New Dinner Ideas for under £1 per person

Some of the most common search terms for my blog is to do with food, new dinner ideas, frugal meals etc. Well instead of people coming here and being disappointed I decided to post some new dinner ideas that come in at under £1 per person. It's also good timing as this coming month I have told Daddy that we are going to be eating cheaply... very cheaply.

First things first if you want to (or need to) cut your food budget there are several things that you can do that will save you a small amount each week depending on what you shopping budget was to start with!

1. Eat meat free one or two nights a week. Even if someone in your family feels that a meal isn't complete with out meat and two veg, if they know that the food budget needs to be cut they should understand. There are some meals that they might not even notice the lack of meat in listed below!
2. Portion control. Think about how much you serve everyone at meal times, it might be too much. Try reducing everything slightly and this should help.
3. Reduced produce. If you can buy the food at a reduced price then it will reflect in the budget!
4. Plan your meals. If you know that Wednesday nights is always really busy then plan something that is quick and easy for dinner, or something that can be cooked in the slow cooker.
5. Stop Eating out. Stop having takeaways or going to restaurants, if you do number 4, then you won't have to anyway.
6. Take lunch to work, don't wait for the Sandwich van to come round. Take some with you and save a fortune!
7. Save your leftovers. Buy some plastic pots (Tupperware!) and either freeze the leftover meal or save it for lunch the next day. If you do freeze the leftovers make sure you label the meal AND list it on a freezer inventory!
   
   
8. Stretch your meals. Rubber chicken for example is a favourite in our house (although it was Rubber duck last week!) and it is so cheap!
9. Make double and freeze it. Sometimes it is cheaper to make more than you need. No really. A good example of this is Curry. I like to buy premixed curry spices from eBay and then make a huge batch of curry which I then freeze in family sized portions.
10. Shift down a brand. If you normally buy named brands then go down to Store brand, if you don't like something then don't buy it again. Just don't buy the cheapest of the cheap or value brands for some items unless you read the ingredients first!

And now for the list of dinner ideas, if you need recipes feel free to ask but most of them are things that should be in any good cookery book or search engine!

Beans on toast (with an egg on top)
Casserole
Cauliflower cheese
Cheesy Bean pie
Cheesy mash and beans
Cheesy pasta (have pasta add cheese)
Chilli
Chilli Pasta
Corned beef hash
Corned Beef Hotpot
Cottage pie
Cowboy Casserole
Egg and Chips
Eggy Bready and beans
Fishfingers in tomato sauce
Fish pie
Fishfinger pie
Home Made fish cakes
Home Made Pizza
Jacket Potato and a whole variety of toppings!
Lamb Stew
Lasagne
Lentil Soup
Liver and onions (although not for pregnant women)
Meatloaf
Omlette (with or without additional items)
Pasta Bake
Pasta in Tomato sauce
Pasta with Bacon
Poor Mans Pasta (pasta with no additions other than butter)
Potato and Bacon Hotpot
Potato and Cheese Bake
Quiche or flans
Risotto
Sausages and mash
Scrambled egg, beans and bacon
Sheppard's pie
Spaghetti Bolognese
Spanish Omlette
Spicy Wedges and coleslaw
Toad in the hole
Toasted Sandwiches
Tuna and Pasta (with a little mayo)
Tuna rice salad
Veggie Stir Fry
Vegetable Rice Salad

I am thinking of doing a post next week about what to do with Leftovers, so let me know if you are interested!

And one last tried and tested idea, try to get invited to other peoples houses for dinner as often as possible!

Eating out with Kids... cheaply!

Top Ender and Baby Boy love to go out to eat. It doesn't matter if it is a Sandwich in the park, a picnic at the lake, dinner in a restaurant or a snack in a cafe. Anywhere that isn't home makes the food taste magically better and I know it isn't because of my cooking skills or my lack of culinary art!

It is because of their love of eating out that I have a list of places that we can go to where we can grab something to eat, not break the bank and not have to resort to McDonalds... although plenty of that is eaten at times! Here is the low down on where you will find me and family when we can't be bothered to cook!

Costco's restaurant is a marvellous thing. Pizza, Jacket Potato's, Salads, etc are sold at a fraction of the cost that you could get them at other restaurants and the portion sizes are bigger too. This does mean that a slice of pizza and a bit of Mummy and Daddy's Jacket potato or salad will feed both Top Ender and Baby Boy!

You can refill your fizzy drinks if you wish and the food is cooked so that you can see it being prepared as they have large glass windows down one side of the Kitchen. Of course if you don't want to eat in you can take the food away which is sometimes a plus as the small seating area gets very crowded!

The only issue that we have is it is Fizzy Drinks. Top Ender refuses to drink anything remotely fizzy and Baby Boy pulls a funny face if he steals a sip of Daddys drink! Mind you seeing as it is Costco's you could just go and pick up a family pack of squash or water from one of the aisles!

Ikea has not one but two places to eat, the restaurant and the Bistro. At the Bistro you can buy hot dogs, meatballs and chips as well as puddings and they will offer meal deals so buying a combination will work out cheaper too. Of course there are no chairs. just circular tables that are chest height to either lean or put your food on, with a ring further down the table leg for children to put their food on. Just don't get me started about the Ice Cream Machine...



The restaurant is Top Enders favourite (and mine for a cheap full English breakfast!) and she will often beg to be taken there. They serve a kids menu and a main menu as well as having plenty of Swedish snack foods too. The Kids menu is comprised of pasta with sauce or a choice of fish (Haddock) or meatballs and you can choose if you want potatoes or chips with the latter two and with the fish you normally get a vegetable serving too. It is even better value on a Wednesday because it is half price for Meatballs! The Main menu is basically the same as the Kids menu but bigger portions and you can also choose a starter if you want such as Gravalax and occasionally the chef will add other seasonal Swedish food items to the menu.

And of course if you want to recreate it at home you can always stop by at the Swedish shop and buy Swedish foods. Not that I have done that ever... okay so several times including Top Enders 4th Birthday.



Marks and Spencers cafe is at the upper part of our budget, but we do like it there as they always have gluten free and wheat free cakes out. This makes eating with Daddy a lot easier as if we just want to have a drink and snack it is nice to be able to have a choice rather than a packet of crisps. They tend to sell mostly Sandwiches, Jacket Potato's and Soup but they have been known in the past to sell other things!

The good thing about the M&S cafe's is that it gives me a chance to sit there in my best velvet voice saying things like;

"This isn't just any cafe table... this is an M&S cafe table."
or
"This isn't just any fork...this is an M&S fork."

I could go on for hours like that.

Little Chef use to be a favourite of ours, we would often take Top Ender to one of the local restaurants for an ice cream or a meal. It is also great fun to go to Little Chef as I find the colouring pages particularly fun to do and you get a free lolly when you pay! Well maybe the kids do, but if I smile nicely I get one too.

Then there are the Supermarkets Cafes that you can find in most Tesco's, Asda's, Sainsburys and Morrisons. All have their charms and serve what you would expect from a Supermarket cafe and round here all of them are staffed with helpful staff members who will carry my tray to my table if I have Baby Boy and Top Ender on my own and the ladies in Tesco even came and cleared up for me when Baby Boy was a few weeks old and I was sat in the corner breastfeeding whilst Top Ender ate her sandwich!

So if you are ever in one of my local haunts pretend you don't know me, you will be safer that way!

Top Ender Giggles - They don't like it up 'em!

"Mummy? I don't want to go down anymore cold isles" said Top Ender
"Okay Top Ender" I said
"Or freezer isles" said Top Ender
"Okay" I agreed
There was a pause and you could see Top Ender thinking things over
"Mummy?!" said Top Ender
"Yes?" I answered
"I don't want to go up them either!" she smirked

This led us both into fits of laughter and a dirty look from the woman on the deli counter! I guess that she 'Don't like it up 'em!'

A is for Asda, M is for Morrisons and T is for a thick assistant!

Today we went for a walk round one of the local supermarkets. We tend to do this every few weeks just to get out of the house and to spend time together doing silly things. I always try to turn at least part of it into a learning experience, it might be reading, counting or learning about different types of vegetables or fruit or fish.


Today we needed to purchase some quick microwave rice for Daddy. I asked Top Ender to look for rice that started with a "P" as he likes pilau rice. Top Ender started scanning the various packages muttering "P, P, P" when an assistant stocking the shelf next to us asked if I needed help.

"Thank you, but we are okay I am teaching my daughter to read and so she is looking for the item we require to improve her reading skills."
"Oh, okay" said the shop assistant

Top Ender found the desired package and then asked what rice I wanted. I set her about looking for this item on the shelf in front of us.

"E, G, G" said Top Ender
"E, G, G" I repeated
"Boobs!" shouted Baby Boy
"Do you require help finding an item?" said the assistant who was still stocking the shelf.

I paused for a second and looked to check that it wasn't a different assistant before replying;

"No, my daughter is still learning to read"

"Oh, right." said the shop assistant.


It isn't just me is it?