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'...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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