It was discussed on another thread about how we could do a cheap week challenge. I think that is a great idea but as a starter why don't we create a meal for four people for under $8.....if there are only two of you either make double and have two meals or just half your cost...If you have 8 people you have $16 to play with. This thread is to finalise the challenge.

Rules: A dinner type meal ie not porridge or a plate of chips, that would feed four average appetites. Bonus points (kudos) if you have more than one course.

I think we make an allowance for store cupboard ingredients ie 50c for herbs, salt, pepper and a splash of oil, keeping it fair. I think we cost in the home grown ingredients, so show us the cost if you bought them and if you have grown them, to show average gardeners like me how to save some $$.

The point of the challenge is to share some reasonably priced and yummy meals with the forum, that are nutritious without being necessarily health farm material.

If this is too easy we can reduce the budget next time, I thought it would be a fair, achievable starting point.

Who is in??

I'm in! It will be a challenge to do the costings but a good eye-opener I'm sure.

Well you know I love a challenge Cheese Lover

Not sure if I'll get to it this week or not as my meals are planned and I have bought my veges and things today. However, I have just gone dumpster diving to get out my fruit and vege receipt (just in case I get a chance). Costing my meat could be another issue however as most is repackaged up before going in the freezer so I'd have to guess what I paid for it.

Great that's three maybe!!

I think with the costings we can just make our best attempts...a handful of spinach for example is hard to cost, or a couple of tablespoons of Hoi Sin Sauce.

Yes Cantabcook you are the challenge queen so I hoped you might be a starter



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 09:04AM by Cheese Lover.

I'm definitely up for this, I can see pricing things out could be quite tricky for store cupboard items, but I'll give it my best
I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with. What day were you wanting to have the challenge start and all wrapped up by ?

Shall we say by Wed next week?
I think for store cupboard items I am going to either say 50c worth or $1 worth depending on what they are. I have a couple of dishes in mind to do and I will be interested to see what they cost out at.....

Ok have done groceries this week but if I cost a meal out to $8, I will add. :-)

I did make what I thought was a relatively cheap meal on Sunday. It was very labour intensive though so I'd hate to add in my hourly rate!! I costed it up out of curiosity to see what it would come out at (and sure it would be under $8 but not so)!

The meal was a chicken and corn soup with a rye sourdough loaf. I have made the soup many times but it was my first attempt at a sourdough loaf. Not sure how this will paste but here goes:

Sour dough bread
Feed starter grms cost
Water -
Rye flour 0.69
Bread
Water -
Starter -
Rye flour 0.40
Salt 0.01
White flour 0.38
$1.48

buggar, not working well so have had to pull out grams used. Will try another way for the soup



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 01:05AM by cantabcook.

I'm in - Thanks for setting it up...

$8......need to be innovative!

Looking forward to seeing the results

Continued from above


Chicken and corn soup
Stock
2.75 Chicken thighs
0.37 Carrot
0.28 Onion
Celery tops (garden)
Bay leaf (garden)
Water
Soup
Chicken flesh above
0.45 Butter
0.09 Flour
Chicken stock above
0.80 Cream
Parsley (garden)
1.65 Tin creamed corn
0.40 Corn cob (freezer)
0.06 Salt (guessing)
Pepper
$6.86

$6.86 for soup, plus cost of loaf of rye sour dough bread $1.48 gives total meal at $8.34. Of course, the bread would come down if I wasn't using expensive organic rye flour or did a white sourdough loaf. I also have lots of chicken stock leftover in the freezer.

This meal fed two adults and two children but the young'uns weren't so fussed on it. I also had the soup for lunch for the last two days!

Cheese Lover, I'm keen to have a go at this challenge, but am not sure how to go about costing homegrown vegetables. I grow many of mine from seed, and have sometimes had three or four seasons' worth of a variety of veges from one packet of seed, so the cost of one bunch of silver beet, for example, in the third year, would be almost less than negligible. Again, costs for liquid feed, compost etc could be counted in, but would still amount to mere cents' worth per vegetable. Is this what you meant - to add in a few cents only for those sorts of items? And then to show the approximate cost of buying the same things?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 02:08AM by mommamurf.

Okay, is $8 realistic, should we make it $10.00....I am happy to aim for $8 but realising this will be a challenge...but also very happy to change to $10. The idea is to get our thinking caps on and share some healthy tasty meal ideas that are affordable. And for me, to actually realise how hard it is.

I don't want the costing part to be impossible or so hard that it puts people off. Mommamurf I was thinking with home grown of an estimate ie one stalk broccoli. Home grown cost 25c from seedling, or 10c from seed, could buy at Countdown this week for $2.00

This looks great - wonder if using dried herbs/spices and salt/pepper would only be about 5-10c per recipe though - I know it seems like splitting hairs but on a low budget every cent counts.
Salt and pepper are negligible and yes I agree that $10 is probably easier than $8.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 02:34AM by helen.

I think you're still doing really well to put a meal on the table for $10 for 4 people (but if you can do it for less even better). I had quietly wished for another $2 to try something more creative.......so $10 sounds great to me.

I also realised my chicken and corn soup had an extra corn cob in it (I was just trying to use up some of the bulk in my freezer). I'd bought heaps at 40 cents each but they were taking up too much space. If I had left that out I would have come in at $7.94. Ta dah!

Here's my effort. I make all of these dishes regularly and the dessert is a "special occasion" one. I have used prices from the Countdown web site (beef from Aussie Butcher) and Countdown is certainly not the cheapest place to shop.

To serve 4 adults

1. Keema of Beef and Lettuce

50g butter @$3.99 for Mainland .40
2 large onions (400g) @ 1.70 p kg .70
spices, garlic, ginger from pantry .50
450g minced beef @ $9.99 p kg 4.50
400g tin tomatoes .80
2 lettuces from the garden say 1.00
125 ml plain yoghurt (Gopala $3.29 per 750ml) .55
______
$8.45

2. Silverbeet from garden say .50
Ginger, garlic, chilli, salt, butter 1.00

3. Basmati rice 250g @ $3.99 p kg 1.00

4. Lemon or lime posset:
500 ml plain cream 3.70
150g caster sugar @ $2.80 p kg .42
75 ml lemon or lime juice plus zest (garden) say .50
_____
Grand total $15.57

Okay, lets make it $10.00. Try and do it by Wednesday 6 May.

I will start a new thread for the recipes, TPANDAV that looks delicious, feel free to copy to the new thread and thanks for getting the ball rolling.

I will try to do this for Monday's meal. I'm out 5 nights/week at the moment so Monday will probably be my only opportunity.