Eating well for little cost!

We were very short of money when I gave up work and we moved from Lancashire to Egham, Surrey, with a huge leap in our mortgage payments.
For months, Sunday lunch consisted of pea soup,with dumplings, and slices of pig's hock. It was very salty and had to be soaked overnight, but it cost 6d!
I was able to grow potatoes, peas and mint, so I would get half a pound of sausages off the milk-man and we thought that was a feast!

I love making soup. It's sooooo easy. I made carrot soup yesterday and bunged in garlic, celery and onions plus a splash of tabasco and worcestershire sauces along with some ground ginger and cinnamon. With homemade bread from the breadmaker it made a very tasty lunch for 2 days for DH and me. I've got a ham in the fridge ready to boil, then roast a la Nigella at the weekend and hopefully we'll have lots of meat left for sandwiches, salads etc. Sometimes it's an effort to cook something from scratch but once I get going I usually enjoy pottering about.

Good idea.

Yes, please, gracesmum! I can't pretend to be living on a pittance, but I need all my spare cash for air fares!

Maybe we should compile a GN guide to frugal food for "Pensioners on a Pittance" - seriously -one recipe each? Shall I start a thread?

I love offal and liver and kidneys are about the cheapest meat I can buy in France. I make a sauce with mustard and creme fraiche and have a small amount of rice with it. I also like tripe, not cooked in milk with onions the way my mother used to do it, but just cold with some salad and plenty of vinegar.
I don't find that I can't eat economically and healthily - in fact, when I was splashing out I was more likely to buy red meat and ready meals.
I am now getting quite a kick out of saving money, losing weight and improving my health!

Butternut - that was funny!

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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'.

Thanks for the suggestion - I have copied it across.

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?

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.

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

Look how healthy they were on wartime rations.

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

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.

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!