Northumberland Gazette Article 1st May 2014

I've done it! My second month of £50 grocery shopping is complete. Now I need to check out my cupboards and get inventive again! 

It's also time to get planting. In all honesty, I should have done this earlier but it just means that some things will be ready a little later than usual. 

If you've been inspired to get your gardening gloves on for the first time, why not start with the really fresh, perishable ingredients such as lettuce, salad leaves and herbs? This is a great way to keep you out of the supermarket and they are the easiest things to grow, absolutely anywhere. Use pots, windowsills, borders or, if you've got the space, create a vegetable garden. Some leaves, like rocket, are so hardy that you are rewarded all year round. And some herbs will also stay throughout the year while others will pop up again every spring. It's a great feeling going out to the garden to get your own ingredients.  I have rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, oregano, parsley, chives, dill and tarragon. I have a constant great supply and all from a couple of hours work, a few years ago. Basil and coriander are great windowsill or greenhouse herbs and give you an instant taste of sunshine. Freeze herbs so that you have a year round supply. Either freeze them whole in freezer bags or chop them, put them into ice cube trays and cover with water. Freeze and you'll have lots of herby ice cubes at your disposal. 

Why not give radishes and spring onions a go too? They are also quick and easy to grow, anywhere. 

If you've got a small patio, you could grow a tomato plant in a sunny spot or you could stick some seed potatoes in a pot and have panfuls of buttery, minty new potatoes in the next few months. A top frugal tip is to plant out any potato skins that have started to grow shoots. Just peel them carefully, use the potato as normal and put the skin in some compost. Et voila, free potatoes!

If you would like to make your own compost, get savvy about what you can use. All our egg shells, tea bags, peelings etc make it onto the compost heap, along with any fresh things that the hens won't want.

Once you start growing, you'll want to grow more and more. It's therapeutic, rewarding and, most importantly, cheap!

Why not upcycle to create your own, unique, pots. An old sink, bath, watering can, bucket... The list goes on. You don't need to spend money on new pots. I'm going to use some old broken drawers to grow lettuce and herbs this year. Why not check out freecycle and get creative?

With grow-your-own in mind, here is a nice little potato recipe to whet your appetite. You can play around with the ingredients to use up any leftover meat or veg so it's a great way to avoid wasting anything. 



Rosti with poached egg

I love a rosti. I often make them for Saturday lunchtimes or Sunday suppers. 

Grate about 6 raw, peeled potatoes (I use the food processor), squeeze the excess water out of the potatoes, add a beaten egg, 1.5 tbsp flour, pinch of salt and pepper, some chopped herbs, a handful of grated cheese and any chopped veg and meat. I used some chorizo, an onion, a green pepper, a celery stick and a carrot. You could add a spoonful of Dijon mustard, if you fancy. 

Shape into balls and squash them down to about 1.5cm thick. 

Fry them in some oil on a low heat. Turn over when browned. 

While they're cooking make some poached eggs.

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add a pinch of salt and a capful of white wine vinegar and then break your eggs into the pan (I tend to do 2 at a time). Turn off the heat immediately and cook for about 3 minutes or until the yolk is at your desired consistency. 

Put an egg on top of each rosti and serve immediately. Call us Northern but we had it with some sweet curry sauce and it was lovely!

Northumberland Gazette Article 16th May 2014

Eggs are one of my go-to ingredients when I want something on the table quickly and without too much thought. They're cheap and nutritious and the kids love them. 

We have 4 hens at the moment and we're getting a few more over the coming weeks. They're really easy to keep and they're lovely to have around. When I'm in the vegetable garden and they're clucking around me it's so calming. 

They're like our dustbins. They eat anything that is left on our plates along with fruit and vegetable peelings, grass cuttings and weeds and they turn it all into the most delicious eggs. 

As well as the obvious - fried, poached, scrambled and boiled eggs - I make omelettes and frittatas, pasta, pancakes, Yorkshire puddings...you name it. 

I make poached eggs for breakfast most days and add them to lots of other dishes. If you fancy a weekend treat with your poached egg, try my fail-safe hollandaise sauce and you've got homemade eggs benedict. It's certainly not slimming but it's seriously yummy. 

Melt 100g butter.

Separate 2 eggs. Put the egg whites in the fridge or freezer, for future use. 

Add the juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper to the egg yolks. 

Using an electric whisk, beat the egg yolks on a medium speed until they go paler and start to thicken. 

Up the whisk speed and gently pour the melted butter into the egg mixture until you've got a nice thick, creamy consistency. 

Pour it over your freshly poached eggs and serve immediately. Now, shut your eyes and pretend you're sitting in a trendy cafe in downtown New York. That might just be my daydream, though.  Sorry. 

Want a good recipe to mop up the odds and ends that are hanging around and making your fridge look messy? A frittata is a great choice. It serves 4 and is really easy, fast and the added bonus is there is very little washing up required!

I like to use cooked potatoes, chopped into chunks, pretty much any cooked veg, chorizo, chilli flakes, spring onions and herbs. 

Cook the chorizo, potatoes, and veg in some oil in a frying pan. When the potatoes are starting to brown, turn the heat down and add 6 beaten eggs (seasoned with salt, pepper and chilli flakes). If you're not as greedy as we are, you might get away with 4!

Sprinkle in some herbs of your choice. Some chopped chives or dill, or dried mixed herbs or oregano are nice. 

I often pop in some halved cherry tomatoes at this point too. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Any cheese is fine. I happen to love feta though. 

Cook for around 8-10 mins until the the bottom and sides are set. Then pop it under the grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese is melted and the egg is cooked. 

Serve warm or cold. It's great for picnics. 

Or how about this? Combine flour and an egg and you've got pasta. Add some herbs or wild garlic and you've got something really special. Tweaking it with whatever you fancy can create a unique dish that you'd be proud to serve to friends. 

This is so worth the initial kneading. It's so tasty and really easy. And really, you can't get much more frugal than this so your piggy bank will thank you too. 

Wild Garlic Pasta

Serves 2 people. Easily doubled. 

Ingredients

150g Plain flour

1 egg

1 tbsp oil

Handful of wild garlic

Salt and pepper

Method

Put all the ingredients in the food processor and whizz. It should be a nice green dough now. 

Pop it on an oiled surface and stretch it, turn it over and stretch it again to make it more workable. Then knead until your dough is nice and smooth and elastic. 

Roll the dough out as thinly as you can (if you have a pasta machine, you're luckier than me! Use it!) and slice it into the shape of your choice. I like long fat strands, a bit like tagliatelle. 

Pop it all in a pan of salted, boiling water and cook until you reach the desired texture. About 5 mins should do it. 

As it's already flavoured, I would favour a knob of butter and a scant sprinkling of Parmesan to a sauce but if you were desperate for a sauce, a tomato base would probably work the best. 

If you like pancakes (of course you do! Who doesn't?), why not try stuffing them (sautéed leeks or mushrooms are particularly good) covering with a sauce (I love a cheese sauce) and some crunchy breadcrumbs, and baking it. It's real comfort food and about as cheap as it gets. 

Talking about comfort food, toad in the hole is a particular favourite in our house. We often have it as a roast dinner substitute. I also like to add extra flavours such as sautéed leeks, onions or peppers into the dish just before I pour the batter in. You could also add some robust herbs to the batter - rosemary or thyme would both be great.  

Here is my basic toad in the hole recipe that always provides a fantastic rise and never hangs around very long in our household. We usually serve it with peas and gravy. It's the law, right? It is quite a naughty dish so feel free to serve with loads of veg to lessen the guilt! A nice walk might also be in order!

Toad in the Hole 

Serves 4

Ingredients 

8 fat sausages

3 eggs

115g/ 4oz plain flour

285mls/ Half pint milk 

Pinch of salt 

(This can be easily be doubled, and usually is in our house!)

Method

Preheat the oven to 230c/ gas 8.

Heat some oil in an oven tin. Add the sausages and cook them for around 15 mins or until very lightly browned. 

Meanwhile, mix the other ingredients together and whisk until you have a smooth batter that just coats the back of a spoon. 

Pour the batter over the sausages and cook for 30 minutes. Do not open the oven for at least 20 minutes or it will deflate. 

Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get too brown. Turn the heat down slightly, if it does. When it's huge, golden and crispy it's ready. 

Remove from the oven and enjoy!

If you've enjoyed the eggs feature of my 'ways with...' series and would like to see an ingredient featured, feel free to tweet me and I'll do my best to come up with some tasty, yet thrifty, dishes. 

Northumberland Gazette Article Thurs 24th April 2014

For those of you who didn't see last week's gazette, I have been challenging myself to only spend £50 per month on my grocery shop, which has earned me the nickname of the frugal foodie. 

It's nearing the end of month 2 of my £50 challenge. I'm still in budget and feeling pretty confident. 

So many people have told me how inspired they are to become a bit more frugal, to grow a bit of veg and even to get themselves some hens. I think it's great! 

Anything that makes people think about what they're buying and, more importantly, wasting has got to be a good thing and that's what people are telling me they're doing! 

This week I have had friends using their chicken carcasses to make meals and foraging for wild garlic. Something that they had never done before! This makes me feel warm and fuzzy! 

In order to stick to budget it's been really important to make every ingredient go as far as it possibly can. I have become the queen of bulking meals up and you really can't tell the difference. They are just as delicious and knowing that you've saved lots of money makes it taste all the better! I thought I would share some of my vital ingredients and tips with you. 

I use breadcrumbs all the time. I always have jars of them in my cupboard. Whenever you have a bit of stale bread, if you're not going to use it, whizz it up into breadcrumbs. Stick them in the oven on a low heat until they are all completely dried. You'll have to give them a stir, midway. Then you can put them in sterile jars to use whenever you need them. 

Use them to coat fish and chicken, for fish cakes and pie toppings and for adding to dishes to make a little meat go a long way. They're so versatile. 

If you haven't got time to cook your breadcrumbs, just stick them in the freezer and take what you need, as and when you need it.  Why not try whizzing some Parmesan cheese up with it too. You'll have a great cheesy topping at the ready, whenever you need it. 

I am never without tinned tomatoes in my kitchen. If you have a tin of tomatoes, you can rustle up so many meals out of what seems like nothing. Use them to make pasta and pizza sauces, soups and to make fresh vegetables and meat go further.  Remember, too, that tomatoes are even better for you when they're cooked!

I challenge you to see how many meals you can make from 500g beef mince. I made mince and potatoes for the kids one night. I split the remainder into 2 and made a lasagne and a cottage pie that would easily feed 6 adults each. In fact, all 4 of us had 2 meals out of each and I also had lasagne for my lunch on another day! Check out my blog for full recipe details but, suffice to say, breadcrumbs and tinned tomatoes, along with, the indispensable, plain flour, played a big part in making this possible!

It's not just breadcrumbs that I use stale bread for. I can make numerous meals where the stale bread, that would otherwise end up in the bin, is the star of the dish. One of my most popular blog posts has been 'ways with stale bread. Meals from nothing'.  Tuscan bread salad is to die for, eggy bread is one of my children's favourite meals, cheese pudding is like a super-simple, comforting, soufflé without the faff or worry! Make a gourmet toasted sandwich that is far too good for a quick lunch! And treat the family to a bread and butter pudding. Jazz it up with fudge, marmalade, banana or chocolate or go adventurous with coconut and cardamon. This can easily be frozen and you've got a fantastic pudding at your disposable if you have impromptu guests or just fancy a treat. Or go all American and make a meat loaf! And then there are the obvious things (aren't they?) like croutons, bruschetta, stuffings and toast. The world's your crumb-topped oyster! 

Chickpeas are another amazing way to make really filling meals with little or no meat in them. I use them so often, nowadays, that they've become almost as important as tinned tomatoes in my cupboard. I'm going to add to my 'ways with...' series with chickpeas in a couple of weeks. They count towards your 5 (or 7!)-a-day too.  Remember, it's not just fresh fruit and veg that count, beans and pulses count too.

Although, they might not count towards your 5-a-day, potatoes are an essential ingredient if you want to make your, more pricey, meat and fresh veg go further.  I'm about to publish 'ways with potatoes' on my blog. Keep an eye out for it!

Other absolute essentials are flour, sugar, eggs, butter and milk. Have these and you have batters, doughs (breads, pizzas, scones etc), pastries, custards and sauces at your fingertips to make the cheapest possible everyday meals. If you've got the freezer space, buy milk and butter in bulk so that you can stay out of the shops and away from temptation as much as possible!  It may sound silly but learn what your dairy products should look and smell like. You get a lot longer out of them than you may think! 

I'm going to share a classic bread and butter pudding recipe. You can add so many different flavours to this and I was tempted to use peanut butter however I decided to stick with the original as it really is the ultimate frugal store cupboard treat. 

Bread and Butter Pudding 

Butter approx 6-8 thick slices of stale bread and cut them into triangles. Leave the crusts on - they're lovely when they're are sugary and crunchy. 

Soak a handful of currants in some tea for around 15 minutes or as long as you can. 

Arrange half of the bread in a buttered pie dish, slightly overlapping each triangle.

Sprinkle most of the currants over the first layer of bread. 

Arrange the rest of the bread on top and sprinkle the remaining currants on it. 

Beat 3 eggs and whisk together with 350mls milk, 60g caster sugar and a pinch cinnamon. If you have any vanilla sugar, you could use this or substitute some for it. 

Pour the custard mixture over the bread and leave in the fridge for 30 mins but longer is better. 

When you're ready to cook it, mix 1 egg with 2 tbsp sugar and 100mls milk. Pour over the bread. 

Sprinkle brown sugar over the top of the pudding and bake for around 50mins at 180c/ gas 4. 

Serve with custard. 

Does it get any more frugal?