It's been quite a while since I've done this - made a detailed record of every single thing I ate and drank during a week that is. For one thing, I know roughly how much I spend each week anyway, because it has to come out of a fixed weekly amount and, after several years of this malarkey, it seems I can now instinctively plan to buy, cook and eat at around the £40 mark. Also it is a fucking boring thing to do. But I thought it might be useful to blog about a whole week's worth of cooking and eating the 'skint foodie way'. I planned the week's meals in advance (as I always do) then went out and bought the food (as I always do) and, yes indeedy, it came to just a few quid over the £40 target figure. But there are weeks when I spend under that, and weeks when I push the boat out a bit more. Only a few years ago my shopping list was a lot simpler to compile. It looked something like this: Day 1: 4 x cans of Tennent's Extra, 1 x 1 litre bottle of Glen's Vodka, 1 x steak pasty, 1 x bag of Quavers. Days 2-7: As Day 1. Believe me, the present regimen is a significant improvement. Before we go any further I'd like to emphasise something that should be obvious from the figure mentioned above of £40-ish a week: that this is not a blog about how to survive on the very lowest budget possible. It's more about eating good food, simply prepared, on a budget. There's a difference. The difference can be seen, partly, by the presence here of things like scallops, smoked salmon, pancetta, steak and blueberries. But, while the cost of the scallops and pancetta (used in two dishes) came to £4.60, the smoked salmon was from a 90p/120g pack of trimmings from Asda, the blueberries were half price at the local Tesco Express and the 250g butler's steak (from the wonderful East London Steak Co.) cost £2.50. Plus which, these few 'luxuries' were counterbalanced elsewhere by meals using split peas, rice, eggs and cheaper cuts of meat. And, of course, everything I ate (with the exception of a handful of almond thins) was home-made - including breakfast cereal, bread, stock, desserts and cakes. For the cost of each individual dish I have counted every ingredient, save for seasoning, herbs and spices (and I've made an overall allowance for these at the end). Anyway, here's the menu:
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L: Cashel Blue (£1.70/100g); C: Kirkham's Lancashire (£1.76/100g); R: Ardrahan (£2.20/100g) And so time for another trip on the no. 177 to The Cheeseboard and the lactic delights contained therein. Pride of place on today's plate goes to a cheese from the fabled, mist-laden land of my ancestors - Mrs. Kirkham's Lancashire - flanked (above) by two beauties from Ireland. These three wedges cost £5.86.
I'm loving doing this little series of posts. It's not simply that I've been encouraged to try new cheeses (about a third of those presented thus far); it's more that sampling them with, and talking about them to, Robbyn has made me appreciate all the more the individual cheesemakers and their craft. I like it that knowing about the clubbish exclusivity of the Grubb's herd of cows, or the particularities of traditional Lancashire production, or how the climate of Cork imparts its own unique quality to the taste of the Ardrahan adds immensely to our enjoyment of these cheeses. Blessed be the cheesemakers. My first attempt at a ciabatta. One of the advantages of being an embittered, reclusive sociophobe, with nought but the Radio Times for companionship, is that you do have plenty of time for cooking - especially on a Bank Holiday weekend when the new meds have just started to kick in. Kitchen-wise it was so on this weekend at Skint House.
Apart from anything else, I was into days 3-5 of nurturing two new sourdough starters - a strong wholemeal one and a strong white one (the photos are of day 5). On Saturday I found Richard Bertinet's ciabatta recipe here on this Canadian blog. I especially loved the part of the video where he shows how to stretch the dough prior to proving and thought 'hello, I fancy a bit of that!'. And really, for a first attempt, it didn't turn out half bad. On Sunday I picked up this bad boy for £1.99 and got 3 litres of glorious chicken stock out of it; and there were, of course, meals aplenty - and five of the recipes are included below. But the great discovery for me this weekend was a cake that proved something of a hit at the inaugural meeting, last Wednesday evening, of the Band of Bakers - an informal gathering which provides 'for people in South East London who love baking to get together and share their latest creations over a few drinks' The event was held at Bambuni. If you live in the SE15/SE22 area and haven't yet been to this cracking deli/coffee shop then shame on you. You can see what you're missing from these photos of the event. I didn't go myself (there's a strict lockdown policy in force here at Skint House) but word soon got around that a chap called Charlie had brought along a stunning rhubarb and ginger cake. Then, the very next day, he shared the recipe here on their blog. A grateful nation salutes you, big man. |
SHORTLISTED FOR FOOD BLOG OF THE YEAR 2014
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