Tag: budgetfriendly

Posted in recipe

Dinner for 1.14

Posted on by thriftytastebuds

Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been so long, I had to stop blogging when I became a teacher but I’ve now left my job. It’s a long story.

I wanted to jump on today and tell you about a quick and easy dinner that’s budget-friendly and healthy at less than 500 calories. The meal in question is stuffed tomatoes, if you don’t like tomatoes or don’t have any beef tomatoes at home you can have stuffed peppers instead. It’s really simple to make. (price and calories is based on shopping at aldi)

What you need:

Beef tomatoes – 1 per person (or peppers)

Savory rice- 1 packet serves 2

  • (I used Everyday Essentials Golden Vegetable Savoury Rice 120g)

Couscous- 1 packet of instant couscous serves 4 –

  • (I used Make In Minutes Cous Cous – Sundried Tomato 100g)

Cheese- no more than 40g

Method:

Make up your couscous according to packet instructions.

Cut the top off your tomato or pepper and take out the inside. Add the couscous to the tomato or pepper and bake with the top on for 10 minutes.

At the same time boil your rice according to the packet instructions

After the 10 minutes in the oven, take the tomato or pepper out of the oven take the top off and add cheese to the top of the couscous, put it back in the oven for 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes serve with the rice.

It’s super easy and extra delicious. Hope these ideas help, Thanks for joining me on this journey and I hope to see you soon.

Hannah x

Posted in Uncategorized

Ready for Reduced!

Posted on by thriftytastebuds

Reduced food is more available than you think especially in difficult times like this, the photos above are taken in Tesco today whilst I did my essential food shop. Supermarkets often reduce when the stock’s best before date is that same day or sometimes even the next day depending on when you go.

I would always recommend only buying what you need nothing more or less but sometimes reduced produce is freezable so its ideal to have some cheap goodies in the freezer for a later date.

Buying your bread reduced for example can last a week further than its sell by date as long as you keep it in a dark dry place away from any heat and make sure you keep a watchful eye on it. You can also freeze it in portions based on how much you would use in one day and simply defrost it the night before.

However, even though it may be reduced remember to only buy reduced as a tool and not to over shop.

Thanks for joining me on this saving journey, hope to see you again soon!

Hannah x

Posted in Uncategorized

37p per portion!

Posted on by thriftytastebuds

Hi all,

Today I’ve been a busy bee doing some cooking so that I could get a recipe to you that you can make for 37p a portion and its super easy to!

All you need is a:-

chopping board

a knife

a fork

a jug

and the ingredients.

This recipe is for a crustless quiche which takes around 40 minutes to cook but and 10 to prepare.

Ingredients:

3 Eggs, Cottage cheese and then whatever you want , I usually have ham, cheese, mushrooms, onion, peppers and tomatoes.

The Ingredients

Prepare all your ingredients, dice the onion, mushrooms, pepper and ham and chop your tomatoes in half.

  1. Whisk the eggs with a fork until its a smooth mixture, then add the cottage cheese and whisk all of that together.
  2. Add all the ingredients and mix.
  3. Transfer it to your dish.
  4. Bake on Gas mark 6/ 400 f / 200 c for 40 minutes

This is such an easy and budget friendly recipe, all the ingredients I used were bought from Aldi and it serves 4 with ease. You can even use reusable cake cases and make snacks that you can keep in the fridge to help keep you healthy in lockdown.

I usually make this at the end of the week to finish off all the little leftover ingredients and bring them back to life in something delicious. My mum used to put them in my lunch box for school near on 10 years ago.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! Hope to see you again soon ❤

Hannah x

Posted in Uncategorized

Freezer Friendly!

Posted on by thriftytastebuds

Sunday funday! As I sit here stuffed from my roast dinner I’ve started to plan my food for next week using the lists that I created yesterday. Personally our freezer is packed full of food that we have frozen to prevent it going off because of all those times we have overbought, forgot our list or worst when we couldn’t be bothered to cook.

There are so many different meals you can make from your freezer food; even if they are out of the ordinary. Take this week my partner and I have planned to have bratwursts that we bought for a BBQ but in a pasta sauce, its not something we have done before but knowing that in Germany they have them with curry ketchup we are going to make a curry tomato sauce.

My point is if you can identify traditional flavours for your frozen goods you can make something new and interesting that will tingle your tastebuds. I will post a recipe when its made, the meal itself will probably cost around 68p a portion. I will post a full recipe later this week when I’ve made it with an exact amount of how much it costs depending on where you shop.

Thanks for joining me, hope to see you again!

Hannah x

Posted in Uncategorized

Manage your Food to Manage your spend

Posted on by thriftytastebuds

It’s so important that you know what you have in your fridge, freezer and pantry so that you don’t buy more than you need. Most of the time we work off the same shopping list every week, we might alter the recipes or meals we use but the bulk of our food shop stays the same.

My Top Tip:

Make a list for your shopping based off all the meals you have planned and try not to stray off this list if possible but try to include some tasty treats that will cure your cravings when you need them.

Once you’ve done your food shop make a list of the things you have in and how much of each item so that you don’t over buy. If you can’t find the time an easy tip is to always keep your shopping list and use that as a guide; this way you can underline the items you have used so you know whats worth buying again.

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This is a key change my partner and I made, we ran the rule of you don’t use it you lose it! meaning you won’t buy it the following week. We found it to makes us healthier and spend a lot less money because of it.

Thank you for joining me on our saving journey! Hope to see you again.

Hannah x