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Child Item

Gourmet grub on a skinflints budget.

Scioch

I'm fond of my grub but being a skin flint I dont buy fancy stuff so I try to make fancy meals out of whatever plain old stuff I have.

Today I had a hot waffle salad, waffles (not birds eye, nothing fancy here, just generic aldi waffles) cooked in toaster until golden brown (in patches), covered with a finely sliced slice of edam cheese (or what aldi claims to be edam, not that I'd know the difference anyway) with pre cooked chicken tikka and a side of coleslaw and potato salad (also courtesy of aldi).

Entire meal couldnt have been more than a euro fiddy or there abouts but was damn tasty and did a steller job of appeasing my slight delusions of grandeur and making me look a highly refined urbanite.

Any of you got any nice recipes to jazz up your commoner food ?

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Millicent

Seriously, try chorizo in a stew. Cook chicken, red pepper, smoked paprika, dash of chilli, onion, cumin, pepper, chicken, garlic, stock, tinned tomatoes, all loaded in with big chunky pieces of chorizo for 40 minutes and then, for the last half hour, chick peas and rice.

Crusty bread and olive oil to go with it. Nom nom nom.

admiralofthefleet

Gbear wrote: »

The question is can you do it for under, say, 7€? 5€?

I'll do a little research using Tesco's online shop:

1.5kg stewing beef: 10-12€
Garlic: 0.25€
4 onions: 1-1.50€
2 celery sticks: 0.50€
450g Rasher joint: 3€
Cheap bottle of plonk: 5€
Herbs: 1€
Spuds 1kg: 1.50€
Shallots: 1€
Bread: 1.50€
TOTAL: €27.25

I think that would do 2 servings each to a family of 2 adults and 2 children.
So that works out at about €3.50 per person.
And you could just as easily double it and freeze it.

bag of spuds is €3 in SV, 3 for €3 on the fresh veg and €3.49 for the chicken.

Gbear

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

bag of spuds is €3 in SV, 3 for €3 on the fresh veg and €3.49 for the chicken.

Chicken?:P

NegativeCreep

Boil some rice, then fry it, pour whisked egg over it and whisk while frying until egg is cooked. Then get "chip Shop Curry" from knorr, make it and pour it over. Buy some ready-to-eat chicken in a packet and stick it in the rice when it's on the pan. Put on plate, stuff face.

suicide_circus

Gbear wrote: »

and too much can give you bowel cancer.

Ah here! What?!

El Weirdo

suicide_circus wrote: »

Ah here! What?!

I believe it's thought that too much cured meats can increase your chances of certain types of cancer.

Probably something to do with all the smoking.:pac:

marketty

Some genius suggestions in this thread

Richard Hillman

2 packs of cheap noodles, powdered curry sauce and frozen chicken nuggets

2 waffles, a fried egg and spaghetti hoops

El Weirdo

Richard Hillman wrote: »

2 packs of cheap noodles, powdered curry sauce and frozen chicken nuggets

2 waffles, a fried egg and spaghetti hoops

Jesus.

K-9

Mam of 4 wrote: »

Some leftover chicken,well,the pickings of the carcass,whatever pasta,those last few tomatoes in fridge,lucky if you have tin of chopped tomatoes!few herbs,use the stale bread for breadcrumbs,if you've cheese,well bonus! Can make a tasty pasta bake

Best value I ever got was a large Irish chicken from Centra for €3 and a free bag of carrots. Potatos and veg, enough for dinner for 2 days for me, the young lad and the dog. Soup for another day and bones for the dog.

Centra can be excellent for meat offers, 2 lbs. of stewing steak for a fiver this evening, stew sorted for the weekend, nice stew for under a fiver a day.

B0jangles

Rosti are really tasty and cheap too - basically they are a grated potato pancake but you can add all sorts of things to them. One of my favorites is celeriac, potato and apple rosti.

You start by par-boiling a couple of medium potatoes until they are half cooked, then let them go cold (I put them in cold water to speed this up).
Meanwhile you grate about a quarter of a head of peeled celeriac and put the result into some kitchen paper to squeeze out most of the water. Then you do the same to about half a peeled and grated apple.
Now grate the cold potato into a big bowl and add the celeriac and apple, some salt and pepper and stir all together. Then add 1-2 beaten eggs.

Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and when its hot throw in dollops of the egg/stuff mixture and spread it out with the back of a spoon til its about 1/2 inch thick or theereabouts.
Cook until it's nicely browned and then flip and do the same to the other side.

Put on some more kitchen paper on a heated plate in the oven and keep going until they are all cooked, Share or be a gutty and eat them all yourself.

Yum.

Edit: Celeriac will turn brown and manky once cut so once you've cut out the quarter you're planning to cook it's a good idea to rub the cut surfaces of the remainder with something like lemon juice to stop them aging badly.

B0jangles

K-9 wrote: »

2 lbs. of stewing steak for a fiver this evening.

I must get to a Centra, that is an awesome deal.

vicwatson

NegativeCreep wrote: »

Boil some rice, then fry it, pour whisked egg over it and whisk while frying until egg is cooked. Then get "chip Shop Curry" from knorr, make it and pour it over. Buy some ready-to-eat chicken in a packet and stick it in the rice when it's on the pan. Put on plate, stuff face.

And throw a bit of scallion into the fried rice ! Yum

B0jangles

K-9 wrote: »

Best value I ever got was a large Irish chicken from Centra for €3 and a free bag of carrots. Potatos and veg, enough for dinner for 2 days for me, the young lad and the dog. Soup for another day and bones for the dog.

Centra can be excellent for meat offers, 2 lbs. of stewing steak for a fiver this evening, stew sorted for the weekend, nice stew for under a fiver a day.

Actually on the topic of making nice but cheap beef stews, Lidl sell small bottles of red wine for 1.79 each - the wine is surprisingly decent and is the perfect size for adding to a 2-4 person beef stew. I can't remember whcih wine it is but it's the red that isn't ruby cabernet; that stuff is muck.

admiralofthefleet

3 slices of wholemeal bread and 3 poached eggs is fairly filling

K-9

B0jangles wrote: »

I must get to a Centra, that is an awesome deal.

Well diced beef but I call it stewing steak from childhood memories, ideal for stew but of course it never tastes like Mams! They actually do some great bargains on meats, worth checking their website every week to see what the special is.

Large pack of mince for €4, would do spag bol for 2 days. When the mince is fried put it in a colander and rinse with boiling water, takes away the taste of fat that can ruin a bolognese and makes buying expensive steak mince irrelevant.

B0jangles

K-9 wrote: »

Well diced beef but I call it stewing steak from childhood memories, ideal for stew but of course it never tastes like Mams! They actually do some great bargains on meats, worth checking their website every week to see what the special is.

Large pack of mince for €4, would do spag bol for 2 days. When the mince is fried put it in a colander and rinse with boiling water, takes away the taste of fat that can ruin a bolognese and makes buying expensive steak mince irrelevant.

You're right about centra; I used to work near one and they often had really good meat deals like lumps of round roast for about 5 euro a kilo; round roast is actually kind of crappy for roasting since it is a bit too dry, but makes great stew or chili once cubed. Oh there's another good cheap eat; chili!

B0jangles

B0jangles wrote: »

Keema Mattar update:
Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over a medium flame.

Actually make that a heavy-bottomed saucepan, preferably a cast-iron one - I found the basis for this recipe somewhere online and modified it a lot so the frying-pan of the original would probably overflow before you managed to add everything.

Musefan

We had the same thing twice this week for dead cheap

Mon & Tues was baked chicken wraps
Chicken: 2.49
Wraps: 89c
Lettuce: 1.29
Salsa: 85
Skinny cut chips: 1:50
Tomatos: 50c

3.76 per day for a meal for two! 1.88 per person

Tonight + Tomorrow is lean beef quesidillas
Lean mince: 5.00
Side Salad: 1.00
Wraps 89c
Salsa (from monday & tuesday)
Mushrooms 75c
Handful of cheese- 50c
Tomato: 50c

4.32 per day, 2.16 per person per day

I take such pleasure in cheap food :O

K-9

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

3 slices of wholemeal bread and 3 poached eggs is fairly filling

Lightly toasted wholemeal scone, real butter and honey, Heaven!

Not really a dinner but divine.

Madam Marie

When budget is tight, I tend to just russle up some Pan-Seared Rib-Eye on a bed of Chive sprinkled Spring Onion Mashed Sweet Potatoes, with perhaps some Asparagus (lightly sauteed in lemon infused sesame oil) on the side.

Perfect meal for getting rid of any leftover Cremant de Limoux you have lying around.

demanufactured

Option one

Chop 2 chicken fillets into chunks...fry them with onion and a pepper....add in some soy sauce and garlic paste...
Add whatever jarred curry you like be it indian or oriental .
Boil un the bag rice...
Naan bread optional....

Option two
Go to Kebab House..Order kebab..

gjc

Potato cakes everyone in my house loves them, fry up a rasher serve on top fab!!!

Sergeant

Get a tin of soup, heat it up, poach an egg in it, serve that with a pork pie and sausage roll.

Tazz T

I poach a deer from Phoenix park. Keeps me in venison burgers for three months.

themadchef

All i want is beans on toast sometimes.

Really, if you have the ability to cook, and more importantly the variety of herbs and spices in the auld press (rob bits and bobs at will from the Mammy when home just label the seal the bags well) you can make all sorts of dishes with pasta and rice.

You dont really need the huge protein hit with every meal. That's where the expense comes in. Veg on speical in Aldi, Tesco, Dunnes, Super Valu, Lidl every week. Stir fry heaven. Cheap ass cans of tomatoes and build, get some fresh ginger, garlic, and start recognising what it is you like to eat.

Fun to be had in the learning, and so cheap it's astonishing.

Who cares if you mistake cayenne for paprika

. Throw the toilet roll in the freezer, be grand.

Internet Hero

theres loads of nice recipies here! gonna try a few of these, ill be the cook of the house for the next while

gjc

went to the shop today to see if i could get a gourmet dinner for 10 euro for 5 people.

Here goes 3 chicken breasts 4.99 (if anyone can direct me to a better price on chicken I would be extremely grateful)
salad potatoes 49c -only used half of them so say 25c
2 peppers 1.20
1 onion -bought a bag for 49 c only used one out of it so say 10c
garlic -had it in fridge)
pasta -had it in press but I think 80c worth
balti sauce jar 1.89

Total 9.23 (€1.85 each)

Fried the whole lot in a pan (except the pasta) threw in the sauce...bishh, bashh boshh.

delicious- was afraid that there would not be enough chicken but actually there was. No left overs but I'm glad as I can plan a new meal tomorrow.
Only downside of the meal as delicious as it was...I do have a prefernce for meals cooked from complete scratch...the jar of Balti sauce would probably have cost me more if I was to do it...but hey....it got wolfed down!!!

going to try do the same tomorrow but try and incorporate an home-made apple tart into the price- I love a challenge- I'm beginning to see the value of a herb garden- starting to love this thread

donutheadhomer

wandatowell wrote: »

get your left over bones, throw them in a pot, add some broth, a potato

And baby you've got a stew going.

or something like that

can you bring home the bones from kfc to do this?

krissovo

Spicy pasta tomato sauce, will serve 4/5 and tastes much better than any jar

2 tins tomatoes
1 onion (3/4 if making the meatballs below)
1 re chilli
2 cloves garlic
Salt/pepper to taste

Optional:
Tea spoon of Italian herb
Table spoon of tomato puree
Tea spoon sugar

Fry onion in tablespoon of oil for 5 mins (just caramelizing)
Add chilli fry for 3 mins
Add garlic fry for 3 mins
Add tinned tomato's (and optional extra's)
Cook on hob for 15 mins (lid off for thicker sauce, lid on watery sauce)
Then blitz with a hand blender and serve

Add meatballs (use same recipe for spicy burgers):
1ib mince
1/4 onion (diced)
2 garlic cloves
1 green chilli
2 slices of bread (crumbed)
1 egg
Squirt Worcester sauce
Salt/pepper

Mix and add breadcrumbs till you get dry consistency, roll into small balls, cook @ 180 for 15 > 20 mins