From One Mum!

I know this looks awful, i didn't get chance to take a picture before they dug in and this is all that was left! Lol. Microwave jam sponge. So light and fluffy and tastes delicious. Best thing is, we served this with custard, and it cost less than £1 to make the whole pudding! 125g butter or marge 125g sugar 125g self raising flour 2 eggs 3tbsp jam ( can be substituted for syrup or something else). Cream together the sugar and marge, slowly add in the eggs and flour. Grease a microwavable bowl, put the jam in the bottom and spoon the cake mix on top. Microwave for between 6-8 minutes, depending on microwave. So quick and easy, and cheap! ENJOY!

Recipe - Creamy cheese bolognese tacos, with salad & garlic fries (because clearly we havnt had enough garlic this week 🤣) . None for Nay as shes really poorly today 😞 started off well but shes really gone downhill so keeping a close eye 💔 . The tacos were fab - 20p for *10* but if you count them in the pack theres actually 19 that I counted anyway!  Beef mince £1.79 Onion 6p Taco shells 20p best before its gone Bolognese sachet mix 20p company shop Plum tomatoes 28p Salady bits 30p ish Handful mushrooms 23p Cheese 29p 5 cheese slices 25p Couple tbsp double cream 8p ish 1/3 bag red potatoes 38p £4.06 fed 4 for £1.01 each 🙂 half the bolognese left so have frozen for another day.

Recipe - Chicken & prawn chilli garlic curry with rice… this was AMAZING!!! Im off to clear the shelves of the curry paste I used 🤣🤣 Its the Jamie Oliver one if you get there before me 😉 The boys enjoyed it too, Arlo even ate the spinach which is unheard of for him! Nay has ‘scrumbled egg’ on toast but didnt eat the toast, shes much better this afternoon 💖 . Pack frozen prawns £3 2 frozen chicken fillet £1.16 1/2 jar curry paste 75p Spinach 25p company shop Tin coconut milk 70p Tin plum tomatoes 28p 1/6 bag basmati rice 30p £6.44 fed 4 for £1.61 each 🙂.

Freezer tea tonight! Was supposed to be chicken pasta bake but couldnt find the chicken in the depths of the freezer, & it was far too cold to be rummaging about 🤣 so grabbed the first things I found! Chicken & mushroom bakes for me & Shawne, & veggie nuggets for the kids, all with marscapone & tomato pasta, with salady bits, using up what was left in the fridge 🙂 (the kids couldnt tell the difference with the nuggets!). Pud was reduced mango & on offer pineapple that needed to be used up 🙂 with a bit of squirty cream! Chicken & mushroom bakes reduced 50p Veggie nuggets on offer 20p! 2/3 bag pasta 19p Marscapone pasta sauce 70p Salady bits 30p ish  £1.89 fed 5 for 37p each 🙂

Recipe - Pork chop dinner 🐷😀 with roast parsnips, garlic mash, carrots, onion (for me), cabbage, green beans & Yorkshire puds. Nay had a good try today, she ate sooo much! We did go to the park earlier & had a big walk around the village too so she was well ready for her big dinner! Cherry scones, jam & clotted cream for pud 🍓. Pork chops reduced 90p 1/4 bag carrots 10p Onion 6p Green beans free from Olio 1/3 savoy cabbage 14p Parsnips 39p 1/3 bag red potatoes 38p 2 garlic cloves 4p ish Milk flour & eggs for batter 20p ish Gravy granules 16p £2.37 fed 5 for 47p each 😀

Recipe - Tiktok feta pasta with garlic bread (& mayo, its essential with pasta!) 🍅🌶🧄🥖. Nay had a nudey tea so ive added a cheesy photo at the end for her fans 🤣. She loved her tea today, wolfed the pasta down… it had a nice but spicy kick, she didnt seem to care 🤣. 2/3 pack feta 90p Punnet plum tomatoes 73p Shallot on offer 4p 4 garlic cloves 8p ish Red chilli 16p 2/3 pack pasta 19p 2 garlic bread 64p £2.74 fed 5 for 54p each 🙂

Recipe - Winner winner chicken dinner! 😍😍 been looking forward to this alllllll week! I stuffed the chicken with sage & onion stuffing, & also put it between the fillet 👀 & the skin (cant say the word - Fb you are ridiculous 🫒🫒). Sage & onion chicken, stuffing, broccoli, carrots, onion, roasties, roast parsnips, mash, bread sauce & Yorkshire puddings 😋😋 Xl chicken £4.19 Stuffing 40p 1/3 bag red potatoes 38p Parsnips 42p 1/4 bag carrots 10p 1/2 bag frozen broccoli 27p Onion 6p Bread sauce 50p Gravy granules 16p Leftover Yorkshire puds free as costed previously £6.48 fed 5 for £1.29 each 🙂 loads of chicken left for another meal 🙂 Pud coming later!

Arlo is 7 😀💙🎂 Recipe - We had pepperoni pizza, chicken nuggets, cheesy chilli nachos, pork pies, mozzarella sticks & lots of other bits. My lovely friend made some cheese & tomato pinwheels, (took the pic before she came 🙈) xxx & Mum made the cake! Yum! One layer was lemon, one Biscoff & one jam 😀 (I cut the cake & we’d all eaten it before I remembered a pic! Hes had a lovely day. Hes having a bit of downtime now on his new tablet 💁🏼‍♀   Prices I dont usually do for parties but this was all done on a sort of budget!  Pizzas 67p Tesco Nuggets 85p Tesco Mozz sticks £1 Heron Nachos 5p Best before its gone Cheese reduced 56p Peanuts, choc penguins, Ritz crackers, & chocs all leftover from Xmas so cant remember prices so £3 🤷🏼‍♀️ Doritos stax 50p Pork pies reduced 50p About £11 ish 🙂

Recipe - Meatloaf marinara (was lovely 😀), mash, honey roasted carrots & cauli cheese. Not many of us eating tonight 🙈 Arlo had toast as hes been off today as he was sick this morning, Nay didnt want it at all but shes been a bit off it too, red cheeks, cough etc… ive been doing tests all week & all negative 🤷🏼‍♀️ so she will perhaps have a bit of toast later instead 🙂.  Meatloaf marinara reduced £1.84 1/4 bag carrots 10p Cauli on offer 49p Butter flour milk & cheese for cheese sauce 60p ish 1/4 bag maris pipers 28p £3.31 fed 4 for 82p each 🙂

But of a crazy week/weekend & youngest at all day netball tournament needing lots of snacks and protein-in our fridge we had 2/3 block halloumi, some bacon and I bought some avocado yesterday-so she’s had a wrap with those + sweet chilli sauce. I’m trying to eat healthy - had a pack of those ready to eat lentils so mixed that with 1/2 onion sliced with some lemon and salt, 1/2 pepper grilled, a few cherry toms, a handful of parsley + a bit of olive oil -about £2.00 for 4 portions. I’ve added 1/3 halloumi 1.5 slices bacon and 1/2 avocado for about £1.12. So lunch for £1.52 for me and £1.22 for daughters wrap - and used up lots of leftover bits.  

The countdown to shop day is on!! 🤣🤣 I always freeze leftovers, no matter how small the amount. Yesterday I pulled 2 portions of mutton curry out of the freezer. Didn’t fancy rice, found a tin of potatoes in the cupboard, made some Bombay style potatoes, homemade naans, spiced onions, and a riatta. Curry night for free, as I had everything in!

Recipe - Chicken pot pie, buttery mash & broccoli 😀 Nay loved pointing out all the different veggies in the pie!  No Ash tonight as hes having a sleepover at his besties house 💙 . Weve had our first proper successful potty training day today! Nays done so so well… weve tried before & she just wasnt interested at all… shes cracked it today, fantastic! 👏🏻👏🏻 Looking forward to not buying pull ups! 🤣 Leftover chicken free as costed previously Condensed chicken soup 50p Handful frozen veggies & spinach 20p ish Puff pastry reduced 50p Broccoli 49p 1/3 bag red potatoes 38p 1/2 cup milk 10p 🤷🏼‍♀️ Cheese 29p £2.46 fed 4 for 61p each 🙂

Stock all done ft. my recycled butter tubs 😀 just needs to cool before freezing ❄️. Roasted off 3 chicken carcass’s with a couple of carrots, an onion & some herbs… when golden on colour transfer to a slow cooker & deglaze your dish that you roasted the bones in, add that to the slow cooker along with water to nearly cover your bones. Turn on high & cook until everything is soft & the stock has darkened a lot. Remove the chicken carcass’s & pick the meat off the bones & set aside in a bowl to cool then freeze. Strain the liquid into a pan & reduce down til thick & glossy! You know its ready when its really dark, & if you leave it a few seconds it forms a skin on the top!  This made 3 pots of about 250ml each, perfect for soups & stews etc, & the chicken is good for ramen bowls, omelettes, quiches, chicken pies 🙂.

Recipe - Got tonsillitis so didn’t even end up eating this. But tbh I made this out of mainly the Asda essentials!  mash - £0.99p for a bag of potatoes (again added milk which was £0.85p and some butter that was £1) mixed veg - £0.72p air fried new tinned potatoes - £0.36p a tin (cornflour - £0.85p, Fry light oil £1.75) frozen sausages - £1.21 for 20 whole chicken - £3.10 home made Yorkshire’s - (Plain flour - £0.58p, semi skimmed milk - £0.85p, 1 egg - £0.11p (set of 12 for £1.35p) Gravy - 0.32p  All together it cost: £13.93 with all the additional ingredients!! But there is plenty of frozen stuff left, milk left, ect! Can’t really complain and it fed 7 people too☺️.

Recipe - Crispy fried haggis & bacon grill with sweet chilli sauce, chunky chips with black pepper & parm, & a bit of salady salad. This was a Nick Nairn recipe… the sweet chilli dressing was chucked down the sink as it was disgusting, & the batter mix was a right ball ache 🙄 quantities were so off it was unreal… I dont know who told him he could cook?! 🤣🤣🤣 . Added the bacon grill as I had about 2 pints of batter mix leftover 🙄 Cheers Nick hun. Haggis on offer £2 Bacon grill £1 Sweet chilli sauce free as given by Mum Flour & spices 25p ish 300ml sparkling water 20p ish 1/3 bag maris pipers 39p 1/4 block grana padano 41p Salady bits 30p ish £4.55 fed 5 for 91p each

Food containers! Where does everyone get their food containers from for batch cooking. I bought some "chinese" style pots from B&M but the lids are snapping as soon as I open them after the first use. The round ones aren't very strong either and don't fit great in the freezer. Don't want to keep throwing plastic away so need some strong square/rectangle pots to fit in the freezer easily that I can reuse and ideally dishwasher/microwave safe but also don't cost a small fortune... Need some bigger sized ones for 2 people meals and some smaller chinese size pots for single meals. I also use flexible reusable Mason jars from Amazon for one portion. They're designed to be washed. Mine stand in angled lines on my freezer & get loads. I also use the soup bags. For bigger portions I've got the branded click & lock containers which are now old. They came from QVC on a special. Plus I have 2 sets off Joseph Joseph picked up 2nd hand.

Recipe - Surprise turkey pie, carrots & onion, broccoli, goose fat roasties & bread sauce 😀 . It was a surprise because it was supposed to be leftover stew pie… I took the tub out of the freezer labelled ‘beef stew’ & inside was turkey in gravy 🤣🤣🙈🙈 clearly having a bad day when I labelled it! & slow cooker rice pudding for pud, with choc or jam 🙂 . Turkey reduced £1.12 1/4 bag carrots 10p Onion 6p 1/3 bag frozen broccoli 19p 1/3 bag maris pipers 39p Bread sauce 39p Roll of puff pastry reduced 50p Gravy granules 16p £2.91 fed 5 for 58p each 😀  Rice pud was made with pudding rice, milk, evaporated milk (reduced), sugar, butter & a bit of nutmeg… cost about £1.50 for the whole thing, fed 5 for 30p each 🙂.  

Recipe - Chicken Chasseur with Mash and Yorkshire Puds. A delightful and budget-friendly twist on the Chicken Chasseur recipe by Jack Monroe, served with homemade mash made from homegrown potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. This delicious and easy-to-make meal exceeded expectations and is perfect for a hearty dinner. Ingredients: Chicken legs, £2.10 Tin of plum tomatoes, £0.28 4 garlic cloves, £0.08 (approx.) Onion, £0.06 1/2 tub mushrooms, £0.25 Glass of red wine, £1.09 2 chicken stock cubes, £0.06 Rosemary, free from your garden Potatoes, free from your garden Eggs, flour, and milk for batter, £0.45 (approx.) Total Cost: £4.37 Instructions: Prepare the Chicken Chasseur: In a pan, brown the chicken legs. Add chopped garlic, diced onions, and sliced mushrooms. Cook until softened. Pour in a glass of red wine and let it simmer for a few minutes. Add a tin of plum tomatoes, chicken stock cubes, and rosemary. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through and the flavors meld. Prepare the Mash:

Black pudding sausages, sweet potato mash with garlic, & beans / spaghetti hoops 😋 Pudding was leftover bday cake & M&s squirty cream from the company shop (50p!). Also got three chicken carcass’s in the oven for stock (I think ones actually duck but will be just as good if not better!) will roast for a bit for flavour, then chuck into the slow cooker overnight on low… beautiful stock in the morning!  Black pudding sausages £3.33 (Got from Whitby on our girls wknd) 7x frozen sausages 35p 1/2 massive sweet potato 34p 4 small potatoes from a 2.5kg bag 24p ish 3 garlic cloves 6p Tin of baked beans 22p Tin of spaghetti 13p £4.67 fed 5 for 93p each 🙂  Last but not least, it was my first trip to the company shop this morn! Loved it, lots of bargains (photos at the end!) Recommend going if you can & if you can get a membership!

Tonight’s dinner - curried chicken balls (frozen from Aldi) with egg fried dirty rice - could easily and cheaply boost this by adding extra veg, another egg, all the chicken or more rice to stretch further. 1.5 bags chicken (5 balls for 2 of us, 4 for the other 2-they’re really filling!) £3.23 (each pack is £2.15) 1/2 pepper 25p Bunch spring onions 49p Frozen peas large handful 40p Frozen sweetcorn large handful 40p 200g rice 31p 3 eggs 42p 2 tbsp each sweet chilli sauce, ketchup, soy sauce roughly 45p Oil and a teaspoon curry powder  Total around £5.95 for 3 adults and a sporty 17 yo so £1.49 each - delicious, quick to do and lots of protein and veg.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed veg doesn't seem to be lasting as long at the moment. I can usually have a bag of carrots in my fridge for 10 days or more before they start to go bad but the last 2 lots I've got from asda have ended up with brown patches all over them in less than a week. I bought these last Friday afternoon so 5 days ago and they have brown marks all over them already. I’ve noticed it often doesn’t even seem completely fresh the day we buy it. Wondered if anyone else noticed the same. Soft cucumbers and radishes etc, everything seeming a bit sad. Look up Nancy Birtwhistle on Instagram, she keeps veg in damp tea towels in her fridge, lemons in water and berries in a jar. She’s got some fab ideas.  

Not exactly scrimping but decided as my OH is going back to work tomorrow following surgery for a broken back months ago, we should be organised and batch cook. 73 meals cooked, labelled, cooled for the freezer! We went shopping for the ingredients today and spent &103. So £1.41 per meal and all we need to do is cook rice, a sub, pasta or a jacket. We’ve done curries, pies, meatballs, savoury mince, hunters chicken, bolognaise, fish pie! Everything cooked from scratch with fresh meat & veg.

So quote me if I'm wrong here! But I've heard in these times with all electricity soring using your slow cooker for cooking is more efficient. I invested in one 3 years ago it's quite a large one but only used it a handful of times so I'm now thinking of doing meals in it most nights including a roast. So do you have any amazing recipes you like cooking in your slow cooker??? and suprise me with things that you've cooked in it as an idea. Veggie options also a winner as well as meat or fish 🤷‍♀️. Also feel free to quote me if I'm wrong about the energy efficiency of the slow cooker 🤣. I'd just love to know that I'm helping someone no matter how small it maybe.

Recipe - For those that ask if you're able to do a roast in the air fryer the answer is yes! I have the ninja dual and do a large/xlarge chicken weekly, then do roasties, parsnips and yorkies the other side. We've had it a few months now and have only used the oven for cheese and potatoe pie. Absolute game changer, we had brought a cheap one and I hated it, took forever to cook anything but haven't looked back since having this one. It also bakes cakes haven't done cakes yet but I have done cookies in it, they were incredible x

Today's meal for me and the other half seen as we was kid free for an hour. I put the minted lamb in the slow cooker on before work at 5am this morning and its delicious 😋  Pulled Minted lamb, carrot and swede mash, baked garlic mushrooms, baby corn, spring greens, and butter and herb potatoes in a thick gravy made with juices and red wine (currently enjoying drinking a glass too). I made enough to fill 3 containers to freeze for work too.

Hi, I’m a massive frozen veg hoarder 🙈🙈 I really am bad for half bags of veg lingering in the bottom of the freezer 🤣🤣🤦🏻‍♀️. Not this month! Weathers pants, kids are half day at school, meaning they’ll be home for lunch, so a big pot of vegetable and rice soup it is! I threw In a cup of rice mainly to bulk it out. Also making my own bread rolls. You can find the recipe for these on one of my previous posts 🥰. This is great way to get veggie into children and who doesn't love homemade bread for dipping into homemade soup.

Recipe - Absolutely sick of paying a fortune for snacks, and they demolish them in no time 😩😩 all ingredients I had in the house, so cost me nothing today. Jam sponge slices. Some with icing, some with icing sugar.  I used a basic sponge recipe from the bbc good food website, once cooled sliced in half, and spread jam. Icing and drip icing I had from a previous cake. Homemade crisps. Took quite a lot of effort, as I don’t have a mandolin, and if I was to make again, I’d probably skip the deep frying, and just use the air fryer. They are a bit overdone, but tasty nonetheless 🥰

Just thought I’d post these ideas for seasonal veg which are usually good for the budget-we’ve got a little veg patch and courgettes are in season (UK) and in the shops.  Of course they all come together so we’ve got a glut! So far I’ve made courgette and sweet corn fritters (which can be frozen)-they’re great for a breakfast or lunch with a poached egg and some sweet chilli sauce, or you can make them smaller and have them as a snack with some sweet chilli sauce mixed with some lime juice to dip - the sweet corn was in the freezer and the rest of it was store cupboard; and I made a griddled courgette salad with feta ( it’s topped with a little chopped mint, red chilli which were wilting in the bottom of my fridge, and pine nuts-had half a pack in the cupboard but no idea why- and a bit of olive oil).

 5 days till shopping day!!! And the first time in a long time we’ve not had a roast 🙈 although hubby says if this is how we eat when we’re running out of food, then we need to run out more often 🤣🤣🤣 I had some chicken portions in the freezer, and some pastry I’d made previously. Roasted this chicken legs in the air fryer, then stripped them off the bone. Rolled out my pastry, made a thick gravy with chicken stock, the juices from the chicken, and a bit of granules to thicken. I call this stuffing poor man’s stuffing, as it doesn’t contain any meat etc. I’d made bread rolls that were a little too hard for my liking, so ripped them up, and let them go stale. In a pan fried off some diced onion in oil, dried sage, onion granules and salt & pepper, once softened I added my stale bread chunks, and mixed well, then added half a pint of chicken stock. Just enough to soak into the bread. Transfer mix to dish, top with a little butter, and cook in oven for 20 minutes or so 😋.

Dinner for the 3 of us at home tonight: Crispy Chicken burgers with homemade chips.  The pack of chicken I had in the freezer (650g for £3.50 - 3 big fillets) - I only needed to use one of the chicken fillets - sliced it in 3 horizontally and dunked it in flour/egg/crushed cornflakes (but breadcrumbs or crushed crisps work well), sprayed with oil then baked in oven for 30 mins. Chips were par boiled tossed in oil and seasoning and put in oven for same time as chicken - 4 medium sized potatoes about 50p total. Large rolls from local baker 40p each. And a few leaves of little gem lettuce, Mayo and ketchup.  Cost about £2.75 for all 3 of us, really tasty and neither daughter or I could quite finish.

So - inspired by you lovely lot I decided to take a good look at how to get my food costs down. There are sometimes 3 of us and sometimes 5 as I have a 20 yo at uni (home for the holidays and always hungry) and my mum lives nearby. My 16yo daughter does a lot of sport so needs loads of carbs and protein. I have Easter off as I work with schools so a good time to batch cook. On Saturday our local butcher had a deal on a 1/2 rolled Turkey breast (1.6kg) for £10 so we had that as roast on Sunday; we had half the leftovers yesterday as Turkey fajitas; and today I’ve made a Turkey curry using an onion, half a courgette, a red pepper, and a bowl full of butternut squash that I diced and froze at Christmas + some curry paste, a tin of tomatoes, and some spoons of mango chutney.  3 tubs going into the freezer for another day.  With some of the rest of my leftover veg I’ve made a big batch of veggie loaded pasta sauce - 1 onion, 2 grated carrots, 1/2 courgette 1/2 pepper tin toms and carton of

Today it’s roast day! I’m cooking a beef roasting joint first time in my slow cooker I decided I wanted to try out the Asda just essential’s one , how long cooking time on a high or low ?  Looked up that I will need to sear the beef in a pan it first with salt and pepper & I will add beef stock to it 🙂. My mom've always used Asda own beef roasting joints, She seal it in the pan. Add seasoning depending on what the joint is for and 6 hours with a small drop of water I put the joint on top of onions, carrots and swede but that’s personal choice. 6 hours turning now and again, just falls apart 👌. good luck and enjoy x

Really fancied a takeaway yesterday but couldn't afford it as a single parent who's kid doesn't eat takeaway, so made my own version at home 🙂 Kebab meat £3 icelands (I used maybe a third) £1 Pitta bread £1 for 6 (I used 1) 16p Chips 99p telescopes 20p worth? Half a small red onion from a £1 bag. 10p to be generous Romaine lettuce £1 (used 2 big leaves) 10p? Cost me approx £1.56 for this. Plenty leftover to do more other days. Way healthier too 🙂  Thought I'd share.  

I love to cook fresh food but with that my cupboard is full of herbs and spices. Today I popped along to my local zero waste shop and filled up my empty jar of Cumin. Normally I’d buy supermarket own for around £1.00 today a full jar cost me 16p. What a saving and will go in so many meals. If your on a tighter budget you can literally buy the amount required. Worth a look if you have one locally.   Secondly, I bulk buy my herbs and spices because I don't have a shop like that locally. It saves us a lot f money over buying little jars in supermarkets. I also grow a lot f my own herbs, drying them out of season so I always have then on hand. Would love to live near a zero waste shop.