After splurging on food and drinks galore in restaurants over the weekends, weekday dinners are when we knuckle down and prepare delicious, nutritious and CHEAP homemade meals.
What are your favourite recipes for making a terrific dinner to feed two, for say under 10 - 12 CHF?
I'll start with mine:
Spaghetti with pesto verdure and bacon bits. Just get that Coop pesto in a jar (CHF 2.90) and bacon bits. Fry the bacon bits and then stir that, and the pesto over the boiled spaghetti.
An asian option: steamed sesame soy chicken drumsticks with rice. Get the five in a pack chicken drums for about 6CHF at migros. Lay your chicken drumsticks in a shallow dish. Splash over some soy, sesame oil, a dash of rice wine. Sprinkle some fresh ginger over. Steam and eat hot with rice.
First one comes in a large package and the second is not really cheap, but probably manageable to buy (Migros) for under CHF 10 (if you don't buy like 20 of them).
Roast one of those dinky little chickens with plenty of seasoning and/or garlic. Serve with either steamed veg, green salad, tomato and red onion salad and/or new potatoes or rice.
The chicken used to feed myself, my hub and the cat ... sometimes for 2 days!
Here's my favorite summertime salad recipe which I usually serve with a sliced baguette. If you have someone in the family who needs meat or protein with their meal, just saute or grill a duck breast or chicken breast to go with:
Watermelon & Tomato Salad with Feta
Dice 2 cups of watermelon and 2 cups of ripe tomatoes and put into a salad bowl. Add a handful of fresh, chopped basil and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Sprinkle with aged balsamic vinegar and loads of olive oil. Toss. Sprinkle with crumbles of feta cheese. Delish.
I really enjoy the grun curry (or red if you prefer) curry paste - you fry boneless chicken pieces in a wok and then dab about 1-2 spoon fulls of the paste in, add any type of vegetables that you have and wala, it's finished!
We usually use this recipe whenever we have vegetables that are sitting in the fridge and we need to use them for quick consumption
A super cheap dish is an old recipe from my grandma - macaroni, hamburger and tomato. I fry up some onions with the meat, and add some small cubes of cheese after dishing up.
i think 90 % of our meals are usually under 10 chfs necessity being a mother and all that ( ).
tonight's under 10, which is actually gonna feed 6 for under 16, guacamole with rice and tomato, culantro, chick pea and pepper spicy salad. melons are on sale guess what's for desert! all fresh, all cheap, all yummy and colorful.
not that I ever get a chance to do this for two people.... but I do a veggie chilli onions, mushrooms, chickpeas, kidney beans, tinned toms - some steamed rice and their you go.
I would also do a chick pea and egg curry, v cheap and v nice (well I think).
Welsh rarebit would also fit the bill - although more of a snack
As would an old fashioned english stew (although the suet dumplings would probably take it over the 12francs!) - nice piece of skirt, carrots, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, any other veg, water, stock low oven for hours
I haven't been paying attention to how much I spend on groceries to be honest. I'm sure I could be saving a LOT of money if I did. Dining out in CH is too ungodly expensive. So I avoid it, which is why I can afford to not watch my grocery bill. Plus I don't buy alcohol. So that helps too.
But to answer your question, I do like to just throw stuff into a pot and see what comes out. Last night I took some ground beef, corn, potatoes, carrots and bell peppers and mixed in some cumin, garlic, ground red pepper, onion powder, a bit of olive oil and one egg (because eggs make everything better). It was quite yummy, but not something I'd make for a guest. Ever. Unless I wanted them to leave.
Why i feel like im the only person who is useless at cooking? You guys post all those amazing recipes and i see that my usual cooking which basically is "get some random meat and stick it under the grill and eat with some salad from migros" just doesnt make it
Nestlé have a nice site at www.meals.com - just plug in what you have in your cupboard and you'll get a recipe. Substitute the nestle products for your own and, hey pesto, a meal for nothing
Dinner for 4 for 15chfs (3.75 each). Balanced diet.
Take some cheap frying oil (vegetable oil) and put in wok. Add three heaped tablespoons of good quality Lankan curry powder (I bought 1 kilo for 15chf in a Sri Lankan shop in Oerlikon) and fry on medium heat for 15 seconds. Then add a few good handfuls of chopped spring onion (scallion) and fry for a minute.
Then add 4 cloves of finely chopped garlic and give another 30 seconds. Then add a 3 cubed aubergines (eggplant) and 1 or 2 cubed butternut squash. The cubes can be any size, but should be the same size as each other. Fry and coat in spice mixture for 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Add 2 x 330 ml cans of coconut milk and 2 cans of drained chickpeas and one whole chilli. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Add large bag of roughly torn spinach, a little at a time and stir in. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes more. Add chopped corriander to the top and leave to cool for 10 minutes before serving with steaming white rice.
I know this sounds utterly mad, and it's something I found out as a student while finishing off leftovers, but chop up a fennel or two into small bits, fry it with onions and then add cream to make a sauce and add a bit of curry and further spces of your choice, and here is the clever bit for those who don't like the taste of fennel: add mushed pears (use old ones that have already gone soft and squishy) and stir it all down. Leave to simmer for a bit to get rid of excess juice. Serve as a sauce with rice or pasta.