Hey y’all (I have just come
back from the USA so I’m loving y’all right now!), how’s it going? So this
month has been all about being frugal and finding some tasty but cheap meals. I
started the month by doing one of the best free things ever...I joined my local
library! Libraries are just great aren’t they, it really is amazing that you
can still borrow books for free!! My local library is quite small but
thankfully it does have a great selection of cook books and I found this one
which caught my because of its not so snappy title...
I worked out the approximate
costs for each recipe - I usually do our food shopping online at Sainsbury’s so
I’m sure you could actually make these recipes even cheaper if you shopped
around.
Being brought up in Yorkshire
I am in LOVE with Yorkshire pudding and so I started the month trying out a
classic recipe which is delicious and surprisingly cost effective.
Toad in the hole - £3.66 to serve 4
Ingredients
8 Sausages
100g Plain flour
2 eggs
½ mug of milk (approx)
1 small onion chopped
(optional – I left this out)
Method
- Arrange the sausages in a large ovenproof dish with some extra oil (The sausages make their own fat but you need some more to cook the Yorkshire pudding in, 3-4 tablespoons should do it). Prick the sausages with a sharp knife and put them in a hot oven (200-220 degrees centigrade). If you are using the onion, chop it finely and scatter around the sausages after about 10-15 mins when the oil is hot and the sausages are starting to brown.
- Sift the flour in a largish bowl (give yourself plenty of elbow room) and make a well in the centre.
- Break the eggs into the well one at a time, add about half the milk and start whisking, gradually adding more milk until youve got a fairly thick, smooth puring batter. You can leave the batter in the fridge, but have it ready to pour into the very hot oil the minute you bring the sausages out of the oven.
- When the sausages are brown and very nearly done quickly pour the batter in and return to the top half of the oven immediately (you really do need to do this super fast, the batter was cooking and setting as soon as I poured it in). After about 20 minutes you should have lovely dark brown sausages and perfect golden brown, well risen Yorkshire pudding.
I
served this with green beans, mash and of course lashings of gravy!! It was
delicious and I was sooooo impressed with how much the puddings rise, it was
HUGE!
Macaroni cheese - £4.75 to serve 4
As
the clocks have gone back and its now practically dark at lunchtime all I am
longing for is comfort food. There is nothing better than the creamy,
cheesyfest of mac and cheese!
I
didn’t have a baguette so I just made a couple of pieces of toast and blitz
them in the food processor. I was a bit weary of the breadcrumbs to be honest
but they definitely added to it, it was a nice bit of crunch on top of the
lovely squidgy macaroni. To be fair this isn’t the cheapest meal when you think
it doesn’t have any protein or veg in it but it is soooooo tasty!
Mince and sweet potato pie - £5.72 the
recipe says it serves 4 but I think it’s more like 5 or 6 because it is super
filling
I
picked up some lamb mince in the reduced section so I got it for £2.69 which
brought down the costs quite a bit, I think it would be an extra £1.30-£2.00
for full price beef or lamb mince. I would maybe try this with Quorn mince because
it is so much cheaper than meat but still gets you some protein.
I
have to say we thought it looked a bit weird/mixed up when it came out of the
oven it was actually really tasty. I’m not the biggest fan of baked beans but
as part of the mix they tasted really nice.
Cheesy Baked Tortilla - £4.45 serves 4
My
other half Dave is definitely a meat man so persuading him to eat a veggie meal was a challenge. I thought this looked like a fun recipe but might not be filling enough so I added some Quorn to it (I persuaded Dave to try Quorn by reminding that Mo Farah is on the advert so it must be good! He is basically going to become Mo now that he has had one Tortilla!!) which really helped bulked it up. I must admit though that I probably used about twice the amount of cheese suggested...I REALLY like cheese! So that probably makes it a bit more expensive.
 |
| That's the Tortillas rolled up and the filling.....ummmm yum! |
Random things left in the
fridge/cupboard - £ sort of free
So
I think sometimes the cheapest way to make dinner is to actually eat what’s
left in the fridge/cupboard!! I don’t know about you but we are sooooo bad for
wasting food! I think I probably throw fresh fruit/ veg or meat out every week
so I decided to just use up some leftovers.
Now to be fair it was a bit of a
random meal, quesadilla (made with left over chicken, fried with a packet of
salsa and some slightly dodgy looking peppers, topped with some forgotten about
cheese), pretzels and apple. It was random but still tasty and it makes the
point that the best way to save money on food is to actually eat everything you
buy! Shocking I know!!
I am now determined to clean out our freezer and use up
all the random tins in the cupboard...this probably means we will be eating frozen
Yorkshire puddings with sweet corn, chopped tomatoes and black pudding... not a
traditional combo but you never know, it could work!!
So,
onwards into the last couple of months of the Delicious Dozen challenge. We are
just back from a trip to the USA to see my Mum and Dad in South Carolina A.K.A
The South. November is dedicated to Deep Southern foods... fried chicken here
we come!
Happy
cooking and eating y’all.
Linds
xx
P.S I also made a Free Cakes for Kids Cake with my friend Rebecca, hopefully Cole liked his Spiderman cake!!
