Thrifty Food Ideas

I have been an idiot.  Yesterday my son was falling asleep in the car on the way back from the GP.  This is a constant battle because if he falls asleep then wakes up minutes later; that's it for the day.

So, like an idiot, I turned and bam, drove straight into and over a kerb.  Got a flat and bent my wheel meaning I needed a new tire and rim.  £230 down the drain.  What an idiot.  Unusually for me, I didn't spend (too long) beating myself up about it and figured my son and I were ok, I didn't hit a pedestrian and I didn't hit another car.  It could have been a hell of a lot worse.

I don't know what it is but recently when I've faced adversity in my life, it's made be question how bad things really are and also consider whether there's someone who is a whole step worse off than me.  Before Christmas, I was being messed around by a mortgage company which meant I was left in limbo for three weeks unable to work out if we could buy a new house.  It drove me to despair until I considered that there would be plenty of families approaching Christmas with no home at all and no prospect of one.  I donated some money to Shelter that afternoon.

So, in this vain, and by a somewhat circuitous route, I would like to pay off the overdraft for that new wheel but also I intend to donate some money to RoSPA out of any savings I make.  I don't know if this life philosophy makes any sense at all to anyone else but it makes sense to me.

Now if I look at my weekly incomings and outgoings, the biggest expenditure after our mortgage is food.  I think I'm a fairly thrifty shopper and I do make use of the leftovers but I'm not sure I always cook the thriftiest recipes.  I mean it had never occurred to me until I had a keema curry (see above) which was a bit on the runny side to add a few red lentils to it.  Not only was that a successful idea taste wise, it also meant I got two more servings from a batch.

I cooked my bolognaise sauce in the slow cooker yesterday, as usual with the chicken livers (which are cheap anyway) but added extra vegetables.  I got two more adult servings out of it without a loss of flavour.

So what else am I missing?  What are your top thrifty recipes, food ideas, top tips?  Why not link them to this blog?  This is my first ever linky driven by necessity!  Help me not only make up for my stupid mistake but to do some good for someone else. So, please link up thrifty recipes, thrifty food tips or just leave a comment if you don't have a blog or don't feel in the mood. If you want to link, click on the comment which says "click here to enter" below!