Making a little go a long way

yesterday I decided that todays dinner would be a slow cooked chicken dinner. I hadn't planned any more than that. So I got up this morning and put the chicken into the slow cooker and began my marking/ planning. My sister text whilst I was doing this to ask if I fancied going to the park with her and the children. I was very good (unusually!) and said no as I needed to get my work finished, but invited her round for dinner when they had finished at the park. This also gave me an incentive to get the work finished quickly without distracting myself with other things.

Ok so I now had 1 small chicken in the slow cooker and an extra 4 mouths to feed. What was I going to do? No potatoes in and getting some would mean going out, spending money and distracting myself. I do have a few packets of approved food pittas in the freezer. I came up with the idea of chicken pittas with salad. Perfect simple and cheap and all the ingredients were already in the house.
So I cooked dinner for 7 for around £4.00 for us all. Not bad- the chicken was a cheap £3.00 one, then half a cucmber 25p, a few slices of lettuce- about 5p (the lettuce was reduced to clear at 25p) 2 tomatoes about 20p and 1.5 packets of pitta breads which were 4 for £1 on approved foods so 40p. That's a brilliant price.

I have saved a little money today as I had some mushrooms in the fridge from last weekend and I wasn't going to use them before they were no good. I sliced them up onto baking sheets covered them and popped them in the freezer for a few hours.

Ready to go in. Once they were frozen I moved them off the tray and have put them in a sandwich bag so I can just take out a few when I need them. Brilliant as neither children like mushrooms but I love them. No waste here.

I also made myself a left over lunch. I had one pepper starting to go soft in the fridge (my sister had bought them when she visited the other week and left it behind) so I stuffed it with some of the mushrooms and a little cheese, then baked for a short while;

An almost free lunch! To go with my almost free breakfast of eggs from one of the children I teach with a little garlic bread from the freezer.

 

What a cheap food day!