Roast leek with lemon zest and eggs

-Served two as an accompaniment-

Ingredients

1 leek - 50p

Few dabs butter

Zest of 1 lemon (in fridge)

Level tsp brown sugar

2 eggs - 40p

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Thoroughly wash and drain the leek, then slice.

Put into a roasting dish and grate lemon zest over the leek. Dab with butter.  Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Put into a pre-heated oven at about 170 for ten minutes or so.

Stir at points during cooking so that butter coats the leek and the leeks don't burn.

When the leeks are nicely softening and beginning to turn golden, crack the eggs on top and return to the oven.

Cook until eggs are cooked but yolks are still runny.

Serve as an accompaniment, with freshly ground black pepper and a little salt.

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Total cost - 90p

Fancy fish finger sandwich

Again, this is just a way of combining cheap and easy ingredients to create a simple snack.

Asda 'Smart Price' frozen fish fingers - 47p for 10

Bread roll

Mayonnaise (in fridge)

Capers (storecupboard)

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Spread the mayonnaise lightly on the roll and scatter capers over the grilled fishfingers to create the perfect fish finger sandwich.

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Of course there are many variations to this classic, depending on your taste and of course what you have to hand.  Some lettuce, tomato or red onion would be great, as would some coriander or perhaps a squeeze of lemon.  To go even further into the realms of quality, try breading your own fish fillet and grilling or frying, then make a delicious sandwich out of that.

Ratatouille with melted cheese and toast

A simple, nourishing and warming snack that is much more than the sum of its parts.  Inspired by finding a tin of ratatouille.

Ingredients

Tin 'Tarantella' organic ratatouille - 39p

Small bowl of grated cheese - left over in fridge

Stale bread - leftover, toasted

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Warm the ratatouille, serve with grated cheese sprinkled on top, and eat with the toast.

Tonnes of edible food dumped in the bin says FSA - Telegraph

Millions of tonnes of food are being thrown away every year because people do not understand 'best before dates', consumer watchdogs have warned.
Read article here:
Tonnes of edible food dumped in the bin says FSA - Telegraph
27th March, 2010

The 'best before' challenge

Jonathan Maitland undertakes an experiment for the Daily Mail, 8th June 2008

"It is lunchtime and I am arguing with my wife. It is a big one. We are entering neighbours-can-hear-every-word territory. Something terrible has come between us: an uncooked piece of chicken. My wife Emily points out that it is six days past its Use-By date and shouts: 'It's gone off, idiot!'
She accuses me of trying to poison my stepson Felix, 16, who, like me, wants to eat it. I say she shouldn't believe everything she reads on the label. This makes things worse.
Welcome to an unusual experiment. For two weeks I have decided to eat increasingly out-of-date supermarket-food in an attempt to discover the truth about Use-By and Best Before dates, and prove that Britain is throwing out tons of perfectly good produce."

Read the article at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1024879/The-best-challenge---One-man-boldly-goes-use-dates-food.html

Fish pie with fennel

This is a delicious version of a classic fish pie.  As well as fish, prawns, parsley and a traditional roux, fried onion, fennel and fresh chilli is added to the pie.  It gives flavour and bite, but allows the fish to showcase its flavours perfectly.  Nutmeg and cracked black pepper should be used generously.  Despite looking complicated, this isn't a hard recipe at all, and has scope for endless creativity!

~Serves 4~

Ingredients

Mixed fish chunks, 250g (reduced by 75%) - 75p

2 oz prawns - 60p

Potatoes - leftover in fridge, say 40p

Grated cheese- leftover in fridge, say £1

Onion - 20p (market)

Bulb of fennel - 50p (market)

Green chilli

Nutmeg

Flour

Milk - 50p

Pepper

Parsley -20p (market)

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• Peel potatoes and cut into equal sized chunks.  Boil.
• At the same time, put chunks of fish into saucepan, with some onion and fennel (you will later take these out, so keep them in big chunks.  They are just to add flavour). Pour in milk to cover - about a pint, and gently bring to the boil.  Add crushed peppercorns and grated nutmeg.  
• Once boiled, turn off the heat and leave the fish to poach in the pan until the potatoes are cooked and ready to mash.
• Dice the onion and bulb of fennel and fry.  Add the chopped fresh green chilli towards the end of the frying.
• Drain the milk and retain.  
• Make a roux by melting a fat tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, and then add a couple of tbsp of flour, stirring constantly.  Keep adding small amounts of the fish-milk and stirring.  The sauce will thicken nicely.  Keep on a low heat and mash the potato, adding a small amount of butter, fish-milk and some chopped fresh parsley, salt and pepper.  You may not use all of the fish milk in the roux and mash.  Just use your judgement as to how much you need to add.
• Add the poached fish, ready-cooked prawns, fried onion and fennel and the rest of the parsley (most of it) to the roux.  Put in some more cracked black pepper and grated nutmeg.  Stir until mixed.

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• Grease an oven proof dish with butter, then pour in the roux, containing the fish mixture.
• Then spoon over the mashed potato, spreading and flattening evenly over the fish mixture.
• Finally, generously sprinkle grated cheese over the potato topping.
• Put into the middle of a pre-heated oven, 200C for about 25 minutes.  The cheese should be golden and the roux bubbling at the sides of the dish.

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Total cost - £4.15
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Tomato, mozzarella and watercress salad

Add a bed of fresh watercress for a peppery twist to a classic Italian salad.

-Ingredients-

Bag reduced watercress - 25p

Reduced tomatoes - 77p (about 30p used)

Reduced fresh mozzarella - 56p

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Slice tomatoes and mozzarella and scatter on top of the washed and well drained watercress.

Dress with basil infused olive oil, some freshly squeezed lemon juice and season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

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Serves 2

Total cost: £1.11

Forgotten fillet steak

A forgotten, frozen fillet steak was found in the freezer.

Ingredients

Fillet steak (left over from two, reduced to £5.29)

Banana shallot

Half a fresh red chilli

Piece of garlic

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• Gently defrost steak.
• Dice shallot, crush and slice garlic and slice chilli.
• Dash some oil in a pan.  Fry onions.  Then add garlic and chilli.  Then add steak.
• Generously season steak with fresh ground black pepper and salt.
• Fry on each side for as long as desired (perhaps a minute each side)
• Rest the steak under foil for a few minutes.
• Serve with accompaniment.

Total cost: £2.65