Inexpensive Meals
Budget Meals For The Family 

Inexpensive meals need not be boring meals. In fact I think every meal I have ever made for my frugal family has been what some would call budget meals i.e. meals which are not only cheap to make but are tasty and full of nutritional goodness.

Leading a frugal living lifestyle can be a challenge at first but really it is very simple. The basic rules are:

• Keep it simple,
• Shop around
• Waste as little as possible
• Reuse and recycle

and most importantly

• Be inventive and imaginative.

This last rule applies particularly when it comes to inexpensive meals. It can be so easy to fall in to the trap of preparing the same old meals week in and week out. But with a little imagination you can become a culinary whizz in the kitchen and save money at the same time.

Here are a few of my ideas for inexpensive meals which you may like to try for yourselves. Of course these being frugal budget meals, you can use whatever ingredients you have if you don’t have the ones mentioned in the recipes.

This And That Pizza

Ingredients

picture by wEnDaLicious

Pizza base – these are cheap to buy or if you prefer you can make your own pizza base using a bread mix

Tin of tomatoes – or if you have over ripe tomatoes left, peel off the skin and mash up.

Garlic – to taste, I use 2 cloves

Dried mixed herbs – or fresh if you grow them

1 onion chopped small

Cheese – whatever you have, especially good to use up any cheese that has gone a little hard.

Toppings – this is whatever you have left in your fridge, sweet corn, left over bits of meat or ham, veggies left from Sunday roast (chopped up small) anything goes, if you like it put it on.

Recipe

Place the tomatoes onto a pan with a little oil, add herbs, garlic and onion and cook together until it makes a thick sauce

Spread sauce over pizza base and sprinkle your choice of toppings on top followed by the cheese.

Now bake in the oven until golden brown and bubbling. I like to make two at the same time and put one in the fridge for lunch the next day.

Soups

picture by avlxyz flickr.com

Soups are one of the easiest and cheapest meals you can make for your family and they are great for using leftover food too. I won’t give you a recipe here as they can be found elsewhere but as a guide my favourite is:

Stork or broccoli
1 onion
1 clove garlic
2 carrots
Stock cube
Sprinkle of paprika
1 pint of water

Chop up, place everything in pan together and simmer for about 25 minutes then whizz up in a blender.

Sunday Roast Cakes

picture by trekkyandy flikr.com

I was given this recipe a few years back and ever since my Monday dinners have never been the same.

Ingredients

Left over roast potatoes
Leftover cooked vegetables from Sunday roast chopped small– anything you have will do
2 eggs
Breadcrumbs made from stale bread

Recipe

Break up the potatoes a little and then add one egg and the chopped vegetables and mix together.

Beat the second egg in a separate bowl

Place breadcrumbs onto a plate

Take a spoonful of the potato mixture and make into a round ball then flatten them with your hand.

Dip into beaten egg and cover with breadcrumbs

Fry cakes in a little olive oil until golden brown

Serve with a crisp salad

Find more frugal recipes here, you can even add your own.