Other Meal Options

Other meals we considered for this week were:

• Sainsburys Basics fishfingers, homemade chips and tinned peas £1.22 for two portions
• Sainsburys Basics sausages, mash and carrots £0.76 for two portions
• Tinned meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta £0.62 for two portions
• Chilli (made with Basics mince, onions, kidney beans and chopped tomatoes) and rice £0.84 for two portions
• Vegetarian 5-bean chilli with rice £0.91 for two portions
  
• Jacket potatoes, beans and cheese £0.76 for two portions
  
• Tuna and sweetcorn pasta
• Home made soup
  

Some of these were too expensive for our £15 week, but would make great budget dinners in a £20 or £25 week. Mainly we decided we would prefer to eat vegetarian than to eat cheap sausages or meatballs, although I think cheap mince would have been ok.

Saturday

Today I had Sainsbury's Basics Vegetable Soup followed by Sainsbury's Basics Custard. Now all the other meals this week have been fine but this meal was pretty unappetising. The soup was thin and very salty and even after eating the vegetables (which were fine) I was left with lots of thin liquid at the end which I did not finish. The custard, which tasted fine for tinned custard, had an unappealing orange colour (real custard would only ever be orange if you used very old eggs!) which was quite off putting.

Nutrition

One of the aims of this week was to eat a reasonably nutritious diet. So how have we done in terms of fruit and vegetables? The current recommendation is 5 a day, but based on what we normally eat I'll be happy with anything close to 4. I should also say that I've been eating quite a lot of free tomatoes that my lovely Dad grew and brought over last week, but I won't count them below since they weren't actually paid for out of the £15.

In total we will be eating:

16 apples
14 bananas
7 huge carrots (14 portions)
3 small courgettes (2 portions)
5 small onions (5 portions)
1 tin sweetcorn (3 portions)
250g yellow split peas (4 portions)
2 tins vegetable soup (4 portions)
1 jar tomato sauce for pasta (2 portions)

and I think I won't count the jam...

so total portions = 64
Average per person per day = 4.6

Not bad!

Tuesday

Breakfast: I had quite a bit more than yesterday - so not so hungry today!
Lunch: A bonus half of red pepper that needed using up.
Dinner: MrsJ made a tasty pasta bake!

Monday

First day of the challenge

Breakfast: Porridge for breakfast today (and every day). I didn't have enough and was hungry an hour later!
Lunch: I had an extra chicken leg leftover from the weekend. All in all it wasn't bad. The cheese sandwich tasted better than expected and I had enough to eat throughout the day.
Dinner: Beans + sausages on toast. Ok - but I couldn't eat beans on toast every day!

Menu

7 breakfasts - all porridge and jam
7 lunches - all cheese sandwiches, 1 apple, 1 banana, 1/2 a raw carrot and 4 or 5 digestives
7 dinners:

2x beans and sausages on toast
2x pasta bake made with onions, courgettes and sweetcorn
2x yellow split pea and coconut dahl with rice
1x soup and bread

5 x rice pudding and 2x custard to follow

The Shopping List

An earlier iteration of the
shopping list on mysupermarket.com

2x bags Sainsburys Basics apples (on offer) 80p
14 bananas (should have been £1.70 but someone bought HUGE ones!) £2.10
2 loaves medium sliced wholemeal bread £1.50
1 courgette 27p
4 pints whole milk (should have been 2L cravendale milk 99p) £1.60
500g Sainsburys Basics grated cheese £1.99
2 tins Sainsburys beans & pork sausages £1.12
1 tin Sainsburys Basics sweetcorn 20p
2 tins Sainsburys Basics vegetable soup 36p
1 Sainsburys Basics tomato pasta sauce 25p
1 Sainsburys Basics 500g pasta shapes 19p
1 Sainsburys Basics strawberry jam 39p
2 tins Sainsburys Basics custard 38p
5 tins Sainsburys Basics rice pudding 95p
2 packs Sainsburys Basics digestive biscuits 76p

Part-Items:

onions (approx quarter of large Sainsburys Basics 40p bag) 10p
1 Sainsburys Basics vegetable stock cube 2p
200g wholegrain brown rice 23p
500g carrots 13p
750g porridge oats 43p
250g yellow split peas 20p
1/2 box creamed coconut 30p
2 cloves garlic 5p?
30g root ginger 14p
270g margerine 46p

= £14.93