Hi
BIG HUGS
I am ever so sorry about the big new worries! What a shock! I hope that your hub can find a new job soon.
I second batch cooking - it is the most economic way of cooking. What you can also consider is making a big tomato sauce base that you can then use for all sorts of dinners and also making extra mixed veg stew to then use as a base for further dishes in order to save energy but be able to vary.
Stew can be turned into a soup with a little water and some added pasta or potatoes, for instance, or you can mix it with your tomato sauce base - for a cheeky minestrone for instance or a pasta dish with white sauce on top, if wished. Don't overseason the base so you can add seasoned leftovers or create a new flavour profile for a different dish that only needs to be heated but not cooked.
Use lentils, a tin of beans or chickpeas etc. as cheap protein and fibre rich fillers to replace meat fully or partially. See meat more as a flavouring in a small quantity - that is a very old trick that still works. You can bulk up meatballs and mince based week dishes with lentils and blitzed bean paste for instance without it being really obvious that you actually make the meat stretch for double the amount and meals; or just add a little diced hard sausage or a very little ham or bacon to make a spicy or smoked meat flavoured soup or stew for instance.
Go for cheap seasonal veg, like root veg, that is whole and buy the cheapest you can find. They make healthy soups, stews, portion pies (which take not as long to cook in the oven), go into pasta sauces if you grate them and make vegetable curries as well. Frozen veg out of season is next best alternative - you use only as much as you need. If you can defrost over the course of the day, you can save energy that way.
Buy frozen or tinned fruit for desserts and cereals; there is a great variety and they are cheaper than fresh. You can blend them to make a fruit coulis dessert or just turn plain yoghurt into something more interesting, or make summer pudding with bread leftovers in the microwave.
I second old cookbooks - I have also gone back to using some of the tricks my grannies and mother used to make the best of any leftovers (especially expensive meats like chicken) to make the most of them and make meat and other expensive ingredients last for double or more dinners.
The bones, skin and any veg leftover/offcuts can be used to make stock (you need to pass it through a sieve though) for a soup or some gravy. (You can however cheat and use stock cubes or pots and water instead for the dishes below...
But you can turn the stock into a thick sauce by making a roux (melting 2-4 tablespoons of margarine or butter and whisking in plain flour just when the margarine has melted; add the flour gradually to avoid lumps. Once you have a smooth paste with as much flour as the margarine will take, you can then add the stock very little by little (continue with the whisking until the base is loose enough to no longer clump before adding the rest) for either a smooth sauce or - if you add any stew or soup leftovers (start with water when making the roux and add as much extra you need for the stew to get the right consistency) - for a fricassee (which is a thickened creamy casserole without any cream in it) to serve with pasta, rice or potatoes, which is actually quite a comforting dish - and you can basically add in anything or tweak with spicing to turn it into a very different tasting comfort dish. The fricassee basically only needs to be heated through, but not cooked.
In my family, chicken fricassee made with a little saved diced chicken breast and soup leftovers was actually a welcome Sunday dish served with rice or, if we went really posh, vol-au-vents even though it was basically the leftovers from a big pot of soup made by boiling a whole chicken in it with added diced and sliced veg; any chicken bones, skin and undesirable bits had to be fished out before serving. The soup itself was stretched by ladling it over alphabet noodles in the bottom of the individual plates. My mum got three to four family dinners out of that; even if she had to stretch it with much cheaper meatballs when we had our grandparents from Germany staying with us.
PS: If you add milk to the roux instead of stock, you get the classic white sauce for topping leftover dishes (ideal for making leftovers looking like new); which then becomes a cheesy sauce by simply stirring in some cheap grated cheese - there you have your maccaroni and cheese. Season the white sauce with salt and pepper; for the cheesy sauce only pepper, since the cheese is salty.
Use a slow cooker or a microwave wherever you can - including some bread pudding if you have bread leftovers. If you bake, use smaller portion ramekins for any bakes and bake cakes in portioned muffin trays instead; this shortens the baking time considerably.
A basic kiddie biscuit recipe can be tarted up and varied up with spicing; chocolate birthday cake and biscuits you can stretch with only adding expensive cocoa powder to half of the dough (always add a very little water to the chocolate dough until you have the same consistency as the non-chocolate one) and then make it a half and half one or marble.
For spicing, look online or in ethnic shops for bulk deals and grow your own herbs. Spicing and different flavour profiles go a long way in making cheaper and vegetarian/vegan food taste good and interesting - you can do a lot with a comparatively small quantity. I have got my own rosemary, kitchen bay and sage bushes in the garden (the kitchen bay actually in a pot right by the front door as I use it in soups, home pasta sauces and curries). My hardy rosemary is now 20 years old. The other herbs are in pots and may need re-stocking after a hard winter.
Spices and even some herbs will also help you with varying some cheap basic recipes for desserts and any cakes. If you can get to a market, you can also buy fresh seasonal veg and fruit more cheaply there. Spicing was key for shifting my hub off meat and towards a more sustainable mainly vegetarian diet with meat only twice a week. It helps to make the same basic seasonal ingredients taste very different.
PS: You can make meringues out of the fluid in a can of tinned chickpeas. It takes a lot longer to firm up when beating but it is the egg-free way of making meringues and will make a nice weekend dessert with some blitzed frozen strawberries.
Heat only the room you are in and use microwaveable snugglesafes or hot water bottles and a thick house coat to keep warm (including in bed).
I also second the Citizen's Advice Bureau for practical information and advice.
If you haven't there are a number of things everyone can do to use less. I'll attach an article that was written for our Parish Magazine last Autumn which describes some, I hope it will be helpful. You may also be able to save a bit by switching energy supplier, some suppliers are now taking new customers and offering fixed rate deals again.
