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Feeding your family nutritious meals that they actually enjoy can be a real challenge. As a mother-of-three, I’m no stranger to that challenge! Luckily, I think I’ve managed to nail it this week thanks to Jack’s supermarket.
The truth is, half of the battle is making meals that don’t take all day and don’t cost the earth. We’re a busy family, so I can’t spend hours on prep. Even if I had the time, my cooking skills are average at best, so I need to go for easy-to-make food that’s hard to get wrong!
There has recently been a big government push on healthy-eating – accompanied by a lot of negative news stories about how much more expensive it is to eat healthily. While I won’t argue that healthy meals can cost more, I was pleasantly surprised by how much cheaper the ingredients were from Jack’s Supermarket compared to the other big supermarkets.
I made seven nights of meals for four (the youngest is still a baby so doesn’t eat with us), plus I bought a cake for a treat at the end of the week. My aim was to make realistic meals that weren’t so frugal they made us feel like we were missing out – we even had a steak night! Well, life’s all about balance, isn’t it?
Our 7 Nights of Affordable, Healthy Dinners
I find the best way to make our shopping budget stretch further is to be clever with what we buy. We don’t let anything go to waste, so buying a few packs of veg at the beginning of the week can accompany our meals as the week goes on. Everything below cost under £40 and if I’d been more frugal with my choices I definitely could have bought different items and made more meals within that budget.
Here’s what we had:
Chicken Casserole
This was one of the easiest meals I made all week. There was a section in store that had everything you needed to make a chicken casserole all grouped together on display, with a recipe card beside it. I took inspiration from this and adapted it for my slow cooker. I bought a bag of pre-prepared casserole mix, a packet of diced chicken, a sachet of Chicken Casserole Mix and some veg stock cubes (because I use veg stock in almost everything, as you are about to find out). I threw it all in the slow cooker in the morning, then served it up after school, when the kids came home.
BBQ Kebab Skewers and Veg
Using a barbecue to cook this is completely optional, this would be just as tasty if you oven-cooked it. I had a disposable barbecue left over from summer, but Jack’s was selling them for £2 a go, so it’s cheap enough to invest in one if you wanted to make the most of the early autumn warmth.
The kids were delighted to have a barbecue for tea, and I swear it helped get some extra veg down them!
For this meal I bought a pack of BBQ Kebab Skewers, a red pepper, a pack of courgettes, two packs of corn on the cob and a bag of mixed leaf salad. To cook it, I just popped everything, bar the salad, on the barbecue. Again, it was an easy, low-effort meal that everyone enjoyed.
Turkey Mince Tacos
I’m a sucker for a one-pan meal so tacos are right up my street (if you ignore the fact you have to put the taco shells in the oven for a couple of minutes). I bought a Jack’s Taco Kit which contains the taco shells, the seasoning and some salsa, on the back of the box it also tells you to buy other bits.
We always put a red pepper and mushrooms in our tacos to sneak veg into the meal and also bulk it out. The bag of salad we opened the day before still had some leaves in so we finished that off to garnish our plates. You can add sauces like guacamole or soured cream to your tacos, but we’re not so bothered about them and found the salsa in the kit to be enough.
The kids loved this meal and I don’t even think they noticed it was good for them. Everyone knows parenting is 50% educating kids about how and why we should eat healthily and the other 50% is concealing the healthy parts of their meals so they actually eat them!
Roast Chicken Dinner
I don’t usually cook a roast dinner because I’ve previously found preparing, cooking and carving a whole chicken to expensive and a lot of work. Jack’s sell a crown, which is boneless, already basted, big enough to feed a family of four (with leftovers) and only costs £2.99! This discovery was a revelation and I was really excited make this meal as I like eating roasts much more than I like preparing them.
With most of the work done for me, I put the chicken straight in the oven, steamed the veg and roasted the potatoes in vegetable stock. To cook your roasties this way, you peel and chop them as normal, put them in a small, deep roasting try, make up 300ml of stock and pour it over the potatoes so it covers them about halfway up. I cooked mine for the same amount of time as the chicken (it’s usually just over an hour on a medium heat as a guide). The stock boils then evaporates, leaving soft and tasty roasties.
Hearty Beef Stew and Dumplings
This is another meal I make regularly. It’s especially handy if I’m time-poor but feeling productive. I bought some diced beef and threw it in the slow cooker with chopped carrot, parsnip, swede, courgette and mushroom. I added 2 beef stock cubes to 500ml of water then made another 300ml of thick beef gravy. I tend to leave this cooking for six hours so that the beef melts in your mouth.
The dumplings were made from a dumpling mix packet I picked up at Jack’s – just add water then cook in the oven before adding them to the stew. I generally let them soak in the stew for about 30 minutes because it absorbs some of the water and thickens the sauce, creating a hearty, thick consistency.
Steak night
Steak is another meal I rarely cook – usually because of the cost. Jack’s sells a packet of two steak medallions for £2.99, which I think is a bargain. It was the most expensive meal of the week, but I think it’s important to have the odd treat. We steamed the veg, boiled the potatoes then fried the steak – the secret to keeping it succulent is to rest it in tin foil for 10 minutes before you serve it up. We also used a packet of Jack’s own-brand peppercorn sauce to add a little kick.
Leftover Veggie Soup
By the end of the week, we’re usually just left with a few bits of veg that we didn’t use in our meals. This week we had five carrots, three parsnips and half a small swede.
Leftover veg soup is my favourite thing to make because it involves very little effort, but tastes like you’ve put in a lot of work. I make mine in the slow cooker by chucking all the veg in then filling it half way with veg stock. As a rule, I use two stock cubes and 500ml of water, but you may need to adjust that depending on how much veg you put in. I always err on the side of too little, because you can’t undo watery soup!
I leave the slow cooker on high for four(ish) hours then blitz the contents with my hand blender. At this point you will be able to tell if the consistency is okay. I tend to make it a little too thick and end up putting a splash of boiled water out of the kettle in. If you have to add a lot of water, you might want to consider adding another stock cube, but in most cases you’ll be fine.
Carrot Cake – the Pudding of Dreams!
I can’t take credit for this, I bought it ready made from Jack’s for £1.89, but it was too delicious not to mention. We had a slice each after our steak night treat (and I sneaked a slice with a coffee the next day while the kids were at school).
Eating a healthy, affordable diet is all about balance. It’s important to have the occasional treat, if you deny yourself too much, you’ll feel like you’re missing out. With kids it can be hard to find that balance because they change their minds so often, but I’ve discovered that trying to mix up the menu can really help.