Falafel, Carrot Salad, Baba Ghanoush

After five days of austere eating, going out and buying loads and loads of different salad veggies today was just splendid. The plate looks so pretty, but I can't really claim much credit for this beauty. It does make me think, "I want to eat middle eastern food all summer". The falafel mixture was given to me by a foodie work colleague, Egyptian by birth. I bought the Baba from Sainsburys in a tub. I have never made it from scratch, as you need to cook aubergines over a flame, so they get charred and the whole thing tastes smoky (believe me, once you get a gobful of it with something hot and fried, and something else cool and crisp, it becomes incredible).
I shaped the falafel mixture into little patties and deep fried them at about 170f for just a couple of minutes.
For the carrot salad, I grated two very large carrots, and added a good grinding of salt, a big squeeze of lemon juice, a slug of olive oil and some finely snipped up coriander, including the stalks. This is one of those things you just have to taste, and adjust quantities as you like. Or add different things of course.
The food in the picture was served with a bread wrap (as I had some in already) but pittas were recommended by my colleague - I am sure they would be better. Nevertheless, this was a belter.

Live Below the Line Day 5: Sardine Spaghetti with Tomato and Pesto Drizzle

My last tea of the challenge was also the most expensive, totalling a whopping 56½ pence. How extravagant of me. Some people have commented that we are eating quite well this week. If I have made something delicious, maybe living on £1 a day is easy, after all. Well, no I don't think it is. I think I've tried my best with what I could get.

But one thing which is difficult to afford is fruit or vegetables with a bit of zing. I have desired the sharp sour tang of vitamin C in my mouth, it just makes everything more delicious. I had half a tomato with this tonight, which cost 6½p. Precious fruit.

125g spaghetti - 5p
1 tin of sardines in tomato sauce - 34p
pesto sauce, 20g - 10p
lemon juice (bottled) 5ml - 1p
Half a vine tomato - 6.5p
Total: 56½p

Cook the spaghetti as usual. Remove the bones from the sardines (unless you like them). Mix the pesto with the lemon juice so it reaches "drizzling" consistency. Chop the tomato. Drain the spaghetti and stir the tomato sauce from the sardines into it, with a pinch of salt. Then mix in the sardines; stir the spaghetti so they break up a bit. Tip onto a plate. Tumble the tomato on top, followed by the pesto. Enjoy.

Daily total:
Breakfast & coffee: 6p
Lunch: 24.6p
Carrot snack: 3p
Tea: 56½p
Total: 90.1p

Live Below the Line Day 4: Egg & Chips

Something really has gone wrong in my life. Tonight I have been moved. I'm actually slightly upset.
Just .. WHEN did I stop buying real potatoes? And why? Except for roasties and mash? And even that is not very often. I will be blunt; tonight's tea, whilst the simplest and most unassuming so far, and certainly the least photogenic, has taken me back to my childhood in a way which oven chips just bloody well do not. I did not even know I had fallen into this darkness, or quite when it happened. Tesco Value White Potatoes, the shittiest and cheapest spuds in the shop, might just have saved me.

500g potatoes = 24p
2 eggs = 13.2p
Total: 37.2p

Daily total:
Breakfast & coffee: 6p
Two more coffees during the day: 3p
Lunch (as yesterday): 24.6p
Carrot snack: 3p
Tea: 37.2p
Total: 74p

Live Below the Line Day 3: Nasi Goreng (sort of)

My son thinks of "stir fry" as the worst thing to eat you could possibly imagine. He hates the idea of lots of things being mixed together, so that when you dig in, you don't really know what you are going to get and put in your mouth. Well, I think he is weird and it is precisely the mish mash of textures and tastes, crunchy soft savoury sweet salty bouncy pea-y spicy ricey oniony carroty runny eggy (and maybe meaty and fishy when I am flush again) which just completely bloody Blows. My. Mind.

I have never made Nasi Goreng before but have always thought it looks really pretty with the egg sitting on top rather than mixed in. What I have gathered from reading about the dish is that it is for using up leftover rice and other tasty bits and pieces, and is supposed to taste spicy, salty and sweet (cwoooorrr!). So I improvised by using curry powder, chinese five spice, soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce.

I will get stuck in with the ingredients and prices. As usual I bought the cheapest I could find in Aldi & Tesco, except the soy & sweet chilli, which came from the chinese supermarket.

70g white rice = 3p

40g peas = £0.028p

1g (½tsp) chinese five spice = 2.7p

2g (1tsp) curry powder = 3p

1 carrot = 3p

¼ cabbage = 11p

½ onion = 1.75p

1 egg = 6.6p

20ml oil = 2p

15ml sweet chilli sauce = 5.6p

½ tsp soy sauce = 1p

Total: 42p

Cook the rice as you normally would and have it ready. Fry the onion, carrot, cabbage and peas in the oil. Add the powdered spices and  mix them into the vegetables. Then add the rice, and mix all that in too. Just before the end of cooking, stir in the soy and sweet chilli sauce. Let it sit off the heat for a moment while you fry your egg. Pile the rice onto your plate, and sit the egg on top. 

Daily total:

Breakfast & coffee = 6p

Lunch (same as yesterday) = 24.6p

Another coffee = 1.5p

Carrot snack = 3p

Tea = 42p

Total: 77p

Live Below the Line Day 2: Cheesy Potato Wedges with Coleslaw

I am quite excited about this tea because I can say in all honesty that I could eat it any goddamn night of the week, very happily. I just sat down and hoovered it up. I was reminded of that book, "Potatoes not Prozac". I think that perhaps a few decades ago, potatoes were the cheapest carb here in the UK, but not any more - I think they are all beaten by pasta, rice, oats and maybe even bread, as the most carb you can get for your pennies. I actually feel a bit sad about this. Long live the humble spud. "In Praise of the Potato" (yeah that is another book).

My very generous helping of potato wedges weighed 500g before cooking, which cost 24p. These were the cheapest taties I could find in Tesco. I roasted them with 10ml oil (1p) and 5 minutes before the end, sprinked over 50g grated cheese which cost 22p (from Aldi).

I served them with ¼ of the coleslaw I made, at a cost of fractionally under 9p.

Total cost of this meal: 56p.

Total for the whole day:
Breakfast & coffee: 6p
Lunch (soup with 2 pieces of bread): 24.6p
Snack: a carrot, 3p
Tea: 56p
Total: 89.6p

Live Below the Line Day 2: Coleslaw

A simple coleslaw, a very cheap way to fill your belly and get some raw veg and fibre inside you.

I whizzed half a cabbage (22½p) , and two carrots. Then added 45ml (3 exact 15ml tablespoons) of the cheapest mayo. I am not keen on adding onion to coleslaw but if you like it, do it!

Total cost: 34½p

There is probably enough here for about 4 portions.

Live Below the Line: Pesto Spaghetti with Special Garnish

So my tea has cost me 15p! (I am hoping to snaffle a tiny bit of cheese later). Tesco value spaghetti, at 20p a packet, is lovely. I had 125g which cost 5p.
I weighed out 20g of pesto which some may feel is not enough. This only cost 10p so you could have a bit more if you wanted. Delicious.
By the way, dandelion leaves out the garden do not taste that nice.







I finished the day with a chunk of brie which was hanging around in the fridge from yesterday and needed a home. It cost 29p.

Total spend for day 1: 6p + 22.8p + 15p + 29p = 72.8p