Welcome to Faye's Frugal Food Recipes
Hi I'm Faye, and welcome to Frugal Foods! Come in, make yourself comfortable, perhaps grab a mug of tea.
By the time you are finished investigating the Frugal Food website, we are confident Frugal Foods will become part of your daily life, helping you to create interesting varied family food, whilst maintaining a very tight control on your budget.
If you are feeling the squeeze let me help you with Frugal Recipe ideas, Menus, frugal meal plansand Shopping Lists ensuring you use up the left overs and maximising every penny you spend. The meal plan is free to download - we don't pass on your details to everyone else - we just use it to send you the next one ....and the next one.
Too good to be true - no, but it probably does confirm that I need to get out more!
Bloomin' Brilliant Baked Beans
Every week I get feed back from 'Big Brother' who tell me a lot about the visitors to the Frugal Foods Website, and it appears that there's a recipe on the website which is, week in week out the most popular recipe on the site. Which one is it? This one http://www.frugalfoods.co.uk/index.php/sausage-abaked-bean-casserole
What is it about Baked beans? They are derided as a staple food of hippy students; easily heated in a microwave and very cheap.
British supermarkets may sell store brand baked beans for less than thirty pence a can premium organic brands can see prices at nearly 80 pence but Baked beans are a classic example of aloss leader, a product sold by supermarkets for an abnormally low price, often less than cost.
Just be educated however, all your life you've been lied to, as they are not baked beans, they're stewed beans.
Newly Nifty Nigel's - Recipe of the month
One of my dear friends from when I lived in
Kartoffelpuffer.
1 kg potatoes, grated.
4 tablespoons of flour (no idea)
2 eggs
Sour cream (no idea)
Salt
Method
Mix everything together.
Melt butter (I know it was not in the list of ingredients) in frying pan and put in a big spoonful of the mixture and flatten it out and fry until golden brown, turn over and do the other side.
You can then eat them three ways:
1. Sprinkle salt on top
2. Sprinkle sugar on top
3. Spread with apple sauce
Check out the Ramsons!
This time of year check out the wild garlic, and you'll know that the Spring is on the way. Also known as Bear's Garlic, You will probably smell it before you know its there. In old woodland and on the sides of old lanes you will find wild garlic blanketing the ground. Pick the leaves and take a nibble - whilst it is possible to confuse with Lily of the Valley, (as the leaf shape is vaguely the same), use your nose, you will know you have found the right thing, the smell and taste are undeniable.
The leaves you pick, will last a week in the fridge in a little sealed bag.
The whole plant can be used in cookery; from the leaves and the bulbs, to the flowers later in the season which are lovely in salads, with a light peppery taste.
Try it just steamed for a few minutes in melted butter (in a pan with the lid tightly on, turning from time to time, finish with lemon juice) and if that leaves you inspired try out some of these other recipes!
Asparagus
Available all year round imported, but the months of May and June Asparagus is at its Best. The British Asparagus season last a maximum of ten weeks, but it is worth taking full advantage of.
Its a fussy plant if you want to grow your own, I don't, we have the wrong type of soil, cold and soggy in the winter and dry and hard in the summer. Furthermore I am impatient. Established plants may crop for 10-15 years but the crowns need to be ground for three to four years before you get your first crop.
Generally, asparagus isn't a frugal food as such, but it's so delicious and the season so short that it's worth buying it at least once in the season and ensuring that you have planned to use all of the spears to get the maximum from your outlay.
That said, if you live in Lincolnshire, where I was last week, I was able to buy 400g of fresh 'straight out of the ground' Asparagus for around £1.25 - where as at home I am being offered 200g of fresh British Asparagus for around the same price!
