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Frugal Meal Planning Ideas

© Teresa Jones

Frugal meals have always interested me, as we have often had to have a tight budget, and I still must feed my family! I have scoured the internet and found some good ideas that are quite useful.

Ways to stretch your meat: Make a SAVOURY MIX. Add to any meat (pureed, shredded, diced into small pieces) any of these: eggs, flour, whole grains, mashed beans, ground nuts, mashed vegetables, tahini, nut butter, food yeast, rice, plus any other flavourings you might like to add. Stock eg. With this mix (which should be of meat loaf or hamburger consistency) you can do one of the following: - With a slightly drier mixture you can form into patties and cook. - Use as a stuffing for baked eggplant, pumpkin wedges, courgettes, marrow, and tomato or pepper cases. - Bake in a square or rectangular pan, slice into rectangles, top with white sauce and sprinkle with herbs. - Bake in a ring mould, turn out with steamed vegetables attractively at the centre. - Bake in a round or oval casserole, invert onto platter and surround with vegetables drizzled with a sauce

Add rolled oats or breadcrumbs or cooked rice to your minced meat.

Stir fry a small portion of meat, cut in strips or diced, or minced, and add plenty of vegetables, and an economical stir-fry sauce.

When planning your meals... When planning your meals take into account the following things. Check out what you have in your fridge and freezer, and what you have in your cupboards. What can you make from these alone? What would you need to buy to make a meal? Often you will be surprised at what you already have that you'd forgotten about. Maybe you have some tasty sachets of sauce mix, stocks, yoghurt that you could use for a dessert... This helps so you don't need to buy so much food that week. On weeks where you have more cash you can invest in things which could be handy for other times such as sauces, soups, noodles, pasta, rice, cans of tomatoes. These are all handy to have on hand!

Sauces are handy! I find it's great to have gravy mixes on hand. These dress up a meal very easily!

Also it is very easy to make homemade white sauces. These can be made either sweet or savoury and dress up vegetables or puddings easily.

WHITE SAUCE: 1 cup skim milk 2 tablespoons cornflour salt & black pepper to taste (or 2 dsp sugar for a sweet sauce)

Pour all but 2 tablespoons of milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Mix cornflour with remaining milk until smooth.