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Buy a decent large free range chicken, eat the breasts with something, eat the legs and thighs with else something, pick the bones and use in a sarnie for lunch,or use in a rissotto, then finally boil the carcuss up in the pressure cooker for stock!!!!

Brown rice, cheese and onion. Gently sweat onions (cut in rings is best-don't know why, it just is) in olive oil/butter for ages. Don't let the onions brown they need to be melty, red ones look pretty. A bit of naughty sugar makes them extra good. Add cooked brown rice and mix in cheese, any bits of cheese will do but for preference I love Emmental! Too expensive for me these days sadly! Season with salt, black pepper. When the cheese has melted its ready. Eat with green salad or steamed spring greens - anything green! Yummy.x

Andy, after the carcuss has been boiled up, if there are any tiddly little bits of chicken left over.......chicken, noodles and sweetcorn soup!

Whizz up a can of ordinary sweetcorn so it is smoothish. Crush up some dried noodles and hydrate in water or some of your lovely stock. Add the chicken and sweetcorn using as much stock or water to turn it into soup. Season to taste. Proper cup-a-soup! Homemade soup in a mug is a useful, warming, cheap snack any time - forget the spoon and bowl!

Titzi von Claptrapp....What an excellent idea!!!

Also do as a duo of creamy & devilled chicken and rice - another real duvet food

Make your own polenta with some cornmeal. Some indian / ethnic stores sell a huge bag of it for less than a pound that will make several batches.

Make a tomato sauce by sweating an onion (as low as 5p) , throwing in a cheap tin of tomatoes (30p), a few cloves of garlic (5p) and some salt and pepper.

Slice the hard set polenta, fry it up, pour the hot sauce on, and if you've got any money left, melt some cheese over the lot. Beautiful.

All great ideas. Titzi - that is a great cup-a-soup idea, especially to save on buying lunches if you've got a microwave in the workplace. I also like to have frozen sweetcorn on hand for my storecupboard suppers. Ottolenghi dry-fries it till blackened in spots -adds a smoky flavour that would also be great in your soup.

Dorfl - love devilled meats. Leftover meat (esp. low-fat things like chicken) can get that particular re-heated flavour that the devilling more than overcomes. Such a treat.

Gorbstein -forgot about polenta! Also makes great cornbread for chilli, and lasts the week.

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Whenever I boil a ham (even a small piece of ham) I always add an onion and carrot (and celery if I have some), peppercorns and a bay leaf or two. The resulting stock is used with dried split peas (soaked overnight and boiled for 30 minutes) to make soup. Easily 6 servings - and it freezes well.

My neighbour has just dropped of 6 pheasant and 2 geese as he has been out shooting. Got them hanging at the moment. When they are ready I will buy a chicken and make myself a 3 bird roast, plus casseroles, soup etc. With some seasonal veg from the local farm ( I fix his computer and he gives me veg) it is a good way to keep the budget down.

It's not always necessary to soak beans/pulses overnight. If you forget to do this the night before, you can get away with bringing them to the boil, remove from the heat, and then leave to sit for about an hour. The only things this doesn't work so well with are the larger chickpeas, which need longer. Using a pressure cooker also cuts time for cooking (soaked) pulses. And always add salt/pepper AFTER the pulses are cooked, since it seems to harden them if you add it at the beginning. I hope that this helps...

I find the good old Slow Cooker is perfect for preparing cheap meals. The cheapest cuts of meat plus a bag of stew veg (£1.50 in most supermarkets) and some seasoning happily and healthily feeds 6-8 people for £8 or less.
Other favourite money savers- take any almost stale bread and lay it on bottom of roasting dish when doing a joint of meat so it soaks up all juices, then turn it into croutons and freeze, perfect to add flavour and texture to soups/salads. The most important tip is to ALWAYS plan your weekly menu BEFORE you go shopping!!!!

Cheap Eats - not posh but very tasty: Ham Sandwich Perdue. Make one tasty ham sandwich (I use the wafer thin sort for this and thinly sliced soft bread), add mustard and/or mayo if you like, cut in half. Beat up one egg and dip sandwich in it until coated all over then shallow fry, turning until golden. This works well with your uneaten lunch sandwich if it's now late afternoon and you still haven't sat down to eat.

Vegetarian Lasagne is a good option I find and I can make enough for two or even three nights dinner. Just fry off some vegetables in a big pot with a little olive oil (I tend to just use left over root veg like diced carrots, parsnip, squash, celery, garlic, etc). Add dry store cupboard herbs (oregano, sage and thyme being the stable for italian cooking) a tin of chopped tomatoes, water and lentils (the substitute for mince). Leave to bubble away for a 10-15 mins or so, and in the mean time make a bechamel with butter, flour and milk. When both sauces are ready, layer it up and grate cheese over the top. Back in the oven for 30-40 mins.

It sounds like quite a bit of effort but most of it is just chucking things in the pot. Then when it's done you have dinner sorted for 2-3 days and it is very cheap (a tin of chopped tomatoes is probably the most expensive part, the rest is just whatever you have in the store cupboard)

Enjoy!

@Verdetwist That sounds lush. Like a Eggy Croque Monsieur. Almost looking forward to forgetting my work sandwich one of these days.

@david I thought I was doing well of the neighbour's eggs, but game to your door? Awesome. (Though a three bird roast does not say 'austerity' to me...!)

@ashisamazin Nom!

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