So, it’s the end of day two, of my Live Below The Line challenge. For those just catching up, I, along with 5,000 people in the UK, am living on £5 for five days to raise money for charity. My chosen charity is Oxfam UK, as I am involved with their Enough Food If campaign, tackling four major causes of […]
At the end of my first day of this years Live Below The Line challenge, I’ve had three meals and two snacks, which is better than I thought I would do. A seasoned frugal eater, even I have struggled today with my refusal to use my store cupboard ingredients and instead only use the £5 that I spent on Sunday for the challenge. 7am Breakfast: two slices of white bread, toasted, with lemon curd (2 slices white bread with approx 20g lemon curd). 6 pence. 10am snack: lemon curd sandwich (2 slices white bread with approx 20g lemon curd). 6 pence. 1130am snack: 20g dry cornflakes. 2 pence. 1pm lunch: 30g cornflakes with 150ml unsweetened soya drink. 11 pence. 6pm dinner: 100g plain boiled rice, 150g mixed peppers and stir fry veg, 200g chopped tomatoes and 20g lemon curd. 36 pence. TOTAL SPEND: 61 PENCE Total food left for the next four days: Bread: 18 slices Lemon curd: approx 350g Cornflakes: 450g Unsweetened soya drink: 850ml Plain white rice: 900g Mixed peppers: 150g Chopped tomatoes: 600g Kidney beans: 400g Mixed vegetables (carrot, broccoli, sweetcorn): 1kg Spaghetti: 500g 1 onion Broccoli, Courgette, carrot and green beans: 240g Mixed herbs: 13g I attended a meeting tonight about living below the line and addressing poverty in Southend – most of the attendees were already participating in the challenge. I have challenged myself to carry on beyond the five days if there is anything […]
Sort-of sweet and sour veg, 36p This was a stroke of what I like to call genius, when I picked up the mixed peppers and the lemon curd, and wondered whether lemon curd and tomatoes would make a sweet and sour sauce. The short answer – yes! So here’s my answer to a Chinese takeaway, for 36 pence. Ingredients: 150g […]
Sitting at my desk with a tired head, although the carb-slump is probably not helped by an extraordinarily busy weekend, I thought I would check my Living Below The Line fundraising page for some inspiration and a reminder as to why I’m taking part in the challenge. So far, by Monday lunchtime and just as I polish off my bowl […]
Well, it’s only half eleven and I’m already glad I had the foresight to pack some snacks for the day. After breakfast of lemon curd on toast this morning, with a glass of water, I packed two separate 20g portions of corn flakes to graze on, and a lemon curd sandwich. Normally a big protein eater, and off the back […]
My first meal for this year’s Live Below The Line challenge…. Two slices of toast with lemon curd, and a glass of water. Cost: 6 pence Calories: 288 I will also be adding my detailed nutrition calculations for the day, adding to them as each meal is consumed. The calories, fat, protein etc in the ‘left’ column are worked out […]
To see part one of Saturday morning’s BBC Breakfast interview with Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt, click the link below: VIDEO: Jack Monroe on BBC Breakfast, 27 April 2013 Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
After a quick whizz to my local supermarket with my remaining 60p, I found the following two items in the bottom of the reduced chiller, bringing my total spend for the Live Below The Line challenge to £5.00, for the next five days. Plus my earlier shop at £4.40: Total food for the next five days: 300g mixed pepper stir […]
I’ve just done my Monday to Friday shop for this weeks Live Below The Line challenge. I live and eat on a very small budget already, and several of my friends have asked me what would be so ‘challenging’ about taking part in Live Below The Line for me. Well, most of my recipes are built around a 1.25kg vegetable […]
I must say I use more and more pulses in my cooking now, as I am also trying to balance my budget, but I have to say that I really enjoy this kind of food. If you have a chance do try this recipe. It is absolutely delicious. Beyssara, or Beyssar, depending on who you speak to, is a street food staple, somewhere between a thick soup and a thin puree. In Marrakesh it is cooked in large, round earthenware jars which are balanced over charcoal fires in a tilted position. The narrow opening of the jar faces the cool and he ladles the soup out into bowls using a long handled spoon. Ingredients (Serves 4-6.) 250 g/ 9 ounces dried split broad beans, soaked overnight with 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda added to the water 2 unpeeled garlic cloves 1 ½ teaspoons each ground cumin and paprika scant ½ teaspoon dried chillies crushed to a coarse powder, or taste (or use chilli powder) salt to taste extra virgin olive oil Directions: Rinse the broad beans, which will have swelled to twice original size, and put them in a large saucepan. Add the unpeeled garlic cloves and the spices and cover with water (about 2 litres / 3 ½ pints). Bring to the boil over a medium high heat, then cover the pan and leave to boil for 30 minutes or until the broad beans have turned into a mush. […]
I stepped off the BBC Breakfast sofa this morning, said goodbye to Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt, and hello to a thousand new Twitter followers. I stepped into a lift at the hotel the BBC had provided for me in Media City, Salford, and a woman jumped in with me to say she had just seen me on the TV. With tears in her eyes, she told me she had just been made redundant, and that she had stopped to watch it, because the information about cooking meals on a tight budget had come at ‘just the right time’ for her. I had just eight floors to reassure her that no matter how horrible and awful things are, you find a steely determination and a strength you didn’t know you had, to just bloody well carry on. As I said on Facebook last night, I’m not pretending it’s ben easy. Constantly feeling like a failure, two suicide attempts, sitting with my back against the door as the bailiffs hammer on it for an electricity bill that I know I can’t pay. Applying for jobs week in, week out, with the deafening silence as not even a rejection email comes through. My ‘£1 a day food’ started a year ago, when, with just over £6 in copper coins and five pence pieces in a dish in my kitchen, I went to my local supermarket to see what I could buy. Yes, […]
Remember that sleep out I did in a car park in March to raise money for the Southend YMCA? Sleeping on a box in a car park and waking up with frost on my face?! Well thanks to 67 amazing donations, I’ve raised £1049 so far to go towards tackling youth homelessness in the borough of Southend. The donation page […]
One of the fabulous things about the Internet, is its ability to connect people… In this case, a couple of weeks ago (yes, blogging has fallen slightly by the wayside lately), I received a delicious-smelling parcel to my desk at work… And inside, were seven pods of vanilla all the way from Uganda, via Vanessa Kimbell from Juniper and Rose. […]
Well look at what just landed on my door mat…!!! 😀 How exciting! And how unbelievable. I never imagined, when I started scribbling down my budget recipes on my blog to cheer myself up last summer, that anyone else would even read them, let alone *this* happen. Life is a funny old thing. And now – its a funny old […]
MARGARET Thatcher has passed away today, aged 87, following a stroke. She entered the Houses of Parliament with drive, with ambition, and with a vision that she truly believed would change this country for the better. The daughter of a grocer, and a woman, she is often described as ‘shattering the glass ceiling’ for women in politics. She was the first, and only, female Prime Minister of this country. Many on the Left joked about having “the champagne on ice” for her passing. Although I despise her politics, I am writing this with a heavy heart. I will not be hypocritical enough to write a gushing tribute, as I disagree profoundly with a lot of what she did. I know enough of my history to know that she was a truly divisive figure, and that many suffered under her leadership. I do not dispute that, nor dismiss it. It is both history, and a legacy, an undercurrent into our current Conservative Party politicians mindset and policies. Yet Margaret’s death does not change anything. It does not turn the clock back to May 1979. It does not undo what has been done. In this, I am saddened by todays events – not the death of the first female Prime Minister of this country, although this will be in itself a historically significant day – but at the jubilation and exultation displayed by people vulgar enough to celebrate the death of another […]
Lemon Curd Sponge Puddings, 95p for 4 or 24p each. Luckily for me, as I shop very carefully, I have most of the ingredients for this in the cupboard at all times. Unluckily for my jeans, that means I’m never more than thirty-two minutes away from a cake… This is a simple, classic, sticky treat, that Small Boy and myself […]
Dear George, I would like to address your comments that have been in the national media today, Thursday 4th April. When asked whether Mick Philpott, the now-notorious killer of six of his seventeen children, behaved in the way that he did as a result of the benefits system in the UK, you replied: “It’s right we ask questions as a Government, a society and as taxpayers, why we are subsidising lifestyles like these.” Now I am not the Government, so cannot ask the question ‘as the Government’, but as a member of society and as a taxpayer, I can ask the following questions myself, and seek to offer the following reassurances that I am not a sociopath. Firstly, while we’re making sweeping assessments about what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ and what ‘should’ and ‘should not’ be funded from taxpayers money, let’s have a glance around. As a member of society and as a tax payer, why am I funding lifestyles like, say, Iain Duncan Smith claiming £39 on a breakfast, while I queue in a food bank for an hour in the freezing cold to collect a can of chopped tomatoes, some pasta, and some haricot beans? Why does 20% of my salary go towards these gross excesses, when I cannot afford to feed myself? How about Sir Peter Vigger’s £1,165 ‘floating pond feature’ for his duck pond? Or for £41,000 of furniture for the Care Services Minister, […]
School Dinner Jam Sponge, 90p for 4 at 23p each. Ingredients:* 100g self raising flour, 4p (65p/1.5kg) 70g butter, 34p (£1.20/250g) 2 eggs, 44p (£2.65/12 free range) 50g sugar, 5p (89p/kg) 4 heaped teaspoons of jam, 3p (29p/454g) How To: 1. Place the butter in a microwaveable dish and heat on the defrost setting for 30 seconds until soft. Transfer […]
Well, Lent is over and save a few hiccups, accidental and weakness, I managed to add quite a lot to my vegan recipe repertoire over the past month and a half. However, a week ago when I was clearing out my fridge, I came across a piece of smoked cheese i’d bought from the reduced counter at my local supermarket […]
COOKING ON A BOOTSTRAP 