what are your best bargain food buys/ cheap meals?

[di]

Venison and chips
We're really lucky and seem to have several friends that go out shooting or aren't too squeamish about retrieving roadkill...we usually trade in for some eggs.

[Two_Sheds]

We're having Free Soup for dinner: pumpkin, beans, carrots, garlic, onions, chillies & sweetcorn all from lotty.

I've just finished the Free Soup: it got more delicious every day

twosheds- please- is your homemade bread @ 35p a loaf, made in a conventional oven, or with a bread maker? and how big is it?

Breadmaker, and it's a standard breadmaker size loaf

[lindyloo]

two sheds; does the 35p include the electric?? i keep thinking i want a breadmaker, but i am worried about the running costs? and is the loaf about 7" long? sorry- probably stupid questions

[taff]

there's this, I think delivery is £5 up to 29 kilo's. There are some really good bargains, but you will have to trawl through it to find them or to find things you want to buy/can use.

http://www.foodbargains.co.uk/index.php

forgot to add the link, doh!

[stella]

Taff is this the right link as my compt can not find it?

[Two_Sheds]

two sheds; does the 35p include the electric??... i am worried about the running costs? and is the loaf about 7" long?

1) no
2) it runs on Economy 7
3) probably 9"

[Jeanied]

I like your free soup idea Two Sheds - I have just had a roasted pumpkin, onion and chilli soup with added spices - all taken with some toasted wholemeal from a sliced loaf I froze (the loaf cost 28p because it was reduced in Tezzies). I reckon I will have another 3 meals from that lot.

[Dottie]

12p soup - serves 4

Homemade chicken stock, made from 4 cooked chicken leg bones and skin. I'd cooked it for at least 12 hours, so it reduced down nicely for a thick and fuller flavour. I'd added the usual peppercorns, bay leaves etc, but had deliberately left out salt for the purpose of the soup I made today.

The lentil and bacon soup I'd bought from BigBrandsForLess was far too salty for me, the obvious solution is to add water, but then the soup loses body and the overall flavour is left wanting. So today I added:

2 tins of Lentil and Bacon soup @ 3p each
2 tins of Baked Bean @ 3p each (rinsed under the tap to remove sauce)
Homemade chicken stock

Heat gently and eat, it was absolutely lovely.

So the only bit of work required from me was to make a salt free chicken stock and then take advantage of all the flavour of the tinned soup, plus the beans went so well with the lentils.

I'll be doing an even bigger batch next time of chicken stock, as this soup is going to be a weekly event. TV chefs are always saying it's all about the stock and today I have to agree.

[taff]

Taff is this the right link as my compt can not find it?

it works for me. Try taking off the index.php.
http://www.foodbargains.co.uk/
They get new and different stock in all the time so worth looking every now and then to see whats available...

[Hilary B]

hilaryb, my son does contribute towards to costs-- i probably wouldn't have survived financially without him living here over the last couple of years. it is probably more accurate to say that he is limited in what else he eats! ( and he never complains) but all of you on here have given me some great ideas, which i am going to incorperate

There is a difference between contributing and understanding the costs. That is what I was getting at. Maybe he would be more flexible if he realised the actual price of the meat he wants. When my father retired, and started going shpping with Mum, he suddenly realised that stews and such are edible!

[Nicos]

Dottie...flipping heck

[Two_Sheds]

Homemade chicken stock, made from 4 cooked chicken leg bones and skin.

What price was the chicken? It needs to be added to the 12p cost of the tins

ps. grow your own beans and it'll be 6p soup next year

[stella]

Found the link, thanks

[lindyloo]

hilaryb; due to my knee op last week, he is doing the shopping this week- just the milk and bread and any bargains he can spot, as i had stocked up the freezers quite well proir. we will have to see what happens, but i am not holding my breathe- he is actaully quite happy to eat a bowl of rice, if he doesn't like what else is in the house--- nothing like making me feel guilty!

[Dottie]

What price was the chicken? It needs to be added to the 12p cost of the tins

ps. grow your own beans and it'll be 6p soup next year

The 4 cooked chicken legs were bought for 10p (reduced in Asda), but the actually chicken was shredded and put into a dish with roasted squash and chilli noodles for lunch. The bones would have gone in the bin, as I don't usually bother with making my own stock. But as I needed a stock without salt, homemade was the way to go.

I do grow my own beans, but to be fair the amount of beans you get in a 2 tins of baked beans (I have 60 tins), I'd need to grow a lot more and don't have the plot space. Plus by the time I've paid for the plot, bought seed and other bits, it would still work out cheaper to use the 3p tins.

Planted at least 50 broadbeans today, but I didn't get much of a crop after the cold winter last year, I'm feel harvest is a little hit and miss. I love gardening and growing my own, but I don't view produce from the lottie as free.