Eating well for little cost!

I enjoy cooking using fresh veg from our allotment; eggs, honey and pork from a colleague of my husband's. We buy sacks of flour on the day of milling from our local mill and my husband bakes bread once a week, some of which is frozen. We eat healthily and cheaply. Today, with 30 minutes notice, I fed nine people a lunch of home-made vegetable soup, cheese and home made bread and oat crackers.

With my little patch I can only grow vegetables in pots but this past year was very good and there was plenty. If you have a large enough freezer you can save yourself quite a bit by batch cooking. Cook a simple stew without any flavourings whatever and minimum liquid and freeze in portions sizes. When you want to eat a portion is the time to add any suitable leftovers, flavourings and a suitable stock or gravy and no two dishes will be the same. Just do not cook boiled potatoes with your stew before freezing as potatoes do not successfully freeze in this way. I cook my stews in batches that will last three months for one person and it is very handy to be able to eat a good hot stew fifteen minutes after arriving home on a cold day, all done in the microwave with not a saucepan in sight.

My preference is for home grown vegetables (if possible or from the markets) and home made meals. I also read the nutritional value of the vegetables I eat. I find it quite fascinating. Did you know that 'parsley contains no cholesterol; but is rich in anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre which helps control blood cholesterol levels, prevents constipation, protects body from free radicals mediated injury and from cancers,' and that is just a small amount of the amazing nutritional facts of parsley. www.nutrition-and-you.com/parsley.html

It is summer in Australia and today my D2 and I are going to buy a large box of tomatoes and make tomato puree and sauce and bottle it. Last night I cooked pasta with about six different vegetables and five of them had been freshly picked from the garden. The night before I made vegetable soup and I picked some parsley and added it to the soup and then googled it. I love my vegetable soup. Tonight I am going to make cannelloni with spinach and ricotta cheese. I would like to use the tomato puree from the tomatoes that my daughter and I plan to puree.

I also freeze portions so that there are times when I don't want to cook I can use the microwave. Also I am very happy to have the same meal two nights in a row, especially if it is something I really like.

I am also going to start making my own bread and want to buy a bread maker. I also like the idea of making my own ice cream. I had planned to do all of this once I had moved house which I did before Christmas. phew

My daughter is revelling in her large vegetable garden here in NZ. She has harvested potatoes, carrots, lettuce, green beans, raspberries, strawberries, plums (jam is made), pumpkin, courgettes, etc. etc. Almost every meal is made from freshly picked ingredients, and her husband is becoming expert at making different kinds of bread in the bread maker. The chickens are laying well and the pig is due to be slaughtered next week.
I am not sure where she learned to cook so well, certainly not from me, but her pumpkin soup with home made bread is delicious. Unlike me, she knows which herbs or spices to use - I have to follow recipes exactly.
She has found that growing your own food is a full time job - just weeding takes a couple of hours a day, and it takes an hour to mow the lawns. She is so happy in her jeans and wellies and does not miss her busy professional life in England at all.

I love the days when I cant go out and I foragae around in the fridge and the veg trays and make several meals at once for eating/freezing. I use lots of veg and pulses which I think are very underated.

I'm with you there susiecb

Yesterday, lentil soup made from carrots and onions that have languished a while.. a spaghetti carbonara to follow, then a trifle made from sponge cake that has lain in cake tin for over a week. My granddaughter and her boyfriend arrived after having had a few very BUSY party days in Dundee Uni student accommodation. Demolished a large part part of the food, and sat back with contented sighs. Granddaughter remarked, "Grandma always makes such 'cosy' food"! I feel honoured indeed!

Yes, I love making my meals from scratch, which is one of the delights of being retired. Having roasted a ham for New Year, and taken plenty of slices from it up to yesterday, today I am making a pea and ham soup which will be lovely in this horrible weather.

I have tried a borrowed breadmaker before deciding not to get one myself, as my Kitchenaid with dough hook makes fabulous bread. I can keep an eye on how the dough is doing when it's being kneaded and have made some fabulous brioches, foccaccia, pesto rolls and sourdough loaves which my grandchildren enjoy helping me with.

I think you're more likely to eat badly when you don't need to budget.

Look how healthy they were on wartime rations.

Not eating meat does help, I find. But you're right, Jingl - not having to budget does mean one is more lax!

Oh Lord yes when I had more money I was an M & S freak and that kind of food is so calorific- nice though but for treats only.

I can cook/eat healthily
I can cook/eat cheaply
I can cook/eat to lose weight
What I cannot do is all 3. So many "cheap" but nutricious recipes are also fattening, "lean" slimming food is expensive - so what can I do?

Thanks for the suggestion - I have copied it across.

I tried making lentil stew for a while but it gave me terrible wind! Never forget someone at work years ago asked me what I was having for a meal when I got home, and was surprised when I said 'my favourite; boiled egg and marmite dippies'.

All lentils have that effect on me, too crimson. I am ok with a few chick peas, harricot beans and fresh peas and beans. I love puy lentils but have learned they don't love me back!

Toast and tomatoes. There are many variants on this delightful theme.
Posh ones called bruschetta. Just add a crumble of goats cheese and a perfect basil leaf darlings.
My fave is to fry cherry tomatoes with some thyme i grew myself. On proper wholemeal. I buy Cranks from Waitrose and while it may be an expensive loaf it is not full of air and makes fantastic, substantial toast. The only proper wholemeal on the market in terms of solidity.
I take satisfaction from getting a series of meals out of a chicken - roast chicken, cold chicken and something (potato salad maybe), chicken and veg curry, chicken and veg soup. I once had a book called Poor Cook that worked on this principle.

Stews are my failsafe too. My favourite is Cawl Cennin - a Welsh leek and lamb stew. You just need scrag of lamb - hard to get these days - then boil it with leeks and onions for a few hours til tender. Then add potatoes and cook til they are soft too. Serve with parsley and fresh bread, et voila!

I still have it and use it regularly! Their Cassoulet is great (if a bit farty) and you can tell from the state of the pages which recipes I use most often. I must have bought it in the 70's/80's?
Also use Delia's "Frugal Food "and one that literally fell apart "The Pauper's Cookbook" by Jocasta Innes which gave recipes and shopping lists for something like £10 a week (those were the days!) plus recipes for leftovers. The late Marika Hanbury Tenison produced a book called "Left Over for Tomorrow" which was also brilliant for leftovers too - I think we were quite cost conscious in the 70's/early 80's. At least I know I was.
So I know the theory and the practice but so many "frugal" recipes contain padding in the form of potatoes/bread/cheese/pasta and the diet doesn't like that.

I even found myself eyeing my compost bowl outside the back door today - full of celery tops, tired parsley, carrot peeling, half an onion, leek strips and an uneaten baked potatoes and thought - "that could make a good stock" - but then decided I was taking my inclination to frugality TOO FAR!

Had a big soup-making session today - carrot & coriander and pea & ham. Lots to freeze and share, and a batch of sour dough loves, too. Reading this thread really inspired me to go through the fridge and use up all the vegetables.

Oh gracesmum I remember that cassoulet fondly!
It came out about 1973.
I was skint. My ex was on a mature student grant and I was in my first home looking after 1 year old DS (awaiting a council grant, so the house was v basic to say the least) and learning to keep house on almost nothing. Sainsbury's used to do boiling fowl, do you recall?
About the only other meat i bought was bacon scraps from the butcher. The ex used to have tantrums about the catering and the fact that he did not have a clean shirt. He only had 2.

I have to make a big pot of soup for our monthly 'soup kitchen' in the village- may take some tips from above although I am thinking of Spicy Carrot and Coconut - may perk the punters up a bit
Gracesmum I still have my Marika Tennison book - a bit 'yellowed' and worn but still in use! It came in a pack of 4 with :The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes; Good Food on a Budget by Georgina Horley; and Leave it to Cook by Stella Atterbury. Oh, those were the days