Should one switch off an AGA in summer?

For the last two or three weeks I've been vaguely wondering whether we should switch off the AGA. Now with the weather getting seriously sticky it's getting positively uncomfortable to sit in the kitchen - a problem since that's where we eat.It's also, obviously, where we cook and where we dry clothes. No AGA = a trek to the launderette every time we change the sheets. The main problem though is that there are no alternative cooking facilities other than a kettle (we rent our current flat) which is presumably why AGA owners keep them blasting away year-round. When I checked online just now I...

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Another riff on pasta, tomatoes and pesto

Just to show that the current leftovers jag is still in full swing today I managed to rustle up another pasta dish with the remains of Friday's feast and a few other odds and ends from the salad drawer. In effect it was a double pasta sauce. I fried a sliced onion and red pepper for about 7-8 minutes until they were beginning to brown then stirred in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a tablespoon of tomato paste and a chopped tomato. I left it bubbling away while I cooked about 200g of Mafalda corta pasta with a handful of green beans, adding a few sugar snap peas towards the end of the...

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Living off leftovers

As time goes on I'm more and more convinced of the virtues of shopping as and when you need it rather than doing a big weekly shop.We're still living off the leftovers of the supper I cooked for friends on Friday night - admittedly with a couple of food gifts: a carton of lettuce and pea soup (made to use up leftover leaves) from Stephen Markwick of Culinaria who I dropped in to see on Saturday and a highly original gift of gulls eggs and n'duja, a very spicy Calabrian sausage from one of our guests, fellow food writer Xanthe Clay. Our lunch today must be the least conventional fry-up ever: gulls...

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Spaghetti with pesto and roast tomatoes

I'm on a bit of pesto kick at the moment. The local greengrocer is full of fat bunches of basil and there's no other way to use one up before it goes off even if you add basil to everything. Not that making pesto is a hardship. It's so bright and flavourful and vivid in flavour - light years away from the drab, almost khaki-coloured paste you get in jars. Since I posted the recipe on my student site beyondbakedbeans.com we've been having it slathered over everything which is why there wasn't quite enough to make the sauce I devised for our pasta lunch today (Napolina spaghetti being on special...

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Lamb legs are the new lamb shanks

I know I've been banging on incessantly about how cheap cuts are no longer cheap but here's a perfect illustration. Incited by my recent observations that men aren't as frugal as women when it comes to food shopping, my husband picked up a half price leg of lamb for £8.99 in Somerfield the other day.I never really fancy a full English roast in this sort of weather so decided to make an old recipe I haven't made for years from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery which you can find (the recipe, not the book) online hereThere was a time when I would have conscientiously trotted down to the shops and...

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Salt and pepper wings

It's been a manic week on the work front so I thought I might dig up a recipe from The Book. (There is a Frugal Cook book in case it's slipped your notice ;-) I also had a rather enticing pic of it I remembered I hadn't published.The main pleasure of eating chicken wings is the lovely sticky, finger-licking, almost Marmitey goo you get if you cook then sufficiently long, a texture and flavour that sometimes gets masked if you cover them with a marinade. If you can have salt and pepper squid I thought, why not salt and pepper wings? It cuts down on the other ingredients you need to use and makes...

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So are men frugal?

There's an interesting trend I've been noticing over the last few weeks and months which is that almost all my followers and most of the people who comment on this blog (with a few honourable exceptions) are women. Does that mean men aren't frugal?I think it actually says more about the dynamics of blogging than about frugality. Women are more prone to support and get involved with a blogger they like than men are, I would say but there is an interesting point here which I was discussing with a colleague on a work trip I've been on this week (hence the gap in posts) which is that men are frugal...

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