Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Day 4 - Fish & Chips!

Again I work till 8pm on a Friday night so I need something quick & easy.

So I picked up some breaded Haddock on my Ocado order for £3.74. Again some potatoes which you can get so cheap (79p for 4 baking pots from Ocado) I made them into chips & cooked them on a piece of stone from Pampered Chef. This makes wonderfull chips that in my kids opinion are better than the frozen oven chips!
I just spray them with oil & put them in the oven for about 20 mins ish.

We had peas with this as we had some in the freezer.

Total = £4.13 (we only used 2 potatoes!)

Day 3 - Pasta

This is hardly inspirational stuff but I work till 8pm on a Thursday so I always need to be able to throw something quick together when I get home.
So today was the turn of Pasta!

Pasta - 69p
Can of chopped toms - 58p
Black Olives - £1.18
Red Onion - 26p

Total - £2.71

I also added some capers from the bottom of the fridge but if you were to buy these Ocado do them for £1.94. You would not use all the capers, maybe half so £0.97.
So this would make the meal £3.68 but it is just as nice with out.

I basically cooked the pasta.
Chopped the Onion & fried in a bit of Oil. Added the tomatoes, Olives & Capers and then mixed in with the pasta.

Easy peasy!

I grated some parmesan over the top when I served it as I had some in the fridg.

Lazy dinner

Day 2 (Sorry it has taken me a while to actually post this!)

Pizza's!

Wednesdays are generally very busy days for me as I have to get my son to football practice & only have a short amount of time to actually get the kids fed!

So I popped into my local Somerfield & they had Goodfella's pizza's on offer for £1.30 each!

So 3 of those came to £3.90. I had some potatoes at home so I just chopped a couple up to make some chips & voila....dinner!

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Day 1!!! - Chilli Con Carne

I thought I would ease myself in gently! One of my husbands favorite dinners is Chiliconcarne.
I really am not introducing anyone to anything different here but I had a busy day with the kids today so it was something quick & easy to throw together.

I picked the following up from Somerfield on my way home from school. Mince £2, Mushrooms £1 (only actually used half of the punnet though) and a can of chopped tomatoes 47p. So all that came to £3.47. If you take away half the packet of mushrooms I did not use that is £2.97.

I had Chili powder & rice at home.

I also added a green pepper I had at home & half a can of baked beans (hubby does not like kidney beans)

Had I bought these they would have cost 64p for the green pepper & 47p for the baked beans. (I usually get my shopping delivered from Ocado) so....all that makes £3.91.

Now a 500g bag of brown rice from Ocado is £1.58...I would probably us a third of that? So about 50p! So in a long winded fashion we have dinner for £4.41

This would usually feed 4 adults but in this instance my husband had seconds and then took the rest to work with him for his lunch today!

What we need to make sure we are doing however is using the mushrooms later in the week as otherwise they will go in the bin which ultimately adds to the cost of the dinner.

I have no recipe for this dinner! I just throw it all together!

Fry a onion up with the mushrooms & then the green pepper. Add the mince & fry till brown. Add tomatoes, chili powder & baked beans & simmer for about a hour! Sometimes I add some red wine when I am frying the mince as this adds a really lovely flavor.

For the rice I have a rice cooker from Pampered Chef and I put 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water in for each person. Then cook for about 20 mins. If I was cooking white rice this would be a lot less time.

So there you go...my 1st blog.
I really hope to try different recipes all of which come in at under £5 for the basic ingredients. You may need extras from your store cupboard like spices etc but the general bulk of the meal will be under £5.

SO please book mark me & keep coming back!
If I know people are reading me then I will keep updating!!!

Thursday, 1 January 2009

New year, new outlook??

Or will it be the same old same old!!!

I really need to get some structure in my life and keeping this blog I am hoping will give me that!

So in 2009 I would like to do the following!

* Keep finances in check & not let husband spend contents of bank account!
* Do well with my Pampered Chef business and work hard for it not just expect it all to fall into place with no work
* Take the boys places! Do things with them rather than plonking them infront of the TV every 5 mins (Which is where they are at the moment!!!)
* Make the most of food........I waste too much & that really upsets me.

So my aim of this blog is not just to get me some structure but to communicate to the world how I am doing!!!
Because I want to sort finances out we can not really afford to be taking the boys on expensive days out & in this current climate I think that is the case for most families. We live just on the outskirts of London so have 101 things on our doorstep that we can do for FREE! So I am going to find them!!! And report back on what I find!

So what am I doing today I hear you all ask!!!! - No idea! Will discuss that with husband when he finally gets out of bed!!!!

Happy New year though to you all.