The €5 euro meal

As someone who loves to cook I have found that the vast majority of my disposable income will go into food and in general cooking my evening meal. So much money in fact that in recent times, I have really researched and invested a lot of time into the following concept.

‘The €5 euro meal’ 

What I have always thought and do strongly believe is that if you have the will to do it, it is possible for you to eat your evening meal for 2 people for just €5 a day. So in 30 days or a month you can spend only €150 on your evening meals and you can eat very well during that time.

A few tips however before we start:

 
- Bulk Buying: Plan out in advance what you want to cook and buy in bulk. This way you can only buy what you need and you will avoid waste. Purchase your meat in bulk and freeze in dinner servings until needed.

- Ignore Brand Loyalty: this is not the time for spending your cash on those expensive brands you might always turn too. Now is the time to buy the generic brands that are considerably cheaper.

-  Make a list: Before you shop make a list of what you want & stick to it. (no impulse buying)....Never shop when you are hungry!

- Shop Local: get to know your neighborhood & shop local for cheaper options.

- Weekly Specials: get to know the specials in your supermarkets & plan meals around them.

- Buy Seasonal: buy seasonal vegetables instead of their out of season more expensive cousins.

- Store your vegetables properly to keep them freshest the longest.

The Meals:

What I do here to keep the meals interesting is to break them down into separate price categories. That way you can play around yourself and decide when and what you want to cook. As you can see with the recipes you have a vast selection of options open to you at any time so it will never get boring.

Remember however that if you have a €7 meal you then in turn must cook a €3 meal to compensate.

Always plan your recipes in such a way that you will use up all your ingredients whenever you buy them, do not ever throw anything away.  

€3 or lower meals                                                    Cost per Meal      Hamburgers                                                                       €2.20

Broccoli & Cherry Tomato Pasta                                            €2.50
Tomato Sauce with Pasta                                                    €2.80
Fusilli with Bacon & Cream                                                    €3.00

€4+ meals
Roast Veggie Pasta                                                             €4.00
Sausage Pie                                                                       €4.00
Chicken Stroganoff                                                              €4.00
Potato & Roast Vegetable Quiche                                           €4.50

€5 meals
Spaghetti Bolognese                                                          €5.00
Tomato Sauce with Meatballs                                              €5.00
Pepper Pesto Pasta                                                           €5.00

€6+ meals
Musilitos de Pollo                                                              €6.00
Pink & Green Pasta                                                           €6.50

€7 meals                    
Quiche (3-4 people portion)                                               €7.00
Salmon Dinner (with roast veggies & potatoes/rice)                €7.00
Beef Steak Dinner (with roast veggies & potatoes/rice)           €7.00

Side dishes
Egg Fried Rice                                                                   €1.20
Potato Gratin (3-4 servings)                                                €2.50   
Mozzarella Garlic Bread                                                       €1.00
 

To obtain my prices I used www.ah.nl as my reference point. Albert Heijn is not the cheapest place to shop so if you know your local stores and plan you’re shopping better the above prices are definitely possible at a lower price.

Note: With the above prices I will assume that your kitchen will already have the stable goods such as Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Spices, Flour, Soy Sauce, Fish Sauce, Sambal, Sweet Chilli sauce etc. 

As these products have a shelf life of longer than a month it is always useful to have these as they are the cornerstone to any meals you may have now or in the future
        

ENJOY!!!

Broccoli & Cherry Tomato Pasta

The simplicity in this dish is what really makes it so special. As part of my €5 meal concept this meal is less than €2 to get together once you have the ingredients in-house.

To prepare the dish it is just so simple and it all can be done in the time it takes to cook your pasta. You will flash fry small florets of broccoli in garlic & chilli. Then this will be added with chopped cherry tomato to cooked pasta and chopped fresh herbs (if you have some available). All served on a warm plate with grated parmesan on top.

Super Quick, Tasty & Cheap……really the perfect combination to any meal

Sausage Pie

Nothing quite beats a potato crust pie. That super creamy mashed potato with a crust will always compliment whatever is beneath it. When I have the time I would always try to prepare my Shepherds Pie recipe but the Sausage Pie is a very tasty quick & cheap alternative.

Spaghetti Bolognese

There are many ways to make a Spaghetti Bolognese & the debates on what is the best one are far ranging. For myself I like to keep it simple with 3 steps.

Step 1: When I make one I like to always make my Tomato Sauce
Step 2: Then separately I like to brown my mince & let half a glass of red wine absorb completely into the mince. After this has done I will now blend the meat in a food processor, the main reason I do this is twofold:
1.    The mince can be quite tough & blending it will really break it up & make it very tender
2.    The blended mince when added to your tomato sauce will now race up & down each individual piece of spaghetti when you serve it.
Step 3: I will fry some finely chopped onions, carrots & green pepper with garlic & chilli. Then I will add the tomato sauce & also blended mince.

Tomato Sauce with Meatballs

The most time consuming part of this recipe is the Tomato Sauce. But once that is cooked a real simple meat ball to add is with Sausage meat. It is all real easy in that you will just squeeze out the sausage meat into even sized balls and cook on medium to high heat.

Then you will add it all together with your cooked pasta & serve with grated cheese

Tomato Sauce

This is by far and away the best Italian Tomato pasta sauce I have ever tasted.

A good tomato sauce was something that always interested me but I was never happy with my efforts until I was shown this recipe by a good friend. What I learnt the most from it is that simplicity works.

The sauce has a few layers or stages to it and all up you will want to set aside about 2 hours to cook it. Within this time you do not have to be standing by the side of the sauce as you will cook everything on a low heat and only are needed to stir and keep a watchful eye on the sauce.

Potato & Roast Vegetable Mini Quiches

In my recent post regarding 'the €5 meal' I realized that the Quiche recipe I used cost €7 to make & the only reason for this was that I was using a larger baking dish for 3-4 people. In recent months I have become addicted to Pastry Pies so last night I wanted to try and make my own individual quiches, when made this way are considerly cheaper and really tasty as all of the flavours are condensed into individual servings.

What I decided to do this time is a Vegetarian Quiche with Potato & Roast vegetables and I served it with a light salad

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

This pasta dish is perfect for a Vegetarian option or if you feel like a light & tasty pasta. Roasting the vegetables is similar to my previous post of Roast Vegetable Lasagne but this time you will add them to your pasta with a combination of cheddar cheese & a mustard/chilli/coriander cream sauce.

The Cream sauce is very much up to you, I like to use grained mustard with a hint of sweet chilli sauce with chopped coriander leaves. I find the mustard brings out the flavours in the dish. Also as I like things spicy I add 2 devil eye chilli’s when roasting the vegetables so if that is not for you do not put them in.

All up you get a very tasty pasta dish that is super easy to make, serve with my Mozzarella Garlic Bread for that perfect compliment

Chicken Stroganoff

This recipe is a very old favourite of mine, now that the Winter is coming it will start to be on my weekly menu more often. What I love about it is the unique character you can give it. The basis of the meal is all about the flour & spices mixture. You want to have a consistency of 2:1 here. What this mixture will do is to give the sauce an amazing flavour while also acting to thicken up your chicken stock.

Also the beauty of this mixture is that you can really make it your own. So you can make it as spicy as you want, add other spices to it or even add dried herbs if you so wish. Really just play around with it and you will discover what you like & don’t like. Everything is cooked in a Large Wok so after you brown the chicken your onions/mushrooms are also cooked in the same oil so they immediately get the flavour from the spices.

This recipe works great for a mid-week dish and also can be cooked for a more serious dinner as like I said the flavour is very natural & delicious. I always serve it with potatoes but it also works with rice , whichever you prefer.

Spicy Steamed White Fish

The below recipe is super easy & very healthy as steaming food is perhaps the most healthiest way to cook, as the food will retain the majority of its nutrients. 

This fish below will go beautifully with my Egg Fried Rice recipe.

Egg Fried Rice

I discovered this recipe one night when eating Teppan’yaki. The key to this recipe is ensuring your rice is completely cold. 

What I like to do, is the night before cook up extra rice and keep half of it for the next night and make this egg fried rice.

Day 16: The Hamburger

Day 16:
Uruguay 2 South Korea 1
Ghana 2 USA 1

With it origins from Hamburg, Germany but its widespread appeal coming from America there is nothing tastier than cooking up your own burger and of course your own favourite garnish.

A quarter pounder is a little over 100g so a safe bet is to give yourself 100g of mince per burger. Making the burger itself is just a matter of combining everything in the right order. Starting with the mince and the egg yoke, when you add the egg yoke you can straight away feel the change in the texture of the meat as the egg infuses around it.

Day 14: Pepper & Pesto Pasta

Day 14
Slovakia 3 Italy 2
Paraguay 0 New Zealand 0
Netherlands 2 Cameroon 1
Japan 3 Denmark 1

Disaster for the blog.......Italy are out of the World Cup. I was so confident they would get thru that tonight I prepared something Italian that is quick and easy, not one of my more complex meals that I could of done. Ah well, at least Japan are thru....food wise that is.

Pink and Green Fusilli

This recipe really jumped off the page to me when I was flicking thru the Pasta Recipe book I bought when I was in Rome and I really couldn't wait to try it.

What I instantly loved about it was the sheer simplicity of it but also the combination of flavours within it.

Fusilli with Bacon and Cream

The pure beauty of this recipe is that in the time it takes for the kettle to boil and pasta to cook you are ready to combine the cream and serve.

Its perfect if you want something quick and tasty

Montys Halloumi Wraps……(without Monty)

Anyone who has ate with Mr. Montgomery would have tried his Halloumi Wraps so much so that even in his absence it is the meal of choice to cook in Montgomery towers.

Very simply halloumi is a high melting point Cypriot cheese that is fried and is served in a Tortilla wrap with Salad & Montys magic sauce…(greek yoghurt & spices)