Ham & Cheese Potato Cakes

I made these potato cakes today and served them with some rocket a tinned springwater tuna that were in the cupboard from my inventory. They are versatile and you could sub the cheese and ham for almost anything.

 Ingredients

1 large potato, peeled and grated

1 onion finely chopped

150g of grated cheese

100g of dry cure ham, cut into small pieces

4 Tablespoons of flour

1 medium egg, beaten

1 teaspoon mustard

chopped chives

ground black pepper

Method

• Mix together the potato, onion, cheese, ham, flour, egg, mustard and chives. 
• Divide into 4 large or 8 small pieces.  Shape into patties and chill for 15 minutes.
• Heat the oil in a large non stick, griddle pan and cook the patties over a medium heat until golden brown, approximately 5-7 minutes on each side.
• Serve hot or cold with a dressed mixed salad and garnished with a wedge of lemon.

Weightwatchers - one cake is 10pp

Cost = £0.95

Make Your Own Soda

Do you like fizzy drinks? Here we call it 'ginger', you might know it as soda or pop!

Fizzy drinks are expensive!!! We have tried cheaper versions, but honestly.. hand on heart it is one thing that I cannot stand to 'downshift'.

Until now.....

Our Supermarket sells 2 litre bottles of mineral water for £0.17. I ordered 4 this week , but... I accidently choose sparkling water. No-one in the house likes fizzy water, so I was prepared to take a £0.68 wastage. But then My husband suggested adding cordial.

So my son decided to try it out. He added a little bit of Asda smartprice orange squash to a glass of sparkling water and it tastes EXACTLY like Orange Fanta or Tango!

He thinks its great because he is not allowed soda as it irritates his stomach, but this he can have!!! We have tried it with lemon squash, blackcurrant squash and lime cordial. They are all great. You could also add fresh fruit juice!

I estimate one bottle of squash would make around 16 bottles so it works out at £0.20 per 2 litre bottle of soda! Last time I looked Fanta was about £1.45 so thats a huge saving!.. If only I could perfect Irn Bru, darn that secret ingredient!

Spinach, Goats' Cheese & Pecan Salad

I actually REALLY enjoy eating salads, especially in hot weather. I know some people find them boring.. but to those people I say you just ain't doing it right!! Salad doe snot have to mean lettuce, tomato, cucumber! There are some fantastic salad options out there! This is a really great one I found and like to eat fairly often.

Ingredients

100g Pecan Nuts

125g Goats' Cheese

1 red onion

120g spinach

olive oil

lemon juice

runny honey

Method

• Heat a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast the pecans for a couple of minutes.
• Remove from heat and transfer half to a food processor. Blitz until you have a fine dust.
• Cut the goats’ cheese in half, lengthways, and using slightly damp hands, roll each half into a sausage shape.
• Roll each in the crushed pecans until fully coated and then cut each roll into 8 discs.
• Gently toss together the red onion, spinach, toasted whole pecans and goats’ cheese discs. Whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice and honey until combined. Drizzle over the salad, toss to combine and serve immediately.

This serves four and comes in at 10pp

Cost = £0.98 per person

When things don't go to plan

Twice this week I have deviated from the meal plan. I just wanted to write a post about this and let anyone doing meal planning for the first time that this is ok. Just switch your meal with another day. Sometimes things happen that mean plans change. For me, there were a few reasons for changes. Firstly I forgot on Monday to defrost mince for Tuesday's cottage pie. Now I could have done a microwave defrost, but my husband was sick and I was at Tae Kwon Do with my son, usually on a Tuesday my husband will start dinner. So it was easier just to do a quick and easy meal on Tuesday, so we took the Tortilla Pizzas from Wednesday, thinking we'd just have cottage pie the next day. However, my stirfry mix and noodles needed used by 3rd, so I figure why not make that on Wednesday and shift the meal that was safe in the freezer! That's the good thing about planning. You have the ingredients there, so you can just switch, I haven't updated my meal planner online, but the one on the fridge I just marked up as necessary.

Prawn & Cashew Nut Stirfry

This is a super fast meal to make and is super filling!! It serves four, BUT if you are having more than one course it could easily stretch to 6 as it is really bulked up by the veggies! It cost around £5 to make as i keep things like ginger, garlic, soy etc in my store cupboard. I use prepacked stirfry veggies as they are usually on special offer so it works out cheaper than purchasing beansprouts, pak choi etc individually. You might find dried noodles cheaper, but for me Tesco were doing 3 for £2.50 so i got my veggies, noodles and another item as part of the deal.

Ingredients

300g king prawns

1 pack straight to wok/fresh egg noodles

1 pack of stir fry veg

30g fresh root ginger peeled and diced

2 cloves of fresh garlic diced

soy sauce

50g of cashews

Method

• Heat a wok or large pan and spray with a mist of oil, finely dice ginger and garlic and fry until softened.
• Add the pack of stir fry veggies and cook for 2 or 3 mins stirring continuously before adding the prawns and cashews.
• Add the noodles (If you use dried cook and drain first) and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce.
• Cook for another 5 mins - keep stirring!
• Serve in bowls with chopsticks!

It's that easy! For fellow weight watchers a quarter of this recipe is 7PP

Cost = £1.36 per person (based on 4 sharing)

Additional Purchases

I added a little more to our "total spent". I decided anything purchased from the icecream van like juice and crisps should be counted, as should weight watchers treats and eating out at lunch.

So I added an additional £23.55 on to our spend. That includes 2 boxes of WW bars for me, my husband spent £2 on lunch on monday, then we got a few bottles of juice and sweets here and there. I also bought some chicken legs and pasta salad for lunch and prawns for dinner.

Tortilla Pizzas

I am deviating from the meal plan today for two reasons. First, I forgot to leave out the mince from the freezer for cottage pie, and second the hubby is sick and doesn't want a heavy meal like cottage pie. BUT, the great thing about meal planning is i can just grab a different meal from this week and cook it instead!! Tomorrow was Tortilla Pizza which is great as it's a quick meal, and snack style. In fact I think I should have put it down for wednesday anyway.. WHY? did I choose a high prep meal for TaeKwonDo night?

These are super easy to make, great for kids and also work for lunch or a snack! I use warburtons square wraps, but any type of wraps will work, the thicker the better!

Ingredients

Warburton Square Wraps (1 per person)

Mozerella Cheese

Tinned Tomatoes

Mixed Herbs

choice of pizza topping

Grated Cheese

Method

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees
• Lay out wraps on baking trays
• Mix together chopped tomatoes and mixed herbs
• Spoon the tomato mixture over the wraps - you can freeze anything left and use in pasta or more pizzas
• add your pizza toppings (mine had ham and onion and the boys had pepperoni)
• slice mozerella and scatter over the wraps
• add a little grated cheese to fill the gaps
• Bake for 10 mins
• Slice and serve with left over salad leaves

This is really quick and easy, you can make it a rainy day activity too and have everyone make their own pizza, great for buffets too! Pizza is also a fantastic way to use up leftovers. We have tried loads of things. I might do a post about pizza soon.

WeightWatchers Points for my ham and onion pizza were 12pp - you can reduce this by using low fat cheese or less cheeese, I loaded mine with 60g of mozerella and 10g of cheddar as I had loads of points left today.

COST - £0.85 per pizza