Restaurant Food at Home: Nando's

We can afford to eat out and we sometimes do but being a thrifty family the cost of it puts us off. A family of four eating in a restaurant usually equals (if not exceeds) what I earn a day at work. Is it worth 8 hours of work to go out to a restaurant for an hour or so? We're often left thinking "We could have made that at home for cheaper!". So now it's time to test that out and see how we enjoy it compared to going out to eat.

I looked at Nando's menu and decided on the following food:

Hummus with toasted pitta bread strips

Nando's medium chicken breast with fries and corn

Baked caramel cheesecake

Iced Rooibos tea with lemon

At Nando's it would have cost us £70

At home it cost us £20 and was a reasonably easy meal to make. The chicken needed marinating in the Nando's medium peri-peri the day before and the cheesecake was a bit of a faff to prepare but everything else was quick to make and looked great once we'd plated it all up.

We all enjoyed the food but Leigh and Erin didn't like the Iced Tea. The same as going out to eat we all felt like we'd eaten too much afterwards, even more so because we had all the food at once when in a restaurant you have a gap between courses. Something me and JD weren't keen on about doing this is that we all ate the same, often when we eat out we like to try something new or different so we wouldn't have gone for fries with our chicken perhaps. It was nice to try the Rooibos tea since that's a new thing. I was surprised how nice the Nando's marinade was on the chicken, I'd never tried it before and it was really delicious if a bit spicy.

Total Saving from having Nando's at home = £50