Low Carb/Carni Mucho Cheapo Mains

DCUKMod said:

I very rarely buy anything other than whole chickens. Even if I only want the breasts, I'll butcher the chicken and freeze the rest. Things like the winglets go straight into the freezer bone bag for broth, next time around.

A chicken takes up a lot less freezer space when butchered.

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I had a mooch around one of those Iceland discounted places this morning and if like me, money is non-existent and ethical meat is a pipe dream, there are bargains to be had, even in the dairy offerings.

wiflib said:

Hot from the oven, ripped apart and dipped in hot garlic butter...

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Gosh, that's almost top shelf stuff!

Aldi does Torchon ham, it's not that sloppy wet stuff that smells funky when you first open the pack. Can't remember how much it is but I've started buying two packs at a time because it only takes one slice of this ham to make two large Rollitos with Aldi sliced Gauda. Great as a main with greens but also a good quick snack or carry-out lunch.

DJC3 said:

Breast of lamb has been a revelation for me. Never touched it before lchf as I thought it was too fatty, but cooked slow and long it turns into something fabulous. It’s really cheap too, as most people are put off by the fattiness, but this just renders away during cooking leaving succulent tasty meat.

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Little more expensive, but makes a great sunday roast subsitute, bone (or ask your friendly butcher to do it) stuff with a high meat content sausage, add garlic, herbs, spices, then roll up and roast

Has anyone mentioned eggs? Main meal or snack - I don't think I could manage without them. Fried, boiled (hot or cold), poached, scrambled, crustless quiche, curried, devilled, egg mayo, omelette, eggy muffins, cracked in to a spicy tomato or tomato and pepper mixture and not forgetting @Brunneria 's corned beef dish.

To go with the eggs there is, of course, cheese in all its wonderful varieties.

I can recommend Iceland (the shop) for fish - their three packs of uncoated filleted fish (trout, cod, haddock, mackerel, etc) for £10 with 4 fillets per pack. I love my fish and usually have two fillets at each meal costing £1.66 per serving or 83p per fillet.

Ah yes! The Eggy Corned Beef Cheesy Thing.

Open a tin of corned beef.
Put some? all? into a non stick frying pan over the heat.
Add onion, tomato paste, chilli, curry paste, garlic, veg, or whatever you like.
Heat until warm and any onion/veg is cooked.
Make hollows in the meat mixture.
Crack an egg into each hollow.
Scatter grated cheese over the top.
Turn heat down to low.
Put lid on pan.
Wait til eggs are as soft or hard as you like.
Eat.

A bit of practice, and temperature adjustment and you can achieve a gloriously crisp and golden crunchy bottom layer of meat, with half hard, succulent eggs.

I find that a standard tin of corned beef (please buy decent quality, and check the ingredients list for added sugar and other rubbish) will do 4 servings of meat, then just add as many eggs as your appetite demands.

Although, in all honesty, I expect Mr B could probably inhale the entire tin and 4 eggs in one sitting, if I left him to plate up.
I am mean that way...

edited for typo

wiflib said:

Here we all are talking food knowledge and it strikes me that so many people just don't know food. I remember as young woman looking at a cooked chicken carcass and not having a clue about how to turn it into anything, let alone soup!

I've done a lot of work in food poverty and I was shocked at the stuff that doesn't get taken. I was asked to come and rescue around 25 whole cooked hams (the reformed stuff) a couple of christmases ago from a food bank. Nobody would take it because it wasn't already sliced. The same food bank used to have to ration the end of day Greggs offerings, it was hidden from view so as not to cause arguments. Produce that need any sort of prepping was the last to go.

I learned to cook in my mothers kitchen, at school and as a wife and mother, what happens these days?

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Not a lot! Sadly the Mums and Grandmothers have to go out to work and whole families end up relying on ready meals, takeaways or 'something out of the freezer' and frozen chips - so kids don't get to learn kitchen skills at home (apart from learning how the microwave works) and its not something they seem to teach in schools any more.

Brunneria said:

Although, in all honesty, I expect Mr B could probably inhale the entire tin and 4 eggs in one sitting, if I left him to plate up.
I am mean that way...

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Yes, I think Mr C could too. It was after eating your corned beef masterpiece that he experimented making it with high meat content sausagemeat which was also very tasty and quick.

Brunneria said:

My butcher (old style, high street, non-chain) does carrier bags full of chicken carcasses on a Saturday morning after he has removed legs and breasts. There is usually plenty of meat left, including wings, oysters and back meat.

I have had as many as 9 carcasses in a single carrier bag for £2, which yielded a litre of chicken meat, and about 4 litres of chicken stock/bone broth.

What is that? Around 8 good portions of meaty chicken soup. Just add butter or cream to get to keto macros, and season and spice to taste.

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I don't think any of our local butchers sell chicken carcasses, at least not since rationing ended.

Mr_Pot said:

I don't think any of our local butchers sell chicken carcasses, at least not since rationing ended.

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Strange.. mine gave me three only last week.. but then again we did ask..

Mine does too - and beef and lamb bones but they are only available on Mondays.

Mr_Pot said:

I don't think any of our local butchers sell chicken carcasses, at least not since rationing ended.

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My butcher only has them on a Saturday morning for less than an hour - since they walk off the shelves, grabbed by opportunistic scavengers like myself. I would never have known about them if I hadn’t stood in the queue and seen other people buying/asking/ordering. Nor would I have known about the ox cheeks on request, or the frozen gluten free sausages, or the frozen rabbits, or the ‘we get cows delivered Mondays and pigs delivered Tue and Thur, so if you want a particular cut, then ring up and ask the day before the carcasses get delivered, not the day before you want the cut’.

They were amused and delighted the time i rang up and asked for cow (bull?) femur marrow bone, and told me they would be butchering Monday, so I could pick up on Tuesday. Two bones => 5 or 6 litres of incredible bone broth, nearly a litre of marrowfat, and some lovely meaty scraps. All for £3.

6 months later, I am still using that heavenly marrow fat for cooking, but will do a repeat when i use it up.

To give you an idea of scale:


Known as Postman’s Legs, in my local farm feedstore.

(N.B. This is a pic from the internet, to show the size of the uncut bone. The ones my butcher supplied had been sawn into pieces, to make the marrow accessible)

Chook said:

Not a lot! Sadly the Mums and Grandmothers have to go out to work and whole families end up relying on ready meals, takeaways or 'something out of the freezer' and frozen chips - so kids don't get to learn kitchen skills at home (apart from learning how the microwave works) and its not something they seem to teach in schools any more.

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Gosh, you make it sound like women are to blame. Times change. Just about everybody goes out to work now, men & women. It's down to BOTH parents to educate their kids about food, not just the women. Some people do and others don't.

Brunneria said:

Ah yes! The Eggy Corned Beef Cheesy Thing.

Open a tin of corned beef.
Put some? all? into a non stick frying pan over the heat.
Add onion, tomato paste, chilli, curry paste, garlic, veg, or whatever you like.
Heat until warm and any onion/veg is cooked.
Make hollows in the meat mixture.
Crack an egg into each hollow.
Scatter grated cheese over the top.
Turn heat down to low.
Put lid on pan.
Wait til eggs are as soft or hard as you like.
Eat.

A bit of practice, and temperature adjustment and you can achieve a gloriously crisp and golden crunchy bottom layer of meat, with half hard, succulent eggs.

I find that a standard tin of corned beef (please buy decent quality, and check the ingredients list for added sugar and other rubbish) will do 4 servings of meat, then just add as many eggs as your appetite demands.

Although, in all honesty, I expect Mr B could probably inhale the entire tin and 4 eggs in one sitting, if I left him to plate up.
I am mean that way...

edited for typo

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Thanks for this, sounds delicious!

KK123 said:

Gosh, you make it sound like women are to blame. Times change. Just about everybody goes out to work now, men & women. It's down to BOTH parents to educate their kids about food, not just the women. Some people do and others don't.

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i never intended it to sound that way. i completely agree. I'm lucky to be married to a man who loves to cook and who taught all his kids and I'm proud of him for that.

But traditionally it was women that stayed at home with the kids and the men worked long hours as the 'breadwinner '. There were exceptions of course, my mother being one of them. Women having to work so much out of the home is what has changed over the years and which is why, often, kids aren't getting the kitchen experience they used to get. It can't be helped - I don't think either parent, having worked a full day, then feels much like taking an extra hour (or two) to educate their children about food, certainly the Mums I'm related to or am friends with are more concerned about getting hot food on the table for the whole family as quickly as possible at the end of a busy day - and quite often that involves ready meals, takeaways or simple quick things like fish fingers and oven chips.

lessci said:

Little more expensive, but makes a great sunday roast subsitute, bone (or ask your friendly butcher to do it) stuff with a high meat content sausage, add garlic, herbs, spices, then roll up and roast

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I usually just use herbs and seasoning, (no sausagemeat as the fat in the lamb makes it moist enough) and ask the butcher to roll and tie for me. Great as a Sunday roast as you say, but economical enough to have midweek too.

Hope you're all proud, reading this thread at work made me ravenous to the point where I just had a complete carnivore pig out when I got home from my meeting.

Caeseji said:

Hope you're all proud, reading this thread at work made me ravenous to the point where I just had a complete carnivore pig out when I got home from my meeting.

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Well done for it being a carnivore pig out rather than a nasty carby one!

bulkbiker said:

Well done for it being a carnivore pig out rather than a nasty carby one!

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Would never dream of it! I love bacon too much to do that to myself.