are paying but I personally am not convinced you'll cut it down much more than that unless you get better about meal planning. I'd be thrilled if that's what I spent on food for 2, but then again, I am a total foody!

One thing we do is bulk up our food with rice, pasta, or potatoes. So I'll make a chicken curry using one large chicken breast  for 2 adults but serve it with a lot of rice. Fresh veggies are not always the cheapest. Frozen is a good way to go for that. Great in stews, soups, etc.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't knocking them either, as I have them too, we all do! I just try and limit them as much as possible, but sometimes you just don't want to cook! 

Got that right!  

That amount does include cat litter, etc...

I'm not a planner when it comes to food, I've just been making what I feel like eating that night and picking things up if I don't have everything I need for it. I do like to cook, so I don't mind learning how to make some things from scratch that I might have bought in a box before. I have ADHD, so it makes meal planning difficult, I need easy ways to do it and maintain it.

I hadn't thought of cutting down on the amount of meat we use per meal, like using 1 chicken breast instead of 2 if possible. That would probably help a lot.

I don't have a crock put just yet, but I asked for one for Christmas, so I hope to get one soon.

I'm sure I can find recipes online if you don't want to become too bogged down in here with them, but can names of meals be posted too?

I'll look at some of those links when I get home.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I did post some of our regular pantry items earlier in the thread. What would be some good vegetarian meals or just a good sample meal plan for budgeting?

ETA: We both love pasta, so pasta dishes are great.

If you can lay your hands on a copy of Mark Bittman's book How to Cook Everything (buy it? library? ask Santa for Christmas?) -- he has a good section in it on things to keep in your cupboard all the time & quick meals you can put together using them.

I am sure there are other similar bits in other cookbooks, but his comes particularly to mind because I have it.

I don't plan ahead for meals.  I just rotate (according to what I'm in the mood for) the same old things.  But they're yummy same old, not boring same old.  We don't really go by a budget either but because we're cooking from scratch mostly and there's no meat involved we really can't be saving much more money than we already are.

The standby meals I rotate are:  Veggie chili and rice, bean curries (chick pea, lentil, mung bean) with rice or cous-cous, pasta with tomato sauce and steamed veggies, Middle Eastern infuluenced things like red-lentil soups.  

I've been experimenting with Persian stuff.  It's sometimes all in the seasonings what makes something Persian as opposed to Indian, etc.  Or even Italian as opposed to Mexican.  

Also I make a few variations on a hearty veggie soup.  Sometimes it has beans and pasta in it (minestrone).  Sometimes it's thickened up with red lentils and potatoes.  Red lentils are awesome because they cook very quickly and turn into a kind of a mash which is good on its own (seasoned of course) or as a thickener for soups and chilis.  

I also make a super yummy carrot, parsnip, and potato soup which I whizz into a thick a thick and hearty meal.  Also we do veggie and noodle stir-fry with tofu.  Tofu is not as cheap here as it is in the US, though.

I will gladly share any recipes with you.  Just pm me if you want them!  

Make a list of everything you know how to cook and enjoy eating.  I mean everything, even if it's grilled cheese.  If you find a new recipe, add it to the list.  Keep this list next to or near your grocery list and use it for inspiration.

Also, www.allrecipes.com has an ingredient search that can be really helpful.  Just plug in some of what you've got in the fridge/cupboard, and... voila!  Granted, not all the recipes are winners, but it's a great source for inspiration.

If you're a Rice A Roni fan, I'd suggest buying bulk couscous.  It's got a very similar flavor to the vermicelli in Rice A Roni, and is super versatile.  Plus, it costs nothing!

various kinds of pasta (ziti, spaghetti, macaroni, orzo)
ground beef
pork chops
chicken breasts
bulk mashed potato mix
carrots
red and white potatoes
cans of diced tomatoes and tomato sauce

Here's some things I would try with those ingredients, plus a couple extra:

- bake the chicken in the diced tomatoes with some "mediterranean" style flavorings, maybe a lemon, and serve it over the orzo like rice.  Add whatever green vegetables you like (perhaps canned or frozen? frozen ones are often cheap).

- potato soup (red & white potatoes, celery if you like it, onions, a little butter, milk, salt and pepper to taste.  Add instant potatoes to thicken if it's too thin.  We usually eat this with slices of cheese or perhaps you could cut up a couple of slices of bacon to add to it, or maybe a can of white beans).

- the obvious one, ground beef & tomato sauce plus pasta!  You could shred a carrot or two and add to the sauce to make it interestingly sweet. 

- grill or broil the pork chops, and just eat them with buttered boiled potatoes.  Or you could see what happens if you put them in a casserole dish with some pasta and either some broth or the tomato sauce, and perhaps some vegetables.  Probably it would just turn to mush, but it might be a new sensation!  Rice or barley might be a better option...

Shepherd's pie -- brown ground beef with some onions, seasonings, maybe carrots (and peas?).  Cover with mashed potatoes & maybe a little cheese -- baked in a casserole dish.

I second every suggestion on this thread, including the slow cooker.  Meal planning is the biggest money saver of them all as you for sure have all the ingredients when you need them.  If you've planned the pork chops for Thursday night then you know to check when buying that the sell-by date is Friday, rather than suddenly realizing that they expired on Tuesday, the night you ordered a pizza...  Also, if you don't already do it, learn to eat/freeze leftovers.

In chili or spaghetti sauce that calls for a pound of ground beef I always use a half pound.  (Or more usually I use the whole pound but double the recipe and freeze half) In chili I use more beans and a green pepper to substitute for the lost meat, and in pasta sauce I will cut up a zucchini and a carrot.  Then, (horror of horrors) I've been known to serve chili over brown rice to make it go further.

I always have onions and garlic in my pantry because I can make simple ingredients more interesting with those things.  But that depends on if you like onions and garlic of course.  I'm happy to eat a plate of potatoes cut into cubes and sauteed on top of the stove with salt, pepper, onions, garlic, tinned tomates, and green pepper.

Do you like stir-fry? I keep soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, peanut oil, sesame oil, some tinned water chestnuts, etc. on hand because my family likes stir-fry a lot.  The initial outlay for those things is a lot, but you can make a stir-fry at the last minute really quickly with only a few vegetables and a chicken breast chopped up nice and small and cooked fast so it's tender.

I usually cook extra rice and put it in the fridge for making fried rice the next day too.  That's a quick easy meal without many ingredients.  Just chop up an onion, a carrot, a little ginger, fry them in a little oil, add the cold rice and fry with soy sauce, some frozen peas, and crack an egg into it at the end (just be sure to stir long enough to cook all the little bits of egg onto the rice).  You can also use up your leftover bits of roast chicken by throwing those in.

I've looked over some of the links (the Hillbilly Housewife one didn't work). I had read the thread about healthy eating in the US before and that was really a lot of stuff I already knew. The Rubber Chicken is a good starting place for me to learn what to do with a roasted chicken. The ideas here are more helpful for my situation.

Thanks for the meal ideas. I'm trying the menu planning this week. I planned the days for the meals, but I figure that if I make them this week it doesn't really matter what days I actually make them on. I'm hoping this will be better for me because I have a variety to choose from and can do more cooking to what I feel like eating and that will work better for my ADHD brain that wants some freedom!   

I'm not sure if all the recipes will show up because they aren't all public, but here's the menu I made for this week: http://www.recipezaar.com/menu/11501 I have joined Allrecipes.com and recipezaar.com to help with this. I don't know about allrecipes, but recipezaar lets me create menus and it creates a shopping list. It just lists all the ingredients for each recipe, so a lot show up more than once, but I was able to check off things I already had and multiples before printing it off and the ingredients were even categorized by department.  Maybe next week, when I'm planning, I'll try to find recipes with ingredients we already have, recipezaar has that ingredient search too.

I've been afraid to try chili and don't really know if I like it or not. We both do love things with garlic in them and I use onion powder a lot too. I love stir fry but don't ever cook it. I do already have some teriyaki and soy sauce, no peanut oil or water chestnuts though. I'll look up some recipes and would gladly accept some if people want to share.

I'd never heard of putting veg in a pasta sauce. I have a load of carrots and spaghetti is on the plan for this week, so I could give that a go.

What vegetables and fruit freeze well and how do you freeze it and defrost it so it tastes good? I tried to freeze some vegetables, but it didn't work out very well and it all tasted like crap when I cooked it. 

Right now I"m having a problem where I made turkey stock and froze some in ice cube trays but I can't get it out. Any suggestions?

I think that along with menu planning, I'm going to start having to set some aside before serving dinner, last night I made enough for two meals and it was all gone. DB's family has never done leftovers, so he feels like it all has to be eaten.

Are soups and casseroles the best way to use up leftovers?

Andee, I'm PMing you.