I knocked up this soup when I had a piteous cold last winter. It combines onions and garlic for detoxifying goodness with chillies to fire me up, tomatoes and carrots for essential vitamin C, beans for protein and chocolate because it’s a solution to almost everything. Plus dark chocolate and red wine are good for you, don’t you know? But […]
Breakfast Sunshine Buns – Pineapple, Carrot and Sultana) – 49p for 8 at 6p each. Ingredients:* 250g flour, 11p (65p/1.5kg) 1 sachet fast action dried yeast, 11p 30g sultanas, 6p (99p/500g) 1 carrot, 5p (part of a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1) 1/2 can pineapple chunks, 16p (32p/227g) How To: 1. Weigh the flour into a large mixing bowl and add […]
Earthy Red Wine & Mushroom Risotto, Serves One. 36p. Still needing easy but comforting food with this cold, I decided to go for carbs and wine and goodness… I’ve never known anyone else to use red wine as a risotto base before – that’s not to say its not been done, I’ve just not seen it – but this works […]
I make this for myself whenever I feel as though I am coming down with a cold. you know – when you’ve got that shaky, exhausted feeling and general self-pity. Instead of spending a fortune on various over-the-counter paracetamol and lemon drinks, I drag myself into the kitchen and cook myself a cure. This is called feisty soup for a […]
Gigantes Plaki literally means ‘Really Big Beans’! I’m heading back to my Mediterranean roots with this simple but delicious dish. I can have it for dinner, then lunch the next day and pulse any leftovers into a soup. It makes me chuckle to see these spicy butterbeans retailing for almost £5 per pot in certain supermarkets, when they’re really just […]
Vegan On A Budget, PETA, 20th March.
Bubbles And Squeaks. Makes 10 bubble and squeak patties at 7p each, eat one or two or five, depending on how hungry you are. I was really hungry, so didn’t even get a picture of these. However I have half the mix left in the fridge for tonights dinner, so will fry it up and snap it later. In the meantime, here’s a recipe for ridiculously cheap food. Ingredients:* 2 potatoes, 10p (5p each, from a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1) 1 carrot, 5p (5p each, from a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1) 1 onion, 5p (5p each, from a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1) ¼ cabbage, 20p (Savoy Cabbage, 80p) 1 egg, 23p ( free range medium eggs, £1.40 for 6) Tbsp flour, 2p (65p/1.5kg) Tbsp lard, 4p (49p/250g) Vegetable stock cube, 1p (10p for 10) How To: 1. Bring the vegetable stock to the boil in a medium sized saucepan. 2. Dice the potatoes and carrots (I don’t peel mine, but this is optional) and add to the stock. Simmer for 20 minutes or until they are soft. I find prodding a knife into the saucepan is a good indicator; if it slides through a chunk of potato smoothly, you’re good to go. 3. While the root veg is boiling, take a separate saucepan and add a little lard or oil to it. Some of you may balk at the thought of using lard – I was brought up cooking eggs […]
This recipe uses tinned chickpeas, but can also use dried chickpeas if you have them available. Dried chickpeas work out cheaper but will need to be soaked in cold water for at least 8 hours before starting the recipe, and then need to be cooked (put in a pan, cover with water and boil vigorously for at least 10 minutes […]
This recipe uses tinned chickpeas, but can also use dried chickpeas if you have them available. Dried chickpeas work out cheaper but will need to be soaked in cold water for at least 8 hours before starting the recipe, and then need to be cooked (put in a pan, cover with water and boil vigorously for at least 10 minutes […]
Proper Vegetable Masala Curry, 89p, serves 3-4 at less than 30p each. This isn’t vegan. I tried but my pre-first-work-pay-packet budget just couldn’t stretch to £1.99 coconut milk versus 32p of natural yoghurt. I’ve failed my Lent experiment but I’m happy to hold my hands up and say ‘have a fabulous curry recipe’ while I feel a bit guilty about […]
“Food prices are soaring, and food itself, particularly budget food, is under scrutiny following the horsemeat debacle. Careful shopping and home cooking are suddenly a national priority. And with Government cuts hitting benefits, they are high on the political agenda, too. This has driven Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, to try living on £18 a week, the amount […]
There’s a certain poignant, sadly ironic element as I stamp on a cardboard box in a car park behind the YMCA building in Southend tonight. (For those not in the know, I’m part of the YMCA Sleep Easy event, sleeping rough for a night to raise money for youth homelessness.) Six months ago, through a roller coaster of jobs gained […]
COOKING ON A BOOTSTRAP 