I am very sad that the site I first got involved in with helping to write cheap family recipes is no more. If you like the recipes on cheap-family-recipes.org.uk, hop on over to here and print any off that you like. I don’t know how much longer it will be there
Meanwhile, here is one of my favourite recipes from there, smoked salmon pasta. I shall post other recipes that I particularly like from there, before they all disappear
I have changed it a little, as the original recipe uses cream left over from something else, and I have updated the prices to current ones
Serves 2
200g spaghetti, value/20p/500g, 8p
clove garlic crushed or finely chopped, 5p
half a 120g pack smoked salmon trimmings, snipped into tiny pieces with your kitchen scissors, Asda £1.20/125g, 60p
20g self-raising flour, value 45p/1.5kg, 0.5p
35ml milk, £1/2.27litre, 2p
25ml oil, £1.25/litre, 3p
125ml approx. water
80g onion, very finely chopped salt and ground black pepper to taste, 5p
total of 84p
Cook spaghetti as per packet instructions, drain and cover. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan or wok (which will take all your cooked pasta plus a sauce) warm the oil, saute the onion, until it is just softened, not browned, and add the flour, stirring to make a thick paste.
Whilst constantly stirring, gradually add the milk and water until you have a thick creamy sauce. Add garlic and seasoning and finally the salmon.
Cook gently for one minute, to flavour the sauce but not overcook the fish.
Tip all of the cooked pasta into your frying pan stirring with a wooden spoon to coat each piece of spaghetti with sauce.
Finally tip the dressed pasta into a large serving bowl and garnish with salt (not too much is needed as the salmon is salted) and ground black pepper.
Serve with homemade bread to mop up the sauce.
If you have any, substitute cream for the milk for an extra creamy dish. I like this with a crispy salad
It’s delicious isn’t it. The packs of smoked salmon have gone up quite a bit, but it’s still a very cheap meal.
I have just made the smoked salmon pasta & it was really nice. I also added some peas & broccoli to make it go further & add some more of our 5 a day 🙂
Hello Caroline, welcome aboard. Not trolling at all.
The CFR site is going because the person who wrote it has decided not to pay the hosting fees anymore. Which is an awful shame as I know a lot of people used it.
Well done on your weight loss, that’s pretty impressive, yay you indeed!
I try to make the recipes as healthy as I can get them. My definition of this is that the meal plans all follow the Govt. recommendations for fruit and veg portions, protein, fat and carb percentages. Several of the meal plans have quite a few more fruit and veg portions than five a day. Cheap meals certainly don’t have to be unhealthy. They can be of course, and the very cheap ready meals tend to be so. Spending a lot doesn’t guarantee healthiness either.
When I did the recent £5 for 5 days challenge, it felt like I was eating far too much white flour, but having crunched it through my nutrition spreadsheet, it was actually pretty healthy.
As for ethical and good for the environment. Where I use meat, it isn’t going to be happy meat I’m afraid, so if you want to use organic or something, that would be extra for that ingredient.
Because of the cost of meat and dairy, there isn’t much used. Many of the recipes are vegetarian and many people would argue that being vegetarian is better for the environment. There are few rights and wrongs and the whole area of ethics and environment is complex and full of shades of grey. We all have to decide what we are prepared to do and what we are happy with. Not very definitive, sorry!
I’m new to your blog, which I’m loving by the way. I’d never heard of that site, why is it going, do you know?
Also, I’d love to do what you do on here, I am following Slimming World and I’m still quite a bit overweight, I’ve already lost 2 1/2 stone (yay me) as I haven’t looked 100% into your blog, found it yesterday and this is the first time I’ve managed to look at it properly, I worry about ‘cheap’ food being unhealthy. My whole mind is messed up with ethical, healthy, whats good for the environment and I want to try and ease my conscience, would your recipes cover all of theses bases.
This I hope doesn’t come across as a trolling comment, just asking the questions.
Cxx
I am hoping to capture all the recipes that are available in a Word doc or something. I would like to capture the meal plans too, but not sure if I can. I’ll let you know how I get on
I will be really sad to see that site go, I’ve used it a lot.