Meals for Under...

In light of my new circumstances, I've decided to make more of an effort to cutback. To this end, I'm going to be writing new posts, tagged with such things as "meals under £2", "meals under £3", and "meals under £5".  These will be as described - meals for which the ingredients cost less than a given amount.  These amounts will be based on two portions.

I was inspired in this by this thread on moneysavingexpect.com, which was, in turn, inspired by Jamie Oliver's challenge, of coming up with three course meals under £5.  I won't be posting three course meals, but I will be including smaller denominations.

Speaking of MoneySupermarket, I highly suggest, if you're in the UK, flicking through this list once a week or so.  The best deal at the moment is the free cocktail/cider/wine from the Pitcher & Piano, just for signing up to their mailing list (I am absolutely fine with being on mailing lists; it generally just means they send me more vouchers).  That's good till the 31st of July, and they are super generous with the sizes.  See the size of that cider?  That's two full glasses in that bottle, that is.

Anyway, last night, Anthony and I had a budget supper, which I'm going to describe here so I can get the format sorted.

Ingredients

• 2 Tins of Vegetable Soup  (17p each, Morrisons' value range) - 34p
• 1 Wholewheat Baguette (Morrisons', discounted to 9p) - 9p
• Garlic and Herb Croutons (Rivercote, Lidl, 99p) - 50p (I was very generous with these; they're yummy!)
• Vitalite (£1.20 for 500g) - 12p

Total - £1.05 for two, or 53p, for one portion.

I like my croutons, I do.

Method

1. Heat soup (microwave or stove - up to you!).
2. Slice bread, and butter ('vitalite-ise'?).
3. Put soup into bowls, add croutons.

Leftovers
9/10 of a tub of vitalite.
1/2 pack of croutons.

Make it Cheaper/Better

The bread was barely stale at all
- not that it matters, if it's going
to be dipped in soup.

• Turn some of the bread into croutons, by brushing with oil, sprinkling with herbs, and grilling while you heat the soup.  Please note that, if you don't have a grill, it may cost more to use the oven for this than it does to just buy the damn croutons.  Or you can leave them out entirely, it's a personal thing.
• Speaking of personal things, you obviously don't have to butter the bread.
• You could add fresh or dried herbs to the soup to make it more flavourful.  We have mint, basil, parsley, and coriander growing in boxes on the balcony, and buying these plants for 50p from Aldi was cheaper than buying dried herbs.
• Slice a potato into tiny dice, and boil it in the soup.  You could microwave them first, so they cook faster in the soup, but they shouldn't take too long if you get them really tiny.