Tuna burgers with paprika chips

Originally written 3rd January 2016

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. Certainly the case when I'm looking at an empty fridge wondering what the hell I want to eat and trying really hard not to cave into takeaway. These oven chips are my go-to use of lingering potatoes, and really easy. You can pop them in the oven with a timer and pretty much forget about them. The burgers were an experiment.

Tuna burgers:

Tin of tuna
1/2 small onion (spring onions would work well here but I didn't have any)
handful black olives
hot sauce
paprika
salt
chili powder
black pepper
2 garlic cloves
egg

Chips:

potatoes (skins on)
olive oil
paprika
salt
pepper
chili powder

chop the potatoes into chip shapes, leaving the skins on. Put them into a bowl along with the seasonings and mix well. Lay out on an oven tray and put in oven at gas 6 for 40ish mins.
Use the same bowl, with the remains of the seasoning mix, to make the burger mix. Chop the onion, garlic and olives finely and add to the bowl with the tuna and seasonings. Mix well. Lightly beat the egg and then add to the mix. Shape mix into patties and fry lightly a few minutes each side in olive oil.
serve with salad or other side.

Chinese Crab and Sweetcorn soup - only 27p per portion

I LOVE Chinese food and a Chinese takeaway is definitely my guilty pleasure. If I had the money, I could happily have Chinese takeaway every night of the week, I love it so much. With wise choice of ingredients, though, it's really not expensive to replicate at home. Crabmeat and Sweetcorn soup is one of my favourite dishes, and not only is it cheap to make, it's also dead easy. I mean throw everything in a pot and cook for 20 minutes easy. Hell, that's less effort than calling the Chinese Takeaway!

Ingredients (for 4 large portions):

Necessary:
1 tin sweetcorn (35p)
6(ish) seafood sticks (pack of 20 for £1 = 30p for this recipe)
1 fish stock cube (£1.50 for pack of 8 = 18p)
2 tablespoons cornflour (75p for 250g = 9p)
Hot water (I just tend to fill my pot up, I estimate about 2 pints)
salt (to taste)
1 egg (89p for 6 FREE RANGE - something I will not compromise on = 15p for 1)

price = £1.07 = 27p per portion (all prices at Tesco 11th June 2015)

Optional:
dash soy sauce (£1.19 for 150ml = about 15p)
dash fish sauce (£1.39 for 150ml = about 18p)
dash sesame or peanut oil (£1.60 for 250ml = about 13p)
tsp fresh ginger grated (about 30p)
additional egg (15p)
2 spring onions, chopped (about 10p)

total price = £2.08 = 52p per portion (all prices at Tesco 11th June 2015)

With the 'luxury' version coming in at only 52p per bowl this is a huge saving on your takeaway version. If Chinese cooking is something you do a lot of, it's work going to a Chinese Supermarket and bulk-buying things like soy, fish sauce and sesame oil - you'll get a much better price there than at a normal supermarket.

How to make:

- heat the water and add to pot with stock cube.
- pour in the tin of sweetcorn.
- roughly chop the seafood sticks and add
- grate ginger if using and add
- if using, add soy sauce, fish sauce and oil
- bring gently to the boil.
- mix cornflour with a little water and then add a spoonful of the hot soup. Pour this mix into the soup and stir while simmering until thickened.
- crack the egg or eggs into a bowl and beat until mixed. Take the soup off of the heat and, while stirring, slowly pour the egg mixture into the pot in as thin a dribble as you can manage. The egg will cook as soon as it hits the hot liquid, making textured strands of egg.
- top the soup with the chopped spring onions and add salt to taste if necessary. Serve. =)