How to Eat Healthy on a Budget
1. Plan
At the start of each week review your diary to identify which days people won't be in for
dinner and then write your shopping list – but only after checking your
cupboards, fridge and freezer to make sure you have nothing in! If your cupboards and freezer are full – do you
really need to shop? So much money is
wasted on food that isn't eaten and this will ensure you'll only end up buying
things you know you need.
2. Prepare Ahead
Preparing a packed lunch for work will save you more money
than you think. Heading out to a sandwich shop to grab a meal deal ends up
costing around £4, that's over £1000 a year! Take fruit to work as a lunch or prepare a
salad – my favourite is a cous cous based one with smoked salmon, cherry
tomatoes chopped onion and chilli – delicious and cheap. Pasta salads are als
cheap and healthy - especially if you stick to wholegrain. Chickpeas make for a
budget salad base, add and loads of veg and a lemon and olive oil dressing.
3. At the shop :
Buy ugly veg; don’t be afraid to shop at the local
convenience store either – individual items may be more expensive than at
Tescos (other supermarkets are available) but you will be less tempted to buy
much more than you really need. Buy 'Ripen
at home' fruit that is reduced because of its sell-by date is a real bargain as
you can eat it sooner! Anything close to
the sell by date can be put in your freezer and eaten later – you can save a
fortune this way
4 Use your freezer and leftovers
Anything left in the fridge at the end of the week that will
soon go off can be made into a batch of soup or a casserole these can be frozen
in portion sizes.
With leftovers from big meals such as a roast chicken, use any
leftover meat for another dish, and boil the carcass and strain to make great stock. Mashed potato freezes really well
so never throw out any leftover.
Cauliflower Ideas
http://www.food.com/videos/genius-kitchen-hacks-13/5-clever-cauliflower-fake-outs-461?c32=d2e02c4ce5110fbc9fa1aff4c483479227ef014d&sni_by=&sni_gn=&ssid=&bid=5853884
Roasting Timer
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/
10 staples for every kitchen (Not sure where I copied this from but it seems a good list)
1. Frozen vegetables: Frozen vegetables can contain more vitamins and minerals than fresh as they are frozen quickly after harvesting. They’re great for adding to pasta sauces, salads and as a side to steak.
2. Curry paste & a can of coconut milk: With these in your cupboard you can cook a curry in no time. All you'll need to do is fry the meat and vegetables of your choice with the paste, before adding the coconut milk and leaving it all to simmer.
3. Frozen prawns: If you freeze these in portions you can defrost them easily, just pop them in the fridge in the morning and they'll be ready for dinner. Great in curries or pasta, prawns can also make your salad a little more special.
4. Box of free range eggs: It’s hard to beat eggs for a quick and easy supper. We all know the usual scrambled, boiled, poached options, but try something different and make a shakshuka by cracking them in to a spicy tomato and vegetable sauce in a dish, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Delicious.
5. Continental touches: Olives add flavour to all kinds of sauces, whilst sun-dried tomatoes pep up a tomato sauce. Chilli and garlic flakes keep well for ages will also add more bite to your evening supper!
6. Individually wrapped and frozen chicken breasts: These can be defrosted one at a time, cubed or cut into strips and added to vegetable stir fries or curries. Serve with easy-cook brown rice or buckwheat noodles and a shake of Tamari wheat-free soya sauce for added flavour.
7. Tortilla wraps: Great bases for a quick, alternative sandwich or spicy fajitas. Spread with hummus, add some crunchy salad vegetables, a couple of slices of chicken or turkey or some mixed beans, a dash of Tabasco, roll and eat!!
8. Risotto rice: A simple risotto can be ready in 20 minutes and it's a great way to use up any ingredients you have that are nearing their use by date. Once the risotto is cooked add a spoonful of low fat cream cheese and stir though to make it a little more luxurious tasting.
9. Herbs, Spices and Condiments: Keep the following in your cupboard or freezer and you’ll always be able to add instant flavour to your cooking: paprika, mixed herbs, chilli powder, chicken or vegetable stock cubes or bouillon, balsamic vinegar, virgin olive oil, low-fat mayonnaise, wholegrain mustard, minced garlic, sun dried tomatoes in oil, tomato puree, black bean sauce, Tamari sauce and curry paste.
10. Beans & Pulses: Cheap and easily available, beans (kidney, aduki, flageolet, mung, canellini, broad, haricot) and pulses such as lentils are high in protein and fibre and low in fat. Keep a few cans in your cupboard, open, rinse thoroughly and add to salads, soups and stir-fries. Use in place of meat in some of your favourite casseroles and oven dishes or as a topping for baked or sweet potatoes.
Tomato and Basil
Fry a chopped onion in a little olive oil, add 2 chopped garlic cloves and fry until softened
Pour in two cans of chopped tomatoes and stir. Cook for about 30 minutes. Roughly chop a handful of basil leaves and add most of them to the pan
Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle the remaining basil over the finished plates.
Salmon and Crème Fraiche
Fry a chopped red onion in olive oil, add a chopped garlic clove and fry for 1-2 minutes
Add four or five chopped, sun-dried tomatoes and a tub of light crème fraiche
Drain and remove any skin or bones from a small can of salmon and add this to the pan
Simmer gently for about 5 minutes
Easy Bolognese Sauce
Fry a chopped onion in olive oil until softened
Add a finely chopped carrot
Add 500g of minced beef or Quorn Mince and cook until it has browned
Add a can of chopped tomatoes, half a can of water, a dash of red wine and a good pinch of dried thyme and oregano
Bring to a simmer, cover the pan and cook for about 30 minutes, until the sauce has reduced
Xmas Leftover Ideas:
Coronation Turkey
Fry some onions
Add some curry powder
Add 450g cooked turkey
Add Pot of yogurt
Add 200g mango chutney
Leftover veg scones/bajis
Add flour to leftover veg mash with hands shape into balls and sprinkle with leftover cheese and bake
Turkey Pate
Leftover turkey
Cooked onion
Cream
Chuck it all in a vender and mix to pate consistency
Voila
Xmas with a twist – Nick Nairn Cook School Aberdeen 22 Nov 2015 Key Lessons
Menu and tips
Red Onion Tart Tatin with Goats’ Cheese and a Balsamic Glaze
1 – Making Caramel – Vivid orange bubbles is the point at
which the sugar has caramelised, take it off the heat and add butter at this
point. If the butter and sugar mix are
not quite cohering then add a small drop of water and keep stirring; Do not stir until the butter is in
2 - Soften Onions as they cook slower than Pastry
3 - Make sure you leave hole in pastry to allow steam out
Chestnut-stuffed Ballotined Turkey Breast, Rösti Potato and Ginger
and Soy Sprouts
1 – Stuffed Turkey Breast can be substituted for Chicken or
Pork and stuffing can also be substituted e.g. Black Pudding and Apple for Pork
2 – Sprouts are easiest to chop if chopped in half 1st
3 – Ballotined Turkey – keep air out of the Cling film as
much as possible; if there is air trapped weigh down the meat
4 – Rosti – grated potatoes need water squeezed out ; Get
Pan Hot 1st; Possible additions include onions, gruyere, herbs
5 – Rosti Options – Layer - Grated Potato; Black pudding ;Cheese;
Grated Potato and treat as one (will be thicker so will take longer to cook)
Christmas Pudding Soufflé
1 – Crème Patisserie mix for soufflés vary the amounts
against volume of other ingredients.
For Raspberry soufflé 50/50 mix of Good Quality Raspberry Jam / Crème Patisserie
2 – Secret is in the egg whites; hand whisk only and keep
fats out of the mix, Soft peak
3 – Grease the top of the Ramekin as well as insides
Balsamic Glaze
1 - Keeps well in the fridge
Slow cooked bean stew
Brown a chopped onion in Fry Light
Add 2 rashers chopped smokey bacon and continue to fry.
Transfer to slow cooker, chuck in the following:
1 tsp Brown Sugar
200 ml Beef Stock from a cube
1 Can tomatoes
1 can Beans (not baked)
Cook on Low for 8-10 hrs
Enjoy
A New Breakfast
Getting s bit bored of Smoothies for breakfast most days I have discovered a new favourite Breakfast. A friend of mine has started going to Slimmer’s World meetings and was told about this recipe. Brilliantly simple this is extremely tasty, very healthy and above all filling:
1 Take 175g pot of any fat free fruit yogurt and put in the bottom of a bowl
2 Add 35g of any porridge oats – I use Aldi’s cheapest – and stir these in,
3 Add as many berries or other fruit as you like and stir in (note frozen berries are both cheap and perfect for this job)
4 Leave in the fridge overnight.
At this point I was a little sceptical, thinking I would be eating a horrid cold porridge but instead this was superb.
Top Tip for Baked Potataoes
I love baked potatoes though they have to be cooked in the oven - they're never the same micro-waved. This gives me a problem 1st turning the oen on for an hour and a half to cook one Tatty seems a little wasteful and secondly AN HOUR AND A HALF! This is too long if you are starving. But in ASDA the other day I noticed that McCains were selling 2 frozen baked potatoes for £1 (special offer)that were microwaveable in 5 mins from frozen. No I didn't buy them but they did give me an idea. So I decided to experiment, I cooked a batch of potatoes in the oven, ate one then wrapped the others in foil and put them in the freezer. I can now report that last night saw the successful conclusion of my experiment when in 5 mins I microwaved one of these frozen baked poataotes (take off the foil 1st) and it came out tasting just like (well very closely like) a normal oven baked potato. So an inexpensive and energy saving dinner!
Freezing Chillies
I have just used the last of my 2013 crop of chillies, harvested back in August. They have kept really well frozen whole inside a samll plastic box in the freezer. I have used them regualrly just chopping them up whilst still frozen and they have been excellent. They defrost very quickly and can be used from frozen
Spicy Parsnip Soup
500g Parsnips (past their best is fine)
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 L Vegetable Stock
1 Red Pepper Chopped (frozen is fine)
1 large onion Chopped
Peel and Cut Parsnips in Largish Chunks and place in Roasting Dish; pour in the oil and Cumin Seeds and toss to cover - Roast 180 Fan for 20-30 mins until soft
Place other ingredients in a Saucepan and bring to boil - put in Parsnips when ready then simmer for 30 mins.
Blitz and Serve - YUMMY
From BBC's Eat Well for Less :
Microwave Fish Parcels
Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and very finely sliced
½ large leek, thinly sliced into rounds
100g/3½oz frozen green beans
100g/3½oz frozen peas
4 x 75g/2½oz frozen pollock fillets, skinned and boned
1 tbsp finely chopped chives
4 tsp olive oil
½ lemon, juice only
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Lay 4 large square sheets of greaseproof paper onto a work surface. Divide the sweet potato between the 4 sheets, piling them into the centre of the paper. Divide the leeks, beans and frozen peas between the sheets then top each with a piece of frozen pollock. Season the fish well with salt and pepper. Scatter the chives over the top and drizzle with the olive oil.
Seal the fish into a parcel by folding the paper in half into a triangle, then crimp the edges together, folding the edge over itself so that it seals all the way along, so it looks a little like a Cornish pasty!
Place 2 parcels onto a microwave-safe plate. Cook in the microwave on a high setting for 10 minutes until the fish is cooked through and the parcels have expanded. Leave to rest for 2 minutes before opening.
To check that the fish is cooked through, open one of the parcels and see if the fish is white and hot to the touch. If not, reseal and return to the microwave for another 5 minutes and check again.
Put each parcel onto a plate and open at the table, adding a squeeze of lemon juice over the fish just before serving.
For conventional oven. Wrap the food in foil rather than paper and cook at 200C/180C Fan for 15-20 minutes.)
Melt small amount of butter in a mug then add 1 egg; some milk and small amount of cheese and stir. Microwave for 1-2 mins et Voila
Balsamic Glaze
1 - Keeps well in the fridge
Slow cooked bean stew
Brown a chopped onion in Fry Light
Add 2 rashers chopped smokey bacon and continue to fry.
Transfer to slow cooker, chuck in the following:
1 tsp Brown Sugar
200 ml Beef Stock from a cube
1 Can tomatoes
1 can Beans (not baked)
Cook on Low for 8-10 hrs
Enjoy
A New Breakfast
Getting s bit bored of Smoothies for breakfast most days I have discovered a new favourite Breakfast. A friend of mine has started going to Slimmer’s World meetings and was told about this recipe. Brilliantly simple this is extremely tasty, very healthy and above all filling:
1 Take 175g pot of any fat free fruit yogurt and put in the bottom of a bowl
2 Add 35g of any porridge oats – I use Aldi’s cheapest – and stir these in,
3 Add as many berries or other fruit as you like and stir in (note frozen berries are both cheap and perfect for this job)
4 Leave in the fridge overnight.
At this point I was a little sceptical, thinking I would be eating a horrid cold porridge but instead this was superb.
Top Tip for Baked Potataoes
I love baked potatoes though they have to be cooked in the oven - they're never the same micro-waved. This gives me a problem 1st turning the oen on for an hour and a half to cook one Tatty seems a little wasteful and secondly AN HOUR AND A HALF! This is too long if you are starving. But in ASDA the other day I noticed that McCains were selling 2 frozen baked potatoes for £1 (special offer)that were microwaveable in 5 mins from frozen. No I didn't buy them but they did give me an idea. So I decided to experiment, I cooked a batch of potatoes in the oven, ate one then wrapped the others in foil and put them in the freezer. I can now report that last night saw the successful conclusion of my experiment when in 5 mins I microwaved one of these frozen baked poataotes (take off the foil 1st) and it came out tasting just like (well very closely like) a normal oven baked potato. So an inexpensive and energy saving dinner!
Freezing Chillies
I have just used the last of my 2013 crop of chillies, harvested back in August. They have kept really well frozen whole inside a samll plastic box in the freezer. I have used them regualrly just chopping them up whilst still frozen and they have been excellent. They defrost very quickly and can be used from frozen
Spicy Parsnip Soup
500g Parsnips (past their best is fine)
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 L Vegetable Stock
1 Red Pepper Chopped (frozen is fine)
1 large onion Chopped
Peel and Cut Parsnips in Largish Chunks and place in Roasting Dish; pour in the oil and Cumin Seeds and toss to cover - Roast 180 Fan for 20-30 mins until soft
Place other ingredients in a Saucepan and bring to boil - put in Parsnips when ready then simmer for 30 mins.
Blitz and Serve - YUMMY
From BBC's Eat Well for Less :
Microwave Fish Parcels
Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and very finely sliced
½ large leek, thinly sliced into rounds
100g/3½oz frozen green beans
100g/3½oz frozen peas
4 x 75g/2½oz frozen pollock fillets, skinned and boned
1 tbsp finely chopped chives
4 tsp olive oil
½ lemon, juice only
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Lay 4 large square sheets of greaseproof paper onto a work surface. Divide the sweet potato between the 4 sheets, piling them into the centre of the paper. Divide the leeks, beans and frozen peas between the sheets then top each with a piece of frozen pollock. Season the fish well with salt and pepper. Scatter the chives over the top and drizzle with the olive oil.
Seal the fish into a parcel by folding the paper in half into a triangle, then crimp the edges together, folding the edge over itself so that it seals all the way along, so it looks a little like a Cornish pasty!
Place 2 parcels onto a microwave-safe plate. Cook in the microwave on a high setting for 10 minutes until the fish is cooked through and the parcels have expanded. Leave to rest for 2 minutes before opening.
To check that the fish is cooked through, open one of the parcels and see if the fish is white and hot to the touch. If not, reseal and return to the microwave for another 5 minutes and check again.
Put each parcel onto a plate and open at the table, adding a squeeze of lemon juice over the fish just before serving.
For conventional oven. Wrap the food in foil rather than paper and cook at 200C/180C Fan for 15-20 minutes.)
May be made ahead of time and store in the freezer (use frozen veg and work fast) parcels of frozen ingredients. Cook from frozen as above.
Morning Egg Muffin
Melt small amount of butter in a mug then add 1 egg; some milk and small amount of cheese and stir. Microwave for 1-2 mins et Voila
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