Cheap homemade meals

[UnderOpenSky]

I have a chip ban with beef dripping in it

Fat I might be but I'm never short of a tasty supper option

Yes! I did once fill my fryer with Lard. Everyone looked grossed out, but the chips were dead tasty. Lard is more expensive then oil though.

I had a chip pan, but came in one night pissed and left it on overnight. Took about 3 hours to cool enough for us to move to the skip outside.

I'd like to say I'm older and more responsible, but I did it with my fryer a few months back. That God they stop heating the oil at a certain temp although it's still not the best smell to wake up to.

 

[friedaweed]

Yes! I did once fill my fryer with Lard. Everyone looked grossed out, but the chips were dead tasty. Lard is more expensive then oil though.

I had a chip pan, but came in one night pissed and left it on overnight. Took about 3 hours to cool enough for us to move to the skip outside.

I'd like to say I'm older and more responsible, but I did it with my fryer a few months back. That God they stop heating the oil at a certain temp although it's still not the best smell to wake up to.

I trust you have one of these

 

[renegadechicken]

Another one forNoodles, normally in a soupy type sauce....i always have chicken/ham stock cubes and miso at home. When i've been skint then noodles with own made sauce along the lines that Fez mentions, chilli/ginger/soy any veg around, i've used thinly sliced potatoes cooked in ham stock with the noodles, chilli n ginger and topped with a splash of soy....alternatively any little pieces of frozen quorn/mince etc fried and the stock n noodles added.......Mmmmhhhh

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Bacon and pea risotto. Bacon, frozen peas, stock cube and rice.

 

[Cheesypoof]

Another one forNoodles, normally in a soupy type sauce....i always have chicken/ham stock cubes and miso at home. When i've been skint then noodles with own made sauce along the lines that Fez mentions, chilli/ginger/soy any veg around, i've used thinly sliced potatoes cooked in ham stock with the noodles, chilli n ginger and topped with a splash of soy....alternatively any little pieces of frozen quorn/mince etc fried and the stock n noodles added.......Mmmmhhhh

got the miso paste - which is quite filling to drink as a soup in a mug, if you were cooking Cumbrian hotpot or somethin that takes longer.

 

[Cheesypoof]

Bacon and pea risotto. Bacon, frozen peas, stock cube and rice.

i would need cheese with that though. Like really bad.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Yeah, true. I would be having such a carb rush that I don't think I'd miss it for very long

I used to use cheap cup a soups to add a bit of flavour to my rations of noodles when I was proper broke

 

[Cheesypoof]

Cuisine De France French sticks go for sale for a euro in my local shop. One of them, slathered in butter and a packet of Supernoodles with cheese would go down a treat any time. The even skinter version (if you only had one quid), would still be Supernoodles, and two slices of bread from at home...I really like some of those Singapore chicken noodles you can get for about 40p. Theres one brand that aint gluey/ rubbery when you cook em, but really nice.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Cuisine De France French sticks go for sale for a euro in my local shop. One of them, slathered in butter and a packet of Supernoodles with cheese would go down a treat any time. The even skinter version (if you only had one quid), would still be Supernoodles, and two slices of bread from at home...I really like some of those Singapore chicken noodles you can get for about 40p. Theres one brand that aint gluey/ rubbery when you cook em, but really nice.

you just reminded me of another one...garlic bread made with crusty end-of-the-day reduced to 10c baguettes.
throw some cheese on if you've got it


(yeah most of my skint foods involve carbs and cheese )

 

[Fez909]

Chickpea and chorizo stew

£2 for 200g of chorizo. ~200g Dried chickpeas < 50p, 25p for an onion and 5p for a garlic glove. Optional tin of toms (30p) and a bit of spinach ~20p.

Serves about 3-4 for £3.30 so about a quid a meal

Soak about half the chickpeas in water overnight.

Chop your chorizo in 1cm thick rounds, then quarter them. Fry until crispy and set aside. Cook some onions and garlic in the chorizo fat until done, then add your drained chickpeas and either a tin of tomatoes and a tin of water, or just go water if you want. Stock cube, bit of mix herbs. Cook until chickpeas are tender. Stir through some frozen spinach about 5-10 minutes before the end.

Serve with crusty bread.

 

[Frances Lengel]

I usually make big pans of slop to last the week. Chilli and various stew type efforts. Usually served with rice coz at forty pence a kilo it's the cheapest carb going. Corn beef hash used to be a staple but hasn't been since potatoes have gone pretty dear and corn beef has priced itself right out of the running at one-fifty-four a tin.

Obviously the big cauldron of slop option means having the same thing for tea every night til it's gone but I'm not arsed and on the upside it's not as monotonous as you may think coz it takes on different flavours as the week goes on and it starts fermenting and going ever so slightly off. Plus it means only one night a week of actual proper cooking.

 

[DotCommunist]

tuna pasta bake. Except it doesn't have to be tuna, you can chuck whatever you've got in there, dirt cheap, tin of tomatoes. Serves three. Ready grated cheese from tescos everyday value range is now actually cheaper than name brand ungrated, so thats your topping.

another real simple one is sausage, egg chips and beans. farmfoods sausage and chips, the beans. Eggs . And thats more than one meal there for 3 quid.

value weetabix by the bigger packs. I've worked in the weetabix factory (cleaning not production). It's the same shit but with less wheat. good for stoned munch, or for the morning to set you up.

 

[xenon]

oh, and Pierogies. don't flame me, Cheesy, they're like 99c for a box of 20 frozen ones here.
I have made some awesome meals starting with a skillet, butter or oil, piegrogies, then toss in some veggies and onions and seasoning/ spices.
sometimes I've made a little sauce at the end w/ some cooking wine and a smidge of cream, then threw in some basil at the end. Now that's a meal that tastes expensive for very cheap.

I had to Google pierogies. I'd definitely eat that.

 

[xenon]

A deep fat fryer serves you well here or at least did in my student days. Fry only chips are really cheap, sometimes with some cheap Noodles on top.

Also all the really cheap sausages taste much better when deep fried, indeed most cheap meat products do. A bit of msg and paprika in the baked beans and everyone loves it.

As your to skint to change the oil all the meat fat will make it solidify. This will actually make the chips taste better.

I'd never want a deep fat fryer. I have an open kitchen / living room. Cooking smells linger as it is. Yeah I'd probably eat too much cheap red meat too. And the off chance of a fire. I'm usually pretty careful but I managed to set my oven glove alight drunkenly just making chese on toast the other week.

 

[Epona]

Pretty much every meal I do is cheap (except my fish pie, which serves 4 and involves about £8 worth of seafood!!!)

One tip I would give is keep your stock of spices topped up when you can afford to do so, you don't want to be in the midst of making a cheap lentil curry at the end of the month and find you are out of spices. Also keep stuff like chillies, ginger, chopped parsely, and chopped coriander leaf in the freezer - all freeze well and will keep for at least a couple of months (chillies and ginger are good for 4-6 months once frozen), so you don't need to buy these things for just one meal and end up wasting the rest.

One of my emergency standby "oh fuck, I'm broke" meals is just a simple chilli tomato sauce with pasta: 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 3 chillies, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tin chopped tomatoes or around 8 fresh tomatoes, herbs (basil and oregano work well), butter or olive oil to fry the veg in, and some pasta.

It's a very cheap meal because: 10kg onions for £4 from the Indian grocer round the corner; head of celery 75p-£1 from any local shop (stand it in a pint glass with about an inch of water in the bottom in the door shelf of the fridge and it will be good for a couple of weeks, and goes a long way in tomato sauces); chillies £1 a bowl from a local stall, same with garlic; tins of tomatoes 3 for £1 from Iceland; dried pasta on whatever deal is going, whether it's 2 packs for £1.50 from the supermarket or a special at one of the independent shops; herbs try to stock up whenever you can, or grow your own if possible.

From the amount of £ spent on those ingredients, I only use a small amount of them in one meal. Especially the onions, 10kg of onions goes an extremely long way, so while £4 is a bit of initial outlay, I will have onions for the next month or two.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Soups make great pasta sauces. And I've recently discovered that you can make a decent fake risotto with a sachet of cup-a-soup (or cheapo derivative), some rice and whatever little bits and bobs you might have to put in it. If you've got some cheese to grate into it all the better. I've used it with those Uncle Ben's pouches of rice you can get, but I'm sure it'll work just as well with normal rice.

I also always have some worcestershire sauce on hand. I add a splash or two to most of the blander cheesy meals I make - it perks them right up. Also, a tub of cayenne pepper to add a little kick, and/or paprika for warmth. You'll only need to buy one of those tubs every few months... maybe even just once or twice a year.

 

[Epona]

I also always have some worcestershire sauce on hand. I add a splash or two to most of the blander cheesy meals I make - it perks them right up.

For vegetarians and vegans, Henderson's Relish does a similar job but is completely vegan - it's a tamarind sauce. Unfortunately it's not widely available outside of Sheffield, but whenever someone I know is heading in that direction I bung them a bit of cash and an instruction to pick me up a few bottles!

 

[cesare]

Red lentil dal
8oz of red lentils, rinsed, then add 1½ pints of water. Add a teaspoon of salt. And 4 cardamom seeds, if you've got them. Bring to the boil, put the lid on & simmer for 30 mins.

Then, in another pan: -
Heat up 4 tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil. Turn the heat down, or it will spit like fuck.
Add 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds & 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds.
When the mustard seeds start to pop, add 4 cloves of garlic, finely sliced.
When the garlic is nice & brown, add 5oz of tomato (i.e. one big tomato, or thereabouts), finely chopped, 2 teaspoons of turmeric, one teaspoon of garam masala, and one teaspoon of dried chili flakes. NB: - When you add the tomatoes to the garlic, it looks like the garlic is burning. Don't worry about this.
Stir constantly for 2-3 minutes, until the tomato has gone pulpy.

Add your lentils (which should be nice & mushy by now) to the spicy mixture, put the lid on & simmer for 5-10 minutes. If you have fresh coriander, stir in a chopped handful around now.

If you want it thinner, use 6oz lentils with the same amount of water. Any more than 8oz lentils and it's too thick & might stick to the pan.

Serve with rice or bread

^ this is a very cheap recipe we have a lot. You can use a tin of value toms instead of fresh tomato.

I get scoops of citrus, chillis etc when I'm near a market. Citrus and chillis (and ginger) go straight in the freezer. A frozen lime only takes a few minutes to defrost if you put it in a glass of water. I chop ginger up into thumb size pieces (I don't bother peeling it) and freeze - it can be grated from frozen. Herbs go in the freezer too. I get spices cheaply from Asian shops, not supermarkets.

 

[Epona]

^ this is a very cheap recipe we have a lot. You can use a tin of value toms instead of fresh tomato.

I get scoops of citrus, chillis etc when I'm near a market. Citrus and chillis (and ginger) go straight in the freezer. A frozen lime only takes a few minutes to defrost if you put it in a glass of water. I chop ginger up into thumb size pieces (I don't bother peeling it) and freeze - it can be grated from frozen. Herbs go in the freezer too. I get spices cheaply from Asian shops, not supermarkets.

Yep that's what I do with ginger, I just buy a bowl of ginger root from one of the local "£1 a bowl" stalls - take it home, cut all the roots up into meal sized pieces, then put them in a freezer bag and stick the bag in the freezer. When I want some I can just take a piece out and put it on the counter and in 5 or 10 minutes it will be soft enough to take off the skin and cut it up or shave it with a peeler for whatever I am cooking.

I do the same with chillies, they freeze really well. When I want to use some I just take them out of the freezer and run water on them from the cold tap and put them to one side, by the time I am finished chopping onions the chillies are defrosted enough to be chopped into the pan (I find a sturdy pair of scissors is the best and quickest way to do this btw, sod buggering about with a knife).

 

[cesare]

Yep that's what I do with ginger, I just buy a bowl of ginger root from one of the local "£1 a bowl" stalls - take it home, cut all the roots up into meal sized pieces, then put them in a freezer bag and stick the bag in the freezer. When I want some I can just take a piece out and put it on the counter and in 5 or 10 minutes it will be soft enough to take off the skin and cut it up or shave it with a peeler for whatever I am cooking.

I do the same with chillies, they freeze really well. When I want to use some I just take them out of the freezer and run water on them from the cold tap and put them to one side, by the time I am finished chopping onions the chillies are defrosted enough to be chopped into the pan (I find a sturdy pair of scissors is the best and quickest way to do this btw, sod buggering about with a knife).

I think it might have been you that first put me on to the ginger tip, Epona

 

[Epona]

I think it might have been you that first put me on to the ginger tip, Epona

You can thank my parents then, they never had a freezer at all at any point in their lives until a few years ago, but since then they have tried out pretty much every food item to see how it withstands being frozen - it's like an ongoing domestic experiment. Ginger and chillies were definite successes

 

[cesare]

You can thank my parents then, they never had a freezer at all at any point in their lives until a few years ago, but since then they have tried out pretty much every food item to see how it withstands being frozen - it's like an ongoing domestic experiment. Ginger and chillies were definite successes

If they haven't tried whole limes and lemons yet, it's worth a go. Especially if they're near a market. I also put chicken bones in the freezer every time I have any, then when there's a bag full make stock.

I started getting better with my freezer when someone from Scottish Power told me to keep plastic bottles of tap water in there to keep it full - I had no idea how expensive they are to run when not fully loaded!

 

[Epona]

If they haven't tried whole limes and lemons yet, it's worth a go. Especially if they're near a market. I also put chicken bones in the freezer every time I have any, then when there's a bag full make stock.

I started getting better with my freezer when someone from Scottish Power told me to keep plastic bottles of tap water in there to keep it full - I had no idea how expensive they are to run when not fully loaded!

I'll definitely give limes a go, I use them occasionally in dishes and salad dressings. I rarely have a problem with my freezer having space that needs filling, it is one of those that needs defrosting every so often though and that can be a problem when it's constantly full!

 

[RubyToogood]

Have googled. OMG. OMG. I love dumplings of all kinds. It's a good thing i'm low carbing or i'd be finding the first polish kid i could tomorrow at school and demanding to be brought a tribute of them. drool.

If it helps, I've always found them disappointing. Had them a couple of times and not bothered again.

 

[tufty79]

head of celery 75p-£1 from any local shop (stand it in a pint glass with about an inch of water in the bottom in the door shelf of the fridge and it will be good for a couple of weeks, and goes a long way in tomato sauces)

I saw you post this in another thread a while back - belated thank you! (I tried it in my old fridge first and the whole lot froze; works better in a working fridge )

my favourite broke dish: onions, garlic, celery, stock, red lentils & cooking bacon; added carrot/spud if you've got 'em = really filling and comforting soup.

 

[buscador]

I get scoops of citrus, chillis etc when I'm near a market. Citrus and chillis (and ginger) go straight in the freezer. A frozen lime only takes a few minutes to defrost if you put it in a glass of water. I chop ginger up into thumb size pieces (I don't bother peeling it) and freeze - it can be grated from frozen. Herbs go in the freezer too. I get spices cheaply from Asian shops, not supermarkets.

We chop/slice up limes/lemons and freeze to use as ice cubes because we've always forgotten to fill up the ice tray!

Anyway, cheap meals - my standard recipe is liver and onions, sometimes with added chilli and peppers, about £2 for a kilo of liver and that can last us 4 meals. Corned beef is way too expensive these days.

 

[Ms Ordinary]

Cauliflower cheese - no cheese in the white sauce, just on top makes it cheaper & quicker & actually I prefer it to having cheese in the sauce (too rich).
Has the comfort factor of a double carb (I think just because cauliflower is white) but is made of vegetable .

can be perked up with bacon, garlic, smoked paprika, sliced tomato on the top.
good with chips / mash for extra stodge
leftovers good for sandwiches

 

[twentythreedom]

Has anyone suggested going to your local market and picking up discarded veg at the end of the day yet?

 

[Poot]

Findus crispy pancakes are £1 for 4.

Also couscous - in some places it's very very cheap. You can put a tin of just about anything with couscous. It's especially good with any form of beans.

I used to buy "pot herbs" when I lived in Liverpool. They occasionally ensured that I didn't die of malnutrition, and you can boil them up with a cheap cut of meat (ask the butcher if they have anything for your dog). Hey presto, soup (or stew (scouse)) depending!

 

[Cheesypoof]

Findus crispy pancakes are £1 for 4.

Also couscous - in some places it's very very cheap. You can put a tin of just about anything with couscous. It's especially good with any form of beans.

Not a fan of couscous...cannot bring myself to like it, but we did a mediteranean one for New Years with turkey and it was great. Findus crispy pancakes (definitely fried) are however, very tasty....