Bulking out family meals?

We have diff types of frozen mixed vege and use them often. With mince I put in grated carrot and grated corguette and or frozen spinach.

I rarely use that much mince in a recipy. I use a max of 750 grams in a lasagne but dont go over that. If it is just the three of us the meal will last us 2 days when I use 700 to 750 gram mince. (and that is with Grant having seconds at each meal) and with 2 adults here it is for one meal.

I havent use lentils yet to bulk it up. But with spag boloignaise I usually use my recipy I do for lasagne as well. 2 grated carrots with one onion. Then celery or baby marrow in with that or really anything I feel like. If you grate the stuff it really bulks it up without certain people finding out they eat veggies. May that be your hubby or your kids or visitors. All they see is meat.

I did however find when MIL was here busy cooking some meals that I will go three times the amount of mince ect than usual. And really it wasnt that much nicer or even tastier. (dried up most of the time.)

Add carbohydrates, for example:

Put your mince, veges, tomato base & etc meal into a pastry shell, cook until crispy, and serve with mashed potatoes. It'll last you twice as long.

If a bolognese type meal, use macaroni elbows or similar and mix them in with your meat & etc. Add baked beans in with that if you like. Serve with spuds as well.

When casseroling steak/chicken/sausages, cut them into mouth-sized pieces, ie smaller than 1/3rd of sausage, that way you get more pieces of meat on your plate (together with gravy, veges, all the works) and you don't feel like you "missed out" on extra meat.

Have you seen the soups thread recently started? We put soup mix (from the bulk bins - it's lentils, split peas, etc) in with a bacon hock and simmer it all afternoon (smells so good and makes the place feel warmer and friendlier!) and an hour before eating, add a tonne of veges to it. Very filling for not much food and certainly not much meat. I'm very much a meat fan, rarely have a meal without it, and it's still good!

When you have leftover meat or tomato base etc from a meal, particularly chicken/lamb, make a homemade pizza. You can buy pizza bases premade or use a scone dough (half recipe) as a homemade base. Spread on some tomato paste and grated cheese then put all your toppings on there and serve with a salad.

With mince i will add grated carrot, celery, onion, capsicums, courgette. And tinned tomatoes etc....

With casseroles etc, i mainly use onion and have started using potatoes etc...

Does anyone else thicken their mince?? I brown my onion, garlic and capsicum, add the mince and brown that then add cornflour and stir til dry. I then add water, enough to make a gravy through the mince if that makes sense, add my frozen veges and soy sauce then leave it to simmer for abit to cook the cornflour completely. It really extends the meal and its yummy too.