Food

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.

Browning only caramelises which adds flavour - it does not seal the meat. Personal bugbear there. Sorry.

All excellent ideas. So called "peasant" cooking and classic French dishes are all based on these cuts. Chicken thighs - tastiest part of the chicken - you can get the nice free range thighs for a fraction of the cost of the breasts. Buy whole legs and learn to debone them yourself - very, very cheap that way. Knife-skeeelz FTW.