Breakfast

Don't waste your money on this kind of stuff

Do you spend a fortune on breakfast cereals?  Well stop it. Here's a way to make a cheap, tasty and healthy version of muesli.










Serves 4

In a large bowl, place -
8 tablespoons dried porridge oats
Any 4 of the following:
     handful of raisins or sultanas
     6 dried dates, chopped
     4-6 dried apricots, chopped
     6 glace cherries, chopped
     a grated apple
     tablespoon of any dried fruit
A sprinkling of chopped nuts
A couple of teaspoons of seeds
A good glug of fruit juice

Stir it all together then add enough cold water to make it look like wet porridge. Cover and leave overnight.  By morning it will have slightly solidified because the  dried fruit and oats will have absorbed the water.
Serve with milk or yoghurt.  Each portion contains one of your five a day.   And there's no added salt or sugar!

Leftovers cooked meat pie



Looks better after you brown it in the oven



You are all very aware that Auntie Anne likes to save money wherever possible - well here's a tasty way to use up some leftovers and nobody would ever know that you didn't plan it.

If you've followed the advice in other parts of this site you almost certainly have bits of leftover cooked meat in your freezer (pickings from a chicken, the tail-end of a bit of boiling bacon, a couple of chunks of any old roast meats really.) You should also have herbs in your store cupboard and a couple of veggies somewhere in your fridge. And you must have some potatoes somewhere. Maybe you even have leftovers from last night's dinner.

You will need:
Some cooked meat.
A herb that suits it (sage with beef, tarragon with chicken etc.)
Some veg.  Such as mushrooms, tomatoes, frozen peas, tin of sweetcorn, cooked carrot etc.
At least one onion.
A couple of garlic cloves (or dried if you don't have fresh)
Half a pint of milk
A bit of cornflour (a heaped teaspoon or two will do it)
A few potatoes, or some leftover mash.

Chop your onion roughly and put it into a pan with the milk. Peel and chop the garlic and add that. Simmer it for about 10 minutes until the onion softens. Mix your cornflour with a small amount of cold water and add it to the pan. Bring the whole lot back to the boil, stirring, until teh mixture thickens.  Put it to one side.

In an oven-proof dish place your chunks of meat and intersperse them with the vegetables. Mushrooms and tomatoes can go in raw; small frozen veg ditto. Hardier veg such as carrots, parsnips, sprouts and such like will need a bit of a boil first to soften them. Sprinkle the whole lot with your chopped herbs. (Dried are fine!)

Then pour the onion and milk mixture over the top. Set aside.

Peel and boil some potatoes and mash them with a splash of milk. Add nutmeg if you like. It tastes good in spuds. Now spoon the mashed spuds onto the top of the dish and rough up the surface with a fork.

Stick the whole lot into a hot oven for about 15 minutes until it browns on top.  Serve with another veg that doesn't appear inside the pie.

Start collecting now to save money later

For the next few weeks start collecting used jars and bottles. Don't put them in the recycling. Find a corner in your kitchen (mine's in the cupboard under the sink) to stash them away. Make sure their lids fit and then put them (unlidded) into a lot of cold water so that the labels soften and can be peeled off. Take the labels off, put their lids back on, then store them away.(If any of the labels fight with you, don't waste too much energy. Put that one in the recycling and go on to the next jar.)

The next few weeks- up till about the end of October - will bring a glut of things that can be turned into jam, pickle and interesting alcoholic drinks. Buying new glassware costs a fortune. A decent sized jam jar will knock you back a couple of quid from that fancy shop in the High Street (yes - THAT one.)
If you're the kind of person who likes those fancy hats on your home-made jam you might like to start looking out for a yard or so of cotton cloth at your local market too.

Every time you go shopping for the next few weeks buy one of the following: sugar (for jams and chutneys), white wine vinegar or cider vinegar (for pickles and chutneys) and half bottles of cheap gin or vodka (for sloe gin and bramble vodka)

Recipes will follow as the seasons progress.

I make a good soup



Introducing Potato Pete. He was a character from WWII who was designed to help people make more of the food that was available to them. Back then it was because enemy action prevented boats from bringing in supplies of foreign foods. These days it's useful to know because money's tight and getting tighter by the hour.

Luckily spuds are still cheap and plentiful and the weather's still cold enough to appreciate a bowl of soup. Soup's easy and even if you don't use potatoes as the main ingredient you can still use them to thicken other types.

BASIC SOUP RECIPE (serves 2)

1 onion, peeled and chopped

2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 pint of stock (any kind)

1 tablespoon of flour

Glug of cooking oil

Salt and pepper

A few dried herbs (any you like)

Heat the oil in a heavy based saucepan and add the onions and potato. Fry gently for a few minutes until the onions start to soften. Add the flour and continue cooking for another minute or so. Stir well with a wooden spoon while you are doing that. 

Now add a splash of the stock and keep stirring until it blends in. Keep adding the stock a little at a time until it's all in the pan. If you don't add it a bit at a time and you don't stir well it will all go lumpy.

Sprinkle in the dried herbs and add salt and pepper.

Cover the pan and simmer the whole thing for about 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Allow to cool slightly then put it through a blender. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt or a sprinkling of grated cheese and a good chunk of bread.

VARIATIONS

* You can add any kind of vegetables you like at the frying stage. Leeks work well in place of the onion. Carrots give an interesting colour. Celery is good. Sprouts are great - add a few chopped walnuts at the end and see how that tastes.

* If you don't like the finished soup colour, put it back in the pan, add a squeeze of tomato puree and cook it for another couple of minutes.

* If you've used a meat stock you can add chopped meat after the blender stage. Heat the soup thoroughly before eating. Chicken is good. Use sage as your flavouring herb and you'll have a hearty bowlful!

* You can also add chopped cooked vegetables after the blender stage. Cooked pulses go well at this stage too. Small tin of chick peas or similar.

* Add some tomato puree to the blended soup and simmer for a couple of minutes then throw in some cooked pasta shapes. Small ones work best.

How to save money when you're out shopping

Last night was shopping night. The vastness of my local superstore always looms scarily and I need to prepare myself for the onslaught. Everything about a supermarket is designed to make you spend more than you intended. The lighting, the store layout, the width of the aisles, the product placement, all have been carefully thought out by psychologists to encourage you to buy, buy, buy.

So you have to have your wits about you when you enter a supermarket and there are a few tricks you can use to help hang on to your hard earned cash!

Make like the Scouts: Be Prepared!
First of all you need to plan your meals and know what your staples and favourites are. If you want to have ready meals in your freezer that will save you money on bought ones and take-outs then you have to know what you can do and what will keep.

You need to keep an eye on how much space you have in your freezer. That huge bag of salmon fillets might work out at less than 50p each but unless you have room to freeze them you're going to end up throwing them out.

Beware of the BOGOF
When you set off for the supermarket make sure you have a list. Know what you want, how much you need, and stick to it. You think that BOGOF celery looks like a good deal? Well, firstly, do you LIKE celery? Enough to eat two whole heads of it in a week? Because it'll go off if you try to keep it much longer than that. But if you're planning to make soup to freeze, then it's a bargain.

In my case it's a waste of time, effort and cash to have deals on biscuits. They usually WILL keep longer than a week - but not in my house. I shall just end up having one with every meal and maybe just another little one, and perhaps a couple before bed? And before I know it I've eaten two whole packets in spite of my good intentions to make them last a month. This is no way to save money.

Bargain or bum?
By all means check the bargain bins and Oops shelves. But don't buy things unless you can use them. A couple of packets of near-their-sell-by ham is great if you're catering for the cricket team tea tomorrow. What are you going to do with them otherwise? (OK - I make sandwiches for packed lunches and freeze a week's at once but even I get fed up with ham if I have to eat it every day.)

You might find after bank holidays that the bargain shelves have some rare treats on them. Supermarkets buy in lots of luxury goods for festive seasons because people want to spend more on long weekends. But they can't shift things after life goes back to normal and the prices are exceptionally good because they need the space. I've picked up quite a few jars of anchovies for less than a pound that way.  What do I do with anchovies?  Wait till I do Storecupboard 3!
And is it a bargain? 'Was £3.45, NOW £3 is only a good deal if you actually want the contents of the pack. If you're buying it just because it has an old price crossed off you've just wasted £3!  Even worse - some supermarkets will offer you 'was £3.45, now £3.40'. Perhaps not.

Take a look around for the things that you DO buy and watch out for bargains on them. Don't be too tied down to your list. For example, if it says roast beef for Sunday lunch but they're offering duck at a really good price, leave the cow till next week and indulge yourself.

There's a reason you haven't heard of them
Don't buy brands you don't recognise just because they're half the price of the things you usually get. Unless they offer you a taste of them and you're sure they are just as good. I promise you that the second (and sometimes third) packet will sit at the back of your cupboard uneaten. If you really want to try something new just buy ONE packet - however good the offer looks.

How's your maths?
It seems obvious but check prices! That's a 500g box of something for £1.20 and it's reduced from £2.50 so that's a big saving, right? No, not if there's a 300g box next to it for 60p. (I'll wait while you work that out) And always check that the 'buy three for only £1' deals actually work out cheaper. Believe it or not people have been known to fall for '30p each or three for £1'.

Above all, keep a rough check on the cost of your trolley load as you go round. You know how much you have to spend and you can stop before you reach it. Add it up as you go along. Work to the nearest 50p and always round up totals. That way you'll get a pleasant surprise when you come to pay. If you haven't got everything on your list but you've over spent, decide NOW what you can leave behind. It's too late once it's gone through the checkout and you're facing the bill. You planned to spend £50 but the total says £76? You have no-one to blame but yourself.

It's not all that bad
OK so I won't end on a nasty nag. You CAN find some real bargains when you want to as long as you're careful. If you're flexible with your cooking you can take advantage of things in season. If you know that jam season is coming, buy a box of sugar each week so you can stockpile it for when you need it. Same with Christmas. Buy one thing extra a week from September onwards and you'll have a great store and won't be facing a huge shopping trip when the streets are heaving.

Weekend soup

Yesterday morning we went shopping and when we came back from the supermarket we put everything away, as usual. Of course, as always happens, we had to move out the old bits to make way for fresh food.

As usual I turned the leftovers into soup for lunch. It's quick, easy and, if you were planning on throwing the old food out, free!

You can make weekend soup out of any old raw and cooked vegetables but this one consisted of:

Half a head of chinese leaf (it was Chinese New Year during the week and it didn't fit in the stir fry)
The tail end of a swede
An onion

I chopped it all up then threw it into a saucepan with a tablespoon of oil and a couple of cloves of garlic. (Start with raw vegetables only. If you're including cooked ones they go in later.)

First thing to do is sweat it all down until the veg starts to wilt and the onions start to go translucent.
 
 When you've done it right it will look sort of like this: (That dark green stuff is lemon thyme that I happened to have around.)

Then you need to add some thickening.  If your leftover vegetables included potatoes you won't need to do this bit because the starch in the spuds will do it for you. If not, add some flour and then cook it for a couple of minutes longer, stirring it all the time so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once it starts to look thick and sticky you need to add liquid. You can add either water or stock. Add the cooked veg at this stage if you're using them. Add enough liquid to cover the veg. Bring the whole thing to the boil and then turn down the heat to a simmer. Let it cook for about 10 to 15 minutes then taste it. If it's short on flavour add something to make it tastier.  This one was a bit thin so I added a sprinkling of Chinese five spice powder and a good splash of soy sauce. (But you can add chilli, curry powder, herbs, Worcester sauce, leftover meat, tomato puree, celery salt, anything you like.)

Once you're happy you can blast it through a blender. You might find you need to cool it down before you do, then heat it up again before you eat it. Pour it into bowls and if you want to be really swank you can swirl in some cream or yoghurt and sprinkle it with a few fresh herbs (like in the top picture).

You see - there IS such a thing as a free lunch!