If you are providing meals on a low budget, remember the cost of wasted food as well as the cost of cooking. Buy food with as little waste as possible and trim it as little as necessary. Broad beans in their pods are mostly waste, but a solid cabbage is almost all good food. If you don't eat the fat, avoid the cheapest cuts of meat like belly pork, where you get little meat for your money, and examine the ends of a joint to select one without any thick fat layers. Always take the trouble to store food in the optimum conditions and use the most perishable food first. Don't buy more than you need, but shopping every day could take up a lot of time, so keep a balance.
Small amounts of ready-made meals and packaged foods can cost substantially more than fresh fruit and vegetables, and the cost of meat can far outweigh its value in the diet. If you have the time, then you don't need these ready-meals, and in many cases they take as long to prepare as fresh food.
There is no nutritional need to have a protein meal every day, and a lot of evidence that suggests that one protein meal every two or three days would be more healthy!
Low cost meals need not be monotonous with a wide range of dried herbs and spices available in the supermarkets. You use so little of these that you can afford to include them in the lowest budget meals.
If times are really hard then eat potatoes cooked in their skins, brown rice, sprouted beans and seeds, and a little olive oil together with herbs from your windowsill and spices. The cheapest vegetables, like carrots and cabbage are also the healthiest and require the minimum of cooking. Fresh wholemeal bread also remains excellent value for money.
Cooking on a budget
Posted by linda (message id=3125 )
hello there,
iam looking for some ideas on how to cook healthily for my husband and my 15 year old son and myself on a low budget.
i am lookinf on spending aroun £30 a week
thank you
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Cooking on a budget
Posted by Lee (message id=3138 )
One of the best cheap foods that I used to have when I was a student was a roast chicken on the Sunday then on the Monday I could have cold cuts and sometimes there would be some left oover for sandwiches on Wednesday. So there was three days worth of food for just a fiver
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Cooking on a budget
Posted by Adam Symonds (message id=3198 )
I got an old wartime recipe from my Mum for Oatmeal Sausages. All you need is a bag of oatmeal (around 50p) an onion, seasoning and a little water. Chop the onion add to the oatmeal and season, add a little water to form a kind of dough, flour can be added it it gets to sticky. Shape into sausages (Should get 40-50!) roll in flour and cook for about 35-40 mins at 190 degrees. These can be frozen (before cooking) and taken out and cooked whenever needed. I love them and often prefer them to real sausages and at about a penny each who wouldn't? When cooking from frozen add 10 mins to cooking time. Perfect served with eggs or try with cabbage and mash