$50 Fortnight Weeks 3-4

As planned, I have a bit of a food stash left over from the last fortnight's shopping.  We can add some fruit and sweet things this fortnight. :)  

I have bought sugar and flour!! So there will be some baking happening this week :)  I know a lot of you will be missing something sweet.

Left Over from last fortnight

2 large Potatoes

1/2 bag of Pasta

1/2 tin of diced Tomato

3 cups of Rice

Curry Powder

Loaf of bread (minus 2 slices)

3 rashers of Bacon

200g Tuna (1/2 Tin)

6 carrots

250g Cheese

3 small onions

This fortnight's Shopping List

Item	Budget
For 1 person	For 1 person
pasta	$                      0.65
Chicken Thighs 1kg	$                      4.99
Mince 500g	$                      4.00
Fetta 250g	$                      2.95
Butter x 2	$                      2.78
Chickpeas	$                      0.75
Broccoli/Cauliflower	$                      2.15
Salad	$                      3.00
Mixed Vege	$                      1.59
Pumpkin 600g	$                      2.38
Potato 1kg	$                      2.95
Sugar 1kg	$                      1.00
SR Flour 1kg	$                      0.75
Tea	$                      2.50
Eggs	$                      2.79
Milk 3 Litre	$                      2.70
Oats	$                      0.99
Custard 1L	$                      1.89
Dates	$                      1.79
Odd Bunch Tomato 1kg	$                      1.77
Odd Bunch Apple 1kg	$                      2.98
Tinned Apricots 850g	$                      3.30
	$                    50.00

Final menus should be up tomorrow.

$50 fortnight menu Week 2 - Days 3,4 & 5

Hi all, 
Firstly I apologise again for the late post. :( Work does tend to get in the way. 

I have 3 days, meals here for you today.... so let's jump straight into it. 

Day 3 

Breakfast 
Omelette. 
My omelette today had a bit of chopped onion and a bit of grated cheese. 

Lunch 
Leftover Pumpkin Curry. 
As with most curries, the flavours of this had mellowed and just got better the next day.

Dinner
Chicken, Pasta with Bacon and Tomato
I cut the meat off 2 large thighs (and kept the bones for my pumpkin soup later in the week)
Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and fry off in some butter with some chopped onion and 1/2 rasher of bacon.
Meanwhile boil the 1 /2 cups pasta until al dente.
When the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan with the chicken/bacon and gently stir in about 1/2 can of tinned tomatoes.  
Heat through and serve.
(This made enough for 3  good sized servings.)

 

Day 4

Breakfast
Baked Beans on Toast

Lunch
Leftover Chicken Pasta from last night

Dinner
Fried Rice.
(I actually cooked the rice for this last night.  I find fried rice is always better with cold cooked rice to start)
Boil 1 cup of rice . Once cooked, spread out on a try and leave to go cold. Overnight in the fridge is good.
In a pan, melt a tablespoon of butter ( you actually need a fair bit of butter, because you do want to actually "fry" the rice) Sautee off some chopped onion,diced carrot and bacon. Add in the cold rice and stir until everything is coated in melted butter. I also added in a cube of frozen spinach that I defrosted and roughly chopped.

Day 5
A simple day today with minimal cooking required :)

Breakfast
Poached egg on Toast

Lunch
Fried Rice Leftovers

Dinner
Omelette

Bulk meat buying at Meat City.

I promised here a little while back that I would post our bulk meat shop from Meat City. We venture down the highway for the 50km drive because of the consistently low prices and great quality.
We do a big stock up once every 3 or 4 months.  If you are reasonably local, do have a look at Meat City's website and sign up to receive their weekly specials.  (I am in no way affiliated with Meat City other than being a regular customer)

This trip's buy produced the following. All of which goes straight in the freezer.
We will not go back until we have eaten all this batch.

The number of a meals is a minimum estimate. I have estimated a minimum of 4-6 serves from each lamb roast ( not including leftover sandwich meat). There is also 500g of "lamb scraps"in the freezer which will be turned into curries.
The chicken wings have been made into 20 serves of soup/stew for lunches.
We buy whole loins and have the butcher cut them into chops.  One of the loins had a really thick layer of fat, so we got the butcher to cut the skin off and score it ready to be made into delicious crackling  (YUMMMM)  As you can see, we paid $7.99/kg. I was in Woolworth's recently and they had pork loin chops on "sale" for $15.99 kg
The T-Bones are quite big, so we only need one between the 2 of us.
Mince gets frozen in 250g portions.
The Eye Fillet was a "buy one - get one free" so averaged out at ~$18.00/kg and has yielded 8 meals.
The beef cheeks are also being made into soup/stew lunches
The price of supermarket meat has been the biggest surprise to me while doing this challenge.  The cheapest red meat I can find in Woolies is mince at $8 or $9 a kilo.  

	price	kg	meals
Lamb
Half Side	$            27.17	3.022	10
Half Side	$            29.06	3.232
Whole Leg	$            33.27	4.164	6
Chicken
Drumsticks	$              6.75	2.258	13
Drumsticks	$              7.58	2.536
Wings	$              3.46	1.740	20
Wings	$              2.47	1.240
Pork
Pickled Pork	$            10.65	2.668	6
Loin Chops	$            21.17	2.650	10
Loin Chops	$            20.31	2.542
Leg Chops	$              8.12	1.628	4
Beef
Mince	$              9.92	1.988	12
Mince	$            10.09	2.022
T-Bone	$            46.75	3.342	8
Eye Fillet	$            34.99	1.984	8
Beef Cheek	$              7.59	0.584	10
Total	$ 279.35	37.600	107
Average price per kilo
=$279.35/37.6kg		$       7.43
Average price per meal ( 2 people)
=$279.35/107		$       2.61

$50 Fortnight Week 2 Days - 1&2

Two days menus here in this post.

I am getting through the food basket I have put aside for these challenges.  I am more than confident that there is plenty of food to last the week.

I am working on the next fortnight's shopping list and menu plan as well.  I am hoping to get these posted in the next day or so.

So, on the last couple of days meals.

Day 1
Breakfast.
Scrambled eggs today.  ( You know I love my eggs )

Lunch
Pasta with Bacon, Tinned Tomato and the last remnants of the packet of mixed vege.

Dinner
Potato Frittata.
I always think that "Frittata" is such a fancy name for what is basically eggy potato bake :)
Most traditional recipes make frittata in a pan and then finish under a hot grill.  While I have made them this way, I invariably end up breaking the frittata trying to turn it out.  I prefer to make the dish in a small casserole dish an oven.

Slice a large potato as finely as possible.
In a jug or bowl, mix together 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk and 1 cup of grated cheese.
Butter the bottom of a small oven proof dish and place a layer of potato.
Pour over a little of the egg/cheese mixture. Add another layer of potato.
Repeat.  Make the layers thin, you want lots of layers with a little egg/cheese mix between each layer.
When you have used up all your ingredients ( try to finish with a potato layer.) Dab over a bit of butter and place in a 180 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the potato is tender.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool a it before running a knife around the edge of the dish and turn out onto a plate.

Day 2

Breakfast
Baked Beans on Toast

Lunch
Leftover Frittata

Dinner
A new recipe that I found online here and adapted to what I had. 
I made this for both the Man of the House and myself and allowed enough left over for a lunch the next day as well.

This is my Roasted Pumpkin and Chickpea Curry on Rice. (serves 2-3)
Cut pumpkin into approximately 2cm cubes ( you want about 3 cups of pumpkin cubes) and place into a hot oven for about 15 minutes or until tender and just starting to brown

Meanwhile, in a pan melt a tablespoon of butter and sautee off a diced onion and a level tablespoon of curry powder. Add a tin of undrained chickpeas.  
Stir until the liquid comes to the boil, then lower the heat until the liquid reduces to a "saucy" consistency.
Add in the roasted pumpkin, stirring gently so as to not break up the pieces.

Serve on rice.

This is going to be a very versatile recipe.  For those not on as strict budget as $25 per week, add chicken, meatballs or even sausages cut into pieces the same size as the pumpkin. Some baby spinach leaves would be good added and allowed to wilt down just before you add the pumpkin.
Top with a good dollop of sour cream or yogurt

Weekly Wrap Up

We have come to the end of another week.

I won't attempt to do two weeks together again,  I totally messed up a lot of that and mixed some days and ingredients :(

At the end of the first part of the $50 fortnight, if you followed the actual menu.

you should have plenty of ingredients leftover for week 2 menu.

By the end of this week we should have had another week of satisfying meals and be starting to build some pantry staples.

We should have....
1/2 bag of pasta
1/2 bag of rice
1/2 of our block of cheese ( 250 g)
Most of a loaf of bread
1/2 box of frozen spinach
Curry Powder
1/2 packet of Taco Seasoning
A couple of carrots
A couple of onions

Please follow along next week and see how we go :-)


Comments I have had recently have asked for recipes for some dishes.
I will start to compile a cookbook that I will put into the downloads section.
I am very much a "throw it all in and hope for the best" cook, but I will do my best to write out some legible instructions. :-)

Quite a few times over the past couple of weeks I have served the budget menu dishes to the "Man of the House" as well as myself.  He has often said "That is not your $25 menu" when it actually has been.   Some of  tricks to making a dish not so "budget" are (I think) ; in no particular order. 

• Presentation.. We do eat with our eyes first, so a clean plate and food arranged nicely makes a good start. A pop of colour even in the form of a few grated carrot strips or a couple of salad leaves can lift an otherwise boring looking meal into something that resembles a more expensive dish.
• Size.   Now on a budget we are watching portion sizes purely from the fact that a large serve costs more. Some sneaky size stretching can be spreading a layer of mashed potato out over the plate instead of serving a small compact mound.  Grate or finely slice vegetables rather than large chunks.  Try to add air.. My souffle omelette for instance uses just ONE egg but fills the plate ( and the belly) possibly even more than 2 eggs on toast.
• Heat.  Have ever noticed how a hot meal fills you more than a cold one?  That is one reason why I will often toast a sandwich or have a hot lunch rather than meat a salad.
  Same ingredients, just add heat.