This time from the excellent US food and drink site epicurious which is offering '35 easy ways to stretch your food dollars'Seems like everyone is affected by the credit crunch . . .I'm in transit now till Friday when I'll be back in Bristol and looking forward, I guiltily admit, to a bit of good old English drizz...
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Monday, 28 July 2008
Charred Aubergine, Tomato and Mint Salad
Another salad. It's so hot here (in the Languedoc) I can't get my head round making anything else. Hot too in London, I gather, so maybe you'll enjoy this recipe which comes from my veggie student cookbook Beyond Baked Beans Green.It's a spin on the Middle Eastern spread Baba Ganoush which I love but which I never think looks too great - a sort of khaki-coloured splodge. This basically uses the same ingredients but turns them into a salad that can be served with grilled or leftover lamb or, more frugally, with feta or with other mezze which is how we've having it tonight.Serves 42 medium or 1...
Friday, 25 July 2008
Tomato, basil and rice salad
The key to this simple salad, which I got from a French friend several years ago, is frying the onion well as it providea a really flavourful base to the rice. Frugal and delicious.Serves 43 tbsp olive oil + extra if needed1 medium to large onion, peeled and roughly chopped200ml basmati rice (measured in a jug)400ml water4-5 medium-sized, ripe tomatoes2-3 heaped tbsp basil, tarragon or parsley leaves Red or white wine vinegar to tasteSalt and pepperHeat the oil in a saucepan, add the chopped onion and fry over a medium heat for about 5-6 minutes until the edges of the onion are beginning to turn...
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Cutting the cost of eating out
Now that the credit crunch is really beginning to bite and that there are fewer customers around spending less we're beginning to see more special offers in restaurants. The excellent moneysavingexpert.com lists a whole lot of deals in the restaurant section of its website which is worth checking out. For example Marks and Sparks has got an 'eat out at home for a tenner' deal running from tomorrow (24th) to Sunday (27th July) while Yo Sushi is offering 50% off food bills on Mondays and Tuesdays until August 19th.If you're after a bit of high end eating and have time to spare during the day you'll...
Monday, 21 July 2008
Pineapple: the forgotten fruit
In terms of value for money it's hard to beat fresh pineapple. I bought this huge one for £1.55 in Tesco last week which would have easily served six, maybe eight. Given that it came from halfway round the world it's ironic that it was cheaper than buying in-season English strawberries. (A medium sized punnet had gone up to £2.50 in my local greengrocer.)Why isn't pineapple more highly rated? You rarely find it in restaurants. Maybe it's the traditionally naff uses that people make of it. Cheese and pineapple sticks (though they are actually delicious made with decent cheddar and fresh pineapple)....
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Is this the best value coffee in London?
I had three quarters of an hour to kill in London's Borough Market this week and spent it happily wandering around some of the fantastic food shops. Konditor and Cook for yummy cakes. Neal's Yard for the best of British cheeses and Monmouth Coffee for what must surely be the best value coffee in London - just £1 for a double macchiato (espresso with a shot of frothed milk)Unlike many espressos it wasn't remotely bitter or over-extracted, just a pure, fragrant coffee flavour. Eat your heart out, Starbucks . ....
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
What happened to the onions
Just in case you wondered if they were mouldering away in the veg rack I used a handful of the green stalks to make a green onion and goats cheese omelette a bit like the wild garlic and chervil omelette I made a couple of months ago and used the rest to make this tasty green onion soup.Green onion, bean and bacon soupServes 2-32 tbsp olive oil + extra for drizzling over the soup at the end75g pack pancetta cubes or 2-3 rashers of chopped streaky baconA good handful of green onion tops (about the equivalent of a bunch and a half of spring onions), trimmed and roughly sliced1 clove of garlic, peeled...
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Rescued roast peppers
I've had a bizarre 48 hours moving from Arles in Provence back to the Languedoc then flying home to Bristol yesterday, in the process experiencing a couple of thunderstorms and a temperature drop from 33° to about 14°C last night. We took some vegetables with us to Arles (as you do . . . ) that we hadn't got round to using then didn't get round to cooking them because we got distracted by the heat and the photography and the cooking facilities in the flat we were staying in were so basic. (At least that's my excuse . . . )Two aubergines had bitten the dust, I'm afraid to say, but I salvaged a...
Friday, 11 July 2008
Thrifty 50 - 50 budget recipes from UKTV Food
Topically the UKTV website has put up a list of 50 budget recipes on its website today, a useful resource for anyone trying to trim their household budget.There are a couple I wouldn't myself regard as particularly thrifty. Spaghetti vongole made with fresh clams isn't cheap unless you live by the sea - or in Venice - and the compilers of the list obviously haven't noticed how much lamb shanks have gone up in price recently but I like the idea of the Turkish chickpea stew Inzimino, Afghani aubergine casserole and James Martin's clever Instant Banana Icecre...
Thursday, 10 July 2008
A photographic digression
I hesitated about posting this because it's nothing to do with frugal eating but I've just discovered this photographer whose work I think is amazing. His name is Tim Walker and his work has a fantastical Alison in Wonderland quality - plants grow all over bathrooms, beds turn up in fields, trees sport dresses like hanging lamps, a chandelier is turned into a ring of ice cream sundaes . . . He's mainly a fashion photographer but occasionally tackles food.His work is being displayed at the Rencontres Arles an annual photography festival in Arles to which we've been coming for the past six years...
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Where to store fruit and veg?
I've just written a piece for my student website Beyond Baked Beans on how to rescue the foods that tend to get chucked out most often - 40% of which are accounted for by fresh fruit and veg according to WRAP, the government-backed organisation which tries to make us more waste-conscious.Basically they reckon you should keep all your fruit in the fridge and obviously there's a lot to be said for that in terms of extending their useful life. But the fact is that I generally don't because I think it dumbs down the flavour and so much fruit (and veg such as tomatoes) is not fully ripe when you buy...
Monday, 7 July 2008
Should Gordon be bossing us about?
I was amused to read today that Gordon Brown was telling us to be more frugal and not to waste so much food.He's absolutely right, of course, but is it the PM's job to tell us how to run our households?The context is the G8 summit in which I suspect most people in this country are profoundly disinterested and on which there is unlikely to be much real progress in solving the world's growing food shortages. So he chose to pronounce on a subject that plays well to the audience at home (nothing party political about this - all politicians do it)The fact that his involvement is controversial is all...
Friday, 4 July 2008
Beer-can chicken
I've been invited by Kate of A Merrier World to take part in this month's blogging event on her site, a very worthwhile attempt to join Jamie and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in persuading everyone to eat free-range chicken. It's called Let Them Eat Chicken and Kate has written very passionately on the subject here I was going to submit a recipe from my recent post 4 days eating from one chicken but then I remembered the best chicken recipe of all - and the perfect one for this time of year - Beer-can Chicken.When I discovered this last year I just couldn't stop making it. It's that rare recipe...
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Fresh peach yoghurt
The peaches are so luscious here in France, so ripe they literally fall apart in your hands. And so cheap! I'm using them every which way I can. My favourite start to the day is a peeled peach, roughly cut up and mixed with plain yoghurt.You're lucky if you can get peaches that ripe at home of course but you do occasionally find them. And if you can't you can easily substitute less ripe fruit, cooked with a little sugar or honey until soft. Apricots, mangoes and plums are good this way or you can mash up some strawberries or bananas and fold them into the yoghurt.I always buy plain yoghurt (cheapest...
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Courgette and mint salad
When it's hot, as it is (steamingly . . . ) right now in the south of France, I really don't like to cook that much so the best thing is to prepare food while it's still relatively cool and eat it at room temperature. Cooked vegetables like this lend themselves perfectly to this treatment and make a nice change from conventional salads. You can serve it, mezze style, as part of a selection of cooked vegetable dishes, with feta, goats' cheese or hummus or as an accompaniment to grilled chicken, lamb or pork.Serves 3-42 large courgettes4 tbsp olive oil1 large clove of garlic finely sliced2 tbsp...
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