Albanian Liver

I first tried Albanian Liver at Lokanta restaurant in Sheffield. It was a few years ago, but it was so nice that I haven't forgotten it! And, so when I came home with some Firs Farm lambs' liver* the other week, I immediately knew what I was going to do with it.

As it happens, Gav cooked the liver for us - using this recipe for reference. Sadly we had to skip the red onion and parsley salad - I was meant to pick the ingredients up on the way home from work, but a later than usual finish left me in a fluster, and I forgot!

So we just had it with some salad leaves and homemade chips. And, it was lovely (although I have to admit that the onion and parsley salad would have improved it).

Lokanta tell me that people who don't like offal generally like Albanian Liver and I can see why. Lambs' liver doesn't have a strong offal flavour anyway, but the spicing deals with any that does linger. What's more, it was cheap and quick to cook, so I'm sure it's one we'll be having again. Might make sure I get some red onions and parsley in though...

*From Mr Pickles. 

Steak and Chips... but not as you know it...

Steak and chips is probably my favourite treat meal. That and a bottle of red makes any Friday night in feel special. Especially as it's incredibly easy to cook - who wants to spend their Friday night slaving over a hot stove? The trickiest bit is the chips*!!

Given this love of steak, you might be surprised to learn that I only started eating it in my early twenties. See, the BSE scare meant that all beef was banned from our family home from the mid 80s. Which meant that I didn't really start eating it again until I'd left home and learnt how to cook it for myself.

To begin with I was nervous about eating it rare, but I soon got fed up of using steak knives. I think my first really enjoyable steak was at Harvey Nichols in Leeds - Gav and I used to go quite regularly- back when we had money for shopping trips and fancy lunches...

Of all the cuts available, I prefer the rib-eye. Ok, it's not as tender as the fillet, but I find it more flavoursome, thanks to the fat running through it. Having said that, I ain't gonna turn my nose up at a bit of rump or sirloin!

HANGER STEAK

But recently I've been experimenting with different cuts (which is mostly thanks to my new food related job) and I've been lucky enough to get my hands on some hanger steak. Otherwise known as onglet, the hanger is rumoured to be the butcher's favourite cut - probably because each cow only yields around 4/5 steaks and because it's from the diaphragm, so often lumped in the offal category.

Although some suggest you cook hanger to medium, I was only ever going to cook it rare. So I just sliced it into thick steaks, let it come to room temperature and cooked it for about a minute on each side in a hot frying pan.

So, how was it? Pretty bloody good actually. The meat was delicious - with a slight offal tang to it. And although it was tougher than a lot of other cuts, it just had a bit of bite, so was perfectly acceptable in my book. It's certainly one I'll try again - especially as it's significantly cheaper than my trusty rib-eye... which means I can spend more on the wine!

LAMB'S HEART

Lambs' heart is hardly considered to be an alternative to a good steak (yes I know that this is lamb rather than beef, but do bear with me...) and most recipes call for a long and low braise. But I remember a butcher once recommending that I try it with beef heart, so figured it must work with lamb heart too.

We only have high welfare meat at Mr Pickles' and I can genuinely say that I've been really impressed with the lambs' hearts we get in. They're really lean, at least they're the leanest I've ever cooked, and a lean heart has got to be a good sign, aye?

Unlike beef hearts (which are enormous) lambs' hearts are pretty manageable, so I decided we would have one each. I just trimmed them of the valves and the little fat there was on the outside and cut into slices that were around one centimetre thick. I cooked them just as I'd cooked the hanger - brought them up to room temperature and cooked for a minute on each side in a hot frying pan.

And it was a winner! Honestly, I love lambs' heart anyway - the only way I can describe the taste is that of an intense lamb flavour, but cooking it this way was a bit of a revelation! Although the heart is generally braised, I thought it really benefited from the fast cooking. It was as tasty as ever, incredibly tender and ready in a matter of minutes (rather than hours)!** Perfect for a Friday night in.

*Peel potatoes, slice into wedges, parboil, coat in oil with spices/herbs/whatever you fancy and blast in a hot oven for 30/40 minutes.

** One of the major downsides of cheap cuts can be their intense and long cooking times - which can sometimes negate the savings made on buying the meat. So it's good to learn quick cook methods for this type of meat too.

Wild Garlic

No such thing as a free lunch? Not the case if you like wild garlic.

Not that the thought of eating a plate of wild garlic leaves really does it for me. But with a few extra store-cupboard ingredients that bag of foraged leaves can easily be transformed into a delicious meal.

When Gav came home with a 300g bag of the stuff, my initial thoughts turned to risotto. But Gav fancied making some gnocchi and with a bag of potatoes lurking in the cupboard, I had to agree that was the way forward!

He used the recipe on this website, but doubled it up and stuck in a couple of eggs too. The recipe is pretty easy to follow - although shaping looked a bit tricky. But, by 'eck the end result tasted fabulous! 

We served a batch with grated cheese and a little chutney (see below) for a quick and easy tea whilst the rest went into the freezer (shape the dough then lay them on a metal sheet to freeze, then bag them). I think we'll serve future portions with a simple tomato sauce, or maybe just a little butter and a squeeze of lemon with a watercress salad...

As the gnocchi only used 240g of the wild garlic we had 60g left so I decided to make a South Indian style chutney too - as I had about 40g of fresh coriander which needed using up. I just blitzed the fresh leaves with two green birds eye chillies (seeds still in), a pinch of salt and a few good glugs of oil (I just used sunflower, but you can use olive if you prefer). I'd have added some lemon juice too, but we were out of lemons.

The end result was as delicious as I expected (after attending a Milestone cookery class I often make something similar but with coriander leaves and a couple of garlic cloves) and I will be using it in sandwiches, stirred into pasta and gnocchi!

Hopefully this year's wild garlic adventures have only just begun and we have lots more experimenting to do... check out what the good people of twitter like to do with their wild garlic...

Chris Hanson - salsa verde with lamb - I blanch it first just to take the edge off it then chop and mix with anchovy, parsley, olive oil etc.

Ros Arksey - works well in pasta, in bread, on pizza or with new potatoes.

Auriel Majumdar - omelettes (with duck eggs), risotto and pesto with walnuts. All yum. Also just been in London & had it in gnudi, fluffy & delicious. 

So come on then... how do you eat yours?!

Jack Monroe's Best Ever Bolognese (or a rather good pasta sauce)

Ok, so I'm moving house, which means that I'm trying to save some pennies. And, whenever I'm trying to save pennies, the first thing to suffer is the food budget. Crazy, some might think, given how much I love food, but I personally like the challenge of making tasty and (relatively) healthy meals on a budget. The fact that I can also save us some money is a tremendous benefit.

I don't think I'm too bad at it either - I like a good bean casserole, curry or simple pasta dish. But it doesn't hurt to look around to see what other people are doing... which is where A Girl Called Jack comes in. Her blog is full of helpful recipes, hints and tips for anyone on a budget and I strongly recommend it.

Today I fancied giving her Best Ever Bolognese a go. The recipe is relatively easy to follow, but I did make a few changes...

• I added some fresh thyme (Jack's method call for the addition of herbs, but they're not listed in the ingredients)
• I cooked the dish for 20 mins after putting the lentils in, then turned the heat down and put the pasta on to cook
• I used kale instead of spinach (as that's what I had in the fridge)
• I used cider vinegar instead or red/white as I wanted to use the last of the bottle
• I added a ladle of the pasta water to the sauce (coz the Italians really do know best)
• I seasoned the dish before serving
• I managed to get 4 decent servings out of it
• Call me pedantic, but I would call this a pasta sauce, rather than a Bolognese

Now, I must admit that this sauce looked far from appealing after I'd blitzed it, and it looked even worse once I'd added the water... but as it cooked down, the lentils thickened up and the dish looked a lot better.

It tasted good too. And with my 200g or so of chicken livers coming in at 37p, this is one that will be repeated. 

Whole Lotta Love - Beef Heart

Since shopping at the market (Castle Market and then the Moor Market) I have wanted to cook a beef heart. After cooking with chicken and lamb hearts, I know how delicious this piece of offal can be but the beef heart always looked a little threatening thanks to its sheer size!

However, a combination of events resulted in me finally making my beef heart purchase yesterday morning - the purchase of a slow cooker a few months ago, a chat with Dean's Family Butchers when strolling round the market with @BeaTheTree last week and a tweet from @BridgetEvans42 about her ox heart pie on Friday. All these events encourage me to finally take the plunge this weekend and I'm rather pleased that I did!

I picked up my beef heart from Dean's Family Butchers in Moor Market for the bargainous price of £3.99. I can't remember how much it is a kilo, but I think it was about £2.50 or so, which ensured that I had a rather lotta heart for my money.

Once home I soaked it in cold water to rid it of any blood that may be lurking in the valves. To be honest, I'm not sure I needed to bother with this as the heart was pretty clean. I also snipped away at a valve or two, but I kept the fat on (hearts are super lean) so there was actually very little prep to do.

I had already decided that I was going to slow cook my new purchase for a number of reasons, but mostly because using the slow cooker meant that we could go to the pub for the afternoon and because the lean meat would benefit from a slow braise. 

I kept things simple and threw a couple of onions, four cloves of garlic, three carrots, three sticks of celery (all chopped up), a couple of bay leaves, some fresh thyme and a tin of tomatoes into my slow cooker and placed my beef heart on top. I then added a bottle of cheap red wine (yes, I know I should only use wine good enough for drinking when cooking, but this is supposed to be a cheap dish and I had one lurking around) and a litre of hot beef stock. I then cooked it for about eight hours on the auto setting.

The heart had a long split in it, so I could spread it open, butterfly style.

On returning from the pub I wasn't too sure how I was going to serve my heart; my only plan was to use some leftover veggies and mash I'd dug out from the freezer the night before (I've started freezing all leftover veg from a roast - not only does it save money - it comes in VERY handy at times like this as I just need to zap it in the microwave for a bit).

I kinda thought that I would also serve it up with some of the veg cooked with the heart, but on inspection, I decided not to bother as it was all too soft and 'samey' tasting. So I strained off the cooking stock and boiled some of it up on the hob, adding some gravy browning to thicken it into a rather tasty gravy. Now at this point I realise (thanks to @jjcaters4) that I should have added some Hendo's, but I didn't (please forgive me - I had spent all afternoon in the pub!).

I also have to apologise for the lack of pictures (again, I had spent all afternoon in the pub), but I can assure you it was delicious. The meat is quite compact (if that makes sense) thanks to the lack of fat, but it was still soft and tender after the long and slow cook. The taste was slightly offaly but the beef flavour came through strongly. I would say that if you're sceptical about most offal, but like chicken livers, this would work for you. And let's face it, at £3.99 a pop, there isn't much to lose...!

And, I got an insane amount of meat from my heart. Aside from feeding us last night, I have enough for another lunch today, sandwiches for the next couple of days and seven portions for the freezer! I'm not sure how I'm going to use the frozen portions, but I suspect there may be a few more sandwiches and a stir fry or two. 

Update
We've just had lunch - slices of heart served with mash, kale and more of that gravy. It was delicious (a perfect lunch for a dreary day like today) and I remembered the Hendo's this time... and I took a picture!

I made gravy with the rest of the cooking stock and I now have about a litre of tasty, ready made gravy to go into the freezer. Bargain.

Cheap Eats #9

I cooked a LOT last week... so much so that I don't plan to do any this week as we will be eating out of the freezer, which is great as it means that I can get on with clearing a few other things off my plate...

I had a bit of a mad soup making day. Seriously, it was insane. I made four soups in total - 8 portions of each - and a sausage casserole. I think it was worth it though as my bottom freezer drawer is now full to the brim with lunch options.

I used 500 Soups recipes for the potato and garlic and the garden pea soup and they both turned out well. I also made a leek and potato soup by cooking a load of leeks, adding stock and potatoes, cooking until the potato was soft and blitzing before seasoning to taste.

I then made a veggie soup using up all the leftover veg I had in my fridge by frying off 2 carrots, 1 onion, 1 leek, 1.5 chillies and about 2 stalks of celery before adding 2 cauliflower stalks and 2 broccoli stalks which had previously been frozen and were a little soft on defrosting. Next in went a LOT of veggie stock, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander and 100g rinsed split peas. I left it to cook for about 40 minutes, then blitzed until smooth. The end result was ok. It wasn't amazing - it did need more chilli, but given it came out at about 12p a serving, I'm not going to complain!

Next up was my sausage casserole. This was incredibly easy as I just threw everything, raw, into the slow cooker (bar the beans) and left it to cook on low all day before adding the beans for the last half hour or so. These are the ingredients I used - 6 small sausages, 4 rashes of bacon, 3 peppers (red, orange and green), 1 aubergine, 3 small onions, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, 2 tin tomatoes, Thyme, Tomato Puree, Garlic, 1.5 litres stock and 2 tins of kidney beans.

This is easily one of my favourite meals and I love how it's even easier to make now that I have the slow cooker. Give it a go one day - it's great with mash, but there's enough in there to mean that you can serve it on its own.

Cheap Eats #8

A couple of weeks ago I got a huge meat box from The Schoolrooms and my freezer is now well and truly stocked up with top quality meat. I bought it through a Groupon offer and it only cost me around £20, which was amazing given the amount of produce included. In fact, there was so much that I'd have been happy to pay the full price of about £45 and I'm going to be ordering more from them in the future.

Included in my batch was a pound of stewing beef which was simply crying out to be used in the slow cooker and I decided to make a beef and barley stew. I basically threw 5 chopped carrots, 3 chopped celery stalks, 3 chopped onions, 4 peeled and chopped potatoes, 2 tins of tomatoes, a good squeeze of tomato purée, a litre of beef stock, a couple of bay leaves, 2 diced cloves garlic, a sprinkling of dried thyme and 200g pearl barley along with the pound of beef that I had soaked in red wine overnight into the slow cooker and cooked it, on low, for about 8 hours.

This was lovely and warming. The meat was tender and gravy, thickened with veg and pearl barley, was good and sticky. It was easy as anything and one that can easily be adapted according to what's in the fridge. 

Later on in the week I dug out my Prashad cookbook and had a go at the spinach and mushroom curry. I've done a couple of recipes from here now and I must say that I am impressed. Not only is every recipe easy to follow, and quick to cook (once the masala has been prepared), the end results are pretty fantastic! Veggie curries are probably my favourite kind of curry as I love the fresh flavours and this spinach and mushroom curry did not disappoint. 

This week brings sausage casserole (one that I had planned to cook last week), a slow cooker spinach and feta risotto and a couple of soups. What have you got up your sleeves for the week ahead?!

Cheap Eats #7

Apologies for being a bit quiet on the whole cheap eats side of things. We were out for a lot of last week and we just ate out of the freezer on the nights we were in. However, I did manage to get do cooking the week before last.

This Moroccan Lamb Tagine was pretty dull to be honest. Given that I generally like to use neck of lamb (on the bone) when cooking this dish, I really didn't like using mince instead. I also thought that the spicing was a bit bland. Having said this, it was easy enough to make and as I'd managed to source the mince from the reduced section, it wasn't all that expensive, I just won't bother doing it again!

In order to celebrate the return of HFW's Three Good Things (a friend had borrowed it) I cooked up a couple of his soups for lunches. Parsnip, garlic and blue cheese soup was delicious. I particularly liked the use of roasted garlic and I was surprised at how well it complemented the blue cheese.

HFW's Tomato and barley soup is something I've cooked before and I just love it. Not only is it stupidly easy and cheap to make (I haven't bothered making the purée myself yet), it's delicious. Better still it's pretty versatile as I can turn it into a risotto style dish when reheating just by simmering some of the liquid off and stirring in some cheese.

I still have plenty of soups for the week ahead and I have plans for a beef and barley stew, a mushroom and spinach curry and a sausage, bean and bacon casserole. I'll probably cook up a few more soups during the following week - do you have any recipe suggestions?

Cheap Eats #6

I'm not too sure how cheap this week's cheap eats actually are and I'm conscious of the fact that I've stopped working out the price of each portion which doesn't help. Did anyone find the breakdowns useful?

Anyhoo, we ate two new dishes last week and I have to say that I was impressed with them both. Sweet potato and egg curry (from page 154 of the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, 200 Slow Cooker Recipes) was spices, sweet potato, tomatoes and lentils, all thrown into the slow cooker and cooked for a day before adding boiled eggs and tinned peas. Having been sold on the promise that this 'ere slow cooker was supposed to make my life easier I have already given up with any pre-browning/toasting/softening of ingredients and therefore everything just goes in raw (on the basis that if the dish can't handle that kind of rough and ready approach, it ain't the dish for me).

Thankfully this one coped nicely and the end result was a rich and creamy curry that was flavoursome. And although the book tells me that I'd only get four portions out of it, we got five large ones and we could have (should have) easily stretched it those six. It's one I'll do again and if you fancy it, the book is quite cheap on Amazon at the moment and you'll want to try the tarka dahl that's on page 172 too.

The second meal to impress was this cauliflower risotto. Wow. This was pretty amazing given how humble the cauliflower is! The husband is the king of risotto in our house so he cooked this one. He skipped the pine nuts (I don't think they were missed to be honest), used vermouth instead of white wine (as we didn't have wine) and extra mature cheddar instead of Parmesan (as that's what we had in) and it was delicious. Really easy to make and not all that expensive, I highly recommend you try it.

Did you discover any new dishes last week?

Cheap Eats #5

It's been a bit quiet on the Cheap Eats front - mostly because we've been eating out of the freezer (that Thai beef curry is lovely with some tomatoes chucked in) or I've been repeating meals (fish, chips and mushy peas has become a real favourite!). I also ate out a fair bit over the food festival and last weekend so there have been fewer meals to prepare.

So, I don't have much in the way of excitement to share with you at the moment, as the most exciting (and new) thing that I cooked over the last fortnight was this vegetable and lentil stew (which we have been eating as a soup). It was easy peasy as it was cooked in the slow cooker and it produced around nine decent servings which went into the freezer for lunches at work.

And how was it? Well, it was ok. It's a wholesome and good winter soup, but it's nothing exciting. If you're gonna make it, make sure you add a few chillies, and some spices. Maybe cumin and coriander seeds. Apologies for the lack of photo, but I'm having it for lunch tomorrow so maybe I'll rectify the situation then!

I promise that I'll be a bit more exciting this week as I have cauliflower risotto and a sweet potato and egg curry on the cards.

Cheap Eats #4

Well this is a relatively quick one as it seems that I managed to live off leftovers for the majority of the week, which is great for the bank balance, if a little dull for the blog. A couple of donations of home-grown veg (no marrows this time) helped even further!

Ham Hock

The week kicked off with ham hock, mash, greens and carrots. I cooked the hock in the slow cooker, of course. I used this recipe as a guide and after soaking the hock overnight I placed it in the slow cooker with enough water to cover, a chopped up onion, a couple of chopped up celery stalks, 4/5 peppercorns, a couple of bay leaves and about 450g of split peas. I then cooked everything on low whilst I went out to work, so say for 8/9 hours or so.

Once I returned home I got the accompaniments going; mash (made from baked potatoes), greens (cooked with garlic, a little water, a little butter and salt & pepper) and some carrots (home-grown by a friend who I used to work with and simply boiled). To prepare the hock for serving, I removed it from the cooker and scraped off the skin and fat and portioned it up; enough for us to eat that evening, some for us to eat later in the week and some for the pea and ham soup that I was going to make with the cooking liquid (which I left to cool a little whilst we ate dinner).

Pea and Ham Soup

After dinner I removed the bay leaves and the peppercorns from the cooking liquid and then spooned all the fat off (these ham hocks are fatty). I then blitzed it until it was a little smoother (but not totally smooth as I like a little texture in my soup) and portioned it into a few freezer bags before distributing some of the ham hock into each. So, out of a £1.89 ham hock I got 5 decent portions of soup and 4 portions of dinner. Split peas are 68p for 500g and the rest of the ingredients cost around 40p, tops. That's 33p a serving (extra for the veg accompaniments when served as dinner) and each one was delicious. In fact this pea and ham soup is one of the best I've had!

Courgette and Leek Gratin

Although I didn't get a marrow this week, I did get some rather nice looking courgettes and leeks from my parents. Wanting a recipe that would really showcase the veg, rather than just cook them up as sides, I decided to go with a gratin. I kinda used this recipe as a base as I had a small tub of soured cream about to go out of date, but I did make some changes to the recipe.

I prepared the soured cream mix using a small tub (150g) of soured cream, 100g of cheddar (grated), 2 garlic cloves (sliced), a handful of chopped parsley and some pepper. I then mixed this in with 4 very small leeks (say, 1 large) and 3 courgettes which I had sliced. I then spread the veg and soured cream mix into a oven-proof dish before topping with a breadcrumb mix made from 2 slices of bread and 25g of grated cheese. This then went into the oven for 20 mins at 200C.

This was also delicious! The only problem was that we wanted to eat it all, as I had only served it with some bread! It really would have been better if I'd served it with some fish, or some lamb. It's a bit difficult to cost this one up as I'd received the main ingredients for free and I think I'll just leave it that this is a good way to use up any surplus veg as you could use any kind of cream, herbs and cheese that you've got knocking around.

Cheap Eats #3

I feel as though I've barely cooked this week. Monday was leftover pulled pork for lunch and pasta with tomato sauce for tea (onion sweated down with a couple of garlic cloves, two tins of tomatoes thrown in with a good squirt of tomato purée and a bit of paprika) and Tuesday was more pork with a lazy tea of kebabs from the butchers, a cheat's stir-fry and some rice.

I guess it wasn't until Wednesday evening that I actually cooked and that was just a pissing marrow that had been forced upon me. Someone from work had given Gav one as he thought I would like to do something with it. Needless to say I did not want to do something with it, but I felt obliged and after checking out a few recipes I decided to give it a good stuffing.

Lentil Bolognese is a favourite quick, cheap and healthy meal here and I decided to use it to stuff the marrow. I used A Girl Called Jack's recipe as a base, but I used 240g of lentils, added 2 sticks of celery, skipped the wine (and the stock) and just used parsley as I didn't have any thyme. As that was simmering away I prepared the marrow by slicing two big portions off it, scooping the seeds out and then parboiling until the flesh was giving. I then stuffed each with the Bolognese and topped off with cheese. The slices were baked in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, and well, they were alright. I wouldn't bother again, but I managed to clear my plate. The Bolognese was good mind, and one that I will continue to do.

With lunches covered thanks to leftovers and a few nights/meals out planned over the weekend, the only thing left to cook this week was the slow cooker Thai beef curry. The recipe was given to me as a challenge by @TheFoodNut. It wasn't something I would have thought of trying, but I was pretty pleased with his choice. The recipe was simple to follow and although I didn't like the idea of sticking coconut milk in right at the start of the recipe (surely it would curdle?), I knew there was no point in doing this challenge unless I followed the recipe properly. Having said that, I only put about 30 mls of fish sauce in and I used 1 kg of stewing beef rather than 2 kg.

Given that this was an easy slow cooker recipe, I did think there was a lot of faff to get through at the start of the cooking process. I had to brown the meat, make up the curry paste and then cook the curry paste in the slow cooker on high for a bit before adding the rest of the ingredients. Then I had to wait for it to cook! Half way through the cooking process I was asking myself whether there was actually any worth in using the slow cooker for this type of dish, especially as the contents of my cooker started to look a bit dry 5 hours into cooking. After all, it only takes about 40 minutes to knock up a Thai green curry.

Anyhoo, the proof is in the tasting and, well, it was good. Really flavoursome and rich, but not as fresh tasting as you would normally expect Thai food to be. And although the meat was tender and fell apart at the touch of a fork, it was quite dry (and remember that I'd used half the meat and all the sauce ingredients). There was me worrying about the coconut milk curdling! By the end of its cooking time, the coconut milk was nowhere to be seen. Sure, it had been soaked up by the meat, but we could have done with some sauce and I wonder whether the addition of another tin of coconut milk, say 20 minutes before serving, would be a good addition.

So what's the overall verdict? Yeah it's good, as in it tasted good, but the recipe needs tweaking. Would I do it again? Yeah, just with the addition of some stock whilst cooking and another tin of coconut milk in the last 20 minutes.

Have you got any tips on slow cooker Thai curries?!

Cheap Eats #2

This past week has been a funny one; I've been off work, but I've been really busy. We were also without a fridge freezer for two whole days and the in laws visited (which was great - especially as they took us out for tea!).

Anyhoo... my cheap eats for this week kicked off with another recipe from A Girl Called Jack's blog. Creamy Salmon Pasta With a Chilli Lemon Kick was good, but I made it with potted mackerel (not salmon) and soured cream (not yoghurt). To be honest I did put a bit too much lemon in (and the potted mackerel I bought came with lemon in it, so I didn't really need to add much, if any), but it was good and I was stunned at how I could create a meal out of a 34p jar of potted fish. All in all I think the meal came out at about 65p a portion and I'd do it again, but with a lot less lemon!

Chicken Livers with Mushrooms and Soured Cream was one I'd been wanting to try for a couple of weeks. I'm a real fan of offal; especially as it's so cheap and this recipe really did do the liver proud. Although cooked through, the meat was soft and tender and the nutmeg in the soured cream topping worked very well. I just did half the recipe as I don't think it's one I'd either want to eat cold or reheat. I think it came out at just over a quid a portion and served up with some cabbage, it was a really wholesome tea.

I've started making a lot of lentil 'salads' recently. I just cook up some green lentils with a chopped up carrot and a bay leaf in the water. Then once drained, but whilst still hot, I stir the lentils and the carrot in to a bowl of chopped up herbs, a garlic clove, spring onion, chilli, celery, tomatoes and capers with some lemon juice. The heat of the lentils softens the rest of the veg a little and this week I served it cold with some Stilton for lunch.

I use a lot of fresh herbs (I am only trying to cut back; thankfully I am not in a position where I have to watch every penny I spend) and I always buy them from Castle Market. The bunches of flat leaf parsley from All Seasons are simply huge and enough to keep me going for a couple of weeks. They're about a quid a pop too which makes them so much better value than the stuff at the supermarket. And as I get the whole shebang (from the delicate leaf to the thick, dark stem) I wanted to find a way of making the most of the whole bunch. Sure some of the stem is ok to chop up and use with the leaf in salads etc, but some of it is too thick and actually unpleasant to eat. So, I chopped the thick stems off and blitzed them with a couple of garlic cloves, a chilli, some pumpkin seeds (it was the only nut/seed item I had to hand), seasoning and some oil. Hey presto... Parsley pesto! Stirred into cooked pasta with cheese, this is pretty delicious and I'm quite chuffed with it as I managed to get a decent tub's worth and I've covered it in a layer of oil so that it will keep me going for a while yet.

However, the meal of the week has to go to my Slow Cooker Pulled Pork. Unsurprisingly, this wasn't a particularly cheap one, but the end results were stunning.and it probably works out at around £1.50 a lunch sized portion (and that's taking into account that I used high quality pork from Moss Valley), which isn't too bad given that it was f**king gorgeous. I served mine with some bread rolls, cheese, mustard and some homemade coleslaw (1/4 finely sliced cabbage, 2 grated carrots, 1 finely sliced onion mixed in with a dollop of mayo, some lemon juice, a minced up garlic clove and a bit of wholegrain mustard). I'm glad to report that it's also good cold and I'll be serving it for lunch with more of the coleslaw and a rice salad (rice, chopped coriander, parsley, tomatoes, spring onions, carrot and celery).

Cheap Eats #1

When I need to cut back on spending, the first thing I look at is the food we eat at home. It's not that we are all that extravagant at home but I always find something that we can cut back on. And for the past three months I've been making our lunches, buying Gav's snacks in bulk (workplace vending machines are so expensive!) and eating more vegetarian food along with some cheaper cuts of meat. With a food budget of around £30-£40 a week I've discovered quite a few new food ideas - all of which are healthy and filling as well as cheap! So, I figured it would be a good idea to start documenting them; a handy 'go to' guide for the future.

This week began with fish and chips. A large haddock fillet was sliced into two, pan fried on a high heat and served with these mushy peas and some homemade chips (Boston potatoes, chopped and par-boiled before being coated in oil & cayenne pepper and baked for 20 mins in a hot oven). Gav declared that my chips were 'excellent' and I must admit that I did think they were pretty bloody good. In fact the whole dish was a success and each portion came in at less than £2; using split peas for the mushy peas kept the cost really low and they seemed to work just as well as marrowfat peas. And I can thank Simmonite's on Division Street for the £3 fillet of haddock.

I turned to A Girl Called Jack's blog for midweek inspiration and I made both the kidney bean burgers and the falafels. We had more homemade chips, homemade flatbreads and salad with the burgers and some pittas and salad with the falafels. Both were easy and incredibly cheap meals, and best of all, there were leftovers for lunch too. I did alter the falafel recipe a little; I added some chilli to the mix (and next time I will also add some lemon juice) and I baked them rather than frying. In terms of costs I would say that both the burgers and the falafels, including the sides, came in at less than 60p a portion and they were worth every single penny!!

With not so fond memories of turkey casseroles cooked in my mum's slow cooker it's taken me a long time to come round to the idea of buying one of these gadgets for myself. But with plans of beef cheek casserole and a day in the pub, I finally gave in yesterday and bought this Breville from Argos on the basis that it's large, oval (which I hear is good for cooking whole chickens) and currently on offer. I used this recipe for the casserole, but ditched the skirt for beef cheeks. I also only used half of the ingredients as I wasn't feeding the five thousand and I skipped the dumplings. Using the slow cooker was extremely simple; I just seared the diced cheek meat before sticking it, and everything else, into the casserole dish and switching the cooker onto 'Auto'. Then we went to the pub for about 8 hours.

I served the casserole with some mash that I'd made earlier, (reheated in the microwave) and it was delicious. The meat was super tender, the veg was soft, but not mushy, and it was perfect post pub grub! Thanks to Beeches of Walkey who had some beef cheeks for £4 a kilo and the use of Tesco Everyday Value wine which is £1.49 for a 250ml carton, the whole dish cost about £7.40 to make. I'll get 5 portions out of it, so that's about £1.48 a portion (plus, say, 40p for each serving of mash). And tonight I'm gonna serve it as a ragu with some pasta; my favourite way to use leftover casseroles.

Now to plan next week's meals... you got any tips?

Leftover roast chicken, pea and lemon risotto

I had quite a bit of chicken leftover from our dinner on Sunday and rather than just throw it into a curry I decided to split it, bag it up and stick it in the freezer until I knew what I wanted to do. And today I decided that some of it was destined for a risotto... Yes, yes, another risotto... but this time I wasn't cooking. Gav's much better at risottos than I am so I left him in charge of the kitchen.

He followed this recipe which was easy enough and the end result was really tasty. The lemon made the dish really light and almost zingy, but risotto lovers will be glad to know that this is still a wholesome meal. Best of all we have enough left over for our lunch tomorrow and there's still some chicken left in the freezer!

No pictures I'm afraid; just trust that it looked good.

Pea and Ham Risotto

So... the ham hock lives on! 

After my pea and ham soup yesterday I was pleased to find that I had enough ham left over for a decent sized risotto. Some fear risotto, but I'm not too sure why. Although I don't think David Lamb's sharp intake of breath on learning that one of the Come Dine With Me contestants is making a risotto helps matters. Yes there's a bit of stirring involved, yes it takes time, but no, you don't have to stand over it as it cooks, just check on it every 2-3 minutes or so (which in these open plan times means that you can still watch the telly).

Wanting to stretch my ham hock to the max I decided to make one big enough for four, which means that I have managed to get four portions of pea and ham soup AND four portions of risotto from a £1.89 piece of meat. Bargain!

To make my risotto I heated up some olive oil in a large pan, added one, finely diced, white onion and cooked it until soft. I also added some fresh thyme. Then went in 300g arborio rice and a good old slosh of white wine. Once the rice had soaked up the wine, I started adding the stock, which I'd been keeping warm on the hob. I used vegetable stock this time and I have been kicking myself all day for not saving the leftover stock from cooking the hock yesterday. Don't you make that mistake! Anyway, 300g of rice will need about a litre of stock.

I added the stock ladle by ladle, waiting for each one to completely soak into the rice before adding the next. I think, all in, it probably took around 20-25 minutes until all the stock had been soaked up into the rice. About halfway through this process I added some chopped up wild garlic. 

I then made a bit of a balls up as I wanted to split the risotto into two portions, one for the freezer, before adding in the cooked hock and peas (re-heating meat more than once is bad, in case you didn't know). So I made the risotto, split it and then added semi frozen peas and my cooked hock to one half. And, as I had to wait for the the peas to cook and the ham to warm up, the risotto overcooked. It suffered a further disaster as I added too much cheese (yes, you heard right - too much cheese - there is such a thing). It didn't help that it was cheddar and not Parmesan... so it was all a bit stodgy as the cheese made the already gluey overcooked risotto stickier. It also kinda drowned the ham flavours.

It was still tasty, but next time I will add the ham and peas at the same time as my last ladle of stock, or even at the penultimate ladle, unless I'm freezing again, in which case I'll cook the peas and ham separately before stirring in at the last minute. I'll also invest in some Parmesan...

What was I saying about fearing the risotto?!

***

So, what are your favourite risotto combos? I asked Twitter and got some interesting responses including...

"Yellow beetroot and vanilla" (@RutlandArmsChef) and "Smoked haddock, cheddar and a soft poached egg hiding in the middle" (@PaulDCocker), but perhaps my favourite sounding combo has to go to @Luke__Hood for his "Smoked Haddock, Chorizo and Manchego risotto with quail eggs lobbed in." 

Magnificent... and here's the recipe..."Cook risotto. Fry chorizo til crunchy. Save oil. Flake in fish 5 mins before end. Grate in Manchego 1 min from end. Top with chorizo bits. Poached Quail egg on too. Drizzle with chorizo oil. Sorted :)"

Sorted, indeed!

Pea and Ham Soup

I probably should start this with a bit of an apology, as it's been a while since my last post. To be honest, I didn't realise people kept track of the blog, but it's nice that you do and I feel suitably told off for leaving it so long.

See thing's have been a bit funny recently. I've made a decision that will change the future as I know it and I'm feeling rather pleased and excited about it all. I've also been feeling incredibly self-indulgent. I've cleaned the flat, I've tried to cook as much as humanely possible, I've started reading and I've even painted my toenails. With all this, poor old Feast and Glory has been pushed to one side, but it's only been a month and I'm back. I even have some ideas for improvements, so there may be some changes in the future. I fancy a new look and I want Feast and Glory to look a bit more professional... so, as they say... Watch this space!

In the meantime I wanted to share a recipe with you. I'm currently trying to shop on a budget of £30 a week which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. It does not include booze, cleaning products or meals out (of which there are probably around three a week). It's not a fixed figure, if I need to go over it one week, that's fine, it's just a little challenge I've set myself because I could do with saving some pennies and I find that living on this kind of budget encourages me to cook more. And, it's going quite well. We've had a lot of vegetable based dishes and I think a vegetable curry is my current favourite cheap, but healthy, meal, but there's also room in the budget for fish and meat. And remember that we are still indulging when eating out, so it really isn't all that bad at all.

This week's top budget meal is the pea and ham soup. I've been a fan of ham hocks since I first discovered them when I started this blog back in 2010 and I've wanted to do a pea and ham soup for some time, just never got round to it. With hocks being £1.89 and split peas being £1 for 400g at Castle Market, it was inevitable that I would be making it at some point soon.

I used this recipe which was incredibly easy. The only change I made was that I didn't soak the peas overnight (I forgot), but they were soft and yielding after the two and a half hours of cooking, so I wouldn't bother soaking next time either. The end result was pretty damn tasty; as good as any other pea and ham soup I've had and I was especially pleased to get 4 servings out of it, plus extra ham for a pea and ham risotto that I plan on making tomorrow. Next time I will add more split peas, maybe the whole 400g pack as I prefer a thicker soup. I also won't blend all the peas as I would like some kept whole to add texture.

So, what's your favourite soup recipe?

Living Below the Line - Day 5 - Lunch

The light at the end of the tunnel... I can see it... just.

After feeling incredibly sorry for myself yesterday (thanks to my crap lunch followed by reheated bean casserole for tea and an evening of drinking tap water at The Beauchief) I am glad to say that I am feeling a lot better today. Not only is this the last day, I have treated myself to the last pitta bread to go with my crap rice and bean salad and I have pasta with wild garlic, tomatoes and chilli flakes to look forward to tonight.

It's been a difficult week though - not just food wise - I've had a funny week at work too and I just cannot wait for the weekend. I'm going to celebrate with either a bacon and black pudding sandwich or mushrooms and poached egg on toast in the morning and a couple of pints in the afternoon.

Not that this challenge hasn't changed me; it has. I now appreciate how lucky I was, and will, be to grab a snack whenever I feel peckish, to dip into that big bag of salted peanuts that are hidden away in my drawer at work, to grab a chunk of cheese from the fridge or to treat myself to a little pork pie if I'm in the market. All these things, these simple pleasures, have been sorely missed this week, but at least I've had enough to get by. Unlike those who truly live below the line, I haven't had to battle with any other demands on my precious £5; it's all been used on food and I haven't had to worry about utility costs or travel costs.

Going forward, there'll be a few changes at home. I'm going to try and shop to budget and I'm going to start making lunches for us both to take to work. I always used to do this in the past, but got lazy. It's time I got organised...

Living Below The Line - Day 4 - Lunch

Urgh. I've been so confident about this challenge and I've just hit a brick wall.

I want out.

I've just been for a walk around the continental food market that's come to Sheffield for the weekend and the smells of fresh bread, curries and wild boar burgers have driven me insane as I couldn't have any of it. I didn't even have any of the free samples. That's just wrong.

It doesn't help that my lunch was crap. Although I have been looking forward to this one all week, savoury rice with chopped raw veg and kidney beans is actually a really crap meal. It needs mayo. It needs cheese. Then it would work, but in its current state it's just crap and I haven't even finished the portion that I made up for myself.

What's worse is that I've got another one in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow.

What's even worse is that I'm going to the launch of the new menu at The Beauchief tonight and I won't be able to eat or drink a thing (apart from tap water).

On the bright side I did actually enjoy my breakfast this morning, despite the fact that cheap white bread gives me indigestion.

Lunch - Beans and rice with half can kidney beans (10.5p), half packet of savoury rice (13p) 2 tomatoes (9.08p), 1.5 sticks of celery (4.99p), half carrot (4.65p), 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes (1.25p) 43.47p

Living Below The Line - Day Three - Lunch

By 'eck it's a good job I like pasta isn't it?! After buying 500g of the stuff I have been determined to make the most of it and so, out of the total five days, I'll have eaten pasta on four of them.

Today I have a little bit of luxury in the form of bacon (Oh my! How I am savouring its saltiness!). Fried off, chopped up and served cold with cooked pasta, one small chopped tomato, a sprig of thyme and some wild garlic this makes for a tasty meal.

In terms of its nutritional value, however, I'm guessing its rather poor. Bacon is a processed meat, one that the government has 'warned us off', and one small tomato and a bit of wild garlic ain't gonna cut it in terms of the vit C that I need for the week. And at 48.54p it's my most expensive lunch, so it's probably not a winning dish, but it's been a bit of a treat.


P.S. Thyme has always been a good friend to me. It's now my best friend. It seems to spruce up ANY dish.

P.P.S I can't upload a photo at the mo, but I will do later.