Feed your family for 50p

What if I told you, you could feed a family of 6 this hearty meal for just 50p per person? It's true, last night we had sausage and pepper casserole, with herby dumplings and carrot and swede mash. It was filling, delicious and best of all cost £3 for the ingredients! I'm trying to get my weekly shopping as low as I can, but still cook home-made, nutritious, meals. In this week's shop that was just over £42 -for everything not just food- I bought the ingredients for the casserole, that was to feed 6 of us. It was delicious, made from scratch and everybody was left full and satisfied.

Pack of 8 sausages each sausage chopped into chunks of 3- 85p 

Red pepper sliced - 25p  (Part of a 3 pack)

Half a box of mushrooms chopped - 43p

500ml Carton passata - 35p

2 Large red onions - 13p 

300ml Beef stock - (2 cubes and water) 6p 

(optional for flavour - 200 ml Red wine - 78p )

For the dumplings:

300g Self-raising flour - 9p

100ml water

herbs -6p

Full swede cubed - 45p

Bag of carrots chopped - 29p

Place all casserole ingredients in a large pan on a high heat and cook for 15 minutes

Add a tbsp flour and stir in stock, passata and red wine if you are using. Simmer for 10 minutes and transfer to an oven proof casserole dish and put into a pre-heated oven at 200 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Place the carrots and swede into a pan of boiling water and cook until soft and mashable, roughly half an hour to an hour.

For the dumplings, mix the herbs in with the flour, add the water gradually and stir with your fingers

until everything comes together in a big ball.

Half the mixture then again and again and roll into balls. After the Casserole has had 45 minutes- an hour, pop the balls onto the liquid and cook for a further 30 minutes. Mash the carrot and swede with a knob of butter and freshly ground pepper and serve.

Simple steak and ale pie

I actually thought I had already blogged this, my memory is terrible at the moment, something I'm blaming on the kids. I just have to walk through a door and my memory is wiped clean. So my steak and ale pie is a delicious winter warmer, don't forget it is actually still winter put those salads away!! As with the beef bourguignon, it really doesn't matter what beer you use. For mine I used the cheapest bottle I could get my hands on, Golden goose 90p from Lidl and it tasted yummy! Perfect served with mashed sweet potato and some greens.

350g diced stewing steak

250g mushrooms chopped
Onion chopped
500ml bottle ale/beer/stout whichever you like
Tbsp tomato puree (leave it out if you have none it doesn't matter)
Flour tbsp
Oil tbsp
Puff pastry

Coat the meat in flour and pepper
On a high heat brown the meat in the oil
When the meat's browned place into a large pan and pour over the beer, add some water if not covered
In the frying pan cook the mushrooms and onions for 5 minutes and add to the pan with the meat
Stir in the tomato puree and place on a medium heat until simmering
Turn down low and leave for a couple of hours remembering to stir so it doesn't burn
If the liquid is not as thick as you want it after it's been cooking then add some gravy granules
Pour the mixture into an oven proof dish and top with puff pastry
Cook in a preheated oven at 200 for 25-35 minutes or until pastry is golden

Please yourself pie

Firstly I would like to say thank you to those of you reading my blog and trying out my recipes. I've had nearly 5000 views and I'm over the moon to think I may be helping some of you live a bit cheaper. In these frankly miserable days where the news throws out so much negativity, we really do need to spread some cheer! Now this recipe is great for using leftover turkey, as well as chicken, and is very tasty! It's cheap to make and very filling too. If you don't eat it all it's great cold the next day! You can pretty much throw in anything to fill it out, please yourself, if you have leftover stuffing , put that in, or some sausages need using up, throw them in. You could add cream or creme freche to make it a bit richer we had it without and it was still delicious. It's your pie put what you want in but the base is chicken/ turkey and leeks.

Leftover chicken/ turkey meat (I actually used a full chicken that was reduced to £2.79 in Lidl)
2/4 leeks sliced
Tsp dried thyme
3 rashers smoky bacon/ streaky whichever you have/want
150g mushrooms
1 pt chicken stock
Tbsp flour
Ready rolled puff pastry

Add chopped leeks to a pan with a nob of butter on a medium heat and sweat, with the lid, on stirring occasionally for about ten minutes.
Fry your chopped bacon strips on a high heat with the thyme and mushrooms.
Transfer the bacon and mushrooms into the leeks and stir in the flour until dissolved.
To deglaze the bacon pan, put it back on the heat and pour in some of the stock until any residue has dissappeared.
Pour all the stock into the pan with the leeks, not forgetting the stock from the frying pan with the flavour from the bacon!
Stir in the meat until it's bubbling nicely and simmer for ten minutes.
Transfer into an oven proof dish and top with the pastry.
Score some nice diagonal lines with a knife and if you want a golden pastry brush with beaten egg (it doesn't matter if you don't do this it just looks nicer)
Put into a preheated oven at 180 for 30-40 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

High tea, low cost!

Who doesn't love a bit of afternoon tea?  From playing with tea sets as a child I've always loved a cup of tea and a slice of what you fancy.  The luxury of a Botham's cream cake or a Coopland's scone with a nice cup of tea (is there any other kind?) is perfect to keep you satisfied until tea-time. I've always had a soft spot for an eclair, lovely fluffy choux pastry covered in chocolate, that crunches as you bite, oozing with whipped cream! The thing is when everybody wants one in my house it can cost a fair bit.....unless of course you could make them? No, surely not I hear you say, otherwise everybody would do it? I'll let you in on a secret....you can! I will tell you how then you will never need to spend extra money on a cheeky treat, and before you start thinking it's too complicated or time consuming, it's really not I've knocked this batch up in half an hour. Somehow I don't think they will last that long....

55g butter
75g plain flour sifted
150ml water
Choclate for melting (I used Lidl's own brand milk chocolate)
175ml double cream whipped

In a pan on a medium heat melt the butter in the water until bubbling as shown above.

Take pan off the heat and really quickly tip in the flour and stir vigorously until it comes together as shown above.

Leaving the pan off the heat to cool for a couple of minutes, whisk two eggs. Add these to the pan gradually, beating with the wooden spoon until the mixture turns into a glossy paste.

Spoon the mixture onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. 

How much is up to you, if you use a small spoon you will have profiteroles, a large dollop gives you choux buns like I did, or you could use piping bag and make eclairs.

Place in a preheated oven at 200 for ten minutes, then turn up to 220 for a further 15 minutes, don't open the door until finished.

After they have cooled, slice them through the middle and you will be left with pockets perfect for filling with the cream.

You could mix the cream with lemon curd for a tangy kick, or even custard to make it go further.

When you have melted your chocolate in a bowl over some boiling water, just drizzle it over the buns and put in the fridge to set. Then all that's left to do is get the kettle on and enjoy!