'Batch cooking saves my family of eight a fortune'

A Bristol mum says batch cooking has helped her save hundreds of pounds on feeding her family of eight.

Chantelle Gillett, from Filwood in Knowle West, said batch cooking has helped cut her weekly food bill from around £200 to £110.

"It's just been saving me a fortune and it gives me a couple of nights off cooking as well, which is just fantastic for my mental health and wellbeing," she said.

Gillett, a mum of six with another child on the way, learned how to incorporate vegetables, beans and grains into everyday meals through group cooking classes run by the Batch Cook Club in Bristol.

She said of the cooking club: "Since doing it with them back in November last year, I have managed to get my food bill down to £110 a week, which is way less than what I was doing. I was hitting £200 some weeks."

Family favourites include chilli con carne bulked out with beef mince, courgettes, aubergine, peas and potatoes, and fish and vegetable curry made with Basa fillets, frozen prawns, cauliflower, green beans and potato.

Gillett said doubling or tripling portions helps meals stretch across the week and gives the family more financial breathing space.

"Now we're able to spend less but be filled with nutritious food, and I just think in general, everyone in my house is benefiting,"

"My older children are in secondary school and I have noticed a huge difference in their energy, mood and motivation," she said.

Involving her children in cooking has also encouraged them to try new foods, she said.

"It's so important to get them involved, get them touching the food, seeing what it's like raw and then cooked and the processes that are involved."

Jo Ingleby, director of food education at Feeding Bristol, said it was a good idea to get children involved in meals from an early age.

"Getting children involved in seeing cooking, ripping things up and tasting things as people are cooking, really helps them to become confident to try new food and then not being thrown off by a new ingredient."

She said affordability can be a major barrier for families experiencing food insecurity.

"Quite often, food insecure families can cook. It's more that they just don't have the means to actually experiment with new foods that their child might not enjoy. Or turning on the oven can be a challenge."

She recommends simple recipes using ingredients available from supermarkets, food banks and food clubs.

"We really recommend people get used to beans, pulses and lentils as early as they can," she said.

Ingleby also recommends using a 50/50 mix of meat, where families eat it, with beans and lentils to reduce costs.

Food writer and chef Jenny Chandler has also encouraged people to use pulses and grains as affordable staples.

Her latest book, The Capsule Kitchen, uses 12 core ingredients to create a range of lunches, suppers, snacks, batch meals and desserts.

"These quiet cupboard superstars are transformed into dressed-up show-stoppers," said Chandler.

Chandler said television cookery programmes could sometimes make home cooking seem more complicated than it needs to be.

"I think Master Chef and Bake Off have made people feel incapable themselves," she told BBC Bristol.

"They look at these guys who're creating these absolutely extraordinary plates of food.

"And is it nutritionally balanced and also, is it affordable?"

But she added elaborate recipes were often not and also took "hours and hours to make".

Jane Sixsmith, national training manager and specialist food trainer at the Soil Association, said cooking from scratch can help people control their food spending.

"I know a lot of people think cooking from scratch is expensive, but if you build up your larder with basics, and then take a long-term approach to how you cook from scratch, it's actually cheaper."

She said parents can also be put off experimenting with new recipes if they fear their children will reject the food.

"A child taking a mouthful of it and going 'that's horrible', as a mum on a budget, you'd think 'well I'm not going to do that again'."

Ingleby advises people to slowly introduce new foods, like beans and legumes, into their family's diet.

"You kind of need to build up to it," she said.

"Just put a bit in. Red lentils in particular, you barely notice if you put them in a spaghetti bolognese or a curry, they're kind of just there."

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