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 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 23, 2024 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 1, Meal Plan 4
Pea soup, a lovely quick and simple soup made using frozen green peas and not a lot else. Very quick to make, about 15 minutes start to finish. Enjoy with a slice of lovely bread and butter, a vegetable muffin, cheese scone, cheese on toast or anything else you fancy,...
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 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 | 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 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 | 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 30, 2021 | All Recipes, Lunches
This post was originally written in October 2014 and refreshed and updated in October 2021. A delicious way of using up carved Halloween pumpkin insides – a gently spiced, coconut pumpkin soup. I am a little confused today. I went to a WI garden group meeting...
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 | Feb 22, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
I recently made a really good lentil ragu. The flavour was strong enough that I thought it may well make a good lasagna. This is the result and it was very good indeed! It will freeze well, so is something you can batch make. Lentil Ragu Lasagna The prolonged cooking...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 20, 2019 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Lunches
I haven’t made this for the longest time. It’s a recipe from my notebook that I got from Weezl, she of Cheap Family Recipes fame. I made it again this week and am enjoying it on a slice of my home made granary bread, toasted, for breakfast. Do give it a go, super...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 7, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners, Valentines Day Ideas
Vegan Valentine Meal I’ve been thinking about a celebration meal for this years Valentines Day and decided to do a vegan one this year. Two courses are from the archives, one, the starter, is a new, although very simple, invention. So we have a black olive and tomato...
