Friday Food for a Fiver (or Less)

I thought that I would share a recipe on a Friday with you, yes I know it has been done before for a £5 or less , but for a family of 5 that works out to £1 p/head and more often than not in our house when you have padded the recipe out it actually feeds us for the meal and enough to either freeze or for leftovers for the following day.

One Moan though to get it out the way, it annoys me so much (dont know about you ) but when you do get a great recipe and it promises to feed a family for £5 then,

1, It is for a family of 4
2, They are more often than not smaller portions which for a postman who is walking 7-8 miles a day in alsorts of weather needs more than sparrow portions

And 3. which for me is my biggest bug-bear

3, Yes it is £5 but that accounts for cost per amount of ingredient (ie 4oz of cheese etc) and doesnt take into account that you have to buy the WHOLE packet just to get the 1/2 oz that you need - which doesnt help one iota when you are trying to budget for family meals

So I promise you that any recipe that I use it is £5 to buy all the ingredients which means that if you have to buy a packet of onions for 89p for example and only use one the 89p is accounted for, which means that you have the rest of the packet for other meals throughout the week without any additional cost

So....

Todays recipe is

BOSTON BEAN BAKE

1 onion 78 (Asda smartprice 2kg)
200g ham cubed 1.24 (Asda premuim lean ham 200g)
1 can tomatoes 35 (Asda smart price )
1 can baked beans 40 (Asda own - not smart price)
125g mushrooms 77 (Asda Smartprice 400g)
1 x 15ml spoon pickle 25 (Asda smartproce pickle - Jar)
1.5 x 5ml spoon cornfour 75 (Asda)

Total £4.54 (all prices as of asda website 8.1.10)

Saute onion and ham in a pan for 2-3min, add tomatoes,baked beans, mushrooms and pickle stir well and simmer for 15-20min

thicken with blended cornflour if needed


you even have enough left over for some lovely fresh crusty bread for the ultimate comfort food !

obviously this is my recipe, please use, and adapt to your own tastes, you will probably find that you tweek it to suit your own family and dont forget the list of ingredients are for whole packets of food so the if you like it the only think you will only need another tin of ham and you already have the stuff left over for another go so that would be another meal for £1.24 - the cost of another can of ham or another idea if you can afford it buy 2 tins at the same time and then make double the amount and freeze, its no extra work because its all in one pan !

Hope you enjoy x x