Stir fried veg in black bean sauce

When I was at uni this was my standard takeaway option. As it's a vegetarian dish, it ended up being cheaper than alternatives, which left some money for me to order soup and rice too. When I first discovered the joy of Asian supermarkets, I bought a pack of fermented black beans and followed a recipe to the letter. It resulted in a rather bitter but delicious version of the takeaway meal I was used to. Over the years since, I've gotten lazier with my cooking and still have a tight budget, so this version is cheaper, quicker and a lot less authentic, but none-the-less tasty.

Mixed Vegetables

use a selection of veg that you have to hand. Tonight I used:
1/2 broccoli head chopped into sections
couple tablespoons peas
few cherry tomatoes, halved
1 head pak choi leaves with greens separated from whites
greens of 3 spring onions, sliced

Black Bean Sauce

2 tablespoons fermented black beans, soaked in boiling water for 20 mins then drained
2 cloves garlic, diced
whites of spring onions, sliced
large dash sesame oil
large dash dark soy sauce
small dash chili oil
small dash oyster sauce
sprinkle of ground ginger (or fresh diced)
sugar to taste
splash of white wine (optional - I had some leftover. Chinese rice wine is better if you make Chinese food enough to justify the purchase!)
sprinkle of sieved cornflour

Sesame oil and water to cook
Rice to serve

Method

After draining the beans, mush them up with the back of a spoon.
Mix in the other ingredients, adding sugar to take off the bitterness, to your taste.
cook the rice.
when rice is nearly done, heat sesame oil in a wok and add the broccoli and whites of the pak choi. (If you are using different veg, then this is where 'longer to cook' things go, like carrots, white cabbage, pepper etc). Add a little water and stir fry for a few minutes until the veg starts to soften.
Add the other veg and the sauce, and stir fry for a couple more minutes until everything is heated through.
Serve spooned over the rice.

Special Shepherd's Pie - under a fiver

'Special' because I decided to switch things up from my normal way of cooking this dish and use the rest of the creme fraiche.

serves 2-3:
250g lean lamb mince - £2
6-8 medium potatoes, diced - 50p
3 cloves garlic - 10p
1 onion - 16p
1 carrot - 8p
1/2 red pepper - 30p (this I had leftover so not the cheapest option)
about 120g half-fat creme fraiche - 55p
1 lamb stock cube - 10p 
1 tbsp cornflour or 1 1/2 tbsp plain flour - 5p
salt and pepper to season 
Olive oil to cook
stick of dried rosemary - free as I grow my own and it's practically impossible to kill.

Total cost: £3.84, per serving: £1.28

Dice potatoes into half-inch squares and put on to boil.

cook garlic and onion until starting to soften, then add mince and cook until mostly brown.

add the rosemary (minus the stalk), carrot, red pepper, the stock cube and 1/2 mugful of the potatoes' cooking water. Stir well until the stock is dissolved and then sprinkle over the flour and stir until dissolved and thickening.

Drain the potatoes and roughly mash, stir in the creme fraiche and then season well with salt and pepper.

Fill the bottom half of an oven dish with the meat-mix, then spoon the potato-mix evenly on top. Bake in the oven on a medium heat for 20 minutes or until top is browned.

To make it go further:

use a cheaper alternative to the red pepper, such as frozen or tinned peas
add more onion and carrot to bulk out the meat.
Switch the creme fraiche for a small amount of butter or margarine.
Use quorn mince, which works out cheaper, but you may need to boost the seasonings to make up for the blandness.

'Crab' and Rocket Linguine - under a fiver

When doing my meal plans this week, I came across a recipe for crab and rocket linguine. It looked delicious, promising a balance of sharp and sweet flavours. The problem is that even tinned crabmeat is out of my budget at the moment, so I decided to adapt the recipe to something more in my price range.

Just like the original recipe, this meal has a peppery kick from the rocket, a zing from the lemon zest, and the seafood sticks, tomatoes and creme fraiche add sweetness. All in all, it was delicious and certainly didn't taste 'budget'. Also contains 2 portions of your 5-a-day.

per person:
100g pasta - I used a mix of tagliatelle and spaghetti to finish off odd packets. (10p)
olive oil for cooking (10p)
1 large garlic clove, minced (5p)
2 tbsp half-fat creme fraiche (40p)
6ish seafood sticks, ripped into strips (30p)
handful of rocket, chopped roughly (30p)
zest from half a lemon (15p for half lemon)
5 cherry tomatoes, halved. (20p)
salt and pepper to season

Total: £1.50 per person (prices estimated from used percentage of item, costed at tesco, value range if available)
If you were making this for 4, you could use less garlic and lemon, and it'd definitely come in under a fiver.

cook pasta in water
cook minced garlic in olive oil until soft, then stir in the creme fraiche, tomatoes, rocket, zest and seafood sticks.
heat gently until warmed through. Drain the pasta and stir in.
Season with salt and pepper as necessary.
Garnish with a couple extra rocket leaves.

I also sprinkled Parmesan cheese over mine as I happened to have bought some for a risotto this week.

All in all, including chopping it took less than 15 mins and very little washing up (always a bonus!)

Worth noting that even with my substitutions, this is a 'luxury' dinner for me - creme fraiche and rocket are not usually on my shopping list, but I factored them into my mealplan, planning to use the rest of the packets elsewhere this week.

Whenever I use lemons, I try to get the most out of every part of it. Juice is squeezed and used or frozen to be used later and then the remaining outer pith and skin is quartered and used to de-scale my kettle (simply pop them in with a full kettle of water, boil and leave overnight). Lemon juice can be used for cleaning, but with pancake day approaching fast, I might just freeze the juice to use then.

Mexican-style salmon, more greek salad and thoughts on this week

Another magazine recipe with some small changes.

Salmon fillets
tomatoes
red onion
avocado
green chilli
fresh coriander
lime
paprika
olive oil
aubergine
yellow pepper
garlic

slice the aubergine and pepper and add whole garlic cloves. Coat in olive oil and paprika, and roast for 10 mins.

add the salmon and continue to bake until everything is cooked.

meanwhile cut the tomatoes, red onion, chili, coriander and avocado, and mix with lime juice to make a chunky salsa. Season with salt and pepper.

More Greek Salad and some thoughts

This is actually just to show that I'm USING UP ALL MY VEG!

I didn't get a box this week, I went out with some recipes in mind and bought ingredients. I am pretty proud of the fact that at the end of the week I'm left with two (still unripe) avocado and a tiny amount of lettuce and that's pretty much it. I don't normally eat salad, but it was actually really nice to have a burst of fresh, summery food this week.

My favourite was probably the roast veg with mozzarella. I made enough for two meals and ended up eating it all. Mixing the bread in with the vegetables was something I wouldn't have thought to do and it worked really well.

Although the three main meals I made (greek lamb, mexican salmon and roasted veg) shared most of the same ingredients, they were really varied and I liked that.

On the downside though, doing it this way was more expensive. I spent about £5 more on vegetables than I do on the box and the box normally lasts me a fortnight - this lot lasted a week.

Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables with Mozzarella

mmmhh mmmm more summery food. This one was inspired by a recipe in a magazine.

Aubergine
Red Bell Pepper
Yellow Bell pepper
Red Onion
Garlic
White wine vinegar
mini plum tomatoes
ciabatta bread
olive oil
mixed dried italian herbs
fresh basil
mozzarella cheese

Cut the peppers, onion and aubergine and mix with olive oil, whole cloves of garlic and the dried herbs. Put in a roasting tin and roast in the oven.

Remove from oven, add the vinegar, tomatoes (halved longways) and the bread torn into pieces. Leave to cool a little until warm.

Add the mozzarella and basil leaves.

Greek Lamb kebabs, salad and tzaziki

Now that the days are getting warmer and we've had some sunshine, I get into the mood for summery food. Salads, Mediterranean dishes etc.

Both the lamb and the tzaziki are better with time to marinade/chill, but actually this meal is so fast and easy and yet so delicious.

Lamb Kebabs

diced lamb (lean is better)
garlic
coarse sea salt
lemon zest & juice
olive oil
fresh herbs (I used mint and coriander. Dill also works apparently, but I'm not a fan of dill.)

chop the garlic finely, or grate it and mix with the sea salt, then add the rest, mix well and coat the meat. Leave to marinate.

Once the salad and tzaziki is ready, skewer the meat and grill or barbeque, turning to brown all sides.

Tzaziki

Greek yoghurt
cucumber
fresh mint
white wine vinegar
garlic
coarse sea salt

peel, chop and grate the cucumber. Mix in with the yoghurt and season to taste, then chill in fridge.

Greek Salad

Tomatoes
cucumber
red onion
black olives
feta cheese
dried oregano
lettuce
a little olive oil


I ate this with wholemeal pitta bread, toasted lightly. Guaranteed to induce a summery mood ;)

Spaghetti Bolognaise (fortnight 1, day 1)

Well almost a whole year later I am back!

I was inspired by the blog NeverSeconds to start up my food blog again!

Today is box day, and I got:
large bunch of small carrots
celery
flat runner beans
swiss chard
cherry tomatoes
golden bosc pears
apricots

plus leftover mushrooms, courgette, red onions and a tiny bit of lettuce.

Today I am making Spaghetti Bolognaise!

Having said that, it's a loose resemblance, as you'll see. =)

Ingredients:

• Lean minced beef
• tin tomatoes

• red onion
• runner beans
• courgette
• carrots
• mushrooms
• celery

• garlic
• mixed herbs
• oxo cube
• Worcestershire sauce
• tomato puree
• red wine (I think it was a Shiraz)

• dried spaghetti
• Parmesan cheese freshly grated

Chop all the veg. I always end up eating a few runner beans raw as I go along because they are so tasty! I tend to chop my veg very chunky partly because I'm too lazy to do it finely and partly because I like the texture when I'm eating it.

The carrots that I got in the box were very small ones so I just gave them a good wash instead of peeling.

I tend to use a wok to fry most things because the high sides are convenient. Firstly I cooked the celery, onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Then I transferred that to the main pot.

Fried the beef, drained off the water/fat liquid, crumbled an oxo cube directly to the meat and added the Worchestershire sauce, tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs and then transferred that to the main pot too.

Stir fried the rest of the veg very quickly and then added them to the main pot as well, along with the mushrooms raw and a good amount of red wine.  I don't drink wine at all, so I just buy the small bottles for cooking with.

Put the lid on and leave to simmer for a while, meanwhile get the pasta on to cook.

Serve with spaghetti and some grated (or dried) parmesan cheese. mmmmmmm tasty.

And unfortunately the pears aren't yet ripe, so I finished the meal off with a couple of apricots instead! =)

~ Hannah

End of the first fortnight!

Yay it's day 14.

Yesterday I ended up having the leftover sausage pasta and today I had the veg I had prepped saturday:

Lamb chops
butternut squash
courgettes
wet garlic
onion
spring greens/cabbage mix

So at the end of the fortnight I have a lettuce, a small amount of spring greens/cabbage, and 2 pears. Oh so happy about this. Tomorrow, it starts all over again. XD

Sausage and Courgette Pasta

3 pork and apple sausages *
2 strips bacon *
1/3 large onion *
1 wet garlic
1 small courgette
tin tomatoes *
pasta (c)

fry sausages, then bacon and chop all up into bite size pieces.
add onion and garlic and fry quickly
add courgette and cook briefly
stir in tomatoes and leave to simmer while pasta cooks.

2 portions, one for eating... one for fridge. Probably have leftovers on Monday.

Day Five (June 4th) - Summer Leaf Soup

Breakfast - honey nut cheerios, semi skim milk

Lunch - leftover Spaghetti Bolognaise, fat free fromage frais, 3 reese cups, coke zero

Snack - mint humbugs

Dinner - Summer Leaf Soup (large pot to bag and freeze)

olive oil
half onion
wet garlic
half fennel bulb
half red pepper
swiss chard
spring greens (mixed baby cabbage and chard leaves I think)
two strips bacon
pork stock
vegetable stock
mixed herbs
top of the fennel

lightly fry bacon, onion, garlic and fennel in olive oil in base of large saucepan. add red pepper and cook briefly. add leaves (all cut into strips), stock and herbs. Bring to boil then simmer for 10-15 mins until leaves are soft.

with toast.

Day Two (June 1st) - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Breakfast - cereal, semi-skim milk, coffee, banana

Lunch - tuna and mayonnaise sandwich with baby spinach on white bread

Dinner - Spaghetti Bolognaise (1 portion to eat, 1 to fridge, 1 to freeze):

Olive oil
Mince *
onion *
tin of tomatoes *
1 small courgette
3 large mushrooms
fennel
half red pepper 
wet garlic
frozen peas
bacon *
tomato puree
beef oxo cube
dry spaghetti
mixed herbs

fry onion and mince in oil, stir in stock. Add dry vegetables and bacon and cook for few minutes. Add other ingredients and simmer while pasta cooks.

Bowl of strawberries, strawberry yoghurt, tea.

Snacks - dried apricots, banana, penguin chocolate bar.
Drinks - coffee, tea, water

--
Shopping tonight, so I've sketched out a few recipes ideas for the following week which will best use the veg. The problem I'm foreseeing this week is the sheer amount of green veg I have. I am not normally a big 'leaf' eater... but this weak I have spinach, chard, lettuce and spring greens (which look a little bit like pak choi... not sure what they are). So I plan to make a large amount of green leaf soup, which I can then freeze. Spinach and lettuce can go in sandwiches, but if I have soup and leftovers then I'm not likely to be eating many sandwiches this week. I also plan to get some puff pastry and do a veg tart with the courgette, pepper and whatever else I have left!