If you love cooking but you're on quite a tight budget

[foxessocks]

Have you got any tips? I love to cook but a lot of fresh ingredients are expensive, I've switched to a lot of frozen veg recently as I find it cheaper some times (depends what it is but it also equals less waste). I already cook a lot of vegetarian meals so only cook with meat a few times a week really. But we do love fish and all seafood which is expensive but it is so good for you. I love salmon but it costs us £7 for all of us for one meal. Also fresh herbs are more expensive than dried but taste better.

It got me thinking because I wanted to try a Jamie Oliver recipe next week but it needs so many fresh herbs, vine ripened tomatoes , posh potatoes etc!

I usually shop at Asda and I budget £50 a week including toiletries, cleaning products etc basically everything. And then I do a couple of top up shops usually about £20 in total over the week I suppose (more when school holidays and my dd comes along!!). Top up is just bread milk fruit usually. We are a family of four but my children are young so don't eat huge amounts yet.

About a century ago, in my first few weeks at university, I remember wandering around the local Sainsbury’s in utter horror and realising that I would have to give up buying meat if I ever wanted to taste wine or coffee again.

It was fine actually. Less cooking (at one of the famous ‘no cooking’ universities. Less washing up.) More money for drink.

Went back to meat as I got richer. Then gave it up again for different reasons - and would never go back now. But I guess it might be a tall order to make that decision for a whole family?

Jamie Oliver recipe is a 30 minute meal - tray bake chicken which calls for tomatoes on the vine (I have now switched to normal cherry tomatoes as per pp advice!), fresh sprigs of thyme, fresh mint, extra virgin olive oil. I'll see if I can find the recipe online to post. BTW I chose this particular recipe from the book because it has less expensive ingredients than a lot of the others!!

Just as an aside. Be careful with sprouting seeds if you are eating them raw. I am sure they can be excellent but they need humid and warm/wet conditions to grow which is also the perfect conditions for certain bacteria such as salmonella and e-coli etc.

Frozen fish and meat can be good and work out cheaper as well. Look at using jarred or tinned ingredients too - a jar of sun-dried tomatoes at Lidl is about a pound I think but using just a few of those really add a strong tomato flavour if you’re using cheap fresh tomatoes - so one jar would go a long way to boosting flavours if you can’t afford expensive tomatoes. Also jars of roasted peppers are cheaper than fresh loose peppers for example. Check out the shelves of cheap shops like Heron, Home Bargains or Poundstretcher for the odd food bargain like cheap egg noodles, rice, stir fry sauces, stock cubes and so on - you can sometimes get some really good deals!

Also iceland do frozen chopped garlic, ginger and herbs for about a pound a bag and they’re quite large bags.

That recipe sounds delicious btw!

Brilliant tip re jars of sun dried tomatoes and peppers - thank you!

I don’t bother with posh olive oil, I get the big bottles from Aldi so it works out much cheaper. I think not following recipes to the letter can be really money saving - so for that chicken traybake, I would use:
Any potatoes, skin on, cubed
Garlic
Oregano
Rosemary (from the garden but it’s about 50p in Aldi)
I’d forget the creamed spinach and make a salad or just wilted greens
Normal tomatoes
Normal olive oil

Do you have quite a lot of store cupboard spices and herbs? I think they’re brilliant for adding flavour for a few pennies and once you’ve got a decent stock of them it’s very helpful

Oh there’s a brilliant River Cottage recipe for drying your own tomatoes - works really nicely with cheap horrible cherry tomatoes that otherwise have no flavour. I normally have a jar in the fridge but rarely get to use them in recipes as DH inhales them

You can buy huge bunches of fresh herbs from a local small store (middle eastern, Asian, Mediterranean) - we get 3 for £1.20 - and wash them, dry then chop up and freeze. Tasted much better than dried ones.

Join something like Costco and stock up on food and home goods.

I wouldn’t bother cooking with extra virgin olive oil. It’s nice in a salad dressing but you could use normal olive oil or vegetable oil if it’s for cooking.

We use rapeseed oil to cook (some bottles labelled vegetable oil are rapeseed when you check the label) - you aren't supposed to cook with olive oil anyway. We use it as a dressing.

Hope this works

Try Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery book. I recommend this all the time but it is brilliant and most of the recipes are really economical.

Actually - in the same aisle so to speak - you’ll also save money if you can buy rice for instance in huge sacks rather than in dainty little packets.

In fact (and it’s true your budgeting is already impressive) the thing to be aware of is packaging. Shop at a decent food market rather than supermarket. Avoid anything in fancy packaging with a long list of ingredients. Really drill down to buying only ‘real’ food.

Do you (have time to) bake? Can you get your family involved in in doing so? It is initially expensive in terms of tools and ingredients - but if you can give up shop bought cakes and biscuits.

On a roll now ... I know people who spend lots of energy searching out the cheapest ready-made food - and I’m always horrified at the amounts they spend on really meagre portions of rubbish food.

Oh, one other thing. It’s a little late for this year but remember that your fuel bills are partly cooking bills as well. If you aim for as much raw food as possible, (when the weather makes this a pleasant thing to do) that’s another way of saving money. (And time and effort.)

I am the least green-fingered person I know but I can grow keep alive a big pot of rosemary, one of mint and one of chives outside my kitchen door. Rosemary will survive the winter too. I buy a growing basil plant from supermarket about every 6 weeks and keep on windowsill and water regularly. So there's always fresh for a recipe or a cheese and tomato sarnie

Bulk out chilli or bolognese recipes with dried soya mince or red lentils. Bulk Soups with pearl barley.

Make pasta sauce by cooking carrots, peppers, onions, tinned tomatoes and garlic (plus mushrooms, celery, courgette etc if you have) and blitzing into a smooth sauce. Good for slightly manky veg at the bottom of the fridge! Freeze in portion sizes for quick meals

Buy reduced meat or fish and freeze. When youve got lots of the same thing, do a batch cook.

Asda is brilliant for big packs of cheap spices and unusual ingredients. You can gently dry-fry whole spices then grind them yourself to save buying ready-ground. And mix your own curry/chilli spices or bbq rubs and sauces.

I cook 30% more rice than we need and freeze leftovers in portion sizes (plastic takeaway tubs) so we can have rice as a side or add it to a wrap or soup when we fancy.

Sorry that was a long post

Visit an Indian/ Chinese supermarket for much cheaper rice, pulses and lentils, soy sauce, tinned toms and spices,massive bunches of fresh coriander for 50p- freeze and use accordingly.

Tinned oily fish has omega 3 and the added benefit of calcium in the edible bones.

Nigel Slater's real fast food has some amazing recipes that do not rely on expensive ingredients.

Eat seasonal veg.

I slow roast cheap tomatoes with oil (not extra virgin) salt and dried oregano. Delicious.

Nutmeg gives brilliant flavour to spinach, potatoes, cheese etc.

You can cook dried chickpeas in a slow cooker.

Tinned tomatoes are often better than fresh.

You don't need a long list of good ingredients - according to the Italians.

Economy Gastronomy is a brill book and cheap to buy used online. Jamie Wanker Oliver is always expensive poncy ingredients and then he has the nerve to sneer at the poor and ponce on about sugar, tosser.
Jack Monroe's recipes are great for lunches, too.

gruach yes I do bake , I love it! I never ever buy biscuits or cakes , I don't buy any snack type food apart from yogurts (I guess partly how I keep the food shop bill down). You're so right about fuel bills too I never really consider that!

I want to start making my own bread but never seem to find the time.

I cook a lot of meals from here: the skint foodie

You don't need a special jar for sprouting seeds. Just use a pint glass, you can tie a cloth on for a top with elastic band but you don't need to

Sorry not sure who said what as just read through lots at once but few things -

Tinned fish - excellent idea! I do use tinned tuna but never thought to use tinned mackerel or salmon could try that!

Jamie Oliver - agree about him but I have a couple of his books from years ago and have challenged myself to cook some of the recipes as I have hardly used them. I will definitely think about replacing his ingredients with cheaper ones! No posh potatoes then!

I've asked my mum to pot me some of her herbs from her garden she said she has mint, rosemary and chives. And she said she has a bay tree so I can pick some of the leaves if I want. Never thought to ask her tbh! She gives me veg from her garden sometimes but didn't know she had herbs.

Meant to add - you can cook any pulses in a slow cooker. The water makes excellent stock for soups and you can freeze the pulses in portions so they become as convenient as a tin. You can freeze the pulses with the stock or separate them (as I generally do for chickpeas as I have a hummus fetish - which - by the way is incredibly easy to make if you have a food processor (under 10 minutes). You can make it the traditional way but I actually prefer the skinny version. The 'secret' to good hummus is the order you put in the ingredients. You must whip up the tahini with the lemon juice first before adding the rest.