Our frugal low cost home cooked meals
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- Опубліковано 24 січ 2025
- I get fed up thinking of meals sometimes so this week I used CHATGPT to do the thinking for me. Come and see the resulting menu.
Frugal Queen in France
We are a British couple living in Brittany on a budget.
Frugal recipes, days out, home renovations and day to day making do in France.
We’ll give you hints, tips, advice and an insight into our life in France.
Budget Book Recomendation
Link to book:
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Link to Full Shop
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Instagram / frugalqueen. .
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Our family of 4 people living in UK, we are so happy we found your channel!!! Thank you! You are absolutely unreal woman!
Oh, Jane….the struggle is real. Like you and Mike, my husband and I eat 100% of our meals at home. I am the chef (and I have actually worked as a chef, which helps), but I do find myself in cooking ruts. Using search engines (like your ChatGPT idea) helps inject a few fresh ideas. I also peruse old-fashioned cook books to get inspiration. I also will make double batches of meals that freeze well, to pull out another time. Some things taste better after being frozen, like certain soups and curries. These days, I just accept the ebbs and flows of being the home-chef. If I’m uninspired, I go back to basics, and give myself some grace until my cooking mojo is back.
Thanks Dee
I try to keep it simple, breakast in warmer months is 1 weetablix crushed into yogurt with frozen berries on top or toast and homemade jam/marmalade, winter is porridge or toast with peanut butter. Lunches are either protein with salad, a sandwich or soup, dinner I plan the night before depending on how busy the following day will be, tonight is slow cooked beef stew with dumplings. Snacks will be fruit or boiled eggs or cheese, I don't alwasy eat 3 times each day, mostly just twice as I don't get that hungry and of course a bucket load of tea and coffee enjoyed through the day with a hot chocolate in the evening during cold winter months.
Thanks so much for sharing
I love “you’re on your own “ days at our house. That means we eat leftovers in our own personalized combinations. No more wasted food.
Very inspirational. I will be trying all of those meals. So we are a family of 3, husband, my mum and my myself. As my mum has very poor appetite I have to make meals attractive for her. We always have a large chicken and a joint of meat usually pork, beef or gammon joint every week which I normally manage to get at least 5 meals, 3 portions per meal from. The chicken and joint cost around £12 so for us very economical way to eat. A chicken owes me nothing as I use everything even the bones to make soup. I will also make stew, what’s leftover a pastry crust goes on top. Lunch tends to be sandwiches or baked potatoes with different fillings. Breakfast 2 eggs each or porridge with peanut butter. Snacks are fruit or homemade cake.
@@michellechapman6961 you're doing great, thanks for sharing
Who knew chat gpt could help recipe plan. Great tip, and fabulous meals. 😊
It's very useful
Thank you. During the week I eat overnight oats for breakfast, still working so lunch is either a salad or freezer meal, evening meal soup or eggs or salad. I don’t eat meat but make lots of plant based meals and freeze.
@@jayneporter5538 thank you
Love all your wonderful meal ideas. It does get a bit dull having to cook on a daily basis. Also nice to see other ideas shared here by others.
🙂
@@soniastefansson5866 thank. You
Great recipes as always, I have been following you when you still lived in the UK and wrote the blog. I learnt so much from you and did a fiscal fast for a whole year and saved so much money. I don't eat out either, I can't cope with the mediocrity of food in restaurants and find a lot of pubs use frozen food and just heat it up, so I always wonder what is the point of having a chef if he's just heating food up in a microwave. I only eat out when I travel and choose wisely the places I want to try out. I absolutely love your simple living. You are always my go to when I need inspiration. Bonne continuation a vous deux, et bon weekend!
We ate out in the UK and all of it was distinctly average and over priced
I'm always on the look out for new ideas for meals, I don't like cooking but always cook from scratch. Saturday night is our take away night just because I've had enough of cooking all week, ha ha. I know I could eat out the freezer but everyone needs a treat and mine is not having to think about cooking and cleaning up afterwards on Saturdays 😊
@94hydenseek we have treats occasionally, once a year perhaps, it's never a treat if it's a regular occurrence. 10 a week is 520 a year
Enjoyed the video and the use of chat 💬GPT, a nice modern twist on menu planning.
My breakfast is late and just basic coffee with fruit and yogurt.
The evening meal varies from burgers or meatballs with sauce, fish, cheese 🧀 or eggs. Vegetables or salad are always served. I can normally think of something. I eat twice a day with coffee and ☕️ tea in between😊
Lovely looking meals 🥘
And now it is bedtime 🛌 for this night owl. 🦉
Thank you Jane and Mike for the interesting video. Pats to the doggies 🇦🇺👍
Thanks so much for sharing
I mix the type of meals my mum used to make, along with new stuff, and the odd lazy one. 😄 I've collected quite a few recipes from the short UA-cam videos that pop-up from time to time, as well as those that you have kindly shared. I too write a list of meals for the week ahead, from which I make my shopping list. Sometimes I double up on meals in the same week, as well as freeze some. 🤗🥰
That's a great idea!
Yummy 😋🙂
Everything looks delicious. Thank you❤
My breakfast is mostly glutenfree crackers with marmite, peanutbutter, banana slices and some red pepper. Lunch is mostly glutenfree bread or home made glutenfree waffles with (not all but I choose from this) cheese, meat slices, nut butter, home made jam, honey. Sometimes home made soup or a dinner leftover. Dinner is a variety. Snacks are mostly fruit or a cracker with some salty in it. In the evening I like to eat a home made glutenfree sweet snack.
Your plates are always so attractive ❤
Thank you 😋
Fortunately, I have 6-7 podcasts that I can view for budget meals plus an outstanding 1960's cookbook from my mother which contains downhome recipes using simple ingredients. (P.S. you are one of my podcasts I watch for ideas on meals to serve.) Thanks for sharing.
Super
Thank you for the video. I have not thought of using CHATGPT and will have to try that. I appreciate that you stress that you can save so much money eating at home. Three years ago we moved to be close to our grandchildren and started a tradition of going to church together and eating afterwards. At first, we went to a nice restaurant. My goodness, that was expensive! So we decided to pick up food. That helped but still cost $80 to $100 a week. It did not take long before I decided that I just had to cook for everyone. Now I feed 10 to 12 people once a week for about $10 total. I had to get creative but it's the people that matter, not the food.
That’s more affordable
👍👍👍
Hadn’t thought of using chatGPT, will give it a try.
Lovely meals. Very similar to mine, a mix of traditional British and French cooking.
Thank you
You eat very well at your house and that is amazing. Just goes to show. You can stretch a little bit to make a lot and have very fulfilling meals! I’ve used ChatGPT for the same exact thing. I’ve put ingredients in to find out what meals I can make I absolutely am addicted to ChatGPT lol 6:19
Yes! Thank you!
Yum yum 😋 I love your food videos Jane and Mike so inspiring .thank you.
Our pleasure!
I eat 2 meals a day and 2 snacks. I bake mini muffins, cookies & mini cupcakes and keep in the freezer. My sweet snack. Fruit is my 2nd snack. I eat my large meal at noon & oatmeal with fruit/veggie smoothie for dinner. Oatmeal is still under $5 and is 30 servings so it really helps my monthly budget! I get many recipes from youtube. I like the $5 or $6 meals that serve 5-6. Cook once, eat and put 5 meals in the freezer! I always have 30-40 meals ready in my freezer. Its easy, I don't have to cook everyday and it gives me variety and keeps me on budget.
Thanks for sharing
Good very inspiring video; I will add the salmon fish cake, thanks !
I only buy items on discount and over the years I have a very well stocked pantry and freezer.. I also grow some vegetables and hope to do better this year. I have about a 1 year larder so take down 1/12 of everything and put it on the worktop shelf, same with chest freezer into my fridge freezer. Then it can get quite interesting. Some things I do not know how to use so out come the recipe books or you tube. I try to spread the 'unknowns' out over the month. I find the food actually last more like 5 to 6 weeks. I buy a few basic veg and fruit but not much, aiming for 2 portions of fruit a day and 3 veg.
I have a list of dishes we like and just choose 7 dinners write them in my note book and check that I have everything before I shop, breakfast is always the same and lunch is either salad, baked potatoes, sandwiches, cheese board, or soup. I try not to have leftovers but if I do I use it up by incorporating it in a meal to be eaten over the next few days or freeze.
Thanks for watching
Your meals look beautiful enough to be in a cookbook❤
Thank you
Jane you are so creative, love the variety.😀
Thanks so much! 😊
We eat the same thing most days for breakfast and lunch. For dinner, I cook 3x during the week. Thursdays are leftovers, and Fridays is either take out or homemade pizza. Saturdays we barbecue whatever meat is handy, and Sundays I usually cook a roast of some sort or a dish in the crockpot.
Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you 😊
You're welcome 😊
Thank you for sharing Dolly, Mary, Jane and Mike. love the veggies combinations.
Thanks for watching
I agree that thinking up 21 meals a week is a big problem. Now that my husband (who would never eat the same protein 2 days in a row) has passed away, I find myself eating either breakfast or lunch in the late morning and a second meal between 4:00-5:00p. It not only saves money, but it saves a lot of time and calories, too.
Thanks for watching
For one, I watch you! I have not jumped onto the internet bandwagon, but maybe i should. I have a large collection of cookbooks. Picture books for inspiration. Since i do not have access to shopping and rarely cook from a recipe, they are truly for inspiration, and i improvise from what i actually have.
Thanks for your reply
Great ideas. I use Supercook to suggest recipes. Cooking for one means I always end up with spare meals, so can go some weeks without cooking.
Great idea!
Breakfast in warmer times is yoghurt with fruit en a spoon of crunchie cereal. In cooler months it's porridge. On Sundays a sort of cooked breakfast. Lunch can be soup or a sarnie. Dinner whatever is in the fridge or freezer, bought in a kind of too good to waste shop or a discounter supermarket. Stirfry&noodles, burger air fry chips, veg. Cauli&cheese pasta, salads...I don't really mealplan but make sure food doesn't get wasted!
Thanks for sharing!
All of it looks so good! We are a 21 meal couple. Occasional snacks and always dessert. Sometimes its a decadent dessert other times maybe a piece of fruit or a small cup of ice cream. Snacks are usually a piece of fruit or mixed nuts or pretzels. Breakfast if it were up to me would be a hot breakfast daily and a large one.. it is my favorite meal of the day. But instead we do cold, hot cereal. I make my own yogurt and will add a bit of granola to it. On a splurge it will be eggs, bacon, potatoes or like yesterday I made flour tortillas and we had breakfast burritos (chorizo, egg and potatoes). I don't have an air fryer but I definitely want to purchase one this year !
Thanks for watching and commenting
A fruit smoothie for breakfast is a very good way to use up going off bananas and add frozen fruit and yogurt.
@@SharonMcGee-b2i nice
I don't mind having the same meal on repeat. Breakfast is the same pretty much every day. I have many different types of frozen vegetables. Often it's the same protein with different vegetables and starches. I don't meal plan the way you do. I tend to take inspiration from the vegetables. I might stir fry, serve with rice, or add vegetables to cooking pasta and add cheese etc. For me the important thing is to make at least 4 portions and not have to cook for the next 3 days. I understand that many people won't like to eat the same thing day in and day out. Looking in the fridge and finding leftovers to eat is a joy.
Thanks for watching and commenting
I have different sources, my own family cooking style, cookbooks and now of course the Internet. That said I just bought a magazine with plenty of Christmas cooking recipes that I’ll try during the next month. Anything goes. Have a great weekend.
Thanks for watching
I got the idea of a menu plan board from you. On Mondays i go through the pantry, fridge and freezers and see what I have, then I make a meal plan. Every week I look at the new grocery store flyer online and see if there are any real deals. I end up shopping maybe 2 times a month. I mostly eat pork and chicken. I live alone and eat one meal a day. Some days my meal is a large bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and yogurt or a full breakfast with bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, toast and beans.
@@suebee1540 that's great
I have a standard breakfast of coffee ;toast , yoghurt and fruit. Lunch most of the time salade or oatmeal with apple ; Dinners I have a lot of cooking books, watch food channels or pinterest .Or just eyeball it and playing by ear. I love cooking so I don't see it a a chore.
Delicious 😊
Love the Chat GPT idea to help with meal planning ! I get into ruts too when it comes to cooking. I usually plan weekly dinners but that is about it and it is usually without much help from the Internet or AI. I usually just wing it when it comes to cooking dinner, however, I do need to become more intentional about how I use what I have on hand to plan and use the method of reverse meal planning.
Thanks for watching
Hi Jane and Mike 🤗 It's just 2 of us at our house and I don't eat meat so what we do here is have oatmeal or some other type of cereal for breakfast, I cook up some sort of main starch like rice, quinoa or potatoes and a variety of steamed vegetable and have some raw salad vegetables at the ready. I will cook myself some kind of bean in the Instant Pot and this time of year a hearty soup. My husband will cook some meat that he wants and then it's just a matter of mix and match to make up meals. Once something that we both use gets low, I just make some more so I would say I only really cook 2 days a week and the rest of the time is reheating already made foods. Snacks are fruits, yogourt.
@@cyclingonplants7444 thanks for sharing
Great help!
Breakfasts: scrambled eggs with cheese (because that is what my sister likes). Lunches: usually sandwiches (tomato, tomato & cheese, toasted cheese with chutney), and/or soup. Dinners: fish & chips; meatballs with rice, noodles, or potatoes; pasta of some sort with pomodoro or marinara sauce; hearty soup; roasted veg; cabbage and leeks; salads; chicken street tacos; rice & beans (with chicken for my sister).... And when I am at a complete loss, I look at your menu plan! As for snacks, cheese crackers, apples, mandarins, bananas, dates, nuts, or trail mix. I've pretty much gone off meat and will skip adding it to casseroles and pasta dishes, and instead add more veg. The pantry is well stocked, so while I don't have a plan per se, we keep most of the ingredients on hand and work through them.
How do I plan 21 meals a week? Watch you, Jane!!! Seriously! But I also shop early on a Saturday, grabbing yellow sticker meats + checking the Lidil app for offers. On Sunday I spend an hour meal planning, putting reciepts into my account book, paying any bills. That done I can just get on with my life and enjoy it!! 😊
Love it!!
Yum 😊💜
🏴❤️🏴 we eat a main meal late afternoon, early evening, lunch is usually sandwich or toast, breakfast if we bother is either porridge, cereals or yogurt with fruit, nuts, honey 🏴❤️🏴
I plan 1 meal per week! 😅 i make 1 casserole or crockpot meal per week and that is what i eat everyday for lunch and dinner. yes, its boring by the end of the week but, this saves me the most time and money. If i run out of the casserole i make ramen or tuna sandwiches.
@@lirastolons4951 thanks for sharing
We kind of have whatever strikes our fancy for breakfast 😂 hot or cold cereal, toast with peanut butter/jam, things like hashbrowns and eggs or pancakes/waffles with or without meats are a weekend treat more than weekday/workday. There’s an assortment of store bought snacks like granola bars and crackers also on hand. When I bake muffins or cookies, about half go in the freezer and the rest go in the breakfast/snacks options. We keep those foods/planning pretty loose.
Breakfast is always the same every week: boiled eggs Monday, Wednesday and Friday (OH cooks them and has them down to a fine art), cereal and toast all the other days, porridge on Sundays. I love breakfast.
Dinners are planned for the week every Sunday, usually end up being from a fairly small cross section of things we both like: soups made with homemade stock and veggies and sometimes dumplings; things with beans and pulses, butter beans and pease pudding variants, baked beans if we're in the mood; fish twice a week; meat, mostly chicken, at the weekend or if we have a whole chicken (maybe once every couple of months) it'll provide meals for most of the week. No pork these days other than bacon for sandwiches for OH, I keep and re-use the fat, waste not etc. Steak for him, tofu or seitan for me once in a while, never minced beef, he comes from a time when it was not to be trusted, and I avoid beef (and dairy as much as possible) too, vaguely for carbon footprint reasons.
Summer eating is a bit different from winter.
Lunches are moveable feasts, or not much of anything. OH has nuts and fruit he likes, sometimes cheese or a cake or something, I have weird and delightful mixtures of leftovers and Things in Bowls.
We snack quite a bit, unfortunately. I recently ordered uncooked prawn crackers and am amusing myself as to how to get the best results frying them, trouble is they're so compulsive and moreish both to cook and to eat, and use so much oil there's no savings to be made. A lovely Irish friend just made us a wonderful, huge tea brack which serves for lunch and tea or whenever we fancy!
I still enjoy food and cooking, finding a satisfactory compromise is sometimes a challenge.
@@BrittanyLucy Nice!👍
We have large salads every day for lunch. Dinner usually hotdish or pasta. Yogurt as a snack or fresh fruit. Very simple for.
Love that!
We have hard boiled eggs and coffee for breakfast 5-6 days a week and on the weekend something special might be on the menu. We eat dinner for lunch, so I'll cook every other day because I cook meals that have 4 servings. I rotate Italian (usually a ravioli bake, yum), American (in the fall/winter it's a hearty soup/stew or a sheet-pan dinner), Mexican (quesadillas, burritos, tostadas) and Asian dishes (stir-fried rice, egg foo yung or lo mein) depending on what I'm in the mood for. On Fridays, we eat out and on Saturday we have pizza (rotate through favorites: pepperoni, deluxe and bbq chicken -- homemade crust and sauces, of course). Dinners are diy. I have stopped planning meals and just rotate my favorites. Cooking from what I have on hand after buying deep sales at the store. We have lamb chops in the freezer right now, so looking forward to having those.
Forgot! Thursdays are left-over day.
Thanks for sharing
Every other week I roast a chicken with potatoes and veggies; after dinner, the remaining meat is taken off the bones and used for 2-4 other meals: chicken quiche (half eaten; half frozen); chicken a la king ; chicken korma, chicken salad, chicken wraps or tacos and if a nice piece of breast is left it's served warm with blue cheese sauce and veggies. The carcass is put in the freezer until we have 4 and then I make stock which I pressure can or I reduce it to demi glace and freeze. on alternate weeks I try to make lasagna which is good for 2 meals (and 2 meals frozen). I always have salmon patties in the freezer (salmon + smoked salmon + diced zucchini and shallots).
All great
I plan around the meat on sale and what I have in freezer. We take leftovers for lunch. Bake muffins ,make granola and waffles for breakfast. We eat eggs if nothing is planed. We have chickens so we have a lot of eggs. I look through my cookbooks and we have favorites. The kids are picky so quite a few meals are eaten frequently.
Super
I would say I am the same as you. We only eat out for special occasions, or if we are visiting someone.
Thanks.
You're welcome
Meal planning... uggh! It's especially hard for me now because of health issues and somewhat restricted diet. I can't have red meat ( beef/pork, or any processed meats). only poultry 2x week and fish or seafood 3x week. It's essentially a Mediterranean diet. But I am learning. In our family, we do breakfast on your own, except for Sunday mornings. Lunch is what I had the previous days for dinner. My husband usually has a sandwich of some kind and fruit. Dinner is vegs, beans, lentls, poultry or whole grains in some fashion.
Thanks for sharing
I am often more annoyed by planning out a meal plan than by executing said plan...I didn't realize others felt like this as well. I only 'plan' dinner; I would definitely feel the victim if I had to plan out 21 meals a week. My mother had a regular rotation of culinary standards, and when inspiration (usually from ethnic cookbooks) fails me, I fall back on those meals.
Nothing wrong with the greatest hits
Dolly and Mary are soooo cute, Jane I really don’t know how I come up with so many different meals in a week, must say I’m getting over it after more than 50 years of thinking wots for dinner 😅
You and I both
There is always the danger of getting stuck in a food rut. We have our share of ‘go to’ meals, using frozen ingredients (paella being the main one. I roughly menu plan at the beginning of each week. I check the fridge and see what needs to be used up, and plan to include those. Lunch is usually soup or a sandwich, so I only have to plan evening meals. Two evenings a week we eat previously cooked and frozen ‘ready meals’. These are usually stews/curries that I have previous cooked in bulk. I just need to prepare and cook rice or pasta or potatoes. At least once a week I will cook once and eat twice, usually lasagne or shepherds pie. When we have friends over for dinner I like to try at least one new thing. This helps increase the repertoire, especially as one of our friends is a veggie, so I get to do something I wouldnt normally do. We have no problem eating leftovers.
@@Essexbird nor us!
Looking forward to this premiere!
It's out now, enjoy 😉
I keep my meals tasty but simple.
Usually oats and fruit, a homemade soup or stew and veg with some kind of fish or chicken.
I had today for lunch tuna salad with 1/2 and apple chopped up.
The cassoulet looks so good. Do you use chicken stock in it?
A stock cube and water, around 200ml, thicken at the end with a couple of spoons of crème fraîche
@ Thank You!
I’m not much of a planner. On my days off, I go to the grocery store and buy whatever meat is on sale and plan a meal around that. On days I work, I have the same half dozen meals on repeat.
Thanks for sharing
Because I eat only one meal per day I just look in the fridge to see what vegetables need to be eaten and that is going with my meal that day. If there is nothing that needs to be used up I might just have some bread with cheese or eggs or some fish. I always eat very simple because I’m not a good cook like you are and I’m alone so my choice will be fine with me. If there are vegetables that need to be eaten I most of the time will do a stir fry with rice and some sauce.
You got this!
Love the IKEA meatball sauce hack 👍
We don’t eat out either mainly as we live too far from any restaurants or takeaways but now it’s become habit to eat at home! Plus we save a fortune !
I’m the sole cook in our house, hubby could burn water 😂 I often sit thinking 🤔 how lovely it would be to have dinner made for then remember it’s me that’s got to do it lol 😂
Being frugal I pick up olio (food saved from landfil) goodies so I tend to do my meal plan around this free food then only what I need to complete the recipe.
Superb
Delicious ❤