Food

i can't remember if i've asked in here before, but, tight week, any good cheap food besides pasta? saying that, i think i will do a load of chilli, the only expenditure being the mince as i have everything else. word to the wise: do not buy frozen mixed mince. it is foul. luckily, i wasn't the one who bought several kilo's of it, a housemate last year did.

If you're after cheap meat then get down to a proper butchers and see what they have. This isn't just about offal, other cuts of meat like oxtail, shin, skirt, basically anything that is slow cook tends to be a lot cheaper, and often cheaper than mince.

I've done the chilli for a week thing, it doesn't always age well and can get a bit tired towards the end of the week.

Other options include chicken thighs, which can be done either quick or slow cook.

The essence of slow cooking is pretty simple. Brown off and seal the meat, add vegetables, stock, herbs and leave for a while. Add a few more herbs before serving.

On lean weeks I usually make an effort to get to the supermarkets around 5.30pm when they're reducing stuff. Quite often there's plenty of good stuff at silly prices and you'll end up making something better, more interesting than when you're loaded. Actually these days I regularly hit the discount counters.