Eating well for little cost!

You can eat healthily and lose weight on a budget. Diet magazines and newspapers are always running diet plans that require you to eat all sorts of exotic and unseasonal fruit and vegetables, particularly fruit, and use other expensive ingredients. They are also full of articles about 'super' foods, once again almost always exotic, unseasonal and expensive fruit. In fact nutritionally it doesnt matter whether you eat a guava or an apple, a carrot or a sweet potato providing your diet includes at least 5 portions a day of fruit and veg.

All you need to do to lose weight is eat fewer calories than you burn off and it can be done just as cheaply and healthily lunching on an old fashioned stew made with cheap cuts of meat with plenty of root vegetables, served with cabbage and potatoes as it can on some concoction using wild rice, pomegranite and asparagus. Trim the fat off the meat, only spray the casserole with oil before browning meat and vegetables and just boil the potatoes. The calory count is actually not that high and 1lb of meat will be sufficient for 6. A medium chicken should be able to feed 2 for 4 days, once again add plenty of cheaper seasonal vegetables. Again, health, cheap and can be part of a weight loss program.

I think I might get a pressure cooker. Very energy efficient because they are so quick. Maybe they went out when microwaves came in. Old fashioned science but it still works (Boyle's Law isnt it?)
But you can't make a great big vat of stuff in a microwave. Great for curries etc.
My nomination for a cheap meal is sardines on toast. Your weekly dose of oily fish. I don't know why so many people screw their noses up. i think they are a delicious.

Pressure cookers are still around. You can get stainless steel ones now from Prestige (other manufacturers also operate) My new ceramic hob banned aluminium pans, which was a great excuse to chuck out the old dented ones and buy new SS pans from John Lewis, and then a SS pressure cooker too.

It has a quick-release button so you no linger have to dunk it in cold water to cool it down enough to get it open.

since my last pressure cooker fell apart, I've missed it so much that I have now ordered a new one - eagerly awaited, maybe tomorrow?

Just realised I typed linger when I meant longer.

Eating out is more expensive than eating in. At least, that has been the assumption. One study states that this assumption is very wrong, however. The comparison of [url=https://personalmoneynetwork.com/moneyblog/2012/01/23/price-comparison-eating-out-versus-cooking-in/]Eating out vs. cooking in[/url] shows not only its cost but also the quantity of food you can eat. You can enjoy your food as well as save money when you cook your own food because eating out costs more for the same things - buying and cooking some ground beef being generally cheaper than buying a hamburger in a restaurant.

I think one person can sometimes eat out for less than eating at home. When I was last in Canterbury, BHS had an offer in their cafeteria of five breakfast items for £1.50 and plenty of good, nourishing meals for around £3. I remember thinking that if I were living on the basic state pension I would go there for a meal once a day.
Of course, is is different for a large family where you can make a big pan of stew, pasta, risotto, etc.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

Yes I will

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.

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.

Sorry, I got lost - I meant Phoenix!

Greatnan

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.

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!)

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

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

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)?