Frugal Recipes

Simple recipes cooked with locally grown food which is in season is the easiest way to cook frugally.

Think ahead and plan carefully so that when you use the over you can make the most of the time its on.

Do baked potatoes in the bottom if you're making a cake or two. Ordinarily do jacket potatoes in the microwaves, finish them off in the oven if you like.

Make extra food and freeze extra portions.

Avoid recipes which use cream or ingredients you don't have in or won't use in any other recipe.

Buy fruit and vegetables from the cheapest local sources - whether this is a a box delivery service, local greengrocers or supermarket. Check prices from time to time - and with seasons as local fruit and veg will be cheaper when its available en masse.

If you grow your own then store any extra produce as either dred, frozen, jams or chutneys. Consider doing the same with in season fruits and veg which you can buy.

Buy in bulk if it makes economical sense - will you use it all before it goes out of date, can you reseal or repackage large packets of food to make sure they last?

Cooking frugally - good frugal recipes use frugal cuts of meat. These tend to need longer, slower cooking if they're not to be tough so a device like a slow cooker allows you to cook stews and meats slowly. Add in pulses to reduce the amount of meat you put in.

To make a recipe frugal think about the cost of the ingredients.
The cheaper the ingredient the more there should be of in - and replacing dear ingredients with cheaper ones will reduce the cost of the recipe.

Therefore a soup containing chicken and leeks should have more leek than chicken in. Perhaps a stock cube can be added for additional flavour.

A beef and vegetable stew should have more veggies in than beef.

If you have a more expensive type of stew or pie then make it go further by serviing it with additional veggies and plenty of starchy foods like potatoes. This works with cuts of meat like chicken too. Yorkshire pudding is simple to make and costs you an egg and some flour but will fill plates up saving you money on expensive roast beef.

Consider buying ready sliced cooked meats from the deli counter if you fancy something - you don't have to spend all afternoon cooking then and can make a nice roast dinner without masses of left overs.

Slow cookers generally come with a small recipe book. This will allow you to Work out how recipes have to be done. Generally you put everything in together and leave it on for at least 5 hours. My friend does a very good roast chicken in her slow cooker following the recipe given in her instruction book.

Freezing food hints

Freeze in portion size so you don't have to defrost more than you need.

Do you like bottled water? Do you tend to spend quite a lot on this? A bottle a day costing £1 is £365 a year - and do you just have one bottle or do you take two or three a day? Drinking plenty of water is essential for a healthy body so why not make sure you drink plenty without it costing loads. Buy a simple filter device and make your own filtered water. You can reuse old water bottles but give them a good wash out every so often in warm soapy water to make sure the bottle is really clean.

Do you like fizzy bottled water? Why not invest in a soda stream. The cost of fizzy water is then only the co2 cartridge - which is cheaply exchanged for a full one at most supermarkets. There are also loads of flavours for fizzy water which then allows you to make fizzy flavoured drinks too.

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