Budget food/living

Big pot of mutton soup tonight...

Sounds lovely, not dissimilar to my big pot of minestrone which is cooking as I type:

couple of onions
half a head of garlic
three tins of borlotti beans
couple of really big carrots
two sticks celery
half a small cabbage
the last bits of a lettuce
a large potato
a dozen very very ripe cherry tomatoes that needed using up
a bunch of little pasta elbows (gomito)
the rind off of a corner of parmesan (adds flavour and is a chewy treat)
a spare rasher of bacon
3" of salami cut into cubes
seasoning, parsley, chicken stock, red wine

I make this and pour into paper cups (my housemate acquired over 2,000 of them - don't ask) and freeze it. The pasta goes a bit soft after freezing but it's not unpleasant.

wishing i had a big freezer and not the pissy little icebox i have.....

I have a big arse freezer.
We need a forum co-op with Nuno cooking.

don't know if anyone's said it but stirfry's are what I used to live on as a student. None of this ready cut bags of stuff and no meat to keep it cheap. That and pasta with butter.

Pasta with fried onions, cheese and curry powder when I was at uni.

I had a friend at uni who lived on pasta, ketchup and cheese. And a housemate who lived on frozen chicken breasts combi-cooked/defrosted dipped in brown sauce (no washing-up) and what he called cold porridge- ie oats with milk.

filling up on leftover cauli cheese & baked leeks with chilli pasta, serious comfort food... meanwhile breast of lamb slow cooks in the oven with carrots, onions, potatoes and stock for tomorrow night.... carbs x stewed food this time of year is what my body craves....

Pork loin (so cheap for something that can quickly have the sinew and fat edited out) - will be cut into medallions and seasoned. Will cook down a little bacon (bought on special the other day) and then brown the pork and hold in the oven.

Cheap mushrooms will then sop up the flavour from the pan and then a little smidgen of tomatoe puree and mustard will be added before finishing off with some left over cream.

This will make enough to feed my dad and myself tonight, and leave me with a couple of meals afterwards (possibly with pasta as a quick meal later in the week).

Spuds from my dads garden and some honey glazed carrots.

Pasta with just butter, garlic, chilli flakes and some herbs from the garden

cheap carb source

Tonights spuds - pommes boulangere

thinly sliced potato, layered with sliced onion, covered in stock and finally scraped the mould from some cheese in the fridge and grated that as the topping - really cheap, very hearty and made double quantities as it is great reheated

Left over lamb casserole that was cooked in the slow cooker on Thursday. Cheap lamb cuts with cheap veggies and some beef stock (and some herbs and seasoning). Simple cheap and now super quick din dons tonight. Result!

the lamb breast suggestions sound lovely, may have to try some kind of slow cooked roulade affair, with anchovies garlic and herbs, just trying to work out a filling/paste to smear across it that would benefit from the lamb juices

one of the best lamb dishes i ever had was a greek friends grandmother slow roasted lamb with a few herbs, spuds and lemon juice

wondering if some thin slices of potato and some even thinner slices of lemon might just melt down into a lovely mush if slowly cooked for a few hours wrapped up in a lamb breast

Lamb shoulder roastgtfrdg (spilled rosemary gravy in my keyboard!) is a success - still pink inside.
£12 for 5 with chunky oven chips and and a bag of frozen garden veg.

I'm not very fond of lamb, but this isn't that smelly.

Pork loin (so cheap for something that can quickly have the sinew and fat edited out) - will be cut into medallions and seasoned.

I get pork loin and slice it as thin as I can, then roll it up around some garlic and parsley and tie or skewer it up, and cook it in a very basic pasta sauce (onions/garlic/tomatoes/seasoning/splash of milk at the end (grandmother is a cow-lovin' Lombard (Neapolitan grandfather would shit a brick if he saw me doing this))). I put the fatty stringy bits in for flavour and fish them out at the end. Cooked for a few hours, the pork tastes amazing and gives the sauce a really well rounded flavour, too.

Fuck yeah... will be tastier after a night resting and being reheated tomorrow night....

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My parents do loads of soups. I miss soups - our kids don't like them- like it's not a proper dinner.
You make a pot and you can live off it for few days.

I have soup everyday.
Every 2, 3 days I cook a new pot.
Soup, bread, milk, tea and coffee.. pretty much resume my whole year.
Then, there's all those flashy photos of what i also cook, but those are the exceptions.

kill a vegan - freegan meal

Let's kill MaxC, and share the meat.

I have a big arse freezer.
We need a forum co-op with Nuno cooking.

On it, like a car bonnet.

Must be great being unemployed as you have all this time for thinking up and cooking these fantastic meals, the rest of us have to eat in restaurants........ the unemployed have it far too easy these days......

I'm glad* you* said that.

I'm not sure Diable was referring to me or not, as in 'unemployed'... so I'll just give him the benefit of doubt.

Soup I love it, I normally buy bread from the supermarket (the stuff you cut yourself) and cook the soup up at home with reduced vegetables. Although I'm keen to try some of this onion soup which has been mentioned.

My only problem with soup is that I feel it doesn't fill me up that much, which when running and cycling is something I worry about.

a hearty soup using potatoes as the base will be very filling

french onion soup is another very filling option - but may give you terrible gas

potato soup base

soften an onion in butter, add thinly sliced potatoes and cook on a gentle heat - you are not looking to colour the food, just soften it

then add stock (or possibly stock and milk) and bring to the boil and then simmer until the spuds have gone soft

season to taste

blend

this can then be used as a base for all manner of goodness - chowder, vegetable soup, try adding harissa/green curry paste or pesto to liven things up

Soup will make you feel fuller for longer, the liquid remains in your stomach for longer than solid food... I read that somewhere...

for leak and potato - just add leeks at the time you are softening the onions