I did a thorough blitz of the fridge this morning to find out what needed finishing up and what was beyond redemption (a turkey liver, and some rather manky parsley and spring onions that had slipped the net). That's not too bad but there's a fair amount of other stuff that will need using up over the next few days, most notably some very good goose stock, assorted bits of cheese and various root veg. As we're already feeling stuffed and dying for some spicy fresh-tasting food I've decided to have a batch cooking session and freeze the results. On the agenda, a chestnut and lentil soup, a quiche...
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Finally I see the point of a veg box
Last night we finished the final veg in our veg box. Yes, I know I said I wasn't convinced by them but I have now identified the circumstances in which they come into their own - which is feeding the family hoardes over Christmas.I didn't actually order one, I must confess. Someone from the veg box company Abel & Cole wrote and offered me a free one "as one of their favourite food bloggers" (obviously they say that to all the bloggers). Still, £15.95 worth of free fruit and veg is frugal by anyone's standards - who am I to refuse?It contained clementines, bananas and (particularly nice) apples,...
Friday, 26 December 2008
Turkey leftovers
There is a large half-eaten turkey sitting in the shower. Why? Because it won't fit in the fridge, the kitchen is too warm and anywhere else my daughter's visiting cat would get at it. (It has already half-demolished our landlord's pot plant - the cat, not the turkey, obviously) The health police would of course be appalled but we didn't finish eating till 10 o'clock last night so there was nothing else to be done.Today will be devoted to ensuring it doesn't go to waste or that we don't get driven mad by endless turkey meals. My usual strategy is to have it cold for lunch on Boxing day (By far...
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Don't panic!
With just over 24 hours to Christmas Day and even less till the shops close I have just two words to say to you. Don't panic!Even if you have to nip out to fetch a few last minute ingredients like fresh bread or milk don't feel you have to sweep up everything else that's on offer in your wake. The shops will be open again on Saturday, some probably on Friday. You more than likely have enough food in your fridge and freezer to last till January 27th, never mind December 27th. If you find you haven't got something you need it's not the end of the world. Improvise, substitute or get a family member...
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Braised red cabbage
I really love braised red cabbage but, perhaps because it takes so long to cook, don't make it that often. However they had some at the farmers' market yesterday so I thought I'd make a recipe I used to make eons ago from The Penguin Freezer Cookbook. It went with our first really Christmassy meal of the holiday - roast duck (£6 from Somerfield) with roasties and red cabbage.It fed four and there's enough left over for at least four more portions, maybe six. I've frozen it for a night when I don't feel like faffing around with vegetables. Ideally you should use a sharp apple like Bramleys but...
Friday, 19 December 2008
My You and Yours chicken curry
If you were listening to You and Yours yesterday you'll have heard me making a chicken curry. It's an odd idea when you come to think of it, cooking on radio. There you are in the studio with a two ring Baby Belling - and a Fire Officer, in case the whole place goes up in flames. (You have to sign a contract which includes an undertaking to use no more than 1 tablespoon of oil!) The Belling takes a painfully long time to heat up. I turned it on 20 minutes before the programme started and added the oil 10 minutes before we went on air but the chicken still didn't sizzle when it hit the pan. (Sound...
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Watch the prices of goods supermarkets are NOT promoting!
At first glance food prices seem to be easing with every shop offering dramatic discounts, particularly on those items that people will be looking for over Christmas. (Like smoked salmon) But have you noticed how the cost of items they're not promoting has been shooting up?Yesterday, for instance, I found small (150g) pots of plain yoghurt selling in Somerfield for 74p - only 16p cheaper than the large pots. But many people living on their own wouldn't need a large pot. And now everyone's jumping on the Aldi bandwagon of having six fruit and vegetables at a knock-down price all other fruit and...
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Bought-in can be more frugal than home-made
With the family arriving at the weekend I’ve been starting to plan what we’re going to eat on and around Christmas Day. And the sad fact is that I could save myself money if I just descended on Aldi or ASDA and bought what we need. Christmas puddings, Christmas cake and mince pies are all cheaper to buy than to make from scratch. Aldi’s Christmas pudding costs just £2.99, their mince pies 89p. It costs less to buy their roast potatoes with goose fat at £1.29 than to buy a pot of goose fat to cook your potatoes in (let alone a goose . . )Of course that’s not the whole story. There’s a pleasure...
Sunday, 14 December 2008
A good, cheap starter
Funny how things go out of fashion. When I was young almost any restaurant you went to served a selection of hors d'oeuvres (literally 'out of the work' or in other words an addition to the main course). It was a way of extending and reducing the cost of the meal and using up leftovers and very tasty it could be too. You can still find similar dishes in France and Italy but rarely in England.It's a tradition that deserves to be resurrected because it's a cheap way to entertain. Today we laid on three dishes for friends as a starter - just-cooked leeks dressed with a sharp vinaigrette, topped...
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Christmas bargain hunting at T K Maxx
As well as a weakness for food I have a fondness for kitchen kit so it probably wasn't a good idea to head off yesterday for T K Maxx. Actually it was sheer frustration at the prices in John Lewis which is supposed, as they oddly put it, to be 'never knowingly undersold' but which always seems pretty expensive to me. We were after a large cast iron casserole and most of the ones we were looking at were £80 even after a 20% discount, sparked by reductions at one of their competitors.TKM didn't have cast iron casseroles but it had huge beautiful baking dishes for a song. The red one above, part...
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Leftover lamb
We had the tail end of a shoulder of lamb from the weekend to use up tonight. Could have curried it but there wasn't much meat so decided to make a pilaf. Very simple - fry a chopped onion, add spices, stir in rice, add twice the volume of stock and leave to simmer until the liquid is absorbed (about 15 minutes). Fry up lamb with more spices, add peas, herbs, whatever - something green. Fork through rice and tip on serving dish, top with lamb, a squeeze of lemon, more herbs and serve with plain yoghurt, chutney or sweet chilli sauceThe reason why these kind of leftover dishes are often so unappealing...
Sunday, 7 December 2008
And now for frugal drinking!
I've been thinking for a while of starting a frugal drinking blog including beer, cider and other drinks as well as wine. It's actually the other part of my working life (I used to write a regular column for the Daily Mail!) but it never seemed to quite fit in with this blog.It struck me though that it would be pretty useful, particularly in the current economic climate. We like to drink well but we don't spend a lot of money on doing so. I happen to think that drinks like beer and cider are underrated and that there are a lot of bargains out there that people don't know about or are unsure whether...
Thursday, 4 December 2008
So how much food do we REALLY need at Christmas?
Just as in England, the French papers are full of full page ads for Christmas food. And probably have been for some weeks. I guess the thinking behind these campaigns is to panic people into getting ahead with their Christmas shopping, keep reminding us of things we think we might need and then assault us with a whole raft of last minute bargains we can’t resist. The net result is that we all buy way, way too much, behaving as if we’re going to be subject to a month-long siege during which we will be unable to get to the shops.Where I live in Bristol, I suspect I could probably go to my convenience...
Monday, 1 December 2008
A frugal weekend’s eating
Off to visit my mother-in-law in France this week so we spent the weekend using up odds and ends from the fridge and freezer. On Saturday night I made a pea and lettuce soup which sounds pretty unseasonal but I like salad even in winter and this is a good way to use up the outside leavesYou simply trim and chop up a bunch of spring onions and soften them in a little oil and butter, chuck in a handful of lettuce leaves and some chopped parsley stalks, let them wilt then add about 200g of frozen peas, a cooked, sliced potato, a handful of parsley leaves and about 500ml of vegetable stock, bring...
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Cut price bread
If you like good bread - which we do - you normally have to pay a fair bit for it. This country loaf (above) is normally priced at £2.50 in our local deli but my husband, who is determined to prove he's a more frugal shopper than I am, picked it up yesterday for just £1.25 because it had been left over from the previous day Being a traditional sort of loaf it was still perfectly fresh. We froze half of it and have been using the other half for toast.Even at the higher price it wasn't a bad buy. Large loaves are much better value than small ones for some reason. I've paid two quid in the farmers'...
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
3 cheeses for a fiver
I couldn't resist this offer when I spotted it in Somerfield the other day even though it broke one of my cardinal rules of not buying something you're not sure you can use up. Admittedly it wasn't a bad buy. We had family staying overnight, the cheeses individually would have come to over £7 and they were all versatile cheeses - a goats' cheese, a Brie and a piece of mature Stilton from the so-called 'Best Ever' range - which one could use in any number of ways.I managed to use up a good chunk of the goats' cheese this lunchtime with a spontaneous salad of lightly dressed leaves topped with...
Sunday, 23 November 2008
What's wrong with a bit of mud?
Don't know if you've noticed but one of the things that's been sneakily creeping up in price is parsnips. There was a time when they were one of the cheapest vegetables around during the winter months. Now, like many seasonal veg it seems, they sell at a premium. Unless they're dirty, that is. Yesterday I bought a handsome quartet at my local greengrocer for just 48p a lb. In Tesco they were selling at over twice as much at £1.28 for a 500g pack. Just because they were washed. I'd rather have my parsnips dirty, thankyou - and my carrots and spuds (£1 for 5lbs at Terry's) It only takes a couple...
Thursday, 20 November 2008
My 9 hour, £1.64 pork roast
OK, ok. I give in. I'm now a card-carrying member of the AGA fan club.Yesterday I had an amazing late afternoon shopping raid on our local Somerfield which turns out to be frugal nirvana (being a noted student haunt). When we arrived at about quarter to five they were marking meat down and I picked up 350g of lambs liver for 41p and a 1.75kg pork joint for just £1.64 - both reduced by 75%.Problem was both needed to be used by the end of yesterday. I was going to marinate the pork but reckoned, on unwrapping it, it needed to be cooked straight away. So I thought I'd risk cooking it overnight in...
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
A Slow and frugal supper
Over the years I’ve come to realise that book launches are a bit of a waste of time (a view that publishers tend to share). All the key journalists have got the book by the time it takes place and those who take the trouble to come to the launch would almost certainly have written about the book anyway. Sure it’s an opportunity to have a great party and that’s not to be sniffed at but it’s not actually necessary.This week however we found the perfect solution - a combined book launch and celebration of frugal eating organised by the local Bristol convivium of Slow Food at the local tapas bar...
Monday, 17 November 2008
Bargain beans
I anticipated a bit of a hiatus in blog postings after the move so had stashed away a couple of items I thought would get me by until I re-focussed on culinary matters (though we did manage to cook some pretty decent lamb chops - reduced in Somerfield - and roast parsnips last night in the dreaded AGA)Anyway the first was about bin-ends. The other day I bought 13p's worth of red kidney beans in our local health food shop out of curiosity to see how much I would get when they were cooked up. And the answer was at least as much as you get in a 400g tin which are currently selling for about 50-60p...
Friday, 14 November 2008
Aaaargh - an Aga!
Since my last post we've moved to a new flat and have taken over an Aga in the process. Combined with the zillion packing cases that are cluttering up every square inch of the place the thought of cooking - or anything else remotely domestic - is a daunting prospect.Our landlord reassured us it was easy so I'm sure we'll get used to it. My husband insisted we made Aga Toast for breakfast this morning, a legendary delicacy apparently among Aga owners. You clamp your bread between a double-sided wire toasting rack, put it for literally seconds on the hot plate and, bingo, you have the most gorgeous...
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Spaghetti with bacon and cockles
Yesterday I went down to St Nicholas market to be interviewed about ‘Frugal’ by the Bristol Evening Post, an opportunity to do a bit of browsing at my favourite new food shop and café Taste@St Nicks. They were selling Penclawdd cockles from the Gower peninsula, a delicacy you don’t often come across. I remember having them deep-fried when we were there earlier this year and they were fantastic. And at £1.80 a 100g (all you need for two) they’re a thrifty buy.This time I thought I’d use them in a simple spaghetti sauce, a bit like a Welsh spaghetti alla vongole with bacon. And Thai fish sauce...
Monday, 10 November 2008
The credit crunch bandwagon
A lot of people are jumping onto the budget eating bandwagon who obviously haven’t checked a supermarket price tag in their lifeA press release from What Consumer? passed on by a food writer friend draws up a list of Ten Top Money Saving Tips for Food Shopping. "You will see how much the inclusion of meat in any dish drives up the price" reads tip no. 4 "Experiment with cheaper substitutes such as oyster mushrooms instead of chicken and pancetta instead of bacon." Hello! Quite apart from the fact that pancetta isn’t a non-meat substitute for bacon it’s more expensive. As are oyster mushrooms,...
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Pho
A couple of days ago my daughter and I checked out a Vietnamese noodle bar called Pho, conveniently near Oxford Circus. It specialises in Pho (pronounced fuh), an unbelievably addictive, tasty noodle soup, not flattered by the rather murky picture to the right. The basic broth, which usually includes some kind of meat, is quite bland - you zip it up to your own taste with fresh herbs such as coriander and mint, chillies and/or chilli sauce and fish sauce. I thought they were slightly stingy about the herbs. I haven't been to Vietnam but have eaten a similar soup in Bangkok where you got a great...
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Would you, should you eat a budget sausage?
Given that it’s British Sausage Week and Bonfire Night tonight you’d expect a few offers on sausages this week but few can be as cheap as the 88p that Tesco is charging for its discount brand Tulip.Curious to see what you get for an 11p sausage I bought a pack of eight. According to the ingredients just 56% of the sausage is pork (compared to about 70-80% for mid-range sausages and 85% plus for premium ranges). The rest is accounted for by pork rind, and pork fat, water and rusk together with a whole load of additives including stablisers which are presumably needed to keep the whole soggy mixture...
Monday, 3 November 2008
Broccoli-stem and celery soup
If you look at the head of broccoli above you'll see about a third of it is stalk. A third, I have to confess, that I used to throw away.Since writing the book I know better. There had to be some better use for it - and there is. It makes really good soup, along with whatever other vegetables you might have available.You might think this is so blindingly obvious as to be laughable and always use your broccoli stalks that way but, as I said, I used to be less frugal than I am now. You need to trim it up a bit with a sharp knife or a potato peeler then cut it into small chunks and add it once you've...
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Pork osso buco
I feel vaguely apologetic at having to confess I've been in Waitrose again but listen, I've got a new theory. Which is that no supermarket has a monopoly on bargains, even Lidl. All have really sharp offers these days. All have lines that are overpriced. You've just got to keep your wits about you wherever you shop.Anyway the bargain I spotted on this visit was pork 'osso buco'for £3.99 a kilo - about half the price veal osso buco would have been. The amount above (apologies to visiting veggies) was just £3.45, pretty good for more than enough meat for 4. It was free-range too.I cooked it up...
Friday, 31 October 2008
Roast pumpkin and pecan pie
I hesitated before uploading this recipe because it's much longer and more time-consuming than the recipes I normally post and also rather more extravagant. BUT it's a) really delicious, b) a great way to use up the pumpkin you'll have left over from your pumpkin-carving session later today and c) the perfect recipe for Thanksgiving. (It comes from my book Food, Wine & Friends, which I know my publisher will want me to mention ;-)If you're short of time you could make the purée and freeze it then make the recipe for Thanksgiving in four weeks' time. If so, don't add the eggs, flour and cream...
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
What to do with a butternut squash
As my husband's been away this week I've been exceptionally frugal, living largely off the contents of the storecupboard. (I eat a lot less meat when he's not around!)The starting point for several meals was a butternut squash I'd forgotten about. Fortunately they last an age. I'd planned to explain on my student website Beyond Baked Beans how to cut up and cook one (now done) but have managed to stretch it into several days eating for one.First I cut it up (the bit that puts so many people off, I think) and roasted it, half as a whole piece and half cut up with some wedges of red onion and a...
Monday, 27 October 2008
Waste-watching with the WI
It's never occurred to me to join the WI (I'm not much of a joiner, to be honest) but they certainly seem to be putting the 'Jam and Jerusalem' image firmly behind them these days. First there was 'Calendar Girls', now it seems they're in the vanguard of efforts to cut down on the nation's food waste.According to a report in the Independent on Sunday yesterday they've pioneered 10 'Love Food' local groups across the country, with the help of the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign and have been swopping tips and inspiring each other to help cut their food bills. One mother of four has cut her monthly...
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Lobster wars
News in the papers today that Lidl is selling £4.99 lobsters. And - not surprisingly - that they're being snapped up.It's a bit like the stunt which Woolworths pulled a year ago, selling a 'basics' champagne for £5 a bottle: much less about perceived market demand (we can all live without lobster, for goodness sake) but getting new shoppers into their stores.Lidl has something else to gain which is to steal a march on its rivals Aldi which has managed to create the impression that it has the best quality offering of all the discounters (and is now selling cut-price lobsters too, I am informed,...
Friday, 24 October 2008
Brussel tops rock!
I've got a bit of fixation about sprouts at the moment having discovered they are quite ridiculously healthy. Not only does an average 80g serving contain more vitamin C than an orange but they apparently contain higher levels of cancer-fighting compounds than any of their fellow brassicas including broccoli.People hate them though, don't they? And for good reason. If they're boiled too long - as they generally were when I was a kid they go disgustingly soggy and sulphurous. I don't like them raw, I must admit, which is the best way to eat them from a health point of view but I've taken to stir...
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Jazzed-up sardines
Annoyingly my husband is just as smart a shopper as I am, if not even more frugal (unlike me, he doesn't get easily distracted from the task in hand). His bargain buy this week was three tins of sardines for £1 in Somerfield. He likes sardines. I do - sort of. I know we're all supposed to eat a couple of portions of oily fish a week but I struggle. They just taste very . . . oily and fishy and look rather miserable and unappetising unless you jazz them up a bit with other ingredients which is what I did with two of the tins (above).You simply break them up roughly into a bowl, add a little grated...
Monday, 20 October 2008
How to cook ox cheek
I finally managed to track down some ox cheek, not from Waitrose which has so far failed to stock it locally despite a barrage of publicity a couple of weeks ago, but in my local butcher Sheepdrove. They’d obviously responded to the Waitrose offal initiative: an assistant told me they’d never sold ox cheek as a separate cut up to now - it just got chucked in with the mince - but they’d had several requests for it.I bought 485g for just £2.52 which is amazing for organic beef but found I ended up with quite a bit less once I’d trimmed off all the connective tissue of which it has rather more than...
Friday, 17 October 2008
Chocolate cappucino cake
The food news story of the past few days is that we're all getting back into baking. I'm not sure that isn't one of those slightly whimsical ideas the media gets into its collective head (I can't smell any baking smells wafting from our neighbouring flats) but it's a nice, comforting thought anyway. I must confess I'm not an avid baker - which is just as well otherwise I'd be the size of a house - but I did come up with a really great recipe for The Frugal Cook which I adapted from a splendid book called Best Kept Secrets of the WI: Cakes and Biscuits. It's not terribly thrifty (or healthy,...
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Head to head with Delia
Great news: I've finally got a couple of advance copies of the book which looks really amazing. This is the 18th book I've written (must be mad!) but it's always a thrill when you finally get your hands on the first copy*. A bit like having a baby - it makes all the pain worthwhile!The not such good news is that Delia is reissuing her Frugal Food at the end of the month which means we're up against the mighty Delia publicity machine - tough for a small publisher and a non-celebrity author. In Borders yesterday there were posters trumpeting 'Delia's back!' I gather it's basically a re-issue of...
Monday, 13 October 2008
Our £2 pheasant feast
Our best buy at the Dartmouth farmers’ market we shopped at on Saturday morning was two trays of pheasant legs at £2 each. (£2 a tray, not £2 a leg!) From a real farmer which, it has to be said, is unusual at farmers’ markets these days.I don’t know about you but I’m getting more and more disillusioned with them. Most seem to be full of stalls offering overpriced cupcakes and chutneys. Very few offer genuinely local food. And why is it that the only cooked food being produced seems to be burgers and sausages? Surely someone has the wit and imagination to produce something a little different -...
Saturday, 11 October 2008
B & B's are the new boutique hotels
Well, that's what I'm predicting anyway. Who's going to be spending a couple of hundred quid on a snooty designer hotel when a homely B & B (Bed & Breakfast) offers equal comfort for a third the price?We've just been down to Dartmouth for the annual food festival and I promise you I can't think of any hotel I've been to that has a better view than the guesthouse we stayed in (Mounthaven). We breakfasted above a terrace that overlooked the whole of the town and the Dart (above), a dazzling kaleidoscope of gold and silver, shimmering in the morning sun. You wouldn't have got a better view...
Thursday, 9 October 2008
In the Indy's 10 best autumn cookbooks!
Great excitement this evening. Call from a friend to say The Frugal Cook is listed among the Independent's 10 best autumn cookbooks along with Jamie, Nigella, Gordon and Rick. It's tough to get into that sort of list if you're not a celebrity so this is a fantastic boost. Many thanks to Sharon Browne (of BBC Good Food who compiled the list)And it is, I hear, finally on its way. It's being printed overseas, as most books are these days - in 'Frugal's' case in Dubai - and should be in the bookshops in the next couple of weeks. I hope . ....
Online money-savers
Just a useful link from the Guardian's money pages today - 50 ways to save money onli...
Monday, 6 October 2008
Bring back quiche!
I was testing recipes for my new cheese book at the weekend and made this really scrummy (though I say it myself) Leek and Stilton quiche. Quiche, note, not tart. (Another example of francophobia that we consider the idea of quiche hopelessly outdated)Well it couldn't be better suited to these hard times. Home made short crust pastry is cheap and simple to make. Leeks are in season, Stilton curiously underpriced compared to other blue cheeses, eggs and single cream (I could have used milk) still reasonably priced. There was easily enough for six.The downside again is time. You have to make the...
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Omelette paysanne
It's a sign of the disfavour into which French food has fallen that we'd rather talk about frittatas than omelettes these days. Even though they're virtually the same. We also buy pancetta cubetti rather than bacon bits - at about 3 times the price. There's a lot in a name.Anyway, this simple meal was prompted by good old bacon - a small bag of offcuts that I spotted in a local butcher yesterday for just 35p. I also had a leftover cooked potato and some parsley to use up, some eggs and an onion (which one should never be without). I went through the bacon offcuts and trimmed off the excess fat...
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
What a terrible waste!
I spent the last couple of days in Dublin, judging the World Cheese Awards (see right). You can read more about it on my cheese blog, The Cheeselover, but there was one thing I wanted to share with you here.At the end of the judging all the cheeses - some 2000 of them, worth thousands of pounds were apparently destroyed, for 'health and safety' reasons. They were apparently going to be rendered into 'cheese powder' whatever that is. I'm sure the organisers are abiding by the letter of the law. Some of the cheeses were laid out overnight and certainly it would have been foolish not to dispose of...
Thursday, 25 September 2008
French-style pork chops with cream and mustard
It's been a bit of a crazy week in Bristol. The long-awaited £500 million shopping centre Cabot Circus has just opened with huge razmatazz. We went down for the opening of Harvey Nichols (a friend was doing the PR!) which bizarrely included a striptease by Dita Von Teese. There are apparently 25 (twenty five) restaurants in the new development. How will they possibly fill them all? Easily if the crowds this week are anything to go by. Certainly in London restaurants are still heaving. I tried to get into two yesterday and they couldn't offer a table until after 2pm. I thought we were supposed...
Monday, 22 September 2008
Chaps, cheeks and trotters
News in the Guardian today that Waitrose is to start selling Bath chaps, ox cheeks and trotters from next month. Which sounds like good news except for the fact that it will almost certainly drive the price of these thrifty cuts up. Lamb shanks, once a cheap food, are no longer a bargain buy. Ox cheeks (which are delicious) will probably follow suit, particularly if the other supermarkets decide they have to stock them too.And I wonder how many people will actually cook with them? I must confess that even when I was researching The Frugal Cook I didn't use any of them (though I did use ox liver,...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
