Eating well for little cost!

Growing up in the 50s, my family always had a hot meal at lunchtime (which we always called dinnertime), when we would walk home from school, and high tea at about 4.30 pm, then we would have a supper of milk or ovaltine and biscuits before bed.

When I started at grammar school, I would have a school meal and missed that lunchtime/dinnertime. My father took sandwiches to work and had his hot meal at 6 o'clock, by which time we children would congregate around him to see whether he had a lot of gravy on his plate - this meant we could each dip a piece of bread in there - our treat!

That's how I remember it. Seed cake, I hate carraway.

Regular thing in Scotland - lunch (or dinner ) was the main meal at midday and high tea was a hot meal (or salad) with the added bonus of bread and butter, scones or cakes as well. I get very annoyed at high end hotels etc referring to Afternon Tea with cucumber sandwiches and so on as High Tea!

Does anyone remember "high tea? "

Ah!, might have risotto or couscous in. Good thinking batwoman

Prawn omlette?

Prawns on toast with mayonnaise. If you leave out the toast and mayonnaise....

We like 'em with Astley Ainsley's Wild Mushroom Risotto.

I'm still eating my steak and kidney but have to have prawns tonight or theyll no out or date! Any ideas for doing them hot? ( non fattening)?

Will try celery tomorrow carol. I don't have any apple juice, but will come up with a substitute of some sort.

Celery soup, with the same ingredients as Notso has listed, is lovely if you add a dessrtspoonful of apple juice to take away bitterness.

I've just made leek & potato soup, 1 small potato, 1 large leek, 1 knorr veg cube and some water. Cooked and blitzed. Cheap, cheerful and warming. (Usually have a bowl of salad for lunch but its freezing cold here today!)

I wouldn't be without my pressure cooker but am amazed at what they cost now.
I make goulasch in mine which is basically meat stew with onions, tomatoes and a red pepper and I add an Oxo and a home grown hot chilli, which we grow on the windowsill. Pressure cooker time. 20 minutes.
The basic rule is the same weight in onions as meat. Delicious with pasta, rice or potatoes. Can be frozen so I make double quantities.

Greatnan I see you haven't got a cat! There are no left over sardines in our household.

Greatnan

Sorry, I got lost - I meant Phoenix!

I've never actually tried chowder Greatnan but I'm pinching the recipe off of Phoenix, I love seafood and any fish, be it in a pie or on it's own so will be giving it a try this week after DH has his jaw operation.

Libradi,you have reminded me of how much I love chowder. I tend to have phases when I cook the same thing over and over again and then I forget it for a few weeks or months. All your soups sound delicous.
I have just had a very cheap, tasty and quick lunch. I chopped up one tomato and mixed it with half a tin of sardines, with a bit of black pepper.
Heated this in the microwave and put it on one round of wholemeal toast.
I will eat the other half of the tin in a couple of days and meanwhile it is securely wrapped in a plastic bag in the fridge, as the smell can affect other fods. That is my two portions of oily fish (omega 3) taken care of.

Yes I will

Let me know how it turns out!

Not sure if (as I've only made it once) I feel confident enough to c&p it to the recipe thread!

Thanks for that phoenix I shall definitely give it a go next week. I don't think the recipe is too vague for the recipe thread at all. If we are going to live on soup for a few days this will be something different.

Libradi thank you. It was made up, but sort of using the method from a couple of recipes that seemed ok, but I wasn't totally happy with the ingredients that those recipes had, so I worked with what I had and what I thought might work.

I must confess that I draw the line at making my own home-made stock for soup, it takes too much time and probably uses more electricity/gas, so may actually increase the cost? (Not totally sure on that one.)

I use a good make of stock cube, and tend not to add any extra salt, this can always be added at the table to taste.

Forgot to add, that when I made the chowder type thing, I also bunged in a lonely rasher of smoked bacon that would have otherwise gone to waste!

A rough precis of it would be:

Butter
Bay leaf
Onion, finely chopped
Rasher of smoked bacon, snipped into smallish pieces with scissors
Smoked haddock, skinned & de-boned, the cubed
A couple of potatoes, peeled and sliced
A couple of handfuls of prawns, defrosted
Ditto sweetcorn (I buy bags of frozen sweetcorn rather than cans, that way you can cook exactly what you need)
Fish stock (Knorr cube!)
Milk

You can probably tell from the above that exact measures are not essential!

Melt butter,cook onion & bacon until soft. Add haddock and potatoes. Stir a bit, for a while.

Add stock, milk and bayleaf. Cover and cook on low to moderate heat for about 30 minutes.

Lob in prawns and sweetcorn. Cook for a bit longer, say around 5 to 10 mintes, but gently.

Thickness will depend on the amount of liquid (stock & milk) added, but if you are trying to make a reasonable quantity of soup with a small amount of fish etc, then you can try adding a desert spoonful of flour after you have cooked the onion & bacon, stirring it about for a minute or 2 before adding the stock.

Perhaps I should put this in the competition/recipe thread, but I fear it may be a bit too vague!

I'm now inspired. Soup for me tomorrow. If I've finished my haggis.

Mmm your soup's sound lovely phoenix I've been saving my chicken bones to make some soup for DH next week. He's going into hospital to have a cyst removed from his jaw and his wisdom tooth so he won't be able to chew anything for a little while. I like the sound of your chowder, I'd never have thought of making that.

Mr Phoenix seems to have developed a soup "habit". Other wives might be presented with a bunch of flowers if their DH's have been to the shops.

Me? I get given a pack of leeks acommpanied by the words " I thought you might like to make some soup, I know you said how therapeutic you find it"

I do actually still work full time, Mon to Fri, 9 to 5, and my work load is currently so high that I bring files home many evenings and most weekends!

Having said that, there are currently 6 tubs of leek & potato in the freezer, 2 tubs of what I refer to as "random vegetable", 1 lentil, tomato and bacon, 1 mushroom and 1 pea & ham. Each tub holds exactly 2 portions.

Plus last night when I got in, I made a rather good sort of chowder type thing, with a small bit of smoked haddock, potato, onion, prawns and sweetcorn. Very tasty, although I say so myself!

Domestic goddess me, like Nigella but without the bosoms.

Depends what you eat at home! A good sized lamb chop will cost me about €4 here, and I can get a three course menu for €10 in a Relais Routiere, where the truckers eat.

I'd like it to emerge that it costs less to eat out!