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 | Apr 28, 2023 | All Meal Plans, Meal Plan 10, Meal Plans For 2
Updated and repriced in June 2024 The Tenth Meal Plan – we’re in double figures! The usual caveats apply, 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 27, 2023 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
I bought a 200g packet of smoked mackerel fillets and wondered how I could stretch them into lovely meals for 2. The first one I tried was this recipe for mackerel pâté that is super simple and very delicious. What do I need to make mackerel pâté smoked mackerel...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 2, 2022 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories
I made a sponge cake this morning using pureed orange and lemon carcasses that I keep in the freezer. Love your leftovers! When I’ve zested and juiced a lemon, or eaten an orange, I stash the peel in the freezer. When I want some, I simmer it in water until...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 30, 2021 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 10, Meal Plan 2
First written in August 2013, refreshed and updated December 2021 For quite a few years now, once a month, I have coffee with a friend in The Baytree, one of the independent little coffee shops in Heathfield. We were talking about food, as we often do, and one of us...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 29, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2
Post first written in September 2013. Refreshed and updated November 2021. This recipe makes a generous portion of pasta, dressed with olives, tomato puree and soft cheese. Very quick to make, just taking as long as the pasta does to cook through. How To Make This...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 20, 2021 | Breakfast, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Sides
I went to a Cookalong recently where we all took a different soup. I tasted 10 soups that day, which was fabulous! All of them very different. One of the members also brought Mary Berry’s Wonderful Soufflé Croûtons, which truly were rather wonderful. I...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 2, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 2
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 enough water to...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 14, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
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 | Dec 7, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
I had the U3A cookery group round recently and we like to make canapes at the December meeting. Amongst other things, we made these Red Pepper, Goats Cheese and Walnut Palmiers, and they were delicious, although they could have done with a little more goats cheese...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 21, 2017 | Puddings / Desserts
It was the U3A AGM yesterday. We offer tea and biscuits usually, but because it was the AGM we upgraded to cakes. I decided to take some cheesecakes in ramekins. I did a strawberry topped one and this salted caramel using a recipe I’ve used before. The strawberry ones...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 21, 2015 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Dinners, Lunches, Meal Plan 10
During the long recesses of last night, I was thinking about the sandwich fillers we have been exploring lately. We have done a chicken and sun dried tomato one, a lovely, deep flavoured beefy one, and a creamy cheesy one. What we haven’t done is a fishy one. You can...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 19, 2014 | Breakfast, Lunches
The simplest of simple breakfasts this morning. I got some yellow stickered smoked mackerel this week. So this morning I toasted a slice of granary bread, slathered on some soft cheese and flaked half a mackerel fillet on top. Simples! Slice toast, a 22 slice 75p...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 1, 2014 | All Meal Plans, Dinners, Meal Plan 7
I based this on a recipe I devised whilst doing the LBLUK challenge earlier this year. The picture comes from then, and I apologise for the blocky image it is! 50g soft cheese, Asda Smart Price (SP) 200g/88p, 22p 50g bacon, Asda SP 500g/75p, 8p 200g onion, Asda SP...
