by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 24, 2023 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
A mixed vegetable quiche is a classic British dish that comes out very cheap with a bit of frugalisation. If you think quiche or flan sounds like something your granny makes, you could always call it a tart and feel all contemporary. If you decide to use the oil...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 20, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Stretch A Chicken
Spicy Chicken Pasta Bake – Stretch A Chicken (4) Got a little bit of chicken to use up? Try it in this spicy pasta bake- make it as hot and spicy as you like! How to make Spicy Chicken Pasta Chop the onion and sauté in a little oil until soft. Add garlic,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 17, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Stretch A Chicken
Chicken & Sweetcorn Recipe for a tart – Stretch A Chicken (5) This recipe is part of a series on stretching a chicken to the max. I took one medium chicken of 1.5kg and made it feed a family of 4 for a week, with 7 different budget stretching chicken...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 17, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Stretch A Chicken
Chicken and Vegetable Risotto (no wine) – Stretch A Chicken (2) Risotti are incredibly useful to use up all kinds of bits and pieces. Or, as here, using leftover roast chicken and a couple of vegetables to make something truly delectable. How to make Italian...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 22, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 2
Vegan Couscous Salad How to make vegan couscous salad This is pretty simple and doesn’t take long. Put couscous in a bowl with oil and water. Add grated carrot. Cook some green peas (1 min in the microwave from frozen will do it) and add to the couscous If you have...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 2
Salted Cashew Vegan Couscous Salad – warm or cold First written in August 2013, refreshed and updated in November 2021. I wanted to try a couscous salad that I have been doing for a while and see if I could get it sub 50p. Well, it worked out at 71p for the dish...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 2, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 2
Cream Cheese Pizza With a little adjusting, I have made enough calories available to have an 8th day on Meal Plan 2 – which brings the cost down even further! Very pleased with that. How do I make Cream Cheese Pizza Mix the flour and yeast, salt and sugar, with...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 17, 2021 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
Peanut Oat Cakes with Roasted Onions and Green Pea Hummus 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 2, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 1, Meal Plan 10
Sweetcorn fritters, wedges & peas This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. Simple little vegan sweetcorn fritters, very quick and easy, and at 30p a serving, a very cheap meal Sweet corn appears to have originated in America, being grown...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 23, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
Cheese and Onion Tart Today’s recipe, by request, is for Onion Tart. Yet another recipe that I helped develop on the Cheap Family Recipes site. When I wrote this recipe, years ago, in 2013, CFR had disappeared and I made the savoury tart recipe using my notes....
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 14, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
Pea Tart I saw something like this pea tart recipe somewhere. I thought I knew where, but when I came to make it, I couldn’t find it, so had to start from first principles. You could just as easily call this a pea quiche as a pea tart What is in a pea tart There...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 3, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
Peanut Butter Noodles. Add chicken or fish, or keep it vegan These peanut butter noodles don’t take too long and are really yummy, we’ve had them several times now. You can really stretch out a few shreds of chicken with this. I’ve done it with noodles and...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 24, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 1
Bacon & Sweetcorn Pie This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. This recipe is one of those extremely variable ones. You can bake this as a pie, leave the top of and bake as a bacon and sweetcorn tart, or steam it as a pudding and change...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 1, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
Green Pea Hummus Lasagna I have been exploring swapping out the ragu layer of a lasagna for many other different things. The first was made using a really good lentil ragu which I thought would work well as a lasagna. It was very successful and inspired me to think of...
