2 pies 1 Post. R.O.G.O.F Read One Get One Free.

After my successful shop last week at Aldi, I was very busy in the kitchen. We managed to spend £39 to feed three adults, a teenager and two children for a full week. It takes a bit of time and effort to save money on your food bill, which can be seen as a negative thing that would put people off. What if I told you that it would create more family time and give you a sense of accomplishment, on top of saving you pounds? We make meal planning a family get together, where we all decide and argue about the following week's meals. It's great, there are usually strops and tears, but we manage to devise a plan and we wouldn't be us if we didn't bicker our way through everything. Involving the children in the process of menu planning and cooking, is giving them valuable life skills that they will use forever, I would say there is nothing more beneficial you could teach them. After we plan the week's meals, I can make a list of the ingredients needed, then shop for them, you MUST stick to your list, do not get tempted to buy things other than what's on there, another reason for the bickering as hubby tends to wander off the beaten track, I just remind him how much money we're saving and he soon comes back. Shopping this way will save you loads of money and the more meals you cook from scratch,  will give you a massive sense of achievement. Get the children involved at every opportunity, even if it's them passing you the ingredients, they love to help and it also encourages them to try new things and eat their meals. We have had two very different pies in the last two weeks that I wanted to share with you.

Firstly my Chicken, Bacon and Sweetcorn Pie:

3 or 4 chicken breasts

4 rashers cheapest smoked back bacon

100g frozen sweetcorn

Pack puff pastry

2 tsp dried thyme

100ml cream

Tbsp plain flour

1 pint chicken stock

In a frying pan on medium-high cook the chicken and bacon adding the thyme

Stir in the flour and gradually add the chicken stock a bit at a time until all the flour is dissolved

Add the sweetcorn and let it bubble for 5 minutes

Finally stir in the cream and transfer to an oven proof pie dish

Top with the puff pastry and cook at 180 for 35 minutes

The next 'pie' is so simple, you could let an older child make it with very little help.

Cowboy Pie:

3 tins of baked beans

2 tins of corned beef

5-6 potatoes

Milk and butter (for mashing)

Grated cheese (for topping)

Roughly chop the corned beef into chunks and put in a deep oven proof dish

Add the beans

Peel, chop and boil the potatoes for 25 minutes until soft

Mash with a splash of milk and a nob of butter until smooth

Spoon onto the beans and corned beef filling

Lightly scrape a fork over the surface and add some cheese

Bake at 180 for 30 minutes

Pasta Cheat

During the hellish ordeal that is weekend shopping, I came up with my next dish. As I sat in Frankie and Benny's watching the rush of people enter, eat and leave the restaurant, I wondered how many of us actually wanted to be there. Who was there by choice, or because it's the weekend thing to do or actually felt they just had to be there. I don't mean just eating out, but shopping. I really hate it, pushing through crowds of people all racing around trying to complete their missions. Sitting in queues of traffic getting angrier and angrier waiting to get to our destination as quickly as we can so we can get home again. I still can't get my head around the fact that people do this for pleasure. Give me the woods or the beach and I'm in heaven. That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, we had a lovely family day out and it's all about compromise and doing things that everybody enjoys. Watching my youngest two children's faces light up because they are getting treated to a dessert and a balloon, they really are that easily pleased, is a lovely thing even if it isn't my cup of tea. Considering I got my inspiration for this next dish while I was there it wasn't all bad. So here's my recipe for bacon and mushroom tagliatelle. Combat the 'carb coma' by serving with a large fresh salad instead of garlic bread like I did!

Bacon (I used Asda smartprice smoked back bacon for £1.20 312gm)

250g mushrooms (mine were 25p from the Spar bargain!)

Tin of cream of chicken/= or mushroom soup

2 tsp dried thyme 

2 tsp garlic powder

400g tagliatelle

Finely grated cheddar to sprinkle on top

Slice the mushrooms and bacon

On a high heat fry them for 15 minutes or until golden

Add the thyme

Cover the tagliatelle with boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes

Heat the soup

Drain the cooked pasta, add the soup, bacon and mushrooms and serve with a sprinkle of cheese on top. 

Lettuce Pray For Tomatoes

If the words lettuce and tomato strike the fear of God into you, then you might be like my husband and class yourself as a 'salad dodger'. I will give you two of the simplest methods of throwing together a quick, delicious and dare I say healthy meal, that do indeed involve the normally sneered at couple of salad items. It's been a long time since we had a takeaway in our house other than fish and chips-well you have to take advantage of the amenities on your doorstep, right?-The one thing we do love,especially the teenager, is a char-grilled chicken kebab with all the trimmings. She's going through that phase, where a delicious and nutritious meal means a pot noodle. The lower half of her face is sponsored by Walkers and Cadbury, as she can be seen most days with one of their products hanging out of her mouth. So imagine the sheer look of joy on her face when I presented her with a chicken kebab, okay she grunted something and didn't look suicidal, for a second there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes. So if you want to trick your family into eating something healthy here are a couple of ways, just make sure to hide the lettuce and tomatoes in the salad drawer under the chocolate....

B.L.T 

I love a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich but mine has to be on seeded bread. I love Aldi's seeded loaf it goes perfectly with this!

2 slices of bread

2 slices streaky bacon 

Sliced tomato

Shredded iceburg lettuce

Mayonnaise

Grill the bacon until crispy

Spread the bread generously with mayonnaise

Line the bottom slice with lettuce and tomato

Top with the bacon and the top slice of bread

Eat it somewhere where nobody can look at you, like my son does, with those eyes that say feed me please mummy I'm starving-even though he's had a five course breakfast, still has half a banana hanging out of his face and chocolate round his mouth!

Chicken kebab

Chicken cubed

Pitta bread

Lettuce shredded

Tomato thickly sliced

Pickled cabbage

Chilli sauce

Garlic sauce

On a really high heat in a griddle pan, barbecue or grill cook the chicken until almost blackened on the outside

Heat up the pitta bread and slice open

Plate up the salad and sauces

Fill the pitta with chicken and serve. I also managed to get extra healthy points serving it with corn cobs.

How to deliver a cheap and tasty meal

Another tasty, cheap and filling recipe courtesy of my lovely dad, you will be famous soon dad! He's always told me how he fancies a plate full of liver and onions-the very thought always made me want to be sick-but as he's been such a great dad, I put my queasiness aside for a day and made him the treat he's been wanting. I read that if you were to get liver to avoid pigs liver as it could be quite bitter, I have since realised this is all just personal preference. Pigs liver is cheaper and if you don't like the taste if you soak it in milk for 30 minutes it's supposed to combat the bitterness. I used lambs liver, it cost £1.34 and there was enough for two big plates full. As well as being cheap, it's actually quite good for you, it contains a large amount of high-quality protein, an easily absorbed form of iron and all of the B vitamins-including B12 and folic acid in significant amounts. I have to say I didn't like it myself however, the gravy was delicious and my dad said it was the best he had tasted so that's good enough for me!

Lambs liver

Onion sliced

2 rashers streaky bacon

300ml beef stock

Tbsp flour

Worcester sauce

Tbsp tomato ketchup

Tbsp oil

 In a frying pan on a medium-high heat with the oil, fry the onions and chopped bacon until the onions are soft and the bacon is crispy.

Slice the liver into cm thick strips and fry for 2-4 minutes until cooked and remove from the pan and keep warm while you make your gravy.

  Add the flour to the onions and bacon and stir, gradually add the beef stock stirring constantly so you don't get lumps until it's all added. You may need to keep adding more water depending on how thick you like your gravy. Add a dash of Worcester sauce and the ketcup and stir in. Return the liver to the pan and let bubble away for a couple of minutes.

Serve on its own or with a pile of mashed potatoes and peas. Enjoy!

Be as nice as this pie

After a successful trip to Asda in Stockton-on-tees the other day, we managed to bag quite a few bargains from the fruit and veg department. I have to say, the two ladies who were pricing up the reduced items, advertising their wares like market stall holders, with beaming smiles and jokes galore, were a pleasure to speak to. I always admire people that go that extra mile, being nicer than they have to, just because they can, especially in this day and age where so many people are quick to judge and hate. I often think, people that have time to make nasty, negative (not constructive, there's a difference) comments, must have pretty miserable lives consumed by hate and bitterness. For that reason I forgive them and recommend they try my compliment challenge. I guarantee it will lift their spirits and make them feel better and the world can be a better place. That's world peace sorted and I haven't even had a coffee yet! Now for world hunger, this recipe I'm about to share is delicious and I'm aware asparagus is usually quite expensive, however thanks to our shopping trip it was reduced to 81p a bunch. You could make this go even further by adding a pack of mushrooms and although I used chicken breasts as I had them in already, you could use leftover roast chicken. I used chicken stock and cream, but you could substitute that for chicken soup instead. For my local followers, don't forget your Whitby Gazette tomorrow for my column!

2 chicken breasts diced

2 bunches asparagus snapped into bite size pieces

3 rashers streaky bacon chopped

Tsp dried thyme

1 pint chicken stock (or 2 tins of chicken soup)

100ml cream (or leave out if using soup)

Tbsp flour (leave out if using soup)

25g butter

Ready roll puff pastry sheet

Fry off the bacon and chicken breasts until cooked add thyme

In a separate pan cook the asparagus in butter

If using soup, add this and the asparagus to the pan with the chicken and bacon

Otherwise add the flour to the asparagus and stir

Combine the asparagus and chicken and slowly add the stock

Stir in the cream and simmer for 5 minutes

Place contents into an oven proof dish and top with pastry

Cook at 200 for 30 minutes or until pastry is golden

Serve up with a large helping of niceness.....don't choke on the hate!

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.

Bob's bargain bacon one pot panhaggerty

Having looked at a few variations of this recipe for panhaggerty, mainly because I wondered why I'd heard so many names for it, I've discovered the dish varies slightly depending on the region. Pan haggerty is a dish from Northumberland involving cheese, potatoes and onions, while panackelty is the Sunderland version with corned beef, onions and potatoes. They all have one thing in common, they're extremely cheap to make, can all be done in one pot, very tasty and very inexpensive. I'm going to give you the lovely Bob's recipe from Whitby for panhaggerty as he called it. I made this for our tea and it tasted absolutely beautiful. So meaty, filling and warming. Perfect for this time of year. Even the kids loved it.

350g Cooking bacon cut into chunks
200g Black pudding
2 onions sliced
4 large potatoes thickly sliced
2 oxos
Flour

In a large pan or oven dish (can be done on the hob or in the oven) line the base of pan with a layer  of sliced potato
Sprinkle some onion over the potatoes
Crumble some black pudding and some oxo on top
Scatter the bacon chunks over the top and a dusting of flour and repeat the process until you have a few layers of each ingredient.
Finally pour boiling water over the ingredients (I poured too much on and have been left with a lovely thick ox-tail soup like gravy which was yummy with bread!)
Bring to the boil and leave to simmer on a low heat for an hour or more until nice and thick and serve immediately. (If doing in the oven put in a casserole dish on 200 for an hour or more)