Sainsburys live well for less challenge

We were recently challenged to see if we could eat well for less by Sainsbury's. We were given a £10 voucher to spend on their basics range and cook a family meal. I decided to cook a lasagne and apple crumble for pudding. I was meant to use the basics range as a foundation to build a meal upon, but I decided to make a meal entirely out of the basics range, to see how far my student loan could stretch!

My daughter and I went shopping in a Sainsbury's about twenty minutes away. Given that we don't have a Sainsbury's in our town, I don't often get to shop there. We also had to pick up some milk and bananas for my Grandma, whose house we were going to straight afterwards. My daughter was pretty good sitting in the trolley, although that was possibly because she was clasping a bag with a chocolate ladybird inside it!


We spent just under £10 on the basics range, £9.88 to be precise. I bought the following from the basics range; eggs, lasagne sheets, two packs of minced beef, mozzarella cheese, cheese, salad, stock cubes, two packs of chopped tomatoes, plain flour, apples, onions, salted butter and cream cheese. I was seriously impressed at what you could buy for under £10. I ended up not using the cream cheese or the eggs in this recipe, and I had plenty of butter, flour, lasagne sheets, cheese and stock cubes leftover, so that £9.88 went a very long way indeed!


Lasagne

What you need
Beef mince
Lasagne sheets
Two packs of chopped tomatoes
Two onions
One beef stock cube
Splash of Worcester sauce

Optional extras
Mushrooms
Courgettes
Tomato puree
Fresh basil

White sauce
1.5oz (50g) butter
1.5oz (50g) plain flour
milk

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
Brown off the onions, mushrooms and courgette in one pan. In another pan, brown the meat. Pour off all the extra fat from the meat (there was quite a lot on the basic range). Then put the onions, mushrooms and courgette into the pan with the meat, along with the chopped tomatoes. Add salt and pepper, the beef stock cube and a splash of Worcester sauce. Leave to simmer on a medium heat and you can get on with making the white sauce for the top of the lasagne.

Put the butter in a pan on a low heat and stir as it melts. When the butter has melted, add in the flour and stir with a small whisk until combined. Then add the milk gradually until you reach a thick, double-cream consistency. Make sure you keep stirring, so that you don't get any lumps.

Once the sauce is ready, layer the meat and lasagne sheets in an oven proof dish. I layered meat, then lasagne sheet, then mozzarella cheese, then meat, then lasagne sheet, then meat. At this point, pour over the white sauce and cover with cheese. Then pop in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.


Pastry
6oz (150g) flour
4oz (100g) butter at room temperature
two teaspoons of sugar

Apple puree
3-4 apples (preferably cooking apples, but I used basics range apples)
Water
1.5oz (50g)  Sugar

Double cream to serve

Method
Sift the flour into a bowl. Chop the butter into cubes and add into the flour. Use your fingers to pinch the mixture together until it forms a breadcrumb consistency.

You may well have too much crumble mixture, but you can freeze any leftover and use it as and when you need it.

To make apple purée, peel, core and chop the apples into slices. Place the apples in a pan with two tablespoons of water and all of the sugar. Put the pan on a medium heat and stew until the apples become mushy. Then you can use a potato masher to mash the apple down to a finer consistency.

To make the apple crumble, simply pop the apple purée into an oven-proof dish and sprinkle the crumble mixture on top. Then pop in the oven at 180 degrees for between 20-30 minutes, until the crumble is crispy on top. Serve with fresh cream.


Here is a video of me making the meal. Please excuse the kitchen, we are still waiting for my dad to come back to help us demolish it, but we are lacking doors on cupboards!


Disclosure: We were given a £10 voucher by Sainsbury's for the purpose of this post.