Yay - our weekly themed meals have returned; as part of a sponsored post for Collective Bias® I made this scrumptious Greek Pasticcio recipe along with easy Greek Honey Sponge Puddings with ingredients that cost less than £10 from ASDA. It has been far too long since we held one of our Mellow Mummy country themed evenings so the challenge from Collective Bias to make a family meal for a tenner seemed like a good excuse to bring back our weekly tradition.
On Saturday we did our shopping trip to a very busy ASDA (you can see my story here) and on Sunday we cooked. Lara was out with a friend for the day so it gave me and Holly a good chance to spend some quality time together in the kitchen. We pre-prepared some Greek Honey Sponge Puddings, some Tsatziki (cucumber and yoghurt salad) and a gorgeous meaty pasta bake of Pasticcio ready for Lara's return.
In total the complete set of ingredients that bough bought at ASDA came to about £15 but that included a lot of store cupboard keepers such as nuts and honey from which I should be able to make plenty more meals!
PASTICCIO - Serves 4 adults (£5.23 in total)
INGREDIENTS
1 Onion (15p)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed (10p)
250g Macaroni (25p)
100g Tomato puree (24p)
500g beef mince (£2)
2 bay leaves ( we got ours for free from our front garden!)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (31p)
25g butter (10p)
1 tablespoon dried mixed herbs (approximately 5p)
2 eggs (34p)
300ml milk (26p)
20g plain flour (from our store cupboard)
250g mild cheddar cheese, grated (£1.43)
METHOD
Fry the chopped onion and crushed garlic in about 5g of the butter. Stir in the minced beef and fry until browned. Add in the tomato puree, chopped tomatoes and mixed herbs and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Part boil the macaroni for about 50% of the recommended cooking time and then drain.
Layer half the meat, then half the macaroni before adding a layer of the rest of the meat and the rest of the macaroni and then cover and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.
Melt the rest of the butter in a pan and stir in the flour for a minute or two. Add the milk and bring to a simmer, stirring ALL THE TIME until it thickens. Take it off the heat and beat in the two eggs and all of the grated cheese.
Pour the custard over the pasticcio and bake it for another 20 minutes until golden.
TSATZIKI (65p in total)
We made a very simple cucumber salad. A traditional tsatziki would contain lemon juice, garlic and probably some fresh herbs but I wanted to make sure that my girls would try it so I kept it simple.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 a cucumber (25p)
250g greek yoghurt (40p)
METHOD
Peel the cucumber and remove all of the seeds as these make the yoghurt soggy. Chop into small chunks and then stir into the yoghurt to serve.
GREEK HONEY SPONGES - Makes 4 (£1.64 total)
INGREDIENTS
40g butter and extra for greasing (16p)
2 teaspoons of honey plus extra for drizzling (25p)
50g self-raising flour (from our store cupboard)
25g ground almonds (25p)
50g light muscovado sugar (10p)
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (from our store cupboard)
1 egg (17p)
85g greek yoghurt (15p)]
Optional
1 heaped tablespoon of unsalted pistachio nuts, chopped (56p)
METHOD
Grease four ramekins with a little butter and then place half a teaspoon of honey at the bottom of each.
Mix the dry ingredients together, ensuring all the lumps have gone from the sugar.
Melt the butter and stir it in with the egg and yoghurt to the dry ingredients and pour into the ramekins. Cook in a 180 degree oven for 20 minutes until golden and risen. You can bake these well in advance and warm them up in the oven or microwave when you want to serve them.
To serve, drizzle with a little honey and, optionally, some chopped pistachio nuts.
The Pasticcio was an incredible hit with both girls and in fact we have left overs that Mr. B and I will take for lunch at work so this has been an incredibly good value meal. Mr. B. and I loved our simple sponge puddings and I can't believe how easy they were to make; I think they would work very well with a scoop of ice cream. Neither Lara nor Holly seemed keen on the honey sponges... I put this down to honey being a new flavour for both of them as Holly has only recently been allowed to try honey (it isn't advised before 12 months).
I really enjoyed doing this Collective Bias challenge because I don't often sit down and think about how much a meal costs me to make - I was very pleasantly surprised to find out how cheap my meal from ASDA really was!
