Poached Egg on Toast = Breakfast of Champions

I got a 1/2 hour lie-in this morning, so decided to treat myself to a tasty breakfast.

Ingredients:
1 egg
2 slices of toast
Strawberry jam
Pinch of salt

Serves 1

Method:
1) Boil a saucepan of water, filled about halfway up
2) Put the bread in the toaster
3) I used a silicone pouch thing to make my egg, in which case you put the lid on and cook on medium for 5 mins. Otherwise, crack the egg in whilst stirring the water (tricky) and boil with the lid off for 5 mins
4) Butter the toast, and spread jam over one
5) Slide the egg on to the other, with a pinch of salt

Budget:
Egg = 17p
Bread = 15p
Jam = 3p
Salt = 1p
Total = 36p, 36p/ person

Simple Roast Chicken

You can buy a small chicken for £4.50, and you get a lot more meat for your money than if you bought the components separately. I cooked this for my Sunday lunch:

Taken on my laptop's webcam...

Ingredients:

1 small chicken (cooks in 70 mins)

Olive oil

Salt

Rosemary (optional)

Lemon (optional)

2tbsp plain flour

About 200ml chicken stock/ white wine/ combination

Serves 4

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180 deg C. If using the lemon, put it in water abd boil it for 5 mins

2) Put the chicken in a roasting tin, and rub the rosemary and salt into the skin

3) Use a sharp knife to make some holes in the lemon, and stick it up the chicken

4) Pour the oil over the top

5) Put in the oven, and baste every 30mins

6) Remove from the oven, transfer to a warmed plate and fish out the lemon. Cover the chicken with foil

7) While the chicken is resting, tilt the roasting tin so that 2 layers form: the oil is on top and the chicken juices below. Use a spoon to remove most of the oil (you can keep it in a jar in the fridge for another day if you like)

8) Heat the tin on the hob and add the flour. Start mixing it round

9) Pour in the liquid and continue to heat for 10 mins

10) Carve the chicken whilst the sauce is heating

11) Transfer the sauce to a jug and serve

Budget:

Chicken = £4.50

Oil = 5p

Salt = 2p

Flour = 5p

Liquid = 20p

Total = £4.82, £1.21/ person

* If you are serving with other vegetables (potatos, carrots, parnsips), put them in 30mins before the chicken is finished cooking

* If cooking for one, you can carve up the rest of the chicken and use the leftovers in other recipes

Homemade Pizza

There are two parts to making your own pizza:
1) Making the dough
2) Adding toppings and cooking

I based my pizza dough recipe on Jamie Oliver's but halved the quantities and tweaked it a bit.

1) Dough

Ingredients:
7g sachet dried yeast
340ml warm water
1 dsp caster sugar
2 tbsp olive oil

500g strong white bread flour
Pinch salt

Makes 3 pizzas

Method:
1) Mix the yeast, water, sugar and oil together and leave for 5mins
2) Tip the flour and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the middle
3) Pour the liquid mixture into the middle and work the flour and liquid in together, starting with a wooden spoon
4) Then lightly flour a work surface and tip the dough onto it
5) Knead the dough for about 15 mins
6) Leave it to rise in a warm place for about 1h, until it doubles in size:

7) Poke all the air out of the dough, and divide it into 3 balls

At this point you can freeze the dough if you don't want to use it all at once

2) Pizza

Ingredients:
About 200ml passata
Vegetables (I used some sliced tomato and pepper)
Grated cheese (I used cheddar, but you can posh it up with mozzarella if you have it to hand)
Mixed herbs

Makes 1 pizza

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180 degC
2) Stretch out the dough into a circle or rectangle
3) Use a palette knife to spread the passata
4) Top with vegetables
5) Finish off with a sprinkle of cheese and mixed herbs

6) Cook in the oven for 15mins

Budget:

Yeast = 7p
Sugar = 5p
Oil = 5p
Flour = 25p
Salt = 2p
Passata = 20p
Cheese = 20p
Tomato = 10p
Pepper = 30p
Total = £1.24 (if you eat 2/3 now, and 1/3 later then about £1/ person)

Chicken Vegetable Pasta Bake

A tasty variation on my sausage vegetable pasta bake.

As you can see, I've used carrots, yellow pepper, broccoli, red onion and tomato as well as chicken that was leftover from the night before. 

Serves 6

Same process as before - I pre-cooked the pasta, prepped the veg and started layering. There was an offer on jars of pasta bake sauce, so I've used that and tinned tomatoes to make my sauce. 

Layer 1 - pasta

Layer 2 - tomato sauce

Layer 3 - vegetables

Layer 4 - chicken

Layer 5 - vegetables and tomato sauce

Finished off by stirring (carefully!) before cooking in the oven at 180 deg C for 40 mins.

Budget:

Pasta = 35p

Tomato sauce = £1.20
Vegetables = £1.20
Chicken = £3

Total =  £5.75, 96p/ person

Altered Lorraine Pascale's Cheese, Ham & Chive Bread

This is my absolute, all-time favourite bread recipe. There aren't many bread recipes out there that use self-raising flour and require no kneading or proving. Simply mix 'n' go...

This version is adapted from a recipe in Lorraine Pascale's excellent book Home Cooking Made Easy. Enjoy!

I've hidden it in the bread bin - I know that as soon as the rest of my family get home, it'll be gone in minutes!

Ingredients:
425g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
150-200g grated cheese (mature Cheddar, double Gloucester etc all good)
Packet of ham (4 large/ 6 medium/ 10 small slices), chopped into squares
1/2 handful of chives, chopped with scissors
Mustard powder, paprika, salt, pepper
280-300ml water

Serves 4-6

Method:
1) Pre-heat the oven to 200 deg C
2) Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl except the water
3) Pour in the water, and mix to a sticky dough
4) Shape into a ball and place on a baking tray
5) Cook for 35 mins

Budget:
Flour = 30p
Baking powder = 3p
Cheese = 80p
Ham = £1
Chives = 10p (although I grow my own and just give it a haircut)
Spices = 7p
Total = £2.30, 46p/ person

Tomato-Gazpacho Soup

I was going to try gazpacho soup until I discovered you don't cook the tomatoes, and I am not the biggest fan of uncooked tomatoes. So I took a couple of the ingredients you'd use in gazpacho (spring onions, red pepper, garlic) and a couple from traditional tomato soup (onion, carrot, celery, tomato puree) and combined the two.

Ingredients:
1kg tomatoes
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
2 spring onions
Half a red pepper
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1tbsp oil
1tbsp tomato puree
1tbsp sugar
2 bay leaves
2 pints of vegetable stock

Serves 6

Method:
1) Prep all the vegetables - peel and chop roughly. Quarter the tomatoes, and then scoop out the seeds and stems with a teaspoon
2) Heat the oil in a large pan, and tip in all the vegetables except the tomatoes. Heat on medium with stirring for 10 mins

2) Squeeze in the tomato puree, and add the garlic. Stir until everything is red

3) Boil the water for the stock
4) Then add the sugar, some salt and pepper, and 2 bay leaves. Tip in all the tomatoes and cook until they are squishy and the skin is coming off

5) Make up the stock, and tip it in
6) Cook for 25 mins with stirring

7) Remove the bay leaves and leave to cool for a couple of mins
8) Puree the mixture and serve

Budget:
Tomatoes = £1
Carrot = 8p
Onion = 10p
Celery = 20p
Spring onions = 15p
Pepper = 30p
Garlic = 7p
Oil = 3p
Tomato puree = 10p
Sugar = 4p
Herbs = 4p
Stock = 30p
Total = £2.41, 40p/ person

I've entered this recipe into Made with Love Mondays:

Toast Pizza

One of my favourite snack creations - I'm eating it right now whilst typing one-handed.
Double it up for a simple lunch.

Ingredients:
1 slice of bread
2tbsp ketchup (I used the homemade ketchup I made earlier in the week, but bog-standard is obviously fine)
15g of cheese (aka the manky double gloucester I found lurking at the back of the fridge)

Serves 1

Method:
1) Make toast
2) Spread ketchup on toast
3) Grate cheese onto toast

Budget:
Bread = 8p
Ketchup = 4p
Cheese = 6p
Total = 18p

Recipe No. 1: Carrot Soup

My notoriously-picky family were initially highly suspicious of this vegetable-based concoction. But after much persuasion, I managed to get them to try it.
The verdict? 'Delicious and not too carrot-y' - whatever that means. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1tbsp oil (sunflower/ vegetable/ olive)
1 small/ medium brown onion
500g-ish of peeled carrots (start with about 1kg of carrots to achieve this end-weight)
1 medium white potato
1L stock (chicken or vegetable)
200ml orange juice

Optional extras:
Coriander
Soft cream cheese or creme fraiche to finish
Bread roll

Makes about 5 portions (6 at a push)

Method:
1) Peel and chop the carrots, aiming for a thickness of about 3mm because they'll cook faster. It's best to do this step first because it's not speedy
2) Heat the oil in a large pan (casserole dishes also great)
3) Meanwhile, chop the onion (doesn't have to be too fine because the end product is going to be pureed) and add to the oil. Fry gently for about 8 mins, until it softens
4) Whilst the onion is frying, if you are using stock cubes put the kettle on to boil. Peel and chop the potato into small-ish chunks. Make the stock
5) Add the carrots and potato chunks to the onion and heat for about 5 mins with stirring
6) Add the stock and juice and leave the pan on the heat until the liquid in the centre starts to bubble. If you are in a rush, then leave the pan on medium heat for about 15-20 mins - until the carrots are soft when you stick in a knife in them. If you have longer and used a casserole dish, you can put it in the oven on a low temperature (about 120-140 deg C) for 30-45 mins - make sure to check the liquid level occasionally.
7) Turn off the heat and let it cool for 10 mins (washing-up opportunity!) *
8) Dig the blender/ hand-held food processor/ other pureeing gadget out of the back of the cupboard and use it to puree the soup. This will probably have to be done in batches and can get a bit messy
9) Done!

* If you are using coriander, add it in step 7 before pureeing

Meal suggestion: great for lunches and re-heating at work. It freezes well too.
Add a bread roll for a more filling meal. To finish it off, I like to add a spoonful of soft cheese (or creme fraiche if I'm lucky enough to have any left in the fridge) - the colours look delicious too!

Budget:
Oil = 3p
Onion = 12p
Carrots = 80p/ kilo
Potato = 10p
Stock = 8p
Juice = 13p
Total = £1.26 for 5 people (25p/ person)
Total with cream cheese and nice bread roll = 50p/ person