How to Eat Cheaply?

[mich_m]

Just found this on News24 ....

Bangers and mash with a sweet-chilli glaze: R50 for two

Ingredients
A packet of good porkers (or beef/venison if you don’t eat pork)
4 potatoes
75g butter
75ml - 100ml milk for the mash
1 T of sweet chilli sauce
1 T canola oil
½ head of broccoli
1-2 cloves of garlic (to your taste)


Method
Peel the potatoes, chop in quarters, place in a pot of cold, salted water and bring to the boil.
Place the sausages in a pan and pan-fry them in a little canola or vegetable oil.
Steam/ boil the broccoli until it is just done and remove from the water.
Mash the potatoes with 50g of the butter and milk and season to taste.
When the sausages are browning nicely and almost done, add the 2 T of sweet-chilli sauce and toss, cooking for a further few minutes. Then remove from the pan.
Crush the garlic and toss the broccoli in the remaining butter and the garlic for 3-5 mins.

Serve with: Extra chilli sauce.


Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins

Try these tasty alternatives!
1. Add 250ml of cream and 1 T wholegrain mustard at the same time as you would the sweet-chilli for a creamy mustard version.
2. Caramelise some onions for a relish over the sausages and add 1 T of mustard to your mash to add a bit of zip.

 

[xrapidx]

Grow your own stuff

 

[Tanya35]

Cook in larger batches and use the freezer. Make a big pasta sauce from good ingredients and then freeze portions. The quality will be the same every time.

 

[Howard Neill]

http://cookbook.co.za/fish-recipes/tuna-pasta-salad-with-a-hint-of-curry/

 

[Mila]

Grow your own stuff

"YAAYAYAYAYAYAYA!! I need to tackle my new veggie patch!!

 

[wrathex]

How does a family eat cheaply? Should one make a food budget? What sorts of things should one buy?

The basics:

- onions
- potatoes
- carrots
- broccoli
- tomatoes
- bananas/apples/oranges

- rice
- pasta
- noodles

- baked beans
- tinned tuna
- peas

- then your meats

- margarine
- cheese
- peanutbutter
- marmite
- jam
- flour

- eggs
- milk
- bread

 

[blunomore]

1. Try to find ways to preserve foods that you are unable to finish and would otherwise just have gone bad.

2. If you cannot - or do not want to - preserve it or eat it again, give it to someone who needs it more than you do

3. Find innovative ways and recipes to use leftovers.

 

[Picard]

2 Words: Stir fry.

Cheap cuts of meat sliced for stir fry.
Veggies. Carrots, cabbage, Mealies, broccoli, cauliflower etc. strip-diced for stir-frying. (Cheep-cheep)
Noodles/Pasta/Rice
Coconut cream R7.99 for a small can.
Soy sauce + curry powder

 

[Pooky]

Worked out this month that we spend R3.2k on just food every month. That's for my mom and me and my brother.

 

[Nanfeishen]

. I also think we should make more stews, soups and pasta, as we can make those for relatively inexpensive...
We don't eat a lot of meat though...

First thing i would suggest would be a trip to your local bargain book store for some recipe books.
I have 3 books that i swear by a Pasta , a Chicken and a Soup recipe book
Each one has 300 - 400 different recipes for their field.

A number of decent recipe books are worth it when planning meals as well as budgeting

A decent slow-cooker also a very worthwhile investment as mentioned before in the thread.
They are incredibly versatile.

If eat a fair amount of rice, buy from a Chinese supermarket, normally works out about a third to a quarter of the price for their rice than a normal supermarket, and they often stock things like soya sauce, noodles, tea, curry pastes, coconut milk, water dumplings (pop them into a pot of boiling water - eat in 10 minutes) spring rolls etc at far cheaper prices than the others.

Find a decent fishmonger, - in Cape Town we have Fish for Africa, best fresh fish prices ever.

When it comes to meat dont overlook the "stewing beef" i often find packs with a decent prime rib, or some brisket, and some short rib very nice under the grill or on the braai.

Mince wise i have found a blend of beef and ostrich that is cheaper and healthier with the ostrich at PnP and Checkers.

For a Sunday roast try a bit of Pork belly instead of a Leg, Pork fillet is also very well priced for a very nice cut of meat.

 

[ALFAHOLIC]

Eish we went through the same thing...didn't know what to buy, and ya'll know today's young girls...don't wana or can cook to save their lives...

we finaly resorted to buying food weekly... i.e R200 weekly food budget excl eat out etc.

Works out fine for us, being 2 people.

 

[phoneJunky]

If I live cheaply, I can reduce my food to about R300 a month (my part of the kitty). Meat - by half a lamb/sheep from the buchery. Not smaller than that otherwise the cost basicly doubles.

Repack all your meat into the daily portions.

Make stew (not soup - some peoples' definition differs from what I traditionally believe what stew is) about three times a week.

Break the stew with something like pasta and tuna, chicken patatoes rice and a veg etc.

Don't buy stuff like chips etc. These things usually cost more than your basic food if you go analyze what you eat.

Eggs once or twice in the week, cereal daily, add bakebeans to your smaller meal. Fruit and veg is really expensive in jhb, but someone brings fruit and veg from the cape every now and then for free. I am still trying to find a cheap veg store up here.