When you cook mushrooms in anything, remove the stalks and keep them in the fridge. They work really well if finely chopped in omelettes and risotto. Spring onions - don't throw the green bits away (unless they're really manky), snip them up and use for flavouring, they're just the same as chives. Any dregs of wine left in the bottom of the bottle can be frozen in ice cube trays. One day you'll have all three - wine ice cubes, mushroom stalks and spring onion ends - and you can make a very good risotto with stuff that would have gone in the bin!
Cheddar that's been reduced because of a close sell by date can be grated and frozen. Same with stale rolls, grate then freeze in bags for toppings or treacle tart (for the non-dieters!)
And for a 'sweet' treat for the dieters, try supermarket value range frozen fruit (Tesco's is 88p for a bag full of oranges, apples, melon balls and grapes), these are really delicious. I fill a small tumbler of an evening and suck on the frozen fruit while watching the telly. Actually tastier than a chocolate!
Soup, soup and more soup!
Managed to grab a reduced bag of mixed root veg from Tesco for about 50p, froze it, then made soup with that and a veg stock cube (that worked out at like 2p per cube!) and seasoned.
another one was the tomato soup in the little autumn book
3x tins of plum toms - 90p
Reduced fresh basil - 8p
reduced carrots - 9p
stock cube - 2p!
When we are very poor I make a type of minced beef substitute. It's cup of green lentils, a cup of brown rice, 1 large onion chopped and 5 cups of stock, boil and then simmer until all water is absorbed (takes me about 40 mins). I was sceptical when I first tried it, but very skint, so I made it and the whole family was impressed. We've started calling it 'Poor Man's Mince'!! The recipe makes quite a big batch, so it fed four of us (2 adults and 2 kids) for 3 nights and DH for 2 packed lunches. The kids like it in tacos or wraps with a bit of cheese and ketchup, and I like it on a jacket potato. You just take the mixture once cooked, and then treat it as normal mince. So if using to make fajitas, add fajita spices and tinned tomatoes and simmer until the sauce is nice and thick. Use as a base for cottage pie, spag bol or anything else you can think of. x