the recessionist's cookbook

metrovelvet

I thought it might be useful and fun to find out if anyone had ideas on economical, nutritious and tasty meals on a budget?

Flamed Diving

Good idea!

Ok, I have a cheap and cheerful Spaghetti and Frikadellen Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 Packet of Aldi Frikadellen Meatballs
2 Tins of Aldi Plum Tomatos
1 Medium Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
Basil (dried or fresh)
Chilli Powder
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Fry the chopped garlic and basil with olive oil in a pot until garlic turns slightly brown, then add tins of tomatos. Use your wooden spoon to squish the tomatos, while bringing to the boil, then simmer for 5 mins, continuing to squish the juices out.

After 5 mins, pour the contents through a sieve, again using the spoon to squish what you can through, with the chunkier elements left behind (if you really want to be economical, or if you prefer chunky sauce, leave this part out). Return the sauce to the pot, add S&P and chilli and bring to the boil, and simmer for another 5 mins.

During this time, heat your frying pan with oil and add your onion until lightly done, then add Frikadellen (these are already cooked anyway). Transfer the contents to the pot and let the flavours all stew for 5 minutes.

Serve with spaghetti or whatever pasta you can afford.

Mellor

I was given a student cookbook a few years ago, was interesting.
I'd imagine alot is applicable to the recession

Flamed Diving

Come on, 107 views and only one recipe.

Lurkers!

Malari

I suppose something similar has been done before, with the €1.50 per serving thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055512951&highlight=per+serving

I like this one because chicken wings are dead cheap (no pun intended):

Brown about 4 chicken wings in a cassarole dish, then leave aside.
Chop an onion and a clove of garlic and cook until softened.
Add a few chunks of chorizo, chopped.
Throw in some rice and coat it with the mixture.
Add enough chicken stock to cover the rice well.
Throw in a tin of tomatoes.
Add some artichoke hearts, from a jar. Or some peppers, or whatever you fancy.
Finally add the chicken wings back in and make sure they are covered.
Cover with a lid and cook in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.

olaola

I've tried a few of these recipies, and they're quite good:
http://uktv.co.uk/food/homepage/sid/7217

I know it's STG, but it isn't that much more expensive here.

superficies

There are lots of cheap and cheerful recipes out there; probably vegetarian food ends up being somewhat cheaper to make but if you get cheap cuts of meat then it doesn't make any difference provided you know how to cook it. Here are three of my faves, although I often don't know the right quantities as I cook from taste and feel usually. However, these are simple and you won't find it difficult if you keep tasting.

Italian vegetable soup
1 Onion (red works best but doesn't matter)
2 cloves of garlic (mashed...optional)
2 Carrots
1/2 Peppers (any colour)
Handful of green beans (frozen are fine)
1 tin tomatoes
1 pint veg stock
Good dollop of tomato puree
Salt
Pepper
Good bit of dry italian herbs (basil & oregano esp. or the italian herb mix)

Put all of the above in a big saucepan (prob need something like a casserole as tends to be quite a lot of soup); bring to the boil; reduce the heat; simmer for anything from 30 mins to an hour depending on how you like your veg. Voila soup. If you want to fancy it up a bit, grate a little parmesan on top in the bowl while serving. This will make 6-8 regular bowls of soup, costs about €3/4 for the whole thing, can be frozen, and if not frozen will still last 2/3 days. Is delicious and extremely healthy.

Finger-licking chicken wings

As many chicken wings as you want (tesco do a pack of around 20 very good sized wings for €2.50 or thereabouts)
1/4 bottle of soy sauce
40g butter
About 40g brown sugar
Dollop of mustard
Spoon of honey

Leave chicken wings to the side for the moment. Melt butter and sugar in a small saucepan; add soy sauce, mustard and honey. Mix all together. At the moment this taste completely disgusting, I know, but trust me.
Put the chicken wings in a large flat oven-proof dish. Pour the mixture over them covering them all well. Leave to marinade for at least two hours, turning them occassionally to make sure the flavor gets into every big of the wings. Set oven to 180 degrees when ready to cook. Oven cook for 45 mins to an hour, turning once or twice--cover in tin foil until about 10 minutes before you're taking them out of the oven.
Serve with whatever you want...rice; potato wedges; salad; bread. These are just gorgeous.

Chicken and lemon stew

1 white onion, chopped
Salt
Pepper
Chicken thighs (breasts if you prefer)...1 per person
1 lemon
Poatoes

Put chopped onion, chicken, chopped up potatoes, and chopped up lemon in a big oven-proof pan; season; drizzle with olive oil
Bung in the oven at 180 for 40-50 minutes or thereabouts (until chicken is white all the way through and potato is soft), shaking/stirring occassionally. Keep covered with tin foil until about 10 mins before is done.
Serve with a mint dip (natural yoghurt; chopped mint; small bit of salt; mix together; voila) and white wine. Delicious.
This can be quite lemony...hence the mint dip. Also good with homemade tzatziki (natural or greek yoghurt; deseeded cucumber grated; salt; pepper; mix together; voila). If you want it kess tangy just use half a lemon for the food and the other half to garnish a G&T while it's cooking in the oven!

Faith

Malari wrote: »

I suppose something similar has been done before, with the €1.50 per serving thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055512951&highlight=per+serving

I like this one because chicken wings are dead cheap (no pun intended):

Brown about 4 chicken wings in a cassarole dish, then leave aside.
Chop an onion and a clove of garlic and cook until softened.
Add a few chunks of chorizo, chopped.
Throw in some rice and coat it with the mixture.
Add enough chicken stock to cover the rice well.
Throw in a tin of tomatoes.
Add some artichoke hearts, from a jar. Or some peppers, or whatever you fancy.
Finally add the chicken wings back in and make sure they are covered.
Cover with a lid and cook in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.

Mmm, sounds like something my OH would adore!

WesternNight

I haven't made this for a while, so quantities might need adjusting..

Bean "casserole" with Sweet Potato and Carrot Mash

1-2 large sweet potato
3-4 carrots
1 tin Chilli Kidney Beans (or Chilli mixed beans if you can get them)
1 small tin regular kidney beans
1-2 small tins of regular baked beans
Knob of butter
Seasoning
Grated cheese (optional)


Slice sweet potato and carrots and boil until soft.
Drain and mash well with a knob of butter and season (add the grated cheese at this stage if using)
Heat the beans in a saucepan before transferring them to a casserole dish.
Spread out, and spoon the mash on top.
Add some extra cheese on top if desired.
Heat in the oven for about 10-15 minutes (190 is my default)

That should feed 4 easily enough. Although with this recipe it's very easy to adjust the quantity.

Not the fanciest of recipes, but the mash is absolutely gorgeous and can be put with lots of other stuff too. It's even a little bit healthy!

tomcollins97

This costs about €25 to make but makes 10 -12 450g (man size) portions!! Thats about 2.50 a meal for good quality food. It freezes very well and can be reheated in the microwave. This is a great meal for entertaining, add some garlic bread and salad and it is great - and cheap!

If needed, reduce the cost by using own brand tinned tomatoes and cheaper mince. The wine really adds flavour so try to include this. If you need to stretch it farther just add more mushrrom/peppers to the same quantity of meat. It will still taste good!


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1.5kg 95% Lean Mice - I buy mine from dunnes
2 or 3 x 400g Roma Chopped Tomatoes (depends how much sauce you want)
3 x 150g Roma Tomato Puree
2 large spanish onions
3 cloves garlic
2 Bags of frozen peppers (Dunnes) or 4 fresh
2 regular size punnets of mushrooms
1 tablespoon parsley
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon oregano
375ml 13% Red Wine (I usually spend about €7 on the bottle & drink whats left!)
Black Pepper
2 knorr beef stock cubes

Into the pot put the tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and crumble the stock cubes. Turn the pot on to a low heat to gently warm the tomato mix

Using a non-stick pan dry fry the mince in small amounts, two wooden spoon loads at a time, so that it fry’s rather than boils. Cook until the meat is a nice dark brown and looks crumbly. Each batch will take about 5-10 mins. The steam from it should smell nice and cooked, not raw and meaty! Browning the meat gives the flavour

While the 1st lot of mince is frying, crush the garlic and finely dice the onion. Add the onion & gralic to a pan with a little oil and leave to cook until translucent and a light golden brown – probably until all the mince is cooked. Put a lid on the onions which will keep in the steam and keep them moist. The onions should not caramelise, just go see-through and maybe a little bit brown. About 20 mins cooking.

While the mince is frying chop the peppers (or add the frozen ones) and mushrooms and add to the tomato sauce in the pan. If you want, you can fry these a bit first. When the onions are cooked add these also.

When all the meat is done pour 200ml of red wine into the frying pan and boil for a good 5 minutes until reduced by about half – pour back into the measuring jug if you want to check. This boils off some alcohol and the bitter wine taste. Add this to the pot when reduced. You may need to add an additional glass of unboiled wine about half an hour into the cooking.

The sauce will need to simmer on a low heat for at least an hour. When cooked, check the seasoning and if necessary add more herbs, salt, pepper or wine. If it is dry add more wine or tinned tomatoes.

Enjoy

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Malari

Faith wrote: »

Mmm, sounds like something my OH would adore!

My boyfriend loves it, but so do I. The only thing is he doesn't "do" artichokes so I end up with a plate full of them!

It's dead easy too, just throw everything in the one pot and it goes in the oven.

overmantle

A superb idea, metrovelvet. Well done!

overmantle

Too many people, many who just cannot afford it, spend too much money on processed food which could be far better (and more economically) be spent on the type of recipes listed here. It's not rocket science. Well done again!!!

bionic.laura

I made Gigantes Plaki this evening. It's a greek bean dish and very cheap.

Feeds about 2 but you can scale this up and down really easily.

Ingredients:
Two onions, chopped
3 cloves of chopped garlic (adjust for taste)
Chopped vegetables: Courgettes, butternut squash, peppers or whatever you have in the fridge.
Can of chopped tomatoes
Can of Butter Beans
Teaspoon of oregano, basil and parsley
Pinch of Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper
Tablespoon of olive oil

Method:
Fry the onions then add the garlic.
In a big oven proof (lasagna style) dish mix all the ingredients together. Cook in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius for about an hour. Ten minutes from the end grate some cheese over the top.

Serve with pasta, bread or salad.

Simples.

superficies

As it's pumpkin season and the food market in the People's Park in Dun Laoghaire (for Dubliners) has gorgeous small, super orange pumpkins at the moment going very cheap (about a euro i think), thought a good pumpkin soup recipe would be useful. If you can't get pumpkin then any other kind of similar veg--esp. butternut squash--will do the job as well. However, if you're using butternut squash I recommend adding a dessert spoon of mild curry powder to make it curried butternut squash soup as it brings the flavour up

1 white onion
1 stalk of celery
1 pint chicken stock (from a cube is fine)
1 pumpkin/squash deseeded, skin-removed, cubed (roast before if you like the flavour but not necessary)
1 red pepper...but only if you can find one that's good and ripe and flavourful
Salt
Pepper

Chop it all up, bung it all in a nice big saucepan, bring to boil, reduce heat and allow to cook for 30 minutes or thereabouts, blitz in food processor (if you want some bits then leave a third unprocessed for more rustic soup), serve. If want to be a proper fancy pants and have some around the place serve with small spoon of creme fraiche, sprinkle a few roasted pine nuts/sliced roast almonds on top, and serve with crunchy crispy bread.

Top tip for busy foodies: make this on Saturday or Sunday, allow to cool, store in fridge or freeze and use as you want it during the week. If doing a dinner party this is the perfect autumn starter and can be made the week before.

superficies

BTW I love pumpkin and squash so if anyone else has any tips on recipes using autumn squashes then please share!

V480

Anybody have any nice easy recipes for cous-cous? Besides stuffed peppers..they are all I can cook!

Cleansheets

We have a vegetarian meal once a week and use the butchers' bargain of the week another day. Planning ahead for 4 or 5 days has saved us a lot in comparison to a little shopping everyday. I like Fiona Beckett's book, the Frugal Cook, it has good ideas for generally making more with less. She is no longer blogging as the Frugal cook but the blog is still there to be read and there is a lot of budget ideas on her "Beyond Baked Beans" site. If you're sceptical about menu planning, I was too. I wrote about my conversion to it on my blog. Possibly the only New years resolution I ever kept until this late in the year!

the beer revolu

V480 wrote: »

Anybody have any nice easy recipes for cous-cous? Besides stuffed peppers..they are all I can cook!

cous cous salad.

Into a large bowl (everything chopped) add:
Spring onions
Cherry tomatoes
Clove of garlic
lemon zest (I like lots)
Dried apricots
Toasted pine nuts
Fresh Coriander (again, I like lots)
Some smoked paprika, if you have it.
Salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil

How I prepare cous cous:
Melt a good knob of butter
Add cous cous (about 2 cups makes a good big bowl)
Stir in butter for a few minutes
Add double volume boiling water (4 cups).
It will bubble up, take off heat, cover and leave to sit for ten - 15 minutes.

Combine cous cous with other stuff.
Eat warm, or cold. More salad stuff and less cous cous makes it much tastier but it doesn't go as far.

Could also add chopped mint or flat leaf parsley, some coriander seed, cumin seed, fennel, seed etc etc

WesternNight

Actually, how has traditional stew not made it in here? :P

I'm making this tonight to have for the next few nights.

Diced beef (or turkey if you want it slightly cheaper)
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes
Beef (or vegetable, or whatever else you like) stock
Water

You'll need a big pot, or casserole dish if you want to put it in the oven rather than leave on the hob.

Very simple, chop all the ingredients into rough chunks. Not too small or they might turn to mush a bit during cooking. In a little bit of oil, throw in the onion and saute for a couple of minutes, next add the beef and stir for another couple of minutes. Then add the potatoes and carrots. Stir around to mix things around. Make up the stock as per the instructions (unless you've made your own!) and add to the pot. Generally 500mls per stock cube (or equivalent) but I tend to add about another 100mls for luck. I like it quite liquidy.

And that's it. Just leave it to simmer for at least a couple of hours. I usually make it the night before I need it so I just heat it up and there it is done!

The quantities can be made to suit whatever you want. I never measure anything or anything like that. Sometimes I like more potatoes...sometimes I prefer more carrots...sometimes I add parsnip as well as carrots...it's really up to your own taste.

And it is VERY cheap. Last one I made cost about €8 and it was enough for 2 people for 2 meals each.

superficies

Agreed on the stew. If you want to make it a bit more gourmet (and prob not very kiddie friendly) toss the beef in seasoned salt before browning it; throw in a glass of red wine when the beef is browned [pre stock]. Slow slow cooking. Delicious boozy stew but v strong flavours and children don't usually like it. I also usually add celery as well as onion but that is a matter of taste.