I never bothered with a meal plan last week as I was feeling a bit bleugh (if that’s even a word), and as a result, without even looking at the receipts from last week’s food shopping I can tell you that we went way over our weekly budget.
As we didn’t have a meal plan to stick to, we bought random things when we did our main shop and then got home and realised that the things we’d bought didn’t really make up a weeks worth of meals. This meant that through the week we ended up making two extra trips to the shop for extra bits, both times buying more than what we went for. So this week, I’m feeling more than a little disappointed with myself as I’ve been trying so hard to stick to our budget and I really felt like we were doing well with it and I could see the savings we were making each week beginning to add up.
I’m going to try and just forget about it now though and start fresh….
Monday – Macaroni Cheese I have a lovely gammon joint cooking at the moment in the slow cooker so I’ll add some of this in to the macaroni cheese as well for a bit of a change. The gammon should hopefully stretch to a few days worth of meals as well as packed lunch sandwiches.
Tuesday – Sliced gammon, egg, chips and beans
Wednesday – Ham and mushroom oven baked risotto using up the last of the ham I would think.
Thursday – Sausage Casserole
Friday – Quesadillas
Saturday – Homemade burgers, see below as I’m after a bit of advice.
Sunday – Sunday Roast with chicken, roasties, veg and Yorkshire puds.
I’m not very adventurous when I make burgers, in fact for the kids’ burgers all I do is roll 4 portions of minced beef into balls, squash them into burger shapes and that’s it.
For more grown up burgers, I tend to add something like chilli or cajun spices but again, that’s it really.
To cook them, I usually just grill them and serve in buns with homemade wedges and salad.
I don’t want to add anything else to them to fill them out or make the meat stretch further as they’re delicious as they are and at around £3.00 – £3.50 for a medium sized pack of extra lean mince, I think it works out at good value for a meal for us all as it makes 8 burgers.
What I want to know is what other mince I can use to make burgers that won’t need anything adding to them? I worry that some meats might dry out a little without egg or something to bind the mix and I think that’s why I stick to minced beef as I know that won’t happen.
I like the idea of minted lamb burgers or pork and apple burgers so I was hoping that you lovely people might be able to give me some ideas and to reassure me that if I try something different, it won’t end up as a pile of much in the oven 
Over to you….
for super yummy burgers use the annabel karmel recipe-you add peppers and apple to the mix-yum yum yum! plus makes your mince go further!
Mmm that sounds nice x
Dont fear for mince mush… a little tomato puree or tin chopped tomatoes and some quick cook spagetti and theres a spag bol lol… wonder if that counts as upcycling
I've ended up with burger mush many a time lol x
I usually mix together 500g minced lamb, 1 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp ground coriander, 2 crushed garlic cloves and 1Tblsp of chopped fresh mint. Makes really yummy lamb burgers. You can leave out the garlic if you want or adjust the amount of dried herbs to taste. No need to use an egg to bind it either. :o)
I made these last night – DELICIOUS!
Home made burgers are lovely,A chance also to get the children to help prepare their lunch too.
Your menu look svery yummy x
Pork and lamb are good as they are quite fatty, but avoid chicken and turkey as the are too lean and can produce nasty tried up hockey puck type burgers. If you make the patties and refrigerate them before cooking they will hold together better, especially if you're not using an egg. Grilling them rather than frying can also help. Sage goes nicely with pork and apple.
I just had grilled lamb burgers last night and they did taste really nice – I refrigerated them beforehand as you said and they held together lovely – Thanks very much x