FRUGAL FOOD

Getting grumpy with food poverty. Social policy graduate, grateful for the privileges of working with people through Adult Services. Project manager and facilitator. Miles more practical than political.

[frugalfood]

Tesco have three for £1 on parsnips, cauliflower, white cabbage, carrots and onions.

There’s a coleslaw for you, with the cabbage, carrot and onion.

And the cauliflower and onion makes a lovely curry if you dry fry some spices and then fry the veg and cream it up with some coconut milk or a tomato based sauce. I had some leftover tomatoes and old spinach in the fridge, so I added that.

[frugalfood]

I keep chorizo in the freezer for moments like this when I am given some fresh local cod. Here, it is pan fried with red onion, chorizo, tomatoes, samphire and served with mash.

[frugalfood]

Regrowing veg and salad that has been bought on a stem - I try to avoid buying anything loose leaf, preferring a growing or stumped pack. Then you can continue growing or sprout it in water to regrow. It’s quick, you can have enough leaves for a sandwich in a day or two.

[frugalfood]

Agnes making butter

[frugalfood]

[frugalfood]

This carrageen pudding came from the An Lanntair kitchen but you can see how it wobbles and sets like a panna cotta. Carrageen is freely available on our beach at Shawbost.

[frugalfood]

I bought a dehydrator for about £20. I think it will pay for itself in food I no longer throw away. Herbs, citrus fruit, berries, I have definitely lost more than £20 worth of them over the past few months. The first batch is a rescue mission for the last of the blood oranges and I’m hoping they look amazing in the kilner jars.

[mxjackmonroe]

My Ready Meal Is None Of Your Fucking Business.

My Ready Meal Is None Of Your Fucking Business.

SkiI have been writing this recipe blog for almost six years now – six years – and its primary purpose is to teach people to cook, for very little money. It achieves that, if my email inbox and the folders full of letters I receive from thankful readers are anything to go by, every single day. Yet it occurs to me that some of my newer readers, or some of you who may have stumbled here by…

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[frugalfood]

Absolutely!

There are so many different kinds of poverty. Living in cities and towns, poor accommodation really does mean living with only a microwave (or kettle!) to cook with. Some food banks are even offering 'kettle packs' because this is the reality. I've actually been there, in the 1990s, with only a microwave to use for four children.

Here, it happens to be island living, where there is only one town. I live 20 miles away from it. There is a shop in the next village but it's fair to say that it's a convenience shop and more expensive for that reason, with very little choice. Cans, one freezer of mostly branded food like Birds Eye and some dried lentils, some bread, milk, eggs.

There are a couple of visiting vans - the bakery comes down our street on a Thursday and there is a fresh fish van in the next village on a Thursday too. They aren't cheap.

Traditionally, islanders fished, shot and trapped rabbits and geese, crofted sheep and the occasional cattle and foraged for seaweeds. Winter fuel came from the peat banks, fish and meat was salted for over wintering and the dairy cow provided milk and cream to make butter and a crofting cheese called crowdie. Everyone had chickens for eggs. The wool was used for spinning, dyeing and weaving. If you had a loom.

It is hard to grow crops here but most people managed root vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, parsnips, swede, carrots, some onions and tomatoes and some leafy veg like cabbage.

The grain was mostly barley for bannocks and whisky.

So it is possible to live off the land here, if you have £25k plus to buy a croft and more to buy sheep.

There are three main food shops - Co-Op. Tesco and very recently Iceland. Tesco delivers for a £5 fee if you book a fortnight in advance. And if the van is operational and the driver is fit and well and not on holiday.

It's possible to run all of the heating and hot water from a solid fuel stove run on freely dug peat (if you never go out).

It is also possible to grow veg, fish and hunt, store fish, meat and veg in the freezer and subsist on locally available food without travelling too much.

But then there is no time for work. I do work, but more money goes on food here, than anywhere else I've lived. Island prices.

Poverty here means trying to grow food in harsh, icy winds. It means not going to the hairdresser or the dentist. It means not travelling. It means a summer of hard labour to cut, dry and turn peats and it means a winter of trying to keep the stove going without burning the chimney and house down. It means fishing wherever possible and making friends with the gamekeeper for the odd spare goose. It means soup most days. It means building up a dry store of flour, yeast, pulses, beans, rice, spices and creating lots of recipes for bean chilli, cottage pie made with spiced lentils and polenta top, dahl, barley soups and baking your own bread.

It sounds idyllic but the winter is long and dark and cold. The winds are wild. There is a break in the wind from around May - late August. The roads are pretty treacherous and I've written off two cars in three years. Going out for supplies and working is a struggle when having to travel so far to town on a bus service that runs twice a day and takes an hour each trip, and bake on a solid fuel stove and keep it going. Islanders often work several part time, temporary jobs because full time, permanent employment is so hard to come by. Ferries are cancelled in windy weather or when sea conditions are too rough. It's just a different kind of poverty.

I choose it over city poverty because I can and because of the beaches, wide open space and a culture which respects and values a simple life. Being poor here is not shameful. It's just how many people live. I don't feel social pressures to earn more and to be 'successful' here.

[frugalfood]

Frittata with leftover ham and cheese with eggs from neighbour's chickens and re-grown salad leaves, cherry almond scones to thank neighbours for eggs.

[frugalfood]

Watercress soup from the freezer and the last of the pecan parsnip cake for lunch

[frugalfood]

Freeze leftovers

I'm using a lot of random things from the freezer and dry store now, which makes me think of my habit of freezing things. I try to buy whole poultry and fish, to use the bones for stock. I save carrot, onion and celery peelings and scraps for this too.

I made another risotto with the last of the Arborio rice yesterday and fish stock plus some frozen reduced prawns from the stir fry section of Tesco. They were 35p a couple of months back.

[frugalfood]

I found more potatoes! I think there are two left for jackets later. Last of the slaw, venison burger from the freezer in a flatbread.

[frugalfood]

Falafel burgers and hummus, regrown lettuce and parsley and harissa mayonnaise

[frugalfood]

Apple and blackberry crumble. I still have some frozen mixed berries, cherries and mango in the freezer, plus a few strawberries. Plums. I need to pull it all out to get to the end of the month.

[frugalfood]

Parsnips smuggled into a pecan cake

[frugalfood]

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is just using leftovers - I made lentil and cumin seed soup for lunch today and there is enough for tomorrow.

I also prepped some veg today for tomorrow that started to look like it might sprout - potatoes, carrots, celeriac. I peeled and boiled them, mashed the celeriac but the potatoes and carrots are whole.

I made a cake out of the last of the Christmas parsnips. I just about saved them. It's not pretty, I couldn't dream up a frosting on the spot, I will come up with some kind of Vitalite buttercream for it tomorrow.

I have pulled mini lamb pies out of the freezer and I have a little star topped chicken pie in the fridge too. They will go with the prepped veg for dinner tomorrow.

I still have porridge left for breakfast. There are a few breakfast bars left too. And enough ingredients to make a second batch.

It's snowing and hailing quite heavily. I'm due a coal delivery in the afternoon tomorrow but I don't have to go out, thankfully.

I think I'm out of carrots and potatoes now. The rest of the month will be about using up the swede, celery, squash, onions, lettuce, tomatoes and leeks, and then it will be all about rice, pastas, pulses, polenta etc etc.

It's no problem as I have flour for breads, cakes and flatbreads. There are some rice noodles too.

I think that no groceries month might extend into February. It needs to - I have a broken car.

[frugalfood]

Butter chicken with frozen chicken fillets. My last lime with salt and chilli powder made the first marinade. I left it in there 24hours - not intentionally but I didn't have time to make the second marinade yesterday. Second marinade is cream, yoghurt, Garam masala, garlic, turmeric. Then the chicken is baked on a rack. I had to use the grill rack as my cooking rack is too big for the oven. Skewers would have been better but I don't have any. The sauce was butter, cream, garlic, coriander, chilli, cumin, coriander, salt, ground linseeds with pumpkin seeds, coconut milk, fenugreek, tomato from a can. Rice was wholegrain basmati and wild rice. It can be more authentic with ghee and desiccated coconut, fresh coriander etc but it's no groceries month and I used what I had.