4 Cause Meal Budget Recipe Booklet

4 cause meal

Budget Recipes & Helpful Hints

Hi there! Thanks for picking up our budget recipe & helpful hint book.

Everyone loves to eat, but not everyone loves to cook. Sometimes cooking can be time consuming and a little tricky, but quite often it can be simple and great fun.

The aim of our booklet is to provide you with some useful tips and hints on how to save money on your food shopping and on top of that we’ve included a few recipes of our own which we’ve tried and tested that we think you’ll like too!

Good luck, happy cooking, and happy saving, Chelsea, Ceri-Ann, Nazea, Casie, and Hannah

Love your freezer!

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f you have access to a fridge freezer USE IT! Frozen food has a far greater shelf life than food left in the fridge. Defrosting isn’t as hard as you think, but make sure if you do defrost your frozen food thoroughly before reheating right through.

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hy not cook your food in bulk? Cook a large amount, split into portions and pop into your freezer. Defrost when you next fancy that same dish!

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or variety, cook one or two dishes to freeze.

That way you won’t be eating the same thing day after day.

Always plan ahead..

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LAN PLAN PLAN! A simple shopping plan will help you get in and out of the supermarket without spending money on unnecessary items.

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shopping list is essential. If you don’t have pen and paper to hand there are plenty of phone apps out there to help too. Search ‘shopping list’ on your phones app store.

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et to know the shop floor of your local supermarket. That way you can avoid those oh so tempting aisles!

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meal plan can also help. Why not try planning your meals for the next 7 days?

Buy in bulk!

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ut doesn’t buying in bulk mean spending MORE money!? Although this is true, you will soon reap the benefits of bulk buying.

Yes, the short-term cost is high, but eventually you’ll be saving much more per meal. E.g. A 3kg bag of pasta costs* £2.87. If you were to buy the same quantity in smaller 500g bags at £1 each, it would cost you a whopping £6!

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hink about staple foods, pasta, rice, tinned fruit/veg e.g. tomatoes. These items are readily available to buy in bulk and have a good shelf life so won’t be going off in a hurry.

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nce you’ve bought your ingredients, why not give our budget recipes a try?

*Based on ASDA, March 2014

recipe 1 pic Beef Stirfry An easy dish, with some oriental flavours... Yum! (Recipe by Teresa)

Ingredients

Makes around 2-3 servings

1 Teaspoon of oil (Sesame or Sunflower) 250g Shredded beef 250g Egg Noodles A handful of Bean Sprouts Half a lime (Wrap the other half and keep in fridge for

Chinese Sauce (Readily available in supermarkets or oriental stores)

1 Red pepper Parsley to garnish Soy Sauce

another dish)

How to make 1. Heat oil over high heat, and then pop the shredded beef into your wok until sizzling.

2. Slowly add the bean sprouts and the peppers to your mix and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring all the time.

3. Pour boiling water over egg noodles in a large bowl and leave for five minutes, or until soft.

4. Once the egg noodles are soft, mix in with your beef and mixed vegetable mixture. Squeeze over half a lime.

5. Lastly add in your sauces slowly but surely. A tea spoon at a time until it suits your taste.

6. Serve up, garnish and tuck in! * For a vegetarian option, why not try tofu instead of beef? High in protein and super cheap to buy!

Corned Beef Fritters Quick, easy, tasty, cheap... Ace!

Ingredients

Makes around 8 patties

* 100g Unsalted butter. * 2/3 Onions, sliced. * 800g Floury white potatoes, boiled and chopped into cubes. * 1 Tin of corned beef, chopped into cubes. * Worcestershire Sauce

How to make 1. Peel, wash, and chop your potatoes into cubes. Try to chop them a similar size so that they will soften up in the same amount of time.

2. Once the potatoes are nice and soft drain and MASH away! Pour in a splash of milk, and a knob of butter to give the mash some consistency.

3. Melt the butter in a frying pan until foaming and gently fry the onions for 2-3 minutes or until softened.

Roughly chop the corned beef and crumble it into the frying pan. Leave for 2 more minutes and then transfer into the bowl with the mash. Mix up the mixture, and then shape into a nice burger pattie shape.

4. Once shaped, pop back into the frying pan and fry for 5-6 minutes, pressing down the mixture every so often with a fish slice until the mixture is golden brown and crisp.

5. When the corned beef hash is cooked, remove the pan from the heat, sprinkle over the Worcestershire

sauce and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Eat with a fresh salad of your choice, yum!

Cheese & Ham Pasta Cheesy and oh so easy! (Recipe by Andrew Dare)

how to make Ingredients

Makes around 2-3 portions, why not double up and freeze the rest?

25g Butter 500g Pasta (In this instance, shell shaped!)

100g Cheddar cheese (grated) 25g Plain Flour

400-500ml Milk 130-150g Sliced Ham Parsley to garnish

How to make 1. Before starting on the rest, bring a pan of water to the boil, season with a pinch of salt, and once boiling, add your pasta.

2. Heat up a small sauce pan, and pop the butter in until liquid. Sprinkle in in the flour, cook and stir for 1-2 minutes until it turns into a paste.

3. Take off the heat and stir in the milk gradually to make a smooth sauce. Pop back on the heat and simmer for 8 minutes or so, keeping an eye on it. Crumble in the cheese around 2 minutes before ready.

4. Drain your pasta once ready, and pour over your cheesy sauce. Add the sliced ham, stir until well mixed, serve and garnish to finish. Nice! * Master the cheese sauce. It’s an important skill to have and can liven up any pasta dish, lasagne, fish pie, you name it!

Mediterranean Rice Cheap and healthy, an all weather dish

Ingredients

Makes around 4 portions

1 Teaspoon of oil 300g plain rice 1 Vegetable stock cube 1 Large onion, chopped 2 Garlic cloves

1x Tin chopped tomatoes

(Drained, but keep the drained tomato juice) Mixed vegetables chopped (We used 1x aubergine, 1x pepper, but celery will go well)

Tablespoon of tomato puree

How to make 1. Grab a saucepan, pour in the 300g of rice, add in 475ml of water and bring to the boil. Crumble in the vegetable stock. Once boiling, turn down and simmer for 15 minutes or until the liquid has gone, leaving some nicely cooked rice.

2. In a frying pan cook the onions and garlic over a medium heat.

3. Add in your mixed vegetables and continue cooking and stirring for 2-3 more minutes.

4. Add in the drained tomatoes and tomato paste; stir to combine, crushing the tomatoes as you stir.

5. Mix in your rice, stir, and if the dish is too dry, pour in the rest of the tomato juice from the chopped tomatoes.

6. Once its at a nice consistency, serve it up. Yum! * Master cooking rice and it will open up your eating cheap world. Rice is a great side dish for a lot of different dishes.

Pasta a la Bigmore

A cheap and easy pasta recipe (Recipe by Mark Bigmore)

how to make Ingredients

The sauce is perfect for freezing, so why not double the recipe?

1 Teaspoon olive oil 500g Minced lamb or beef 3 Large mushrooms 2 Cloves of Garlic 1 Tin chopped tomatoes

1 Table spoon Tomato Puree 2 Chicken stock cubes 2 Medium Onions 500g Pasta 2 Teaspoons of mixed herbs

How to make 1. Before preparing the sauce, bring a pan of water to the boil, season with a pinch of salt, and once boiling add your pasta.

2. Chop onions (roughly) and garlic (fine) and fry in olive oil on medium heat until soft.

3. Chop mushrooms roughly, and add to the pan for 2 minutes.

4. Add minced lamb, stir and turn until browned.

4. Add tin of chopped tomatoes, and 1 table spoon of tomato puree.

5. Crumble in stock cube and mixed herbs, leave on medium heat until bubbling and then turn down to simmer for 4-5 minutes.

6. Drain pasta, place on your bowl/plate, and spoon your hot tasty mixture onto top!

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Special offers?

ig , red SPECIAL OFFER stickers don’t always mean the offer is that special.

Make sure you check the normal price beforehand (or underneath the special offer sign) to make sure it actually is a bargain!

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es! The product you want is on special offer but wait, it’s sold out? Ask for a rain check voucher. At Tesco in particular, if a product on offer is sold out, ask the staff for a voucher which, if available, will entitle you to the same product for the special offer price when it is back in stock. ASDA staff at their discretion will hand out ‘Smiley vouchers’ for the inconvenience of your product being out of stock, so ask nicely and you may be in luck!

Eat Local and Save !

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arkets! Fresh, local produce, and often at cheaper or more competitive prices than your average supermarket.

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ruit and veg in particular are usually a lot cheaper, and don’t come packaged up in set quantities. This means you can buy as much or as little as you need!

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elow is a list of opening times for a few markets local to Cardiff.

Photo: Francisco Antunes

Cardiff Market St Marys St

Riverside Market Fitzhamon Embankment

Roath Market Keppoch St.

Open: Mon-Sat 8am - 5pm

Open: Sundays 10am-2pm

Open: Saturdays 9.30am-1pm

Other helpful resources

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ixers, the youth charity who have helped us put together this booklet also have other helpful cheap eating food resources, like the one on the left. Check out the Fixers resource section: http://www.fixers.org.uk/footer-menu/resources.php

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WW.HY not use the internet? There are LOADS of recipe websites that will help you cook and eat on the cheap. BBC good food even have a section dedicated to cheap recipes http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/cheap-eat

r Always

n rule! lde

r e the b m e go m e

Never shop when you’re hungry!

A Fixers project and budget recipe book from young people to young people. By: Chelsea Cooper King, Ceri-Ann Winterman, Casie Rice, Hannah Louise Poole and Nazea Afsar.