• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

cost of food bill when cooking from scratch

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
C

Carina1962

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
do most of you find your food bill expensive when buying ingredients for certain recipes? I have to watch my food budget very carefully and have to be very frugal but look at recipes and wish i could cook them but by the time i have added the cost of ingredients for one recipe, it can be quite costly - how do others get round this?
 
For sure Carina I really notice it and sometimes think what the heck, but i do tend to buy a bulk lot of stuff which does help me, i guess the good tasting healthy foods do cost that little bit more the benifits are worth any cost x
 
we buy meat and veg fresh every day.. but for example.. the leftover tomato sauce made to go with last nights meatballs was reused as the base for the curry we had tonight ...last nights meatballs was made from the leftover roastpork from night before and a small tray of beef mince ...the night before we had pea and ham soup made from the leftover boiling bacon from night before that ....
 
thanks Steffie, i know if i scan through a cookery book and pick out say two or three recipes then i make a list of what i need to buy and it can be a very long list which i suppose you have to spend more the first time but then you can re-cook the same recipes a few times but i don't think i can afford to cook something different every evening at the moment (it's only cos my partner is studying to be an electrian and he has a part-time job but i am the breadwinner and carry most of the can in paying the outgoings). I will prob make some soup at the weekend and freeze it so that it will last me all next week for lunch at work but evening meals will have to be on a budget :(
 
When we were first married we absolutely loved Nigel Slayer's 30 Minute Cook. Loads of great, speedy, tasty ideas of ways to cook and eat things, and all very simple. Lots of do it like this, or that, or that... So you never felt that you had to buy 200 different precise ingredients to do each thing.
 
carina62 said:
do most of you find your food bill expensive when buying ingredients for certain recipes? I have to watch my food budget very carefully and have to be very frugal but look at recipes and wish i could cook them but by the time i have added the cost of ingredients for one recipe, it can be quite costly - how do others get round this?
Click to expand...

Hi Carina,
Try this application, just click and drag all ingredients you have available to the pantry box on right, just below it is an allergy option and above the box find matching recipes.

This means you can produce a meal with only what you've got (no buying expensive ingredients)

An excellent idea for the 'Frugally' minded.

http://www.recipekey.com/

Best Regards,
David
 
I look out for BOGOFs and freeze what I don't use right away. If it's veg, I prepare it and then freeze it it portions. Also, I quite often do a few recipes at a time. I'll start out with basic mince, and do the base for shepherds pie, then make a basic bolognese sauce and split it in two, half gets the italian herbs in and half has chillies and kidney beans added. I cook for eight and freeze individual portions. Left overs often get made into soup.

After so many years I have a large store of recipes I use regularly and simply slip in a few dried herbs and spices as and when I have a bit spare. And, now I'm home I have a herb garden and window boxes, plus we grow our own tomatoes. Before I came home, I used to buy a bunch of fresh herbs occasionally and freeze them, when you want to use them you just give them a thump before they defrost and 'hey presto' instant chopped herbs.

I must admit though, if I'm trying a new recipe I do tend to go mad and buy everything fresh, at least the first time. 😱
 
I can't say I do, really. As long as you keep the basics in, I find i's no more expensive to cook from scratch. For instance, I go every so often to my butcher on the market, and but 1kg's worth of mince. I cook it up as a base sauce, and turn some into bolognese, some into chilli, etc, and freeze it. Makes 10-12 meals, and it costs me about ?5.00 🙂
 
We cook practically everything from scratch. Much cheaper to feed a family. Like many others have said, if you find a recipe with ingredients in common, buy a big enough quantity at the outset. 3kg flour is better value than 1kg, 2kg mince, also. And if you use predominatly seasonal fruit and vegies, they are cheaper. Freeze, dry, chutney or jelly during the gluts. It takes a little organisation, but it can be fun to do!
Also, Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall suggests that a whole chicken can be used for three meals. Firstly as a roast, secondly in a risotto (or whatever you want shredded chicken in) and thirdly for soup or stock. Just shred the bits left on the bird after the initial roast meal, and with the bones make the stock.
But then again, I love to cook and bake.... and I have 2 T1 sons and a daughter to feed.......maybe I should offer to be your personal cook? 😉
 
hi ,
just to say what i used to do back in my size 8 days and what i have just started doing again. basically i have a good stock of store cupboard items, pulses, beans, tinned toms, chopped toms, tom juice, herbs, salt, pepper, a few spices. this time of year is quite good to pick up a cheap spice/herb/seasoning gift set that was intended for the christmas market but hasn't been sold so is now heavily reduced.
freezer stock ; frozen veggies, especially peas and soy beans.
and then basically what i do is go to aldi each week and buy what they have on offer of super six because it is usually only 39p per item. then i basically take these ingredients and create a crazy mixed kind of meal out of them. e.g. today was curry made from tinned chickpeas, tinned toms, squirt tomato puree, and some carrots, onions that were on super six, along with a few frozen peas and some naan breads.
i should probably point out that i am a vegetarian and i think that buying pulses and nuts etc can work out a lot cheaper than meat. maybe you could try subbing in pulses or stuff a few meals a week if you like them and fancy it?
anyway, sorry if that was totally useless to you
and in all fairness you do end up with some crazy mixes, but its all good stuff so i dont mind doing it tbh ,
love and luck lucy xx
 
i find pulses etc have too many carbs for me. But our diet, meat and the a huge portion of salad and veg (all organic) is horrendously expensive, about ?2-300 per week. I think I'll try that recipe thing, sounds good, as long as it doesn't mean you have to cook everything, as raw is much better and healthier...
 
Hi I have been on a budget for quite a while now. One dinner I love to make and is not expensive is sausage casserole. I put chopped onion, tin of baked beans, tin of tomatoes, maybe peppers/mushrooms, or carrotts,green beans, any veg you like. It's lovely with mashed potato, or next night as a filling with a jacket potato, you could also add dumplings. It's lovely and yummy over the winter months. Enjoy!
 
dear liz, if you mean my recipe thing then no of course it doesnt have to be cooked, you can have all the veggies raw in salad or to do whatever u want with them 🙂 they arent organic from aldi but im a student on a tight budget and in all honesty i prefer to spend most of my wages on premium cosmetics and clothes than food hehehehehehehe 🙂
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top