Cous cous

I profoundly dislike ready-made cous cous from supermarkets, as I always think it has a very acidic taste.  This is a way to make shop-bought deli cous cous taste fresh and flavoursome.  Obviously it is easy to make your own cous cous at home!

Ingredients:

Tub of tomato and basil cous cous (reduced from £1.82 to 46p)

 2 spring onions, sliced

Cucumber, diced

About 14 black olives, sliced

Large red chilli, finely chopped

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Mix the ingredients together and serve.

(Served 3)

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Roast chicken, fresh garden peas and fried potato cakes

Roast chicken, served with fresh garden peas and carrots with some fried potato cakes for a slight twist on 'meat and two veg'.  Easy, quick, flavoursome and nourishing.  What's not to love?

 

 

 

Ingredients:
Whole fresh chicken, reduced from £3.99 to 49p
Fresh peas (reduced from £1.19 to 59p)
Carrots (store cupboard)
Potatoes "
Milk
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Olive oil

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Rub the chicken with a little olive oil, and season with sea salt.  Cover with foil and roast according to instructions.  Remove the foil for the last quarter of an hour or so to crisp the skin.

 

Peel, chop and boil the potatoes.  When they are cooked, drain and add a little milk, butter and salt and pepper.  Mash the potato until smooth.

 

Then prepare potato cakes - use flour to coat the patties so that they don't stick and keep their consistency when frying.

 

 

Add a little oil to a frying pan and fry the potato cakes in batches (don't over-crowd the pan).

 

 

 Slice carrots and boil.

 

Shell the peas, and cook.  (I put a little water in with the peas in a microwavable bowl and cooked them that way.)  Serve with a knob of butter on top.

 

Serve with gravy if liked.

 

 

 Or without! 

~ Served 2, approx cost £1.50 ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fried potato cakes with cheese and 3 onion

This is a great way to use up leftover mashed potato, but for this recipe I have made the mash freshly.

Ingredients:

Potatoes

Cheese - any, grated

Onion (I used white onion, red onion and spring onion because these were what I had in my fridge)

Butter - knob

Milk - a splash

Creme fraiche (optional) - couple of tablespoons

Salt

Pepper

Flour

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Peel and cut potatoes.  Boil until cooked and drain.

 

Dice onions.

Add the ingredients to the potatoes while the spuds are still hot.  It will help the butter and cheese to melt and incorporate.  

Add everything, season and mash til the mixture is smooth and blended.

 

Form the mixture into flat patties.  Use flour to hold the mixture, coat your hands and if you have put in too much milk and the mixture is very wet and sticky, you can mix through a little flour to thicken the mix.  Coat the surface of the cakes with flour.  This will help them hold when you fry them.

 

 

Add a little oil and heat in a frying pan.  Add the potato cakes and fry on a medium to high heat.  When they are golden, turn them over and fry until golden on that side.

 

These potato cakes will keep in the fridge after frying and can be heated up easily.

The best thing about making these is that what you put in them need only be limited by your imagination.  Cheese, chives, ham, fresh herbs, peas - they are versatile and such a tasty way to use up random leftover ingredients.  Similarly, quantities don't matter - you can put in any amount of ingredients to suit yourself, or depending on what you have.

 

 

Made 4 cakes.

Cost - negligable, as all ingredients were store cupboard.

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Poached haddock fillet with an egg and 5 vegetables

Ingredients:

2 haddock fillets (reduced from £4.84 to £1.19)

Milk for poaching

New potatoes (one of Aldi's super six, 39p)

Potatoes (storecupboard)

Carrots"

Parsnips "

Cabbage (one of Aldi's super six, 39p)

Broad beans (reduced)
2 eggs

Garlic

Butter

Oil

Salt

Pepper

Orange juice  (a dreg)

The reduced haddock fillets made a meal for two - one with baby new potatoes, and one with roast potatoes.

Peel and parboil the potatoes for roasting.  Drain, shake to fluff up the outsides and roast on a high heat for about 40 mins.  I put the potatoes in the oven first for ten minutes on 230C to get a good colour and crispness on them.

Prepare parsnips and carrots. Put a little butter and oil on them and put them in the oven with the potatoes, turn down to 200C or 190C.

Boil new potatoes.

Add a little fresh orange juice to the carrots and parsnips.  Season.  Back in the oven.

Cut the beans and cabbage and put in a microwavable dish with a little water.  Heat on full for two and half minutes or so.

Put the haddock in a microwavable dish.  Cover with milk and cover the dish.

Heat in the microwave for about 4 minutes.  Stop earlier to check if it is cooked and keep heating if not.  It's easy to overcook fish this way, and it always needs less time than you think!

Meanwhile poach an egg - I bring a large pan of water to the boil and add a little vinegar.  Crack the egg onto a plate and swirl and implement through the boiling water to create a little whirlpool.  Tip the egg into the whirlpool and cook for about a minute.  Then use a slotted spoon to rescue the egg.

Serve the egg on top of the haddock fillet, with the potatoes and veg.

Simple and surprisingly tasty!

(Served 2)

Fish and spicy tomato rice

The reduced fish medley inspired this stew, which was created with store cupboard or existing ingredients apart from the fish.  Simple, nourishing and surprisingly tasty, the potatoes bulked out the portions and created some texture too.  Anything you like or have could be included - sweet potatoes would have been delicious.

Ingredients:

Fish medley (reduced from 2.99 to 49p)

Carton plum tomatoes - 29p

Basmati rice - approx 20p

2 small onions - approx 15p

2 small potatoes - approx 20p

1 large fresh chilli - approx 10p

black pepper

cumin

salt

ginger

garlic

oil

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Cook the rice and cool.

  

Par boil the potatoes. I cut them into quite small pieces.

Chop onion.  

Dry fry cracked black peppercorns and cumin seeds to release the flavour, then add oil and fry onions.

When the onions have softened and coloured, add ginger puree, garlic puree, salt and fresh chopped chilli.

Stir through and cook a little longer.  Then add tinned plum or chopped tomatoes and the potatoes. 

Add water as needed and simmer til potatoes cooked.

Then add rice and fish.

The fish will literally take a couple of minutes to poach in the liquid, so keep an eye on it so that it doesn't over-cook!

Stir through and serve.

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Served 4

Total cost approx  £1.45

Meatball Melt Sandwich

Classic American sandwich snack, inspired by some ready made reduced meatballs and some reduced buns.  Really simple, easy and tasty.

Ingredients:

Meatballs (25 meatballs, reduced from £3 to £2.25)

Bread buns (6 bread buns, reduced from £1.49 to 75p)

Tomato passata - 35p

Balsamic vinegar (substitute for Worcestershire Sauce)

Lemon juice

Black pepper

Mozarella (leftover - use any cheese to melt on the sandwich)

Oil

With a tiny bit of oil, fry the meatballs on a high heat, browning them.

Turn down the heat and cook through.

Drain excess fat from the pan.

Add tomato passata (I had a carton of passata in the cupboard.  Substitute could be tinned chopped tomatoes and some tomato paste.)

Season the passata with a tiny slug of balsamic vinegar (this was all I had) and a dash of lemon juice.  Grind in some black pepper.  This is all optional, to flavour the passata.  The one I used was really sweet.

Bring the passata to a bubbling high heat, then simmer for a few minutes.

To serve, put the meatballs with sauce into a bread bun or roll and be generous with a topping of cheese, added quickly so that it melts on the heat of the meatballs.

Chinese pork belly

The idea for this was to make a snack, inspired by Chinese style spare ribs, where the pork belly was flavoured with a marinade and oven cooked.

Ingredients:

3 strips of pork belly (reduced from £1.04 to 45p)

For the marinade:

Soy sauce

Half a red chilli, finely chopped

Clove of garlic, finely chopped

Ginger (I used a tsp from a jar of ready mulched ginger)

Brown sugar (sprinkle a couple of tsps)

Lemon juice

Spoon the marinade over the pork belly and leave for a few hours or overnight.

I cooked the pork belly dry, so took it out of the marinade and put the strips onto a cast iron skillet.

Cook at about 180 for approx 25 minutes.  A delicious spicy 'rib style' snack!

Total cost: 45p (everything else was 'store cupboard')