by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 21, 2026 | Dinners, Less than 500 calories
A tasty vegetable packed bake with a tomatoey base and crispy sliced potatoes on top. Delicious! Made using inexpensive seasonal vegetables from the supermarket. What do I need to make vegetable bake? The base in this dish is from the vegetable crumble, elsewhere on...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 27, 2025 | All Meal Plans, Meal Plan 7, Meal Plans For 2
Repriced at the end of April 2024. You will need £27.29 at the checkout, with £21.43 worth of food used during the week, or £1.46 pppd This is our Seventh Meal Plan. As for all the others, it shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 25, 2025 | All Meal Plans, Meal Plan 3, Meal Plans For 2
Meal Plan 3 And here we have our Third Meal Plan. Based around chorizo/salami, chick peas and, of all things, dried mashed potato. Bear with me here, this idea is from Miss South on NorthSouthFood.com. Miss South is quite a potato connoisseur, so if she likes them,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 24, 2025 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 7
This recipe uses a one third portion of an easy beef ragu made for use in Meal Plan 7. The picture shows my portion, which is a quarter of the finished dish, not a half, so this dish could feed 4, and not the 2 originally thought. What do I need to make beef ragu...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 24, 2025 | All Meal Plans, Dinners, Meal Plan 7
In meal plan 7 we have a cottage pie, a lasagna and spaghetti bolognese. All three recipes use the same easy ragu as a base. What do I need to make Beef Ragu – used 3 ways 500g beef mince. The 20% fat beef mince is usually cheapest, but 20% of it is fat –...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 18, 2024 | 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 | Nov 9, 2024 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories
I tried these several years ago as my brother is coeliac and these, if you use the gram flour option, are gluten free. They are easy to make, freeze well and taste delicious. This recipe serves 4 adults. Great for kids as it’s easy to portion, they can just have...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 5, 2024 | 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 it’s...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 3, 2024 | All Recipes, Dinners
This is recipe I made when looking to use the vegetables in the vegetable box one week. I had a couple of aubergines and a huge lovely firm winter squash and used one aubergine and a wedge of pumpkin. This recipe, for 2-3, uses an aubergine / eggplant and a wedge of...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 30, 2024 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories
I recently made a really good lentil ragu which I thought would work well as a lasagna. It did and it was very good indeed. This led me to think of other vegetable based mixes that I could substitute for the lentil ragu layer. I’ve come up with a long list of...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 28, 2024 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 1
This recipe came about when I was challenged to create an 8th day on Meal Plan 1 using remaining groceries. It was indeed quite a challenge trying to come up with a days eating from this and that. I’m really quite pleased with these! What do I need to make vegan...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 12, 2024 | All Meal Plans, Meal Plan 14, Meal Plans For 4
The Fourteenth Meal Plan – wow, that’s three and a half months worth! Plus all the celebration and 5 day ones! This one, as per usual shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults, and this time, two 15 year old...
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 | Oct 4, 2024 | All Recipes, Dinners
I recently made a really good lentil ragu which I thought would work well as a lasagna. It did and it was very good indeed. This led me to think of other vegetable based mixes that I could substitute for the lentil ragu layer. The first one is a mushroom ragu,...
