About

I was brought up on tasty, healthy home cooking.  And it was surprisingly frugal and cheap. My mum taught me to cook before I left home, giving me some basic recipes and skills so that I wouldn't starve at Uni. I got really into it and have continued to experiment with cooking and culinary explorations.

There's something very satisfying about spending very little and using what you have to create amazing food so it's something I have continued to do.

The idea behind this blog is to create a resource of recipes I make regularly that cost next to nothing whilst giving realistic shopping lists and emergency recipes so, however skint you find yourself, you should still be able to cook a good meal. The recipes include basic things that you can adapt and quite specific things that are what I like to eat, so perhaps not to everyone's tastes. I live in an area with a big middle eastern and North African community and this cuisine happens to be my favourite so many of the recipes are from these cultures.

Use the labels to search by ingredient (i.e you have loads of potatoes that need using up so click on 'potatoes') or by occasion, including 'emergency' where you will find various things you can make that should only need an onion in addition to cupboard staples.

There are very little precise measurements in these recipes.  All of them can be adapted to suit what you have to a certain extent, and who really uses scales for pasta anyway?!

I recommend getting yourself a notebook (or create one in an app like Evernote if that's your bag) so that you can make a note of things you have cooked that you really like. This makes it much easier to plan your shopping and cooking for the week, avoiding food/money waste and saving valuable time for doing more interesting things than food shopping.

I have become obsessed with the recipes of Sally Butcher so many things here are adapted from hers or my versions of things I have eaten. If you find a cuisine that you are particularly interested in then you can find loads of recipes on the internet and in books in the library. And ask family and friends for recipes! My granny's recipe book is amazing and contains ideas directly from her brain, coming back to life so many years later. People who lived through rationing in the war are the ultimate budget cooks.