Beautiful Butties

On Monday (August Bank Holiday), the girl-who-came-to-dinner and I visited the Wirral Food and Drink Festival at Claremont Farm in Bebington. She bought four different types of fudge and some jars of relish - one of which (the lemon and mint grain mustard) found its way into my fridge. I'd made some butties to take with - home-cooked ham & English mustard, mature cheddar & homemade sweet pickle, and ham, cheddar and tomato salsa - and Hannah brought some reduced-price fruit packs.

Once upon a time you could rely on blagging enough tasters to fill you up but, sadly, no more.

I sampled the "Friendly Food & Drink" mustard the following day - with some garlic sausage from Heron Foods in Liscard: the salmon pink colour may not be that inviting but I do get 36 decent slices for £1.10, and it does actually taste pretty good.

To accompany my butty I had an absolutely delicious cheese scone - a trade freebie from Mary's Homemade Cakes (www.maryshomemadecakes.co.uk) - slathered with real butter and piled with mixed leaf,  radish and spring onions.

The Hovis bread is on special offer at the moment at the Co-ey, down to £1.13.

Bon appetit!

Tagliatelle, Med Veg, Mushrooms & Smoked Haddock

I know I'm going on an awful lot about Frozen Bargains in Old Swan - but some of the ingredients for Tuesday night's supper didn't come from there!

The instructions on the noodles & veg were most confusing: for best results shallow-fry in a little water!
I ignored that and microwaved a couple of handfuls instead, while frying a chopped-up field mushroom (down to 75p for 4 in the Co-ey) in a little butter and oil with a teaspoonful of chopped garlic (Frozen Bargains) and a diced smoked haddock fillet (reduced at either Asda or the Co-ey and frozen a couple of weeks ago).

I added flour to make a roux and stirred in some milk, added a tsp of tomato purée and some S+P, before folding in the warm tagliatelle and Mediterranean vegetables.

To finish, I grated over the top some mature cheddar (£4.39 for 350g in a bogof offer at the Co-op).
Buon appetito!

(Oh, and the pasta bowl was in the TJ Hughes closing-down sale!)

Bank Holiday Roast Dinner

This meal is as good as it gets. 

 

 

Last week I bought 2 lamb steaks in Asda, reduced to £1.50 - but at 300g in weight seemed too small to feed two of us (I allow at least 200g per person) and, frankly, very greedy for me alone. However, the allowance of meat for a roast is different - don't ask my why but it SEEMS to be more..... The solution was to slice the part-frozen steaks and then roast in a closed casserole dish. Delicious! The-girl-who-came-to-dinner agreed. 

 

Her contribution was most of the veg: she turned up about a week ago with a bag of potatoes reduced to 38p, and then on Monday with a selection of veg, also marked down to 38p. 

 

 

As she pointed out to me: we are lucky that we are able to shop at the times when the bargains go on display - not everyone is that fortunate. The broccoli came from the Co-op - down to 45p from £1.06 for 400g - and I used less than half.

To wash it all down we drank (non-alcoholic) Lime Beer - 29p from Home Bargains. 

 

 

As I said, it doesn't get much better!

Welcome

In this new blog I intend to show how easy it is to eat very well for under £2 per person.

Hannah recently introduced me to a wonderful shop in Old Swan called Frozen Bargains - 11 scampi/breaded prawns for 50p! What's not to like - unless, like Hannah, you're allergic to shellfish!

The recipe of what I did with them, posted to Posh Nosh Morsels, is here: 
Basket Case (geddit?)