Cranberry and Cream Cheese Muffins

My freezer is full of cranberries (and other frozen fruit), and I had some cream cheese in the fridge so I thought I'd try this recipe for cranberry and cream cheese muffins, with a couple of tweaks.

Ingredients:
175g frozen cranberries
250g caster sugar
100g soft cheese
200g self-raising flour
Pinch salt
2 eggs
75ml sunflower oil (it's got to be flavourless! i.e. not olive oil)

Makes 12

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
2) Put the cranberries in a saucepan with 25g of the sugar, and heat until they are soft. Mash them then put them aside to cool
3) Mix the cream cheese with another 25g of the sugar in small bowl and put it aside
4) Put the flour, rest of the sugar, salt, eggs and oil in a large bowl and mix
5) Stir the cranberry mash into the large bowl with the other ingredients
6) Spoon the mixture into 12 paper cases, and cook for 20-25 mins
7) Leave to cool

Budget:
Cranberries = 30p
Sugar = 40p
Soft cheese = 25p
Flour = 30p
Eggs = 40p
Oil = 15p
Total = £1.80, 15p/ muffin

Cookies

I had half a tube of squeezy condensed milk leftover from when I made coffee ice cream. Simple and delicious, plus they still tasted great a few days later. I found the recipe on the back of the condensed milk tube.

Ingredients:
115g margarine
115g sugar
85g condensed milk
50g chocolate chips
175g self-raising flour

Makes 15

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
2) Mix the margarine, sugar, condensed milk and chocolate chips together
3) Stir in the flour
4) Use a dessert spoon to portion out the mixture, and place on a tray (well-spaced out)
5) Cook for 12 mins (until golden)

Budget:
Marge = 12p
Sugar = 12p
Condensed milk = 50p
Chocolate chips = 30p
Flour = 20p
Total = £1.24, 8p/ cookie

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

Chicken Risotto

I used some of the leftover roast chicken and chicken stock, along with some pepper and passata (from the pizza!) to make one portion of risotto.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
50g risotto rice
100g chicken
2 ladles of chicken stock
1/3 pepper
2 tbsp passata

Serves 1

Method:
1) Heat the oil in a pan, then add the rice and cook until translucent (onion optional here)
2) Tip in the chicken, 1 ladle of stock, and the vegetables. Stir, then heat on medium heat for 10mins
3) Add the last ladle of stock, then cover and heat on low for 10 mins

Budget:
Oil = 2p
Rice = 13p
Chicken = 30p
Stock = 10p
Pepper = 15p
Passata = 10p
Total = £0.80, £0.80/ person

Apple Crumble

I'm really struggling with switching from cooking for five to cooking for one...this is my mini version of apple crumble (which tastes great hot or cold).

Ingredients:

Apple sauce (1 cooking apple, splash of water, sprinkle of sugar)

25g margarine

25g plain flour

25g sugar

Serves 2

Method:

1) Make the apple sauce - peel and chop the apple into chunks, and tip it into a saucepan with a splash of water. Simmer gently until it looks like sauce, then add sugar to taste. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C

2) Make the topping - mix the margarine, plain flour and sugar together until fine

3) Pour the sauce into a small ovenproof container, then tip the topping over the apple

4) Cook for 30mins in the oven (until golden on top)

Budget:

1 apple = 40p

Sugar = 10p

Flour = 5p

Margarine = 10p

Total = 65p, 33p/ person

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)

Back to uni

Since I'm back at uni with a couple of days to spare before term starts, I thought I'd get some batch cooking out the way to set me up for when things get busier. Here's what I made today:

L to R: 3 x sweet and sour sauce, 6 x tomato sauce, 2 x apple sauce, 1 x cranberry sauce

Recipes to follow when my internet's less sloooooow...

Creamy Bacon and Pea Pasta

I actually have an alternative version of this where I make a bright-green pea puree, but I didn't have enough peas or cream for that this week.

Here's what I came up with instead:

Ingredients:

1/2 brown onion

1 tbsp oil

3 rashers of bacon 

Small glass of white wine

200ml single cream

2 eggs

300g tagliatelle

150g frozen petit pois

Serves 6

Method:

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C, and cook the bacon for 20 mins (I like it crispy)

2) Heat the oil in a large saucepan and chop the onion up small

3) Fry the onion for 5 mins on low heat, then add the wine and turn the heat up to medium for 5 mins, then just keep the pan warm on a low heat

4) Boil the water for the pasta, and cook it (fresh - 4 mins, dry - 12 mins)

5) Whisk the eggs and cream together in a jug

6) Cook the peas in the microwave/ on the hob for 5 mins, then drain

7) Drain the pasta, and tip into a cold serving dish

8) Chop up the bacon and tip on top of the pasta

9) Add the peas

10) Pour the eggy cream over the top, and stir round (carefully!) 

Budget:

Pasta = 50p

Onion = 10p

Oil = 2p
Bacon = 60p
Cream = £1
Eggs = 40p
Wine = 40p
Peas = 30p
Total = £3.32, 55p/ person

Spaghetti Carbonara

So simple (and delicious!), this is now firmly on my family's 'favourites' list. Plus it uses only a few core ingredients that I normally have in the fridge!

I actually used tagliatelle, not spaghetti - but sssh, no one'll notice

Ingredients:

250g pasta (ideally a long thin one like spaghetti or tagliatelle, but not essential)

300ml single/ whipping cream

2 eggs

Nutmeg (optional)

Black pepper

3 rashers of bacon, or lardons, or combination

Serves 6

Method:

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C, and cook the bacon in the middle of the oven for about 20 mins

2) While the bacon is cooking, boil water for the pasta

3) Crack the eggs into a medium-sized bowl/ jug, and whisk lightly with a fork

4) Pour the cream into the jug, and continue to whisk

5) Cook the pasta (fresh - 4 mins, dried - 12 mins)

6) Add the pepper and nutmeg to the eggy cream

7) Remove the bacon from the oven, blot with kitchen paper and cut into small chunks. Leave to cool

8) Drain the pasta and put into the (cold) serving dish. Leave to cool for 3-5 mins. We're trying to avoid scrambled egg!

9) Slowly pour the eggy cream onto the pasta, and stir the pasta to coat the strands

10) Add the bacon chunks

Budget:

Pasta = 50p

Cream = £1

Eggs = 40p

Spices = 5p

Bacon = 60p

Total = £2.55, 43p/ 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

Raspberry Yoghurt Cake

I saw this cake in the newspaper over the weekend and thought it looked delicious. Plus I had some excess raspberries in the freezer that needed to make way for ice cream so a happy ending all round really!

My version is adapted from a recipe in the Telegraph here. It's a very soft, moist cake that cooks for a relatively long time without rising much.

Ingredients:
300g plain flour
3tsp baking powder
125g soft margarine
225g caster sugar
1tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs
120g plain natural yoghurt
200g raspberries

150g icing sugar
3tbsp lemon juice (in total, 1+3tbsp = approx. 1 lemon)
5 raspberries (optional)

Serves 10

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 160 deg C
2) Takes 2tbsp of the flour and tip it over the raspberries
3) Mix the rest of the flour, the baking powder, margarine, caster sugar, lemon juice, eggs and yoghurt together
4) Spoon 1/3 of the mixture into a loaf tin
5) Scatter 1/2 the raspberries over the top of the mixture
6) Add the next 1/3 of the mixture
7) Add the rest of the raspberries to the top
8) Spoon the rest of the mixture into the tin (it doesn't matter if you can see some of the raspberries peeping through)
9) Cook for 1h15
10) Make the icing: mix the icing sugar and lemon juice. Wait for the cake to cool down for about 30mins, then drizzle the icing over the top
11) Optional: squish the raspberries a bit, and scatter over the top. If you omit them, you can freeze the rest of the cake

Budget:
Flour = 20p
Baking powder = 10p
Butter = 25p
Sugar = 20p
Lemon = 40p
Eggs = 30p
Yoghurt = 15p
Raspberries = £2
Icing sugar = 15p
Total = £3.75, 38p/ person

Coffee and Invisible Walnut Cake

This was meant to be the usual coffee and walnut cake - until I discovered that the walnuts I thought were lurking in the cupboard had vanished. So with a couple of tweaks, this became coffee cake instead. I adapted a recipe from Jamie Oliver.

The mixture fills two loaf tins, so I can freeze one (perfect when it's only me), or my family can just give in to temptation! Even a few days on, the coffee aroma is fantastic.

Ingredients:
175g soft marge
200g sugar
3 eggs
200g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
50ml cold coffee (made from instant granules, about 1tsp, or cooking liqueur stuff)

20ml cold coffee (as above)
100g icing sugar

Makes 2 loaves (serves 12)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180 deg C, and put the kettle on
2) Cream the margarine and sugar, then fold in the eggs
3) Add the flour and baking powder and mix
4) Make up the coffee (do 70ml to include the icing too)
5) Stir in 50ml of the coffee
6) Bake for 25 min
7) Make up the icing by stirring the icing sugar (sift it first!) and remaining coffee together
8) Drizzle the icing over the top of the cakes when they have cooled for 5 mins

Budget:
Margarine = 40p
Sugar = 30p
Eggs = 60p
Flour = 50p
Baking powder = 3p
Coffee = 10p
Icing sugar = 20p
Total = £2.13, 18p/ 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:

Homemade Butter

The chemistry behind butter-churning interests me, and I'd heard you could make butter from a tub of whipping cream, which is cheaper than butter. So this experiment was driven by both science and economics!

Ingredients:
300ml whipping cream
Pinch of salt

Method:
1) Tip the cream into a food processor, and turn on to medium for about 20 mins, or until it looks like butter
2) Separate the leftover liquid and keep or chuck
3) Wash the butter with water until the liquid runs clear
4) Add a pinch of salt, and use a wooden spoon to work it into the butter (not a metal spoon)
5) Keep in the fridge

Budget:
Cream = £1

Fish Pie

I'm working on a more streamlined, straightforward version of this recipe, but for the moment this is the best I have. It tastes great, but takes more work and time than I'd typically like. If you already have a batch of white sauce (e.g. from the freezer) then it's actually quite easy. Otherwise, it takes a while.

I like new potatoes on the top because I'm not a big mashed potato fan

Ingredients:
400g fish pie mix
500ml milk, or a mixture of milk/ water
1 small onion
Couple of cloves (optional, but nice)
2 bay leaves (also optional, but nice too)
3 eggs (there isn't much fish to go round, so this helps bulk it up. Plus it tastes good)
Sprinkle of parsley

White sauce - made from the poaching milk, 50g hard marge, some plain flour
Sprinkle of nutmeg

1kg potatoes (mashed, or sliced and boiled)

Serves 6

Method:
1) Quarter the onion and push the cloves into the quarters
2) Put the fish, milk, onion, cloves, bay leaves and parsley into a large pan and heat on medium for 10 mins
3) Boil water in a separate pan, and hard-boil the eggs for 10 mins
4) Boil the water for the potatoes. Peel, slice and boil in the water
5) Take the eggs out of the water, shell and quarter
6) Make the white sauce if you need to: melt the hard marge, add the plain flour until it forms a ball and cook for a couple of mins
7) Meanwhile, take the fish out of the poaching milk and put into a large dish
8) Remove the leaves, onion, cloves etc from the milk
9) Add the poaching milk to the hard marge/ plain flour to make the white sauce. Stir and heat until it thickens. Add the nutmeg
10) Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C
11) Put the eggs in with the fish pieces
12)  Pour half the white sauce over the fish and eggs
13) Layer the potato slices over the top
14) Pour the rest of the sauce over the potatoes
15) Cook in the oven for 30 mins

Budget:
Fish = £4
Milk = 30p
Onion = 10p
Herbs = 10p
Eggs = 60p
White sauce = 7p + 10p
Potatoes = £1
Total = £6.27, £1.05/ person

*Freezes well

Homemade Hummus

I was clearing out the cupboard this week and found a kilo of dried chickpeas at the back. Rather than chuck them out, I thought I'd try an experiment and make some hummus out of them. Delicious with pitta bread or breadsticks!

Ingredients:
55g dried chickpeas (these will double in mass to 110g when they've been soaked, which is the correct amount. Not 220g as I discovered)
5tbsp tahini paste (ish - it's pretty hard to get it out of the jar)
3 cloves garlic
3tbsp olive oil
2 lemons
2tsp cayenne pepper or paprika
1tsp salt

1) Soak the chickpeas in water overnight (leave about 6cm water above the top of the chickpeas because they will expand)
2) Boil the chickpeas in fresh water for 1.5-2h over a low heat with a pinch of salt
3) Blend the chickpeas and garlic in a (large) food processor until they look more like a paste
4) Add the tahini and olive oil and blend
5) Juice the lemons and add the juice, followed by the spices, and blend again. Keep going until it's smooth

Serves 4 

Budget:
Chickpeas = 20p
Tahini = 50p
Garlic = 10p
Oil = 5p
Lemons = 30p
Spices = 5p
Total = £1.20, 30p/ person


...now what to do with the remaining 890g??

Sausage Vegetable Pasta Bake

Back from sunny Italy now - at least it's still warm here so the cultural shock's not too much!

I've been busy since we got back, but I've also been suffering a bit from writer's block - so I'm turning to a family favourite to get things restarted. Here it is - a tomato-y pasta bake.

Half-eaten (and scraped clean!) 

Ingredients:
250g pasta (I like fusilli because it holds the sauce well)
800g of tomato-based products (I like half/ half passata and tinned chopped tomatoes)
8-12 leftover (i.e. pre-cooked) sausages (feel free to economise the more vegetables you add)
Many vegetables - I used carrots, peas and sweetcorn here because that's all we had left, but I'd recommend broccoli (cauliflower too if you're into that), peppers, mini corn, beans etc.

Serves 6-8

Method:
1) If your sausages aren't being used up from another meal, you need to cook them first (180 deg C, about half an hour). Skip this step and go to 2) if they are
2) Boil water for pasta, then start cooking the pasta. Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C
3) Prep the veg (if they're frozen, don't bother defrosting them first but just get them out the freezer)
4) Chop the sausages into slices
5) Pasta should be done by now (about 12 mins) so drain it but keep the cloudy water for later
6) Take a large dish and tip the pasta in to make the bottom layer. (I normally discover I've made too much at this point, but then it just becomes tomorrow's lunch)
7) Tip in half the tomato stuff and stir the dish contents to coat the pasta. To speed the cooking time up, you could heat the tomatoes on the stove until it's bubbling before doing this
8) Now add the sausages
9) And finally the veg
10) Add the rest of the tomato stuff and stir (carefully! It might be a bit overflowing by now). Add a splash of the pasta water if there's not enough and stir in
11) Cook in the oven for about 30-40 mins (about 45-50 if you didn't heat the sausages first)

Budget:
Pasta = 35p
Tomato stuff = 90p
Sausages = £1.50
Veg = £1.20
Total = £3.95, 60p/ person

*Heats up well the next day for a hearty lunch

Variations

 - Take out the sausages and replace with more vegetables for the vegetarian version

- Also great with a couple of tins of tuna instead of the meat

Bargain Bruschetta

More bruschetta than bread?

Traditionally more of an appetiser, I like to double up and have these as a proper meal with a bit of salad and mozzarella (if I'm lucky). There are lots of ways to save money here too.

Ingredients:
Old bread - I had half a stale French stick that was perfect
Tomatoes - if using whole/ salad tomatoes, budget for about 1 tomato/ slice (I used 3 anaemic salad tomatoes + 5 squishy cherry tomatoes). I reckon you could use tinned tomatoes here if you strained off the liquid
1 small onion - red is better, but if you only have brown then go with that
1tbsp tomato puree if available
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Splash of oil (olive is better), about 1tbsp
Splash of vinegar (balsamic is better, but malt will do)
Basil - dried is OK but fresh is a lot better

My basil plant passes through a death/ regeneration cycle once a week when I remember to water it

Quantity variable - 1/2 a French stick gives about 8 slices

Method:
1) Slice up the bread and lay out on a baking tray. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
2) Roughly chop up the tomatoes. I like to leave a couple of larger chunks in there too, and I'm not fussy about the seeds. Feel free to take them out if you are
3) Finely chop the onion (a mini food-processor is perfect if you have one)
4) Stir the tomato and onion together in a small bowl. Add the tomato puree if your tomatoes were a less-than-vibrant red like mine
5) Mince the garlic into the bowl
6) Add the oil and vinegar and stir so everything is evenly distributed
7) Scoop the mixture onto the bread. Sprinkle basil over the top if using dried
8) Cook for 10-15 mins. Add the basil leaf after if using fresh

Budget:
Tomatoes = 50p
Onion = 8p
Tomato puree = 5p
Garlic = 5p
Oil = 4p
Vinegar = 5p
Basil = 2p if dried, less if fresh. I grow mine from a pot I got for £1, and it's given me >50 leaves so far
Total = 80p, 13p/ person if one each as an appetiser, 40p/ person if as a whole meal

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

Homemade Pesto

I can't believe I've only just discovered how great pesto is - it makes even the most boring pasta dishes exciting. This recipe is inspired by Delia's but I didn't have much luck weighing basil leaves. I tweaked the quantities, and substituted cheddar for the pecorino (I know, sorry) which worked surprisingly well.

Ingredients:
As many basil leaves as you can get hold of/ approx. 1 handful
2 garlic cloves (I love garlic, but if you're less worried about warding off vampires then 1 clove is fine)
2tbsp pine nuts
4tbsp olive oil
Some grated cheese (ideally pecorino romano, but cheddar worked)

Serves 3-4 on pasta

Method:
1) Tip everything except the cheese into a blender and whizz it up until there are only small bits of basil leaf left (add extra oil if necessary to make it go further)
2) Transfer to another dish and stir in the cheese

Budget:
Basil = £1
Garlic = 6p
Pine nuts = 40p
Oil = 3p
Cheese = 30p
Total = £1.79, 45p/ person