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You are here: Home / Archives for budget meal

A Budget Family Meal With Aldi

November 4, 2014 · by munchiesandmunchkins · 5 Comments

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.#collectivebias

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How do you fancy a homemade family meal with a delicious main course and a dessert as well as a bottle of wine for the adults for under £10?

Yes I know most of the supermarkets do a £10 meal deal. But this is proper home cooked food with decent sized food portions and a lip smacking dessert to boot. Oh and the wine 😉

When I was challenged to create a family meal for under £10 at Aldi I knew I would find it quite simple to do as we do a large portion of our shopping there these days and I can easily do a weeks shopping for around £40. So I had to up the ante slightly and add in a dessert and drinks to make it more of a challenge 🙂

I enjoy shopping at Aldi. The stores aren’t huge so you can get about quickly enough, you don’t get a huge selection of branded goods but the actual own brand products are extremely high quality.

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I made smokey sweet potato and beef chilli which is perfect for bonfire night along with a choc chip brioche pudding and served with a glass of rose.

For the Chilli, You will need:

500g standard Beef mince (£1.75)
1 onion, chopped ( approx 23p)
2 garlic cloves, minced (approx 23p per bulb)
1 large sweet potato, chopped into small cubes ( approx 25p)
1 400g chopped tomatoes (31p)
1 tin of kidney beans, drained (23p)
1 beef stock cube, made up with 200ml of hot water (10p)
4 tbsp of fat free yoghurt (25p)
1 pack of lightly salted tortilla chips ( 46p )

From your store cupboard:

1 tbsp of plain flour
1 tsp paprika ( smoked preferably but whatever you have is fine)
1 heaped tbsp of mild chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 heaped tbsp of dark brown sugar ( white if you have no brown)
Salt and Pepper ( optional – we only added pepper)

Total cost of Chilli: £3.81

Method:

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4.
Brown your mince and onions together over a moderate heat in a large frying pan, now add your sweet potatoes, garlic, chilli, paprika, flour and cumin and cook for a further 5 minutes until sweet potato begins to soften.
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Now add your stock, chopped tomatoes, sugar and kidney beans and stir well. Pour into an oven proof dish with a lid and cook for 60 minutes.

In the last 5 minutes pop your tortillas onto a baking tray – they taste so good when slightly warm.

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Serve your chilli in bowls with a dollop of yoghurt on top ( perhaps a herb garnish) and some tortillas. You could also sprinkle a little grated cheese over the still warm tortillas.

For very little ones, serve with bread instead.

For the Choc Chip Brioche Bread and Butter Pudding:

3/4 of a loaf of choc chip brioche (£1)
250ml of semi skimmed milk (30p)
250ml of single cream (50p)
3 eggs (45p)
3 tbsp of dark brown sugar ( from store cupboard – white is fine)
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract ( from store cupboard)
Butter/margarine ( from fridge – use whatever you have)

Dessert cost: £2.25

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Preheat your oven to gas mark 4.

Toast your brioche slices and spread lightly with butter/margarine.

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Arrange in a baking dish, slightly overlapping. Beat your eggs, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla together until smooth and pour over your brioche slices. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until it has puffed up, there is no runny liquid and the texture looks a little like scrambled egg. Serve warm, alone or with cream or custard.

It will easily serve 4-6 people but beware this is so good you will want seconds.

Choc and chip brioche and bread pudding

We served our meal with water for the little ones and a nice glass of Australian Rose for the adults which cost £3.89 for the whole bottle and this wasn’t the cheapest wine you could purchase. There are plenty of nice bottles to choose from £2.99 upwards. We only drank half our bottle so we have the rest to enjoy with another meal.

And there you go. A bargain two course meal for 2 adults and 2 children with wine ( for the adults) for just £9.95.

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Filed Under: Recipes · Tagged: #shop, aldi, aldi ad, Aldi wine, budget meal, Cbias, Collective bias, family meal

Tagliatelle Aglio Olio

April 19, 2012 · by munchiesandmunchkins · 1 Comment

This Tagliatelle Aglio Olio can easily be made for less than £5.00 and allows for 2 hungry adults and a little leftover for a next day lunch.

You will need:

1 large sauce pan and 1 smaller frying pan or cazuela.
250-300g of tagliatelle.
2 cloves of crushed garlic or I use 2 frozen cubes of minced garlic.
4 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
Spoonful of dried chilli flakes or a good dollop of chilli paste
seasoning
Basil to garnish

Cook pasta according to packet instructions.
When there are 5 minutes remaining, put the olive oil and chillis into a small pan and cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes giving you s lovely chilli flavoured oil.
Add salt&pepper then the garlic and continue to cook for roughly 4-5 minutes. Be very careful not to burn the garlic as this will ruin the flavour.

When the pasta is cooked to your preference ( I prefer al dente) you should drain then stir in the sauce topped with your chopped basil garnish.

* this is meant to be a very simple dish with very cheap ingredients however if you want to adapt it to include meat, bacon lardons work very well and if you are veggie baby leaf spinach is great also.

Serve with home made garlic bread ( see below)

Home made garlic bread ( the easiest possible way) :
Chop a french stick into thin rounds then toast lightly before spreading on some lurpak garlic butter and cooking in oven for 5 mins. If you are counting calories you can rub with a clove of garlic and spread some extra light flora or a little olive oil on instead.

This is probably the tastiest EASY meal I have made in a long time.

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Filed Under: Recipes · Tagged: budget meal, chilli, garlic, olive oil, Pasta

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