Budget food/living

At home I used to make loads of soda bread as real buttermilk was well cheap from the market. Cheap and easy, no kneading or proving just form and chuck in an oven.

Dal Bhat - [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_bhat[/ame]

We eat loads of this when hiking in the Himalayas a couple of years ago - very cheap and nutritious, the staple diet of the Nepali for a good reason :)

You could try Tsampa - but I thought it was pretty much like eating wallpaper paste (but stickier) and takes hours and lots of stirring to make...

What do other people's weekly (or just big) shops look like?

We're currently spending around £50-60 per shop and getting about 2 weeks worth of meals with the occasional top up of bread/milk/eggs/cereal.. We tend to buy things that can double (or sometimes triple up) like pork/lamb mince (half as chilli, half as shepherd's pie/bolognese later in the week often with leftovers going in the freezer) or chicken/ham hock which caters for a couple of meals and gives us some stock.

I think we do fairly well with this from a financial perspective as well as eating quite well and cooking everything ourselves. Would be interesting to see how others do.

I'm starting to adapt to buying for one and averaging around £25 not including top ups of milk (which I drink in pints). It can be more if I'm buying large amounts of stuff like pasta or flour but they last.

Planning on a large chicken based menu soon as it's 2 for £7 on whole chickens in ASDA.

ASDA is or large grocery store of choice..

i remember baking bread in teracotta flower pots when i was a kid..... true story... you can, at a push, bake bread in lots of things in place of 'proper' loaf tins....

#newfavouritethread

Wow, love that.

i used to go to a restaurant in budapest that served a classic hungarian dish in flower pots. its pasta with a cottage cheese and something akin to pork scratchings

strangely it counts as a pudding - but hungarians have fruit soup as a starter

Planning on a large chicken based menu soon as it's 2 for £7 on whole chickens in ASDA.

Cheap chicken is one thing I would recommend avoiding both from an animal welfare pov and the pressure that supermarkets put farmers under... http://www.chickenout.tv/consumers.html

Chicken should be bought as an occasional treat imo

We're currently spending around £50-60 per shop and getting about 2 weeks worth of meals

Oh dear, there's five of us and it's roughly our daily allowance (depends how much of it is cooked from scratch). I can actually feel the price increase. A couple of years ago I'd spend £120-200 and have enough food to go through the week which is impossible now.
We save more when shopping in our local Turkish supermarket (TFC) where fruit and veg are very cheap. The worst are ready made meals from Tesco or Asda - they're unhealthy and expensive, but sometimes a must if you have a family to feed and no time on your hands.

I envy all those middle class families from leafy Ealing (ha ha! yeah, right) who can daily cook fancy elaborated organic meals, but here's Tesco Finest on a well... finest day. Shopping in Sainsbury's is a treat for me and Waitrose only when I feel suicidal.

Cheap chicken is one thing I would recommend avoiding both from an animal welfare pov and the pressure that supermarkets put farmers under... http://www.chickenout.tv/consumers.html

Chicken should be bought as an occasional treat imo

But I have very few morals :(. I may try and find a decent butcher for more peace of mind though.

Oh dear, there's five of us and it's roughly our daily allowance (depends how much of it is cooked from scratch). I can actually feel the price increase. A couple of years ago I'd spend £120-200 and have enough food to go through the week which is impossible now.
We save more when shopping in our local Turkish supermarket (TFC) where fruit and veg are very cheap. The worst are ready made meals from Tesco or Asda - they're unhealthy and expensive, but sometimes a must if you have a family to feed and no time on your hands.

I envy all those middle class families from leafy Ealing (ha ha! yeah, right) who can daily cook fancy elaborated organic meals, but here's Tesco Finest on a well... finest day. Shopping in Sainsbury's is a treat for me and Waitrose only when I feel suicidal.

Organic meals don't have to be fancy or elaborated .
There is very little price difference between S/burys and Tescos.

Cheap chicken is one thing I would recommend avoiding both from an animal welfare pov and the pressure that supermarkets put farmers under... http://www.chickenout.tv/consumers.html

Chicken should be bought as an occasional treat imo

Spot on.

But I have very few morals :(. I may try and find a decent butcher for more peace of mind though.

Even putting any ethical considerations to one side, that cheap stuff is just nasty and hardly value for money once you take out the water...

I agree with danb.
On a side note, just cooked some flax-seed bread.
Free sample flax-seed, baking soda and milk.
Win.

Cheap chicken is one thing I would recommend avoiding both from an animal welfare pov and the pressure that supermarkets put farmers under... http://www.chickenout.tv/consumers.html

Chicken should be bought as an occasional treat imo

Yeah, factory farmed chicken is the worst meat in terms of ecology. Like somebody said before, a fat happy chicken from the butcher (or straight from the farmer if you're lucky) will feed one person for five nights (2x roast chicken, 2x chicken curry, 1x chicken soup).

I'm a bit late for this thread but here's a few things anyway:

Breast of lamb is a really cheap cut - most people find it greasy. With proper cooking it's delicious though. I bought a piece of lamb breast at Asda for £1 (wasn't reduced either) - rolled it up around a couple of cloves of diced garlic, a few anchovy fillets, some parsley, then seasoned and roasted in a very low oven for four hours - I got four servings out of it, and it was really delicious. A cheap alternative to leg or shoulder of lamb.

Elizabeth David had a really good recipe for cooking lamb breast that involved poaching, breading and grilling to serve with mustardy mayonnaise - I'll see if I can dig it out.

Offal's really nice and cheap, too. Liver and heart are great in stew/chilli/bolognese (that should be specifically chicken livers for bolognese...). Kidneys briefly fried placed on a piece of toast with a salad is really good. Often with meaty sauces and curries there's a layer of oil or fat on the top - you can remove this, put it in the fridge, and then use it for roasting potatoes rather than oil/dripping - bolognese-fat potatoes with a salad is seriously nice.

Beetroot has become unpopular lately so it's pretty cheap. It's surprisingly good in stir frys and looks great against red chillies and green spring onions.

If you're really stuck for money then onion soup and potato soup are about as cheap as you can get.

i remember baking bread in teracotta flower pots when i was a kid..... true story... you can, at a push, bake bread in lots of things in place of 'proper' loaf tins....

#newfavouritethread

.

Organic meals don't have to be fancy or elaborated .

What I meant is organic and elaborated>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All good when your husband works in the City or you're supported by your parents Ralph and Tamara.

I canceled my Abel & Cole account some three years ago. Overpriced crap and zero bedside manner - some fella would weekly threw a bunch of mangled veg and a squashed brie on my doorstep.

I'm also sorry for people who think that if they go to, let's say - Walthamstow market, they will get a quality produce, healthy and organic. The truth is, they get it from the same wholesale places every corner shop gets their fruit and veg from.

I'm also sorry for people who think that if they go to, let's say - Walthamstow market, they will get a quality produce, healthy and organic. The truth is, they get it from the same wholesale places every corner shop gets their fruit and veg from.

So you feel sorry for them because they're stupid?

^ hah, when I lived in York I got an organic veg box for a while, and I swear every single week 3/4 of the box was taken up by purple sprouting broccoli.

Elizabeth David.....

Get her books - loads of awesome traditional (slow) cooking, often using cheap cuts/ingredients - awesome food!

So you feel sorry for them because they're stupid?

Nah, I'm sorry for my mother in law who for some reason will walk all the way to the market to get fresh veg. It's not a farmer's market. Wasted journey really.
Why so aggressive?

What I meant is** organic and elaborated**>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All good when your husband works in the City or you're supported by your parents Ralph and Tamara.

I canceled my Abel & Cole account some three years ago. Overpriced crap and zero bedside manner - some fella would weekly threw a bunch of mangled veg and a squashed brie on my doorstep.

I'm also sorry for people who think that if they go to, let's say - Walthamstow market, they will get a quality produce, healthy and organic. The truth is, they get it from the same wholesale places every corner shop gets their fruit and veg from.

There is nothing complicated/mysterious about organic food.
Have you considered allotment growing?
You can enlist the whole tribe and they can take their blackberries outdoors. :)

Just found an extra portion of chili at the back of the freezer SCORE!

Just found an extra portion of chili at the back of the freezer SCORE!

How decadent is that ?

There is nothing complicated/mysterious about organic food.
Have you considered allotment growing?
You can enlist the whole tribe and they can take their blackberries outdoors. :)

I've tried tomatoes, but failed.
Organic food it the UK is pricey (ok, maybe worth it's price and rather all the supermarket grown GM stuff is ridiculously cheap) and it's all nice when you're a single or a couple with a cat. It's getting very expensive once you cook for the whole family. Not even mentioning that kids always waste a lion share of what you cook anyway.
As a contrast, my parents back home shop daily - from a local market, butcher and a baker. They buy what they need only. The only time my IBS fades away is when I visit them :-/

Get her books - loads of awesome traditional (slow) cooking, often using cheap cuts/ingredients - awesome food!

Yeah I've got An Omelette and a Glass of Wine and French Provincial Cooking, both are incredibly good. Definitely my kind of cooking. I love how she complains about people who 'throw all sorts of this and that [into stews] as if they are some kind of dustbin.'

Simon Hopkinson's books are in a similar vein.