economical recipes please

[mimififi]

Hi there all your culinary experts........

I have 5 children as no doubt some of you know, and am tired of the escalating food bills. I am menu planning for the week, but am getting bored of the same old same old.

I have a limited food budget and i do cook from scratch, so I'm after some good, wholesome, healthy, tasty and above all cheap recipes to fill my cook book with.

I am particularly iterested in puddings too.

The recipes need to be gluten and wheat free and preferably dairy free where possible. Or, adaptable to be so. Fortunately, we are no longer vegetarian.

many thanks
Bon Appetite!

[WendyS]

I find that a large batch of minced beef or minced lamb can be "tarted up" in lots of different ways. If you cook the basic beat with onions & tomatoes & Oxo cubes, it can be frozen in convenient size portions. Then you can pre-fry mixed root vegetables and add the sauce for savoury mince, add more fried onions & curry paste for curried mince, add red kidney beans and chilli powder for Chile con carne, or a mixture of vegetables & cover with mashed potato for shepherd pie or cottage pie.

Home made soups (red lentils with mixed vegetables, minstrone, or leek & potato are cheap and filling.

Savoury mashed potato or mashed root vegetable mixtures with grated cheese and grilled bacon are also comfort foods.

Fish cakes with tinned pilchards are also inexpensive and tasty..

[MINTED187]

I have recently been diagnosed with a gluten intolerance and know that does not help as it is quite an expensive diet to follow unless that is of course that you do not buy gluten free products such as "free from" bread, cakes etc which in my opinion taste foul anyway.

so i just eat food without gluten than trying to substitute them...anyway in regards to your question!!: heres a recipie its simple but really cheap and yummy:

• par boil sliced potatoes


• thinly slice onions and fry with garlic and paprika and a little oil


• once potatoes are par boiled layer in a large pyrex dish


• layer the layer of potatoes with the onion mix


• next layer the mix with grated mature cheddar cheese


• then layer that with the sliced potatoes and so forth till you have about 5-6 layers of potato, onions and cheese.


• on the top layer place some grated cheese and oregano place in the oven for about half an hour till cripsy and bubblin!


• serve with beans or salad or anything really!


• can be adapted by adding bits of bacon maybe?

enjoy! ; )

[mimififi]

thank you girls, I shall add them to my list.

Minted, I know what you mean. It is expensive, even down to basics, for example Knorr stock cubes which are gluten free are more expensive than Oxo....and so on and so forth.

My daughter gets her bread on prescription because she has celiac, but I do not as it isn't really that cost effective to do so because I have to pay for them and prescription food tastes horrible too. She doesn't mind as she has n't had any thing different. But there is a big deal going from freshly baked granary bread and a pound of chilled butter to gluten free rice cakes....

Anyways, what do you do for lunches and sandwiches etc and picnics are always tricky.....any ideas?

WIll try your potatoe idea too.

thanks wendy for your freezer idea, will use that too.

[sweetdor]

try

pasta

....cook as much as required then cook off small florets of brocolli,diced carrots peas even diced poatoes,mushrooms and ham,then make a basic cheese sauce either with cheddar or stilton pour over the pasta and veg ,grate cheese over the top and bake till top is golden brown its really yummy

[mimififi]

ummm, that sounds nice...would it work withh rice do you think?

[MINTED187]

well because i have recently been diagnosed with this gluten intolerance they are still doing tests to confirm because of course we miss out on fibre and nutrients so i have gone without for about 6 months which was hard at first but gradually you get so used to it.at the moment i have been told to eat gluten again so that they can see the effects for an endoscopy and i can tell you having the taste of freshly baked crusty bread is the best taste in the world!

as for picnics and lunches i always have to have a hot meal at work or something from the salad bar its very inconvenient when you cant just grab a sandwhich really

[Clanad]

Well, mimi (haven't seen you for a while, by the way)... there are some very cheap cuts of meat, but when prepared correctly, they go a long way and are enjoyable. One of the favorites at our house is my rolled skirt steak.
Skirt (sometimes marketed as flank) steak is about $1.50 per pound here in the U.S. and usually comes in 2 to 4 pound pieces. I have the butcher run the steak through his tenderizer which also flattens the half inch thick cut. I then cut it into manageable pieces, but no smaller than about 10 inches long by 8 inches wide. Brown it lightly in a heavy skillet than you can also put in the oven. Remove the piece(s) and let cool. Spread a mixture of cream cheese,finely chopped onion, parsley flakes, garlic, salt and fresh ground pepper and a goodly dash of Worcestershire and roll the meat fairly tightly. Place toothpicks through the roll about every two inches and slice the roll into individual pinwheels. Place these back into skillet with perhaps 2 or 3 tabelspoons of olive oil (EXV) and place in a hot oven (375 to 400 degrees F) for about 30 minutes. Remove once more and make a thickened sauce of the brown bits in the skillet to pour over the rolls.
To go along with this, I boil about a dozen (or as many as you'd need) new potatoes (small red ones about 2 to 3 inches in diameter) for only 20 to 25 minutes or so. Remove and cool and peel. Crush a cup of corn flakes cereal and mix with a packet of dry ranch salad dressing mix and little salt a pepper. Roll the potatoes in melted butter and then roll them in the corn flake mix. Place on a baking sheet and bake in a 400 F degree oven for 20 minutes or so until the flakes are turning dark brown...
Good luck!

[pandy]

my favourite is pasta,chicken,broccoli and a pot of carbonarra sauce from the fresh pasta isle of the supermarket

yummy yummy

[mimififi]

Clanad, that sounds absolutely delicious! I have cooked skirt before in the crock pot with some kidneys, the kids do like it so I shall definately try this. Those tats sounds devine also. Dinner at your house sounds like a real treat....! (haven't seen you for yonks either, how you doin'?)

Pandy, thanks for you idea, I shall certainly keep it in mind. I find prepared sauces tricky because they often have wheat in, but some of them are ok.

btw, anyone who needs an allergy free diet, Tesco Value pasta sauce which comes in a glass jar is 27p a jar and is completely allergy free. Is basically just tom puree and herbs but cheaper than toms in a tin....weird! That is good too.

I certainly have some new recipes to try for next week and should be able to make the rest of the month's housekeeping go a bit further.......Thank you everyone.

p.s I wish I could give you all more than 3 stars, but 3 is all I'm allowed, but you are all stars in my book.

[Minxie]

hi mimififi, if you and your children like them, then pulses are cheap, nutritional and lovely. You can make some lovely pasta sauces with them. Curries, rissoles, and loads more. Get a Rose Elliott book out from the library for ideas.

Sorry just noted you are not vegetarian anymore, but you can still incorporate the odd pulse meal in.

I have 4 children, so can sympathise with your food dilemas

Good luck!

[mimififi]

Hi minxie. I had forgotten about pulses! I like them and the children generally eat what I make (they don't have much choice - eat it or be hungry, you know what it s like!!!) husband is allergic to them though, but he doesn't always eat what we do as he is often at work late.

Top idea. I'll dig out the R Elliot!

[Gathorne]

Have you heard of Gram flour? It's a gluen-free flour made from chick peas. I got mine in Tesco so it's not difficult to find.

It's got a slightly pea taste, but is good for savoury pastry for quiches and flans etc, and good for sauces.