big_daddy said:
I am going to be living off £15 a week food shopping at Aldi for when I go back to university and I wanted to know what recipes I can do with canned fish (mackerel, sardines, pilcahrds etc).
Fish is brill for diabetics, as long as you don't batter it and have it with chips and smother it with sauce.
Aldi and Lidl do tins of mackerel and I like the one in the spicy tomato sauce. One tin with a slice of german rye bread or pumpernickel, I get mine from Lidl, is filling, highly nutritious, tasty and very easy on blood sugars. Other tinned fish, in brine or oil are OK too but you have to be careful with some of the sauces as they are sweetened. The spicy tomato is OK though.
Tesco do the cheapest sardines in brine, about 50p. I use these to make pasta con le sarde. There are many recipes on the net, some use fresh sardines, some use tinned. As a diabetic, use wholewheat spaghetti and start off with say 50 g dry weight.
Rollmop herrings and Bismarck herrings from Lidl are good and always keep an eye out for special offers on tinned tuna and salmon. Sometimes they can be expensive but there are always offers around. They make great salads. A tortilla or wholewheat wrap with some salad stuff and some tuna makes a great sandwich substitute.
Salad greens with diced feta cheese and olives make a filling salad. Lidl and aldi both do cheaper balsamic vinegars. You only need to drizzle a very small amount on and it will make a change from fish.
Mixed lentil curries and chole, a chickpea curry is also cheap and nutitious. If you have an asian store nearby, you can get tins of chickpeas usually 3 tins for £1. You can buy ready mixed garam massala or mix your own. Have a look at:
http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/punjab ... icy-gravy/
http://indianfood.about.com/od/vegetari ... hidaal.htm
or search for Majulas Kitchen on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_WQvOIkgRg
Although she is cooking everything from raw ingredients, you can substitute tins and ready made massalas (ie the ready mixed spices). All this stuff is a lot cheaper in an asian store than in a supermarket.
She also has a website:
http://www.manjulaskitchen.com
Lidl do a big bag of fromzen Greenlandic shrimps, I guess Aldi do the same. They cost about £3.50 but you can get a lot of meals out of them. I mix them in with egg foo yungs, add them to seafood salads or add them to the Hairy Bikers' Basic Good Curry Mix. You can make this up, divide into 8 individual portions and freeze. Then, when you want a cheap but very tasty curry use one portion, add some chilli if you want it hotter and add your shrimps, bits of chicken or whatever. By the way, buying ready cooked roast chicken in some supermarkets can be very cheap on a saturday afternoon or early sunday afternoon. You'll get a couple of chicken meals plus left overs for curries, soups or sandwiches.