cheap family friendly meal ideas......

[ALCMummy]

Hello all. As the title suggests Im looking for cheap family friendly meal ideas. My meals usually come in on average about £5 Id say but with everything getting more expensive The shopping bills taking over our expenditure & with a baby due in 5 weeks I need to cut costs. Any ideas gratefully accepted! x Joanne x

 

[Lindsayloo]

Hi Joanne, there's loads you could do. Spaghetti bolognaise made with either extra lean mince or quorn, cottage pie with tons of veg,
my children are fussy but if yours like it stirfrys are great. Rice & chicken veg such as green beans, aubergine, courgettes, cherry tomatoes spray with fry light and add chinese five spices & soy sauceyum yum.

Another one I like is chicken breast wrapped in bacon with mash and veg. I slice the chicken breast put an extra light laughing cow cheese spread in the middle of it sprinkle garlic on it wrap it in bacon. Tastes yummy like a chicken Kiev

Jacket potatoes, cheese and beans, fish pie, low syn sausages, slimming world chips egg and beans. Could probably think of more but feeling somewhat brain dead :wave_cry:
Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy. Lindsay x

 

[Lindsayloo]

Forgot to say pretty sure I've seen a bigger thread on this somewhere on this forum not sure how to link it though x

 

[Blueboxgeek]

At some point this week I am going to make cheese and onion pie, I think my kids (and me!) will love it. Boil up some onions until soft, in another pan boil lots of potatos. Mash up the potatoes with some quark and half of your HEA cheese allowance and mix in the onions. Flatten it all down in to an oven proof dish and sprinkle the other half of your cheese allowance on top and bake. I'm going to have with some cabbage and some other veggies, think the kids will want baked beans with theirs.

 

[joedenise]

If you go to Group it might be worth getting the Family Feasts on a budget recipe book. It costs £4.95 and has over 50 recipes in it.

Most of them are based on normal family meals. As an example I did the salt and pepper fish fingers and chips last week. The recipe suggests cod or haddock, both of which I think are quite expensive, so I used the recipe but substituted pouting to make the fish fingers as it was only £5 per kilo as opposed to £11.99 for the cod.

Last night I made the colcanon cottage pie - which is just a normal cottage pie but topped with colcanon, a mix of mash & cabbage - I also dry fried some onions and added to it for a bit more flavour and superfree!

Denise