Leftover fish curry

As I write the title to this post I'm aware it doesn't sound a big turn on. Leftover fish. Hmmmm. But trust me, it was good.

First of all the fish wasn't cooked, merely the odd bits and pieces that hadn't found their way onto the kebabs that our friend Rich's mate Chris was rustling up for a big family barbecue (mainly tuna and swordfish). Chris is a chef so you'd expect him to come up with something good but this was an impressive use of the scant contents of a holiday villa storecupboard.

Apparently he sweated off a few onions and peppers and about 4 cloves of garlic over a very low heat for about half an hour then added some cayenne pepper and ground coriander, some chopped tomatoes and some water, cooked the sauce until it was thick, added the cubed fish then stirred in a carton of crème fraîche (interesting effect - I'd thought he'd used coconut milk). Think he might also have added a squeeze of lemon (lime would also have been good)

The great thing about fish curries is that people who profess not to like fish much will eat them. You can also use those frozen fish steaks that look unappealingly rectangular on their own but are fine cubed and/or throw in a few cheap frozen prawns or those frozen seafood mixes.

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Fruit 'martinis'

Back from the Emerald Isle which was indeed looking very green after all that rain.

I had a really great trip and a fabulous birthday - the best I can ever remember.

Believe it or not I'm off again in 36 hours, this time to France to try and establish whether my mother-in-law can manage to go back home after her fall a couple of months ago or whether she'll have to go into a home which she understandably doesn't want to do. Tricky.

No time for much in the way of creative cooking in the meantime but here's a great idea I picked up from a lovely hotel called The Old Convent we stayed in in Co. Tipperary. (Not remotely frugal but a surprise birthday treat from my husband before we headed home yesterday.)

It's simply martini glasses filled a third of the way up with home-made yoghurt and topped with assorted fresh fruit. A strikingly pretty and not-too-extravagant idea for a brunch (You can obviously use wineglasses or tumblers if you don't happen to have a dozen martini glasses, as few of us do)

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Oh, the joy of a good apple pie!

Isn't this a thing of beauty?

I wish I could say I'd cooked it myself but these are the apple pies they make at the Farmgate café in Midleton, Co. Cork.

There's something very special about an Irish apple pie. The filling is a wonderful chunky mound of sweet fruit, the pastry wafer thin and crisp with a lavish dusting of caster sugar. It's much lighter and less stodgy than an English apple pie.

Judging by this recipe the crucial difference is that they use eating rather than cooking apples and a high proportion of fat to flour - plus some sour cream.

I'm off cooking duty this week but shall have to have a crack at it when I get home.

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Yikes! Ireland is expensive!

We're over on 10 days holiday celebrating a Big Birthday (Mine. One of those ones with an 0 at the end) and I can't believe how expensive Irish restaurants are. The main courses in the restaurants in Wexford we looked at last night were all between 20 and 30 euros, pretty well London prices and certainly much more than we would pay in Bristol. Wine, which is hugely popular in Ireland, is really pricey too.

Fortunately breakfasts such as the wonderful one we had this morning at McMenamin's (above) are so lavish that one doesn't need lunch so I reckon a strategy of blow-out breakfast, afternoon tea and one course for dinner will get us by until we get to the house we've rented.

Lovely place though. Couldn't meet nicer people.

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Maybe the answer is halal meat

Following my earlier moan this week about cheap cuts I passed what looked like a halal butcher yesterday in Shepherds Bush in London which was selling all kinds of inexpensive cuts of lamb from an amazing £1.24 a lb. It was also really well trimmed of fat.

We used to buy halal meat occasionally from a Bangladeshi grocer where I lived in St Albans and it was particularly good for stews, tagines and curries.

I didn't have time to explore yesterday but there are loads of really cheap places to shop round Shepherds Bush including several middle eastern greengrocers and a flourishing street market.

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'Cheap cuts' aren't always cheap

The unrelenting gloom and unseasonal temperatures made me feel like making a stew on Saturday when we were having friends round so I bought four big pieces of organic short ribs or 'pot au feu' as our local butcher calls them. It was a bit of a shock when they came to over £12 but by that time I'd got so carried away with how good they were going to taste I couldn't bring myself to buy something else. And it was great, and it did serve 6 which is only £2 a head (well, probably £2.50ish with the veg and the wine) far, far cheaper than anything you'd get in a restaurant. But it blew a big hole in our weekend food budget which led to us not buying the chicken we were thinking of having yesterday.

It is, it has to be said, one of the few disadvantages of buying from a butcher rather than a supermarket. In a supermarket you know exactly what you're getting and how much it's going to cost. In a butcher you've already entered into the transaction by picking your meat and asking them to weigh it and with several people standing behind you you have to be feeling unusually resolute (or desperate) to ask them to put it back.

It's not the first time I've found that so called 'cheap cuts' can add up a bit, particularly when they're on the bone. Lamb shanks are now a shocking price. Osso buco which I'm sure used to be a frugal Italian cut, equally so. Only scrag end of lamb still seems to be good value and that's almost certainly because of the unappealing name.

What's your experience of buying cheaper cuts?

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Raspberry and yoghurt pots

This is my favourite breakfast at the moment - well, most of the year, actually, but fresh raspberries happen to be in season and reduced at most of the supermarkets currently.

A handful of raspberries, a heaped tablespoon of plain yoghurt (we use soy as my husband is dairy-intolerant) and a sprinkling of granola. It looks especially pretty layered up in a tumbler like this, a form of presentation the French are particularly keen on and call a 'verrine'.

You can also of course make it with thawed frozen berries - cheaper for most of the year - or with a cooked fruit compote. We have it with apple and cinnamon, blackberry and apple, plums and rhubarb at different times of year. Not expensive and a great way to start the day.

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