38p sausage and egg mcMuffin!

Sausage and egg McMuffins from McDonald's sell for around £4.50 or so. We don't get them often but when we do we REALLY enjoy them! ;) Unfortunatly current budget means they are well out of bounds. But, guess what lidls half price offer was this weekend:

SAUSAGES!!! Decent 75-80% meat sausages for 79p per pack of 8! 

We filled the freezer with 12 packs ;)

This morning I woke up with a lot of pain and slobbed out on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. Hubby asked if I fancied a home-made McMuffin. They were awesome! He even cut open the sausages to make little patties out of them! And we ate them so fast I didnt have chance to take a picture, lol.

We priced it up and came up at 38p per McMuffin. Which is a ridiculous saving on the McDonalds version.

Sausage - 10p each (we used 4, 1 each, half a pack)

Egg - 10p (value ones are around 10p an egg, mine were some free range ones my mum picked up for me reduced)

Muffins - 10p (40p pack of 4 from aldi)

Cheese slice 8p? (yes the gross plastic cheese that tastes amazing! 80p pack of 10 lidl)

So around 38p each for a special breakfast! :) Still have half a pack in the fridge which I may make into a sausage and bean casserole to serve with pasta, or I might be really lavish and chop them into stuffing mix for an extra special roast dinner! This is how I afford to feed us varied food on a budget. When something is on special offer or reduced, buy as much as you can afford/store! Lidl tend to have sausages half price around every 3 month of so. 12 packs is enough for at least 1 sausage based meal per week for the next 3 months until the offer comes around again (hopefully!) Great timing too because we were down to our last pack from the last half price sausage offer, lol. Bring on the sausage recipes ;) Xx

Lamb, chickpea and apricot Curry.....

So, I got a reduction that was still expensive, but I just HAD to have it! (Never go shopping while hungry!)

450g Lamb shoulder fillet - £4.60 

*shock horror* 

It deserved to be made into an epic meal. My first thought was to stuff it, roll it and roast it. Along with the usual roast dinner trimming. Hubby had other ideas and so did google.

After researching the cut of meat, it seemed that slow cooking was the best option. Since its a very tough cut of meat. Not being in the mood for a stew/casserole, hubby requested a curry. 

Major brain fog this morning, so I just chucked in whatever spices fell out of the cupboard and hoped for the best.

This is what I used:

coconut oil - 1 tsp

2 large onions - chopped

450g lamb shoulder fillet - cubed

4 garlic cloves - grated

2" ginger - grated

4 chillis - finely chopped

cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon

Onions were fried along with ginger, garlic, chillis and cumin seeds in the coconut oil. Then added the Lamb and browned it off slightly. Chucked it all into the slow cooker along with:

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin coconut milk

1 tin chickpeas (didnt have time to soak any!)

ground cumin - 1tsp

paprika - 1tsp

fenugreek - 1tsp

madras curry powder (could use garam masala, mine didnt fall out of the cupboard) - 1tsp

ground coriander - 1tsp

2 handfuls dried apricots

This came out quite creamy and suitable for the kids. And the lamb was as tender as you could wish for.

Served mine with mango chutney and naan. Plus there were plenty of leftovers for lunches. No pics, sorry! Little boy ran off with my phone again. 

Menu plan 12-17th....

With money being so tight this month, I have made menu plans from store-cupboard ingredients. Im quite loose with breakfast and lunches, theyre often home-baking/leftovers etc. So I mainly plan dinners.

Mon - Chicken pie, roast potatoes, honey roast carrot's. 

The pastry needed using, chicken was pre-cooked and frozen from a leftover roast chicken. The potatoes were a reduced bag for 30p that needed using up, and the carrots were frozen earlier this summer when on offer at aldi.

Tues - Leftover Lamb Biriyani.

The lamb again, was pre-cooked and frozen from a lamb joint. I used a tikka paste that I bought from approved food (6 jars for £1) and served with mango chutney (again, 6 jars for £1) and half a naan each (20p pack).

Weds - Thai noodle soup with home-made bread

From a 3 kilo 99p tin of thai paste, a pack of rice noodles bulk bought (12 packs for £1) Turkey breast steaks half price Lidl weekend offer (£1.49)

Thurs - Roasted tomato and feta quiche with sweet potato wedges

Using up some of the leftover tomato's I roasted earlier in the week, and 1/3 pack of 95p feta from lidl. The eggs I got a real bargain on (thankyou mummy!) reduced at Makro, 4 dozen for £3.00. Sweet potato's were bought a few weeks ago and need using.

Fri - Bacon, roasted tomato pasta

I will be making some home-made garlic bread to go with this. 1/4 pack of £1.09 cooking bacon, the remaining oven roasted tomatoes, passata, some chopped peppers from the freezer, and pasta, topped with breadcrumbs (in freezer from leftover bread) and parmasen (reduced and grated in freezer). I will add a side of veggies for this meal too, maybe some frozen petit pois.

Sat - Pancakes for breakfast (from a mix 2kilo for 99p, just add water)

Feta  and olive cous cous (1.5 kilo tub 99p)

Dinner we are out at a family's house.

I do need to pick up a bag of potato's for next week, lemon juice, milk and a couple of other bits. I will see how cheap I can get shopping and post it :) 

Herb, garlic and lemon bread....

500g bread flour

1 sachets/2tsp yeast

4tsp olive oil

4 fine grated garlic cloves

3tbsp lemon juice

Herbs of your choice (I used mostly thyme, good pinch rosemary and a bit of basil, fresh frozen)

Combine the bread flour and yeast, add grated garlic and herbs, mix through.

Put oil and lemon juice in a jug and add lukewarm water up to 400ml.

Mix together to form a dough ball.

Tip onto floured surface and knead for 5-10mins.

Place into oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove until doubled in size.

Oil a loaf tin (2lb size)

Tip back out onto floured surface a kneed again

Place into loaf tin and leave covered to double in size again

Bake on 160 for around 40 min, until it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom

TIP- If you switch your oven on high for 1 min, then switch off. It should be warm enough for you to leave in the oven to prove and it will prove faster in a warmer environment. 

We've served this with the Thai noodle soup and it as GORGEOUS! :)

Thai noodle soup.....

I havent ordered from approved food for a while now, I haven't had the spare cash to put an order in and there hasn't been anything I want. But last year was different. I put in many orders, and one of the things I ordered was this:

Not the coconut oil! That was very expensive but has lasted me a very long time ;)

On the right, is a 3 kilo tin of thai green curry paste. It takes 3 tablespoons to make an entire meal. 

Thats a LOT of thai green curry!!!!

And it cost a whole 99p!

I have 3 tubs in the freezer and a tub in the fridge for further meals.

Today, instead of making a thai green curry with rice, I decided to make soup!

If you think it looks like a green swamp, you right! But its a tasty green swamp full of coconutty goodness!

I used:

3 tbsp thai green curry paste

Handful spring onions (mine were frozen)

Handful green beans (again, frozen)

3 turkey breast steaks (half price lidl offer)

1 1/2 pints coconut milk (I had some creamed coconut to use up to used that made up with water)

1 Onion (fried)

2 Yellow peppers

1 chicken stock cube

2 packets rice noodles

This is just what I had in my fridge/freezer. If I had courgette and carrot and mange-tout I wouldv'e happily added them. Baby sweetcorn is good too :)

Its very simple, just fry onion in some oil (I used coconut), add pepers, add coconut milk and 3 tbsp paste. I added turkey at this point rather then frying it.

Add all your veg, chicken stock cube, add noodles 10 min before serving.

Im serving this with home-made herb, garlic and lemon bread. 

When the going gets tough, the tough gets baking!

After £300 of unexpected bills this month and another £200 needed for car tax next month, were a little short of cash right now. Im living out of my very well stocked store cupboard and freezer, keeping shopping costs to a minimum to pay off an overdraft by next month. 

Well, my motto is 'When the going gets tough, the tough gets baking!' 

Its always worth keeping a supply of baking ingredients in the house. You can knock up so many snacks, sweet and savoury and puddings to keep your morale up when things are tight and meals get rather repetitive.

The recipe for these arent quite right yet, theyre chocolate avocado muffins ;) Even so, with a 6p pack of custard poured over the top the kids scoff them up for pudding.

I had some cherry tomatoes on the vine that needed using up:

Roasted them in olive oil in the oven for about half an hours and used 1/3 of them to make:

Roasted tomato and cheese scones! :) The recipe for the bread on the right will come later.

So for the scones, im short on butter and wanted to use oil instead. So this is the recipe i ended up with:

2 cups self-raising flour

3tsp baking powder

large pinch salt

sprinkle of cayenne pepper/chilli powder (optional)

1 1/2 cups strong cheddar cheese

3 tsp vegetable oil

125 ml milk (maybe a bit more depending on how it mixes)

1 egg

1/2 cup roasted tomatoes chopped

Combine all the dry ingredients, mix in the cheese and tomatoes.

In a measuring jug, whisk the milk, egg and oil.

Mix into the dry ingredients with a fork and form a ball of dough.

Tip out onto a floured work surface and kneed a little to combine

Either shape into patties as I did or roll out and use a cutter.

Brush with milk or egg.

Bake for 15-20mins on 180 degrees.

YUMMY!!!!

The roasted tomatoes add a sweet flavour. Perfect snack for my little minions who are currently eating me out of house and home!!

I will be posting our weekly menu next. All meals have been made from ingredients at home, I havent been shopping this week and shall get the bare minimum for next week.

'Sausage and bacon' casserole...

Which only contains 4 sausages! Thats 1 each and I think its going to last us 2 family meals too. 

What I stuck in mine:

4 Sausages - Chopped

1 carrot - Grated

1 Onion - Chopped

3 cloves of garlic - Grated

Handful chopped peppers - From freezer

Handful of chickpeas - pre soaked

Hanful of cannelini beans - Pre soaked

3 pinches of Basil - from freezer

pinch dried mixed herbs

3 tins tomatoes

Splash of Balsamic vinegar

Splash of Lee and Perrins

Decent amount of fresh cracked black pepper

Handful of cooking bacon - chopped from freezer 

You can add most things to this ;) Ive previously added celery, chilli's, sweetcorn, courgette etc.

All I did, was chuck it all in the slow cooker! Usually I would've pre-fried the sausages and onion but today I was short of time. And I have a feeling my little girl will be falling asleep on me later (she didn't have a very good nights sleep!) So this will all be cooking itself while I'm busy with kids.

Will be mixing this with pasta, topping with cheese and serving with garlic bread.