Best budget recipes for 50% or less: Roast spatchcock poussin marinated with fresh lime juice, olive oil and fresh herbs
Poussin – a baby chicken weighing about 500g – has been one of my standbys for years. Easy to cook, great if you are living alone as one can easily stretch to two or even three meals as long as you’re not keen on meat heavy meals. The main drawback to a poussin is that they are not naturally packed with flavour. They are baby chickens after all. They are tender birds waiting to be imbued with your herbs and spices. One of the best poussin that I’ve ever tasted was a spatchcock with Provencal herbs sold by Waitrose. The herbs infuse...
read moreBest Brunch: Herby mushrooms and tomatoes on toast recipe
Danny likes a few sautéed mushrooms and a grilled tomato with his Saturday midday brunch. Although they sound tempting they never really appeal to me – I prefer the more conventional home smoked bacon, organic eggs and buttered toast from a homemade loaf. A couple of weeks ago I found some mushrooms and a tomato knocking about in the fridge and decided to experiment. If I simmered them together with a little olive oil, butter and herbs would they transform into something that I would like to eat alongside my bacon and eggs? They smelt...
read moreDelicious budget meals for frugal entertaining: Chicken, pak choi and chorizo risotto recipe
Danny and I love pak choi (also known as bok choi and Horses Ear). This Chinese vegetable is a member of the cabbage family and cooks in two minutes when it’s sliced and simmered fast. It’s a great side vegetable with a richer dish as it tastes very clean – a cross between spinach and cabbage. The white stalks have a satisfying crunch. Tonight I decided to add it to a chicken and chorizo risotto. It needed to be added right at the end, just before the cooked chicken so as to retain some of its crispness and texture. It worked really...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Organic steak and kidney pie for carnivores on a budget
We are eating far less meat these days. Eating superb meals most evenings. But sometimes we long for a real alpha carnivore meal, especially as we have ditched the Cottage Smallholder Friday night steak treat – just too expensive at the moment. This recipe is so easy, delicious and cheap. If you used non organic ingredients you could probably cut the price by at least 30% (just 62p per portion. A steal for a rich meat heavy dish.) I decided to turn some of our shin of beef (£8.00 for 2 kilos from the organic butcher) into a slow cooked...
read moreDreaming of butchers and home smoked bacon
Our new organic butcher buys his beef from farmers whose steers graze the fields in the local studs around our village. Something like ox kidney has to be ordered in advance. Last week I invested in organic shin of beef, just £8.00 for 2 kilos. And a large oxtail that was quite a bit more expensive. Some shin and oxtail went into a beef and vegetable soup and the rest was frozen until an organic ox kidney was available to make our favourite Steak and Kidney Pie. So this morning I motored over to Fordham to collect the kidney and buy an...
read morePassata and rice water can remove the metallic tang of leeks in a dish
I’ve discovered that using non slow cooker recipes in the slow cooker enhances the flavours. This is generally great except in the case of onions and leeks. The quantities of these ingredients need to be halved. I’ve tried reducing them by a third and then had to battle with making the dish palatable. Earlier this week I tried making our conventionally cooked oxtail recipe in the slow cooker. I halved the oxtail and made up the weight with shin of beef. I cut down the onion and leeks by a third. I was planning a thick soup rather than a...
read moreBest ever cauliflower cheese recipe
Ten years ago I cooked a rather poor cauliflower cheese for Danny. His response was lukewarm. “If you make this again it would be great with a baked potato.” He was never a great one for suggesting a baked potato meal. Potatoes are important and for him and shine as a side dish. He didn’t mention the watery sauce. Or the flabby cauli. And he didn’t help himself to more. Making a great cauliflower cheese that would not need a baked potato became a secret challenge. Over the years I have progressed and now make a cauliflower cheese to...
read moreSunday lunch: Roast poussin with honey, lemon and tamarind recipe
I discovered several great cut priced food bargains at Waitrose on Saturday evening. Wild rabbit, two poussin (baby chickens), beef mince and wonderful organic bread. One of the poussin would do for Sunday. Danny peered at the tiny baby chickens and contemplated sharing one the next evening. He swallowed and said nothing. This is a man who loves to cook and carve enormous slabs of meat. I decided to diffuse the anxiety by talking. “Don’t worry. I’ll cook. Perhaps lemon butter poussin with mini roasts. Or I’d quite like to have a go at...
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