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

Live Below the Line: Spicy Carrot & Dal Soup with Toasty Triangles

Onwards with the challenge, and now for lunch. I have made a soup and divvied out some portions to take to work. I used yellow split peas for this as they seemed to be the cheapest pulse on the supermarket shelf, at 53p for 500g. So here goes:

Oil: 10ml vegetable oil = 1p
Onions: 18 little ones for 63p from Aldi = 3½p each.
I used 2 = 7p
Carrots: 16 for 49p from Aldi = 3p each
I used 8 = 24p
250g dal = 26½p
2 veg stock cubes = 6p
1 tin tomatoes = 31p
A few pinches of cheap salt - a twentieth of a penny!
2 grams (1 tsp) chilli powder = 3.4p
2 grams (1 tsp) cumin powder = 4p
Total cost: £1.03p
Per portion: 21p

The bread came from a loaf which cost 40p. I counted 22 slices, which makes a slice cost 1.8p

My lunch therefore reached a grand total of 22.8p

Live Below the Line - £1 a day challenge: Coffee & breakfast

Today I began the "Live Below the Line" challenge, where I will live on £1 a day for five days. A few of us at work are doing it together, and I have slightly enjoyed the research and meal planning, and finally the shopping. The weighing and calculating I have enjoyed slightly less (headache). However I think I have just about got my 5 day menu together, and I am going to post it all here, with the recipes and everything!

Coffee - a serious bloody consideration. I got Tesco value coffee granules which cost 50p for 100g. I measured out two exact 5ml teaspoons, and the coffee weighed 3 grams. The cost of my cup of black coffee is 1½p. With coffee, I can cope with anything ...

Breakfast:

This is porridge with lemon curd. Tesco value oats cost 75p for a kilo. I used 50g (which is pretty much half a measuring cup) and this comes in at 3¾p. Just made with water of course and it is actually lovely, I won't make it with milk again. (It is nice to drizzle a bit of cold milk or cream on top .. but not this week).

The lemon curd cost 22p a jar and was slightly cheaper than the cheapest jam. I weighed out 15g  which costs ¾p.

My breakfast therefore costs (including the coffee) 6 pence.

Slow Cooker Beans & Sausage with Pangritata

I have cause to celebrate: a slow cooker recipe which WORKS and is DELICIOUS. Although, yes, the final stage did involve whizzing up the pangritata and finishing off the whole thing in the oven. Can I also thank the obscure, relatively unknown cookery writer Mr Jamie Oliver for showing me how to make pangritata, cos it is amazing. It is basically like crumbled up crispy garlic breadcrumbs all over your dinner. 

This is what I did:

Soaked and boiled up about 250g (half a bag) of dried cannellini beans

Put them in the slow cooker and add a jar of good tomato pasta sauce, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and some nice sausages (I used toulouse sausages).

Cook on low for 10 hours or whatever. 

When you get in from work, transfer the contents of the slow cooker into an ovenproof dish.

Lightly toast 2 thick slices of bread.

Whizz them up in a food processor with a couple of cloves of garlic. If you feel you would like to add say, some lemon zest or oregano, I say bloody go for it!

Melt a nob of butter with a splash of olive oil in a frying pan. Add the garlicky crumbs and fry them for about 5 mins. Keep moving them around. When they are toasty, tip them over the sausage and beans and spread them out gently. Don't press them down though.

Bake in a hot oven for 30 mins.

Beef Short Ribs

Wine, meat and long slow cooking = SICK. And I mean sick in a good way of course; not vomit. Like someone said on Towie the other night, "this is such a sick club!" and they were clearly having a very nice time. Anyway, anything involving meat, doused in red wine, plus some veg, herbs and whatever, then braised slowly all afternoon to tender unctuousness .. just cannot fail.

So I had a beef short rib in my meat box from Field & Flower. It was quite long actually, a bit too long for my casserole pot. I had to do it in a roasting tin, but this was no hardship.

I seasoned the rib with salt & pepper, then browned it on all sides in the roasting tin, over the heat. This took a couple of mins. Then I let it sit on one side, while I gently softened some chopped onion, celery, carrot and garlic in a pan. I added a bit of dried thyme and a spoon of flour, and stirred that in. 

The next step was to pour red wine into the hot pan. It was about a third of a bottle. I let it boil and reduce quite a bit. Then I added some stock, about half a pint I'd say. I gently poured the contents of the pan into the roasting tin, around the rib. I added black pepper but not salt (best not to until the end).

It cooked for three hours at about 150c. I checked it every hour and added a bit more water to the liquid, so it didn't dry out. If you had it in a casserole with a lid, you might not need to worry - however, I liked cooking it uncovered because the meat and fat on the rib went a bit crispy and burnished. You do want this to happen. 

So it kept on roasting, and I topped up the liquid a couple of times. All ovens are different aren't they, so twiddle with the temperature as you see fit. 

When it was done, the bone just pulled away easily. I lifted the meat out and let it rest. Then I poured the winey, meaty, vegetables and juice into a saucepan. It would be possible to do whatever you liked to this gravy. Strain it if you want (I didn't) or increase its volume by adding more water or whatever. It was necessary to spoon off some of the fat. It tasted amazing. 

I cut the meat into two pieces, sat them on some mash, then ladled the gravy on top. 

Spicy Parsnip & Apple Soup, with Onion Bhaji Onions

A very simple soup, with a special garnish.

The soup was made by chopping, peeling and softening 2 onions, 3 apples and about 4 parsnips in a nob of butter. Then I added a spoonful of curry paste (I like Mr Hudas) and then about a litre and a half of vegetable stock. It then simmered until everything was very soft, then I whizzed it with a whizz stick.

The onion bhaji onions were made as follows: Slice 2 onions thinly. You want to get them as dry as possible, so dab them with kitchen paper. Sprinkle on salt, leave them a bit, then dab them very well again. Then sprinkle on (and don't be shy) turmeric, chilli powder, any other kind of spicy powder you are interested in, black pepper, then a generous tablespoon of gram flour. Shake the onions and toss them around with your hand to distribute everything evenly. Heat up  some oil, about 1cm deep, in a frying pan. When its really hot, in with the onions. I did them in two batches so as not to overcrowd the pan. Just make sure they are nicely spread out so they don't clump together. Keep an eye on them and when they are golden, scoop them out with a strainer.

Welcome to Slutty Kitchen 2015

Welcome to my relaunch. Here is a light snack to keep you going: