Post Furlough/Student Food: Jacket/Baked Potatoes - ultimate cheap comfort food.

 Ah, just imagine the rain coming down outside, the nights drawn in and cosy fire to sit by and a baked potato topped with butter for tea.  Ultimate comfort food thanks to the carbs, but not as cheap as it used to be thanks to the supermarkets.  

The supermarkets cottoned on that you can sell spuds for £1.29  but big baking potatoes can be sold for £1.75 for the same size pack.  Then there are the ready cooked frozen variety - why spend valuable time and fuel cooking baked spuds when you can buy them ready cooked and ready to eat in minutes; all at the heady price of £2.50 for four thanks to McCain.  The packs of four baking potatoes still work out cheap for 15-20p each at this time of year.  Seasonality is a thing though so the prices do go up across the year but this is the time when you can score with the normal sacks of potatoes hiding some of a decent size for baking.  I was hoping that my own garden crop of spuds would yield some nice big ones to use but unfortunately we had to harvest earlier than I expected due to pests and although we had a fine crop of potatoes in terms of number they were new potato sized, gorgeous for home made potato salad but not for baking.  Maybe next year.

Jacket/Baked potatoes take approximately an hour in my oven - the soggy offerings that come out of the microwave do not, IMHO, taste anywhere near as good but in these days when we are all trying to reduce the amount of fuel we use both for the sake of cost and for the sake of our carbon footprint is it time to say goodbye to the humble jacket spud?

Thanks to The Batch Lady I discovered this way to make in advance and freeze, best bit they only 15 minutes in the oven en masse and then 15 minutes on the day so I can fill the oven to make the best use of the fuel.

Of course you can just dollop the filling on top (I am afraid I am so lazy this is what I tend to do!) or scoop out the potato and mix with the filling ingredients, pile it back into the skin and flash under the grill or back in the oven ("twice baked potatoes").  Either way gives a great gluten free carb hit designed to fill you up.

Now what to top them with:

Grated cheese

Tuna mayo either plain or with extras like chopped spring onion, cucumber, sweetcorn, chives

Coleslaw with or without cheese

Cauliflower Cheese

Beans with or without cheese

Pesto and cheese

left over curry (meat or veggie)

left over chilli (meat or veggie)

left over bolognaise (meat or veggie)

egg mayo

coronation chicken

Prawns in mayo or rose marie sauce

sweetcorn and cheese

Sardines and chilli flakes

bacon spring onion and cheese

peppers, garlic mushrooms and cottage cheese 

smoked haddock and cheese

cottage cheese and pineapple

cheese and onion

bacon brie and cranberry sauce

sardines coleslaw and cheese

bacon and egg

ham cream cheese and cress

chicken sweetcorn and kidney beans

tomato and mozzarella

bacon and beans

houmous (beetroot or otherwise)

ratatouille

meatballs - if Subway can do it in a sandwich why not on a jacket potato?

mushrooms and blue cheese

and the list goes on and on.....

 

Ditch the ready meal! Chicken and Bacon Pasta Bake\Mac and Cheese - more post furlough/student food

 So what do you do when you leave home for the first time and discover that you all those Food Tech lessons you did at school proved that you can design cool packaging but don't know how to make the contents.  For many the fear of cocking up and ruining food (which we now know for the first time is EXPENSIVE) means that they bolt for the ready meal aisle.  All the supermarket have them and they lure us in with Instagram quality pictures and the promise that it will be a delicious meal ready in minutes.  What is not to love?  Well the cost for one and the fat/salt/preservatives for another and did I mention the plastic pollution...

For an example I chose Chicken and Bacon Pasta Bake which is common to ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons and varies in price from £2.65 to £2 a time.  Now no-one wants to eat the same thing day in and out but if you rely on ready meals only for your evening meal that sets you back £380-£500 a year just for term time just for that one meal a day.  So 1) how much can you save on this one meal and 2) how easy is it to make?  The answer is that with a bit of organisation you can easily half the cost and it is easy to make, honest!

Chicken and Bacon Pasta for 1

You need two pans - one for pasta, one for the sauce

In the pasta pan add water from the kettle and a pinch of salt (the salt raises the boiling point of the water slightly so the pasta cooks a bit faster - clever huh!).  Add 75g of pasta (about a double handful if you do not have scales). Stir and leave to simmer for about 10-15 minutes whilst you make the sauce (water should be bubbling gently).

For the sauce take a couple of teaspoons of butter/margarine and melt it in the pan.  Do this gently, you do not want it to go brown as it will be bitter.  Add a dessertspoon of flour and stir to make a thick paste.  Keep it over the heat and keep stirring for about a minute to help cook the flour (this will improve the taste later).  Take about half a standard mug of milk and add to the pan a dribble at a time, stir in between to get rid of any lumps (if you do add too much by mistake then you can use a whisk to rescue it).  Stir gently and continue to heat the sauce until it starts to bubble.  Add grated cheese (about enough to cover you palm, somewhere around 25-50 g) and allow to melt then taste to see if it is "cheesy" enough, if not add a little more.  Stir in cooked shredded chicken (as much as you can spare a whole breast is too much) and chopped bacon (1-2 rashers).  Taste again - it may not need extra salt as both the cheese and the bacon will have salt in them.

By now the pasta should be cooked, taste a piece and if it is soft then it is cooked.  Drain the pasta and put back into the pan.  Pour the sauce on top and stir to coat the pasta.  Serve.

The hardest part of the whole of the cooking is that you cannot walk away and need to keep stirring the sauce to keep it from catching on the bottom of the pan- but it only takes the time it takes the pasta to cook.

Cost : Depends on where you get your chicken from.  If you buy cooked chicken in small packets like these 

then you are going to struggle (packet above is £2.50 for 180g and would make about 3 servings).  By the time you add bacon (£1.95 for 10 rashers) this would make the cost over £1 just for the meat alone and the entire cost approximately (20p for milk+8p for pasta+12p for cheese+5p for butter+3p for flour) £1.51 (assuming that you can use a grater to grate your own cheese, you're not going to fall for that one are you!).  Better than £2-£2.65 (if you did a similar thing every night for a week this would be a saving of £3.43-£7.98)  (Over a 38 week year this is £130.34-£303.24 or for us in the real world with a 52 week year £178.36-£414.96) but you can shave the savings down to be better - how? cook your own chicken breasts.

In advance buy something like these chicken breasts

At £3.30 for about 450g , much cheaper per gram.  So how do you cook it? Using foil make them into an enclosed parcel and cook in the oven for about 25 minutes, leave to cool then shred - the resultant meat can be used for recipes like this or sandwiches, wraps, added to mayo for baked potatoes, the list goes on and better still if you divide it into smaller portions (I would divide this into about 9 portions of approx. 50 g each), it will freeze for about 6 months, just pop in the fridge the morning of the day you want to use it.  This brings the cost of the bake down to £1.05 per portion.  About half the cost of even the cheapest option ( £7.35 per week rather than £14-£18.55).  If you use "cooking bacon" - this is packs of mis-shapes from when the bacon is sliced- then the cost dips below the £1 per portion mark.

Of course if you really want to drive the cost down ditch the meat and the recipe above becomes mac and cheese (also sold as a ready meal for  £2-£2.65 but costing you a massive 48p on average).

Potentially hundreds of pounds of savings over the course of a year - isn't that worth a little effort?

Lunchbox Hack: Snacks and Treats

 So, if just making your own lunch of sarnie, crisps and drink can save you nearly £500 per person per year (see this post here) what else can you add to save?

This post looks at the snacks and treats we pop into our lunchbox as well.

1)We have already partially covered crisps -single pack  v. multibag is 70-80p v. 25p per bag for a branded crisp (in this case Walkers as this was the one on the online Tescos groceries site).  Had I sprung for own brand variety crisps this would have dropped to a multipack of 30 for £2.99 i.e. 10 p per bag or a further saving of  £36 a year per person.  As always it depends on personal taste - try the generic brand you may find you can't really tell the difference and compare supermarkets and special offers.  For instance we do not like the Co-op own or Morrisons own brand ready salted crisps but Tescos own brand are fine so I buy a months worth at a time in Tescos and then ration them out (no unauthorised snacking allowed!) but if a brand/flavour we also like is on offer and the cost per bag is still less than 13p per bag  (Tescos own ready salted crisps are 77p for a multibag of 6 so this is my benchmark) then I will buy some of these instead.

2) Raisins

These often creep in as a little cardboard box into school kids lunchboxes. These little boxes have to be the most expensive way of buying dried fruit on the planet.  On the Tescos site costs vary from £2.50 for 12 boxes (each only 14g) at the most expensive  top brand to £1.30 for 12 (each only 14g) for Tescos own.  So what is the big deal - if you bought the Tescos own brand it works out 11p a box, even the top brand is only 19p a box, surely that is a good way to get kids to eat something healthy? Well yes until you look at the price you are paying per kilo. The top brand is a massive £13.28 per kilo; even Tesco own brand is £7.74 per kilo.  It is by far cheap to buy raisins or sultanas in the baking section and add to a plastic tub.  At £1.98 per kilo if you stuck to 14 g portions then it would be the equivalent of 3p a portion. If you did this everyday for a year for just one person this would be a total of £6.66 v. £50 for the top brand or £26 for Tescos own brand.

3)Biscuits and chocolate bars.

One chocolate item was the rule for my kids primary school (although I think they are trying to ban that these days).

Again an area where own brand v generic comes into it's own, and look out for special offers - they are not always a saving when v. generic brands

For example McVities Penguins

usual Tescos price = £1.39 for 8 bars (about 18p per bar)

On offer this week only = £1 for 8 bars ((about 13p per bar)

but Fox bars are 89p for 7 normally (same price per bar as special offer but all the time)

and Tescos Miss Molly's brand are £1.20 for 18 bars (£1.20/18 = 7p per bar)

Even if the Penguin bars where on offer they are not as cheap as the generic ones, but that's assuming my kids like the generic ones!

The potential saving over the year would be £41.70 v. £16 if we could use the own brand, even if we were forced to use mid brand the cost would be £30.52 so still over £10 saved per person.

3)Fruit.  The more socially acceptable snack instead of chocolate.

Don't buy the prepared chopped/packaged/sealed with inert gas packages.  Fruit pots from Tesco are £2 a pot.  Use whole satsumas/bananas/apples at between 30p and 50p each and instead of £10 a week or £480 a year you are looking at £1.50-£2.50 a week £72-£120 a year per person.

4) Don't stick to sandwiches.

The best thing you can do if you have access to a microwave is to make planned leftovers and take those in.

If you cannot do this then think about something like soup.  Easy to make and can be frozen (see previous post here) this is the cheapest option.   If you cannot use homemade then use supermarket own brand tins (25p-45p depending on flavour) rather than fresh soup which can be up to £2.50 for half a litre.  This means that (tinned) soup and a bread roll can set you back as little as 50p per day.  How's your £3 a day meal deal looking now?

Post Furlough/Student Food: Cauliflower Cheese Pasta Bake

 Pasta is one of the staples to be found in virtually every storecupboard up and down the country.  Even those who cannot eat gluten have their own verison (at a pretty price too).  It is also (in it's dry form) one of the things that my teenage son (who is autistic) likes to nick straight out of the packet for a snack.  This recipe is one which came into being when I did not have enough pasta for pasta in a cheese sauce (on it's own) and only had a small cauliflower so that was not going to do it on its own either.  The resultant recipe is cheap, can be prepared in advance and reheated in the oven, and can easily be varied/tweaked/adapted to include a few extras to make life seem less stringent. Winner winner no chicken for dinner.

Cauliflower Pasta Bake (Serves 4)

1 small cauliflower

150g (pasta shape except spaghetti)

25 g butter

25 g flour

250ml milk

120 g cheddar cheese, grated

Breadrumbs and extra grated cheese for topping.

Chop the cauliflower into florets, stalks, leaves and all.  Steam until tender.

Boil the pasta in salted water until cooked.

Make the cheese sauce.  Melt the butter in a small saucepan and then stir in the flour.  Keep stirring to prevent lumps forming and allow the flour to cook for 2-3 minutes (this gets rid of the raw flour flavour).  Switch to a balloon whisk and add the milk in a thin stream whilst stirring all the time.  Bring to the boil and the white sauce should thicken.  Add the grated cheese and stir until melted.

Combine all the ingredients and pour into a casserole dish.  Chill until needed. Top with breadcrumbs and extra grated cheese.  and cook in a medium oven until the top is brown and the sauce is bubbling.

Extras - add as many or as few as you like!

Add a tsp of mustard to the cheese sauce - not one I use personally as I hate mustard but...

Add  grated nutmeg to the sauce

Replace all or part of the cauliflower with broccoli

Add bacon to the sauce for extra flavour

Use blue cheese for the sauce, just half and half cheddar and stilton is lush and great for using up Christmas stilton

Use leftover chicken/pork/turkey/ham stirred in for extra protein

Add sliced mushrooms for extra protein.

Lunchbox: Meal deal v homemade

 As my oldest son heads back to college we are having to provide packed lunch as a part of the COVID-19 measures.  Not an issue for us really as it is something that we normally do since food can be difficult to find when you have sensory issues due to autism. (Canteens are out etc because the smell of some foods makes him feel ill).  This usually adds 25-35% to my food bill for the week (for 3 kids), not this year eldest is off to uni and youngest is not going back to school yet.  There is a whole industry worth millions of pounds that relies on the fact that these days we want our packed lunch pre-packed for us; but it costs big time. So how can you reduce some of the cost even on just the humble sarnie.

1) Make you own sandwiches.  The small businesses won't thank me but pre packed sandwiches come with a premium price for the contents. It is all too easy to grab a box and hand over the card but this can add up to between £3 and £5 a day - if you were to do this it would be £15 - £25 a week. 

For instance 1 round of smoked ham and cheddar cheese sandwich at Tesco cost £2.30 on it's own (or £3 for a sandwich, bag of crisps and drink) 

From the same shop a loaf of bread (with 20 slices) costs 59p 

butter or margarine costs 85p for 500g

smoked ham costs £2 for 6 slices

cheese - 60p for 10 slices

cost for one round :

 bread 59/20*2 = 6p

butter - say 5p

ham= £2/6=34p

cheese=60/10=6p

and that is using reasonable quality ham, sliced cheese, wholemeal bread and butter spread all of which are medium priced not the cheapest.  total for one sandwich only 51p 

or to put it another way would you rather pay £11.50 (£2.30 for five days) or £2.55 (51 p for five days) for a little effort

2) Crisps are cheaper in multipacks.  

A single pack of crisps can cost 70-80p - A six pack of Walkers is £1.50 = 25p a bag. (own brands are even cheaper if you like the taste - also look out for special offers and multibuys)

You don't even have to spend time making this one- a no-brainer surely!

3) Drinks are cheaper in multipacks too.

A lunchbox drink is included in the meal deal from most places but on it's own it is between £1 and £1.54

A small carton of juice is £1 for 5 i.e 20p each.

Just on these three things five days a week (using the meal deal)

Ready-made lunch = 5*£3 = £15 a week or £720 a year (for a 48 week working year)

(with no meal deal it is a massive £4.40 a day or £1056 a year!)

Home-made lunch = (51p+25p+20)*5=£4.80 a week or £230.40 a year

Isn't an annual saving of  £489.60 a year worth spending 5 minutes making a sandwich and grabbing a couple of things from the cupboard?

More lunchbox hacks to follow...

Cooking Hack: How to tell if an egg is fresh enough to eat

 This is a question that came up recently on a Facebook group that I have been following.  With the price of food always going up and with so many people now facing loss of income thanks to the recession following the start of the COVID-19 crisis throwing away good food is now less acceptable than ever. Did you know it is estimated that 720 million eggs are thrown away in the UK in a year because they are "out of date"?  Although chickens now seem to have date stamps attached to their bums the date on an egg or the box is the "Best Before" date- not "Use By".  This is an indication that it is safe to eat the contents a few days after this but it will not be as fresh as before and suffer from a loss of flavour/colour/quality. So how do you tell with an egg?  You do the water test.

An egg has an air sack at the rounded end.  When the egg is fresh this is small, as it ages it gets bigger.  So if you put your egg in a jug of water (see through is better) and it sinks to the bottom and sits horizontally it is really fresh and can be used in any recipe.  If it sinks but floats more vertically (rounded end nearly upright) then it is semi fresh and still good to use in most recipes. If it sinks but is now floating vertically with the rounded end up then use right away; this egg will not be as good in recipes like poached eggs or where you need to separate the egg white from the yolk as the white will be more watery and the sack around the yolk more fragile.  If it floats - bin it! 

Still not sure what I mean - the following YouTube vid shows you...

Low Cost Meal Plans-Feed four for £40 a week.

 With my daughter off to uni food is about to change in this household.  Normally we have an odd arrangement of eating - although all 3 of my children are on the autistic spectrum only my two boys have the associated sensory problems with food.  For those of you lucky enough not to be associated with this disability Autism is not Rain Man. It is where the brain is wired differently to the "norm" and this can include the communication centres (which is why those with autism struggle to fit in socially) but also the sensory centres which from a family day-to-day life point of view is far more restricting.  Someone with autism can be over or under sensitive to smell, colours, sounds, tastes, textures, and also their own body movements in space; and it is different for each and every person with autism.   Think for a moment what family mealtimes are like when one or more of your children won't eat mixed textures of food, won't eat meat because of the texture, won't eat wet foods - or dry foods because they are scratchy, won't eat dairy foods, won't eat crunchy foods, won't eat coloured food and everything has to be beige, won't eat fish because of the smell, or curry because of the spice and the list goes on.  The normal reaction of teachers/health visitors/grandparents (especially grandparents) etc is that this is just being fussy, it's not - it is literally part of their disability.  Persist and you will actually have a child gagging on the food you give them (not good when your grandparents have taken you out for a meal without mum and dad in public!).  It's like sitting someone who doesn't like fingernails down a blackboard down in a room full of blackboards and making the noise non-stop, you can't help but react violently against it.  What does this mean practically? For each mealtime I do three different meals; one for me, my husband and my daughter; one for my eldest son and one for my youngest son.  Little or no overlap.  Everyday.  

However with my daughter going off to uni it means that the main bit of cooking I will do is now just for OH and I - I am no longer bound by my daughters likes and dislikes and this gives me the opportunity to shake up what we eat on a daily basis.  OH probably will rebel but hey I think the best part of 18 years of basically the same 7 main meals week in and week out (because I can guarantee my daughter will eat them) is enough for anyone.  The Love Food Hate Waste site was one which I was prowling through in the bid to use up some veggies before they need to go into the compost. DD has been doing the shopping during the pandemic and has yet to master following a shopping list - memorable incidents include buying 6  one kilo bags of carrots one week after they had been sold out the week before, when we had no room in the freezer either. The site is great for ideas to use up leftovers, just type in an ingredient or ingredients you need to use up and they suggest recipes. Anyway, I came across the meal plans link which have been produced in conjunction with Lidl to be found here.

So what are they - four weeks of meal plans including recipes and shopping lists.  No cheating as these are a full seven days, three meals a day, for a standard family.  It even gives you tips and reminders of what to put into the freezer (or take out of the freezer) when.  They are for meat eaters only though and heavy on the bread products so if you are gluten intolerant then it may be too expensive to substitute gluten free alternatives in nearly every meal. The only thing they do not include are drinks - studies show that these take about 8% of the average family food budget; but anyway I digress.  Looking through they are not bad ideas and not too far off what the "average" person in the UK would normally eat so with a little tweaking I plan to give most of it a go for OH and I. Off the top of my head butterbeans will not go down well ☺. Although of course I am not so silly as to think if you half the people it will halve the cost - for this part of the food budget anyway. It will be interesting to compare our pre-uni spend with the normal one once my DD has gone as well as it will be four of us instead of five- two teenage boys constantly on the prowl for food may make up the difference though!  The search goes on, as always, for other resources so check back.

Post Furlough/Student food: Cream of *** Soup

 My eldest heads off to university in just over a week.  Not for her the freshers fairs and societies that everyone rushes to join and then does not go to, or the time spent with mates in the SU bar - oh no.  This is Covid safe university where she will be in a bubble of 4 for her accommodation (sharing a kitchen) and doing the majority of her lectures online with just a few sessions face to face and even then with a limited number of people all wearing masks.  ("Lectures" go to 10 pm at night I kid you not!) Meanwhile I have been trying to teach her how to shop and cook on a budget for just one which is a whole different ballgame; of course I am Mum and therefore I am too old to know anything.☺

Anyway this is my go to recipe when I want to make a soup because I need to make the most of veggies that are about to go in the bin.  The only downside is that it is better when you use a stick blender (they can be got for under £20 on somewhere like Amazon), otherwise use a potato masher to to crush the veggies, it will be a bit more chunky but just call it rustic if anyone asks...

Just a note - Cream of Tomato is not included on this list as it costs more to make than to buy a generic supermarket own cream of tomato tinned soup.  If you can stand the taste use one of these instead of making your own.

The generic recipe starts with onion, chop it and soften it in oil.

Add the chopped veggies and an equal amount of chopped potato - the potato will thicken the soup and make it creamy.

Stir to toss it all in the oil and leave to soften slightly for 2-3 minutes.

Barely cover the contents of the pan with water - add a stock cube if you have one plus any flavourings.

Simmer until the veggies are soft.

Blitz.

At this point you should have a thick paste.  You can freeze it at this point (takes up less space in the freezer)

When ready to use thin down to desired consistency with milk - regular or non-dairy either work well, heat through and serve.

Ideas and variations:

Whilst  you can absolutely use just whatever mixture you have here are some of the variations that make it sound like you planned it...

Parsnip and sage - use parsnips as your veggie and add bit of sage for flavour.

Carrot and cumin- use carrots as your main veggie and add curry powder or cumin for flavour (parsnips also work here if you need a combination as does swede), also works with ginger for flavour instead.

Leek and potato - speaks for itself but use less leek than potato for this one

Courgette and Lemon - use  chopped courgette and juice and zest from a lemon.

Mushroom - add sliced mushrooms to the onions and soften before adding the potatoes. Add a sprinkle of garlic powder if you have it (cheap from Lidl) or a sprinkle of thyme.

Potato - double up on the potatoes if you really have nothing else.  A sprinkle of thyme works well here if you have it.

Pea and mint- frozen or tinned peas can be used if you have no fresh veggies - add mint for flavour if you have it.

Broccoli or cauliflower and cheese- use broccoli or cauliflower ( or a mixture ) fresh frozen or leftover from the main meal the day before and stir in grated cheese when you add the milk.  This is our Christmas go to to use up the leftovers from Stilton.

Bean/Chickpea soup- use tinned pulses (even generic baked beans washed of their sauce will do in a pinch) add garlic and ground coriander for flavour

Sweetcorn - use a tin of sweetcorn and garlic for flavour.

Celery - just a couple of chopped stalks will do - use the chopped leaves for garnish and add garlic at the same time as the onion for flavour.

Tinned tomatoes can be used in place of all or part of the stock but this does bump the cost up for the basic version.

Leftover cooked meat can be added before blitzing for added flavour - smoked bacon is good - better than throwing it away or using it in sandwiches again...

If you want to up the protein and carbohydrate content then add some dried red lentils or yellow split peas at the same time as the potatoes 

Serve the soup with toast, croutons (toast cut into cubes basically), cream/yogurt/creme fraiche on top for extra flavour and a bit of flourish, grated cheese on top, chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, chives or coriander, chopped fried bacon for those who are not veggie.  

Part baked baguettes are also great on the side with melting butter( yum)

If you are using just a generic mixture I would steer clear of cabbage or brussel sprouts personally unless you want your housemates to complain about the smell.☺

Curry powder, chilli powder, ras-al-hanout, piri piri seasoning, cajun seasoning, sumac, pesto, dried mixed herbs have all been things I have added for extra flavour; not all at once obviously, but if you have splurged on some of these tempting little (expensive for their weight) jars and don't know where to use them this could be one of those places.  If you are adding some for flavour and you have only a single serving be cautious in the amount you add (not a whole spoonful) and taste, taste, taste- you can always add more but you can't take it out.  There is nothing worse than knowing you have just ruined your last meal before the money runs out  - or feeling that you have to force it down no matter how spicy it is because you cannot afford to waste food.