Sunday, 16 September 2012

Super-saving September #9 - Recipes 10, 11 & 12 (plus 12a.)

We've not really been keeping up with this as much as I'd have liked. Made the mistake of taking Husband shopping with me on Monday and instead of spending the £10 I'd planned, we ended up spending £37. On nothing. Granted, the house is now overrun with cakes and sweets, but I could have made similar/substitutes at a fraction of the price. And I wouldn't be running the risk of needing all new clothes!

So here, for your eating pleasure, are some cheap recipes that I wrote up on one of the Netmums threads - they should feed 4 people for less than 50p per head. And be better for you than what we've eaten the past two nights (i.e. shish kebab, and leftover shish kebab meat in a ratatouille).The prices below are from mysupermarket.com

Cous cous salad


Chop all the veg into cubes and fry off with the chorizo. Make the cous cous up with the stock cube and boiling water. Stir the cous cous through the veg in the frying pan so the cous cous absorbs all the chhorizo flavour.

Total £1.72. - You can add some rocket leaves, some frozen sweetcorn, chopped garlic etc to jazz it up a little.

To cut costs: buy veg from local market. Get cous cous from Aldi/Lidl/Approved Food (I have got sachets of pre-flavoured stuff for 9p before!)

Omelet and potato wedges
  • 4 baking potatoes - 85p (you can get potatoes faaaaaar cheaper than this, this is just so i can give a rough figure without too much effort)
  • 4 eggs - 66p (based on 2x12 free range eggs for £4)
  • Splash of milk - 5p (? - total 'thin air' guess)
  • 100g frozen basics veg - 7.5p (75p per kilo)

Toss your chopped potatoes in a bowl with salt and pepper (Cajun seasoning is really good here too) and roast in the oven until golden brown. Mix eggs with other ingredients and fry until light and fluffy.

Total cost: £1.63

Serve with a salad or add a can of tuna/some smoked mackerel/cheese to the omelet. 

In other news, I went to my local scrap store yesterday to try and gather some craft supplies - I managed to get some lovely fabric which will make Daughter quite a few skirts for years to come, some tailor's chalk, an enormous roll of paper, Christmas wrapping paper and tags, and finally some white-board pens, all for £2.50.

And our ancient divan bed broke. It was always bad - getting in and out would wake Daughter - but we managed to pick a new one up from the auction barn at Eriswell.  Including commission and three fairy pictures (for Mother-in-Law's Christmas) the whole lot came to £127.05. Total bargain. Can't wait to get the new bed back and set it all up. Hopefully because it is a metal framed one, it'll 'look less', as my Nan always says.

Right, finally, the last recipe of the day: Honey and Ginger Ice cream
  •  300mls double cream
  • 300mls milk
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 115g sugar
  • a thumb-sized nub of finely grated ginger
  • a teaspoon of powdered ginger (if you like it strong - like me!)
  • a teaspoon of honey
Separate your eggs and mix the yolks with the sugar. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan until 'champagne bubbling'. Stir a little of the milk into the egg yolks, before decanting the egg mixture back into the main saucepan (this stops the eggs curdling the mixture). Heat this until it thickens and then stir the other ingredients through. At this point, you can either put this in the ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions (if you don't have one but would like one, try freecycle). If you don't have one, place the custard in a tub in the freezer and stir every  45 minutes or so until properly frozen.

"Recipe 12a?" you say. With the left over egg whites, I usually make Beacon Hill Cookies. I use the same quantities for everthing as stated, but use the full 3 egg whites instead of the two written here. Alternatively, you could add the whites to an omelet, or you  can whip the egg white into peaks and toss potato wedges in to make some amazingly crispy chips.

Enjoy!
 

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