by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 5, 2024 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
Post originally written in January 2014, refreshed and updated October 2024. When I did a demo a while ago, I did a soup that we have often. The original recipe came from Feasts From The Place Below, Amazon currently (October 2024) selling 2nd hand copies for £2.90,...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 2, 2024 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
This is a Northern Indian cabbage recipe, packed full of vegetables, pulses and spices. Make it hot if you like things that way. Personally, I like a lot of spice and hardly any heat When I first made this, we had it with Matar Paneer (cheesey peas) and a home made...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 15, 2023 | All Meal Plans, Celebration Meal Plans, Christmas, Vegetarian Christmas Meal Plan
If you are on a tight budget, Christmas food can be very difficult, causing stress, and maybe even debt too. No need to get into debt, when with a bit of extra planning, you can enjoy a delicious vegetarian Christmas festive meal, without spending a fortune. Re-Priced...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 18, 2023 | All Recipes, Lunches
This is a very simple soup, made with just 4 ingredients, and saucepan to table in just 30 minutes. It contains a head of broccoli including all the stalk, red lentils, an onion and some seasoning. Change the broccoli to another vegetable and get a completely...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 30, 2023 | All Meal Plans, Meal Plan 8, Meal Plans For 2
The Eighth Meal Plan. As I say every time, it shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults. Change the meals around to suit yourself, combine the shopping list of ingredients in any other way that suits you, add extra...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 6, 2022 | All Recipes, Lunches, Round Up Post
Ideas for school packed lunches – many people with school aged children need them. Packing up a lunch box for children or an adult packed lunch is bad enough. It can be boring, tiresome and a real chore to do. You might be lucky and not mind it too much, but...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 21, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 12, Stretch A Chicken
This spicy carrot and lentil soup uses chicken stock made when processing a roast chicken carcass. The stock brings a great deal of flavour to the soup. If you don’t have any home made stock, use a good quality stock cube, or a vegetable one if you’d like...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners
Post first written in July 2013, refreshed and updated in November 2021. Tomatoes, red lentils and a few spices made into dhal and served with brown rice. Quick, very cheap, and easy – what’s not to like? I like the dahl just on its own, but it would go well with a...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 16, 2021 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 1, Meal Plan 2
This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. I love this soup, it is my go to for a soup for lunch. I usually add a tsp of ginger paste from a jar, a tsp of garlic paste, and a tsp of turmeric to give it a lovely spicy kick, and at 16p a serving,...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 12, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
This recipe is inspired by one I found in a recipe book first published in 1994. Amazingly, it’s still in print, and extremely cheap too! There are loads of good recipes in the book, several of which I’ve made since buying it. Spaghetti with Lentil Balls...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
This curry base recipe is a very useful one to have in your repertoire. Endlessly versatile, you can add pretty much any protein to it. Curry Base Recipe To make the curry base, start by frying off a finely chopped onion. You can use any fat to do it. Ghee is...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 28, 2020 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Christmas, Love Your Leftovers, Lunches
Part 4 of our attack on those Christmas leftovers. Chestnuts, and no stuffing Don’t know about you, but I always buy several packs of ready to eat chestnuts. I didn’t even make any stuffing this year. One of the things that I will use a packet for is this wonderfully...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 13, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Love Your Leftovers, Lunches
I went to Canterbury Christmas Market with the U3A last December. One of the things I did there was to browse in the Oxfam book shop. Lots I wanted, of course, and I bought 3, couldn’t carry any more! One of the books I bought was a very sweary one called Thug...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 25, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
First published in February 2014, rewritten and re-priced in November 2023. This is a gorgeous, easy to make curry. On the table within 20 minutes, bursting with fruity goodness and stuffed with veggies too. As is usual, there are many options, so you can use what you...
