Budget food/living

hmmm being currently "homeless" and couch surfing, I need to figure a way to eat reasonably well and cheap but using only the microwave at work. Any site suggestions for ideas? beans on toast only goes so far!

Waitrose at lunchtime.. It's the reduced priced ready meal lottery in my local one

BBQ marinaded pork shoulder has been in the oven since 3pm at gas mark 2... Just turned it down to gas mark 1, I'll leave it in there 'til the morning...
I'm gonna race to the Portuguese bakery for a coupla fresh rolls in the morning, BBQ pulled pork samiches for breakfast... :P
#omnomnomnom #etc

Today I will be mostly making miso soup and haddock chowder.

Oh, and blondies... Peanut butter and white chocolate ones. Yum!

Delicious BBQ sandwich is delicious...

baking soda

Sounds great, is this baking powder or bicarbonate of soda?

Red lentils rock: no need to soak, packed with protein and cheap (£3 for 2kg).

This soup is so easy to make it's ridiculous and quick too!

2 tsp Cumin seeds
pinch of Chilli flakes
2 tbsp Olive oil
600g Carrots
140g Red lentils
1 litre vegetable stock
125ml milk

• dry fry Cumin and Chilli for 1 minute and reserve half to garnish.
  
• add the remaining ingredients, bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes.
  
  

I never bother reserving seeds for the garnish and usually add chilli sauce with the other ingredients instead of using flakes.

I'm also pretty sloppy with the quantities and it always turns out fine!

Piss easy lentil and chicken curry for the slow cooker:

3 chicken breasts, cubed
75g red lentils
2 tbsp curry powder
2tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin seeds
350ml chicken stock
225g shredded spinach
fresh coriander to garnish

• pre-heat the slow cooker on high
  
• rinse and drain the lentils and add them to the cooker
  
• add curry powder, ground coriander, cumin and stock
  
• cook for two hours
  
• add chicken
  
• cook for two hours
  
• add spinach
  
• cook for thirty minutes
  
  

I don't usually dice the chicken: it just falls apart and life's too short to shred spinach .

While probably not 'budget' this looks awesome!

French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese Sandwich...

Christ that looks amazing. One of those things, though, that probably doesn't work quite so well when you use cheap ingredients - that is, cheap cheese.

Tonight's dinner:
2 onions
2 handfuls of previous tenants' mixed frozen veg
Sprinkle of previous tenants' dried mixed herbs
Very gently fry for an hour until things start to caramelise
Mash it up with a fork, add water and an oxo cube and a bit of milk

I call it Three Pee Soup. If I added red lentils I could probably live off of it very healthily, eh?

Simon Hopkinson has a stunningly good recipe for spinach and lentil dahl, I'll dig it out... I think it also holds the record for the food that elicits the longest/loudest farts.

^ Sainsbury's Country Soup Mixture will bulk that out: a mix of dried peas, pearl barley, lentils etc; £1.09 for 500g.

When I'm really skint I chuck half a bag in the slow cooker with a litre of stock: makes four big servings.

Pearl barley and stock, simmered with an onion is another dirt cheap emergency stand-by.

I do dahl whenever I'm feeling skint. This is what I usually do...

• Onions and flat pancetta diced and in a pan on a low heat.
  
• Smashed garlic, salt and chillis and butter into the pan.
  
• Stir in rinsed red or mixed lentils.
  
• Add ground cumin and coriander.
  
• Wait.
  
  

It's good with and brown rice, mango chutney and yoghurt and mint leaves. Super healthy as lentils + brown rice = complete proteins.

sorry baking powder, but you reminded me i still had banana bread left over, hmm, sweet moist banana bread

i will now just buy huge bunches of bananas with a view to letting 3 or 4 go to ruin and then be used for this recipe

bananas are redonkeydick cheap too, as fresh fruit and veg goes. probably the cheapest thing on the self-scan tills behind onions.

^^^ [ add water obv ]

^ You know, I thought it was a bit crunchy when I gave it a go last night. 0_o

I made the Onion Sandwich from above last night.
Very tasty, but I probably put in £1.50 worth of cheese.

There are some cheeses that are cheapish and good.

Pecorino is unpasturised ewes milk cheese and I think it's fantastic for shaving/grating (poor man's Parmesan). It's about £1.60 per 100g usually.

Had 3 bananas that had been forgotten and were at the point of nearly melting out of their skins.

Cue banana bread, took about 5 minutes to assemble bananas, sugar, baking soda, salt, butter and veg oil (did not have enough butter), egg and flour.

1 hour to cook and wow, the house smells like an explosion in a banana milkshake factory. Had never made my own banana bread, but it is piss easy to do though would assert that most people do not let their bananas ripen enough. These self peeled just by picking up the stalks.

I've been meaning to try banana bread rolls as cycling food.

When I've succeeded in making good stuff before it's always been a bit... er... 'rustic', with moist lumps and crumbly bits. MkII needs to be more jersey pocket friendly.

There are some cheeses that are cheapish and good.

Pecorino is unpasturised ewes milk cheese and I think it's fantastic for shaving/grating (poor man's Parmesan). It's about £1.60 per 100g usually.

I used gruyere like in the recipe and that was £2.50 for 200g

If anyone wants really cheap lunch, there are some Shanghai Garden chicken noddles for c.17p available in tescos.

Pretty much the cheapest office lunch I can think of.

Not the best, but it's warm on these cold days. I also added a bay leaf as my boss has just brought a ton in.

Ham joints were reduced from £8 to £2.
I had always wanted to try cooking a ham in Coca Cola (...)

Just remembered this while shopping when I saw reduced knuckle of pork.
Never cooked with Coke before, actually can't remember cooking knuckles of pork myself yet either.
Bought the thing anyway.

So, I forgot that Nigella's recipe actually calls for smoked meat.

So!
Will cooking this knuckle in coke work / taste good?
Or can anybody suggest a suiting recipe?
Thanks!

Haha, been googling on this topic for half an hour - all results / recipes call for smoked meat.
Just now I found one that does call for cooking knuckles in 3L of coke before finishing it in the oven,
there's just a single reply - "...is this a joke or what?!?!"

I've only tried chicken cooked in coke with soy sauce, but I would imagine any meat in caramelized coke taste pretty good ~

Yea, that's what I thought - what could possibly go wrong?
Put that thing in the oven a moment ago, will report back later..

I used gruyere like in the recipe and that was £2.50 for 200g

That is very cheap for gruyere! Even the swiss would probably just use the cheaper raclette.