This is a sponsored post for Coles.
For the past month or so, I’ve been on a mission. A budgeting mission. It’s been one of those months where money seems to be raining from our bank accounts, and it all started with our cars. One car needed some new brakes, so I took it off to get fixed. Of course, they found a few other bits and pieces that needed work. Then, another car stopped working properly and needed two new tyres as well. How boring is paying for car stuff? And stressful too.
With a baby on the way, we’ve entered into total budget zone. I usually find budgets pretty boring, but I’ve tried to make the most of it. As we do the weekly grocery shopping I have an amount in mind that I don’t want to go over, and it’s $100. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I was devastated when I missed it by $2 over the weekend. I let the checkout attendant know too, “Missed it by that much!”
Coles recently sent me over to their $10 dinner section to pick a recipe to recreate. When I think cheap dinners, I definitely think there will be no meat involved {and therefore a somewhat disappointed husband}, but not so. They all involved some sort of protein which makes everyone happy in our little family.
This recipe was fresh and delicious. I’ve never had apples in a savoury dish like this, and it works so well. I think Lacey was a bit confused with why I was putting apples in her salad… but she’s getting more used to my weird ways, I hope.
Ingredients
3 medium red washed potatoes {make sure these are around the same size}
2 tbs white wine vinegar
1 tbs chopped fresh thyme
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1/3 cup olive oil, plus 2 tbs extra
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
50g baby spinach
1 jazz apple, cored and cut into 1/2cm thick slices
Rissoles
500g packet pork & beef bolognaise mince
1/2 small red Onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbs chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp ground paprika
1 large free range egg
Olive oil, for brushing
Method
♥ Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Sprinkle with a little salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 7 minutes, or until the potatoes begin to soften but are still firm in the centre. Be careful to not over cook the potatoes, as you’ll be grilling them later {I used a timer because I have a habit of forgetting!}. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pan to dry and cool. Once they’re cool enough to handle, cut the potatoes into about 1/2cm-thick slices.
♥ While the potatoes are cooking, place the vinegar, thyme and mustard in a bowl and whisk to blend. Slowly add 1/3 cup of the oil whilst whisking to incorporate. Stir in the onion. Season with salt and pepper.
♥ Now to make the rissoles; combine the pork and beef mince, onion, garlic, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, and egg. Season with salt and pepper. Make 8 balls out of the mix.
♥ Preheat the barbecue or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Brush the rissoles with oil {or just drizzle some into the pan} and cook for 3 mins each side, or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate and rest for 3 mins. {Again I put on the timer, and it cooked them perfectly. I’m not the best at making rissoles normally, as they fall apart, but using the timer worked wonders!}.
♥ Meanwhile, brush the potatoes with the remaining 2 tbs oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the potatoes for 3 mins each side, or until grill marks form. Transfer hot potatoes to the bowl of vinaigrette and toss to coat.
♥ Finish the salad by adding the spinach and apple to the warm potatoes and vinaigrette. Gently toss to coat. Divide the salad and rissoles among 4 plates. Drizzle with any remaining dressing and serve.
For more delicious recipes that won’t break the budget, head over to the Coles recipe section. I’m giving the prawn fettuccine a whirl next. The recipe cost just $9.90 to make {you can see a breakdown of the costs back on their site}, but I had a lot of the ingredients at home {i.e. garlic, paprika, Worcestershire sauce etc} so it came way under budget for me, and that’s always something to cheer about.
Yummo! I live on a budget and plan out my weekly meals too. I try and stick to under $170 a week for my boyfriend and I (living in Darwin is expensive). I always make meals that have leftovers = bonus lunch!
That prawn fettucine with chili sounds devine! We don’t have a weekly/monthly planned budget, but we do try to plan our weekly dinners by what’s on sale each week. Weekends are a bit more free of budget. That said, we still do check our monthly purchases afterwards and re-think the next month if we’ve gone a bit over what we usually spend per month.
Love everything about here. May I ask from where do you get weathered and rusty backgrounds? Thanks in advanced 🙂
Hey Sonia, I got them from Etsy {it was a sample pack of backgrounds}. Hope that helps. 🙂
Oh, really? Didn’t know Etsy sells that too. Found some international seller but shipping charges are horribly expensive. If you don’t mind can you please suggest any local/aussie seller {or the seller you got from} with reasonable price? Many thanks! 🙂
I can’t find the one that I got, but I just spent a few nights searching online until I could find something I could afford. Good luck.
How silly of me Telle, I didn’t even think it was a background I just thought you had a lovely old table at your house lol
That’s what I want you to think! I bought an old table to do up, but couldn’t get the look I wanted… so the backgrounds were the next best thing. And they take up less space. 🙂
I have a budget of $200 a fortnight including nappies and coffee pods :/ that’s hard work cause we love our coffee.
We live off Spag Bol and Irish stew which keeps Mister happy. But I’m so bored. I know I can eat really cheap but men HAVE to have their meat.
Mister is VERY fussy so I’ve decided to do a fortnightly meal plan and he has to choose (from a list I have created) one new thing a week to try, one vegetarian thing and we eat takeaway once a fortnight got a treat.
I’m going to try this meal. Ill eat the salad and he can have the rissoles on bread for all I care!!
I think the only way to keep prices down is to have a few vegetarian meals thrown in. I hope he likes the salad, I think with the potatoes in it – it’s satisfying for a blokey bloke. 🙂
This sounds so delicious! I will definitely be making this. Thank you!
We are sort of on a budget and sort of not. We give ourselves a generous weekly shop of $150 but this includes a big portion spent on awesome fruit and veg and buying fresh during the week. That’s where we choose to ‘splurge’ instead of ice-cream or going to the movies, etc.
For everything else, we try to budget. We do our first shop at ALDI and get all the basics there including nappies, then get whatever else we need from Coles (thanks to flybuys we end up with $20-50 back each year when we redeem our points for a giftcard). We get our meat at a local bulk meat place (on the way home from grocery shopping) where we can buy free-range (chicken especially) for much cheaper than in the supermarkets. So every few weeks we bulk buy a kilo or two of chicken or mince or steak and freeze it in portions, so we generally have a little bit of everything in the freezer.
We are also part-time vegetarians, so only eat meat every other night. Tofu is way cheaper than meat – Woolies now do a nice firm Tofu or we get it from an Asian supermarket. Or we have Haloumi (yum!) or just do a veg pasta or a massive salad with nuts, etc. I wish, I wish Lovely Husband ate beans/lentils, etc because that would make this even cheaper but he can’t stand them.
How good are Aldi nappies?!! I love them
We used them with Lacey too, with a mix of Huggies. Such a great find. 🙂