Savoury Fake Mince Cottage Pie and other Meals with Mince

Savoury fake mince For cottage pie, chilli, curry, pasties or whatever you would like to use it in.

This is a Vegan or Vegetarian meal if you choose or it can be one with meat, the choice is yours.

I will list ingredients without meat though as for reasons of frugality it was actually destined to be meat-free.

I’ve been reading some wartime recipes and wanted to create something based around those ideas but with today’s ingredients.

If you add tinned tomatoes and oregano it could be a bolognese although I’ve not tried it. I think the possibilities are great and it is just a matter of imagination.

This is the basic recipe for you to evolve into whatever you can but with little ingredients.

I’ve purposely kept them simply because, as I say, this was originally an idea based on some WWII recipes using oats. simplicity and frugality being essential, as well as providing calories and nutrition.

I’ve priced this one by the cost of ingredients to help those who really need to make something very low cost but with real ingredients flavour and nutrition. I’ve made the option for cottage Pie.

Cottage Pie Ingredients

• 1 onion diced and fried until soft in oil of your choice 8p
• 4 oz oatmeal or porridge oats. I blitzed value oats in a Ninja food processor.
• 1/4 teaspoon chilli powder or flakes 1p
• 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper 1p
• 1 teaspoon mixed herbs-your favourite herbs 5p
• 3 teaspoons tomato puree 5p
• 1 teaspoon Marmite or Vegemite or Bovril-optional 5p
• 1/2 teaspoon dried garlic-optional 4p
• 1 stock cube of your choice 4p
• 1 pint of water

Method

1. Fry the chopped onions in a little oil of your choice and drain them off.
2. In a medium-sized non-stick saucepan, add the rest of the ingredients and mix everything together.
3. Bring to the boil and cook on a simmer until the mixture is very thick. Taste it as you go, adding in any extra seasonings you wish. I found the above perfectly seasoned for us.
4. When it is nice and thick, set it aside and put it in an ovenproof dish.
5. Top with cooked mashed potato or slices of potato. Add a little mustard if you wish
6. If you like you could then sprinkle it with cheese and a little more pepper.
7. You could add curry powder or more chilli. You could add kidney beans if you wanted to turn this into a chilli. Serve with boiled rice.
8. You may prefer to make it up and use it as a pasty filling using the recipe for pastry https://www.patsfood.org/easy-peasy-pastry/

Costings for this meal

People often wonder how I price meals. Well, I do it as if I were catering. The difference is that I am not adding on overheads or profit, I work out the price by the value of the ingredients actually used. I do not count the cost of the whole pack unless I am actually using the whole pack. Those ingredients will be costed in future dishes. I generally shop in Aldi.

Potatoes currently 89p per 2.5-kilo bag at Aldi or 69p per 2 kilos Home Bargains so one kilo approx 40p

Mixed vegetables Aldi 69p per kilo 7p per 100g portion

If you have any meat scraps you wish to add to this do so near the end of cooking. I added 2 oz of minced cooked chicken to mine.

I also used a chicken stock cube but did not add garlic. This is designed to tweak to your own tastes

The total cost of the mince mix with no meat is approx 37p calculated by the portion of each ingredient used.

This is enough for 4 servings.

Mince 27p, mash 40p, Vegetables 28p, Total for 4 servings is 95p

The cost per serving is 24p

If you add 1 kilo of mash potatoes to this for 4 people and 100g of frozen mixed veg it would work out at approx 24p per portion.

Additional suggestions

The oats adopt whatever flavours you add to them. Top with mashed potatoes for Cottage Pie

Serve as a savoury mince. and serve with vegetables or baked beans, potatoes or chips

Use in a pie with pastry https://www.patsfood.org/easy-peasy-pastry/top and bottom or in a pasty with some diced vegetable added.

Serve as chilli with rice. add kidney beans and extra chilli powder and extra tomato puree

Serve as curry with rice. Add curry powder and extra tomato puree.

Put this into a small loaf tin and cook in the oven as a vegetarian or vegan meatloaf

The cost of value rice is approx 45p per kilo. A generous portion of 80g works out as under 4p per serving

For the dish I have photographed I have only used 500g of potatoes boiled with skins on and then mashed. I am serving mine with freshly cooked carrots which work out at 9p for a 200g portion

I have also added a bit of wholegrain mustard into the mash.

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