Be Excellent To Each Other

Aldi won't. But they will do mozzarella and puree.

I'd get the tomatoes from Sainsburys though. For the sake of 10p you can get something nice than Aldi will have. The one thing I forgot to mention is that chopped tomatoes will need more cooking down. In Sainsburys you can get pasata etc which although a little dearer is far nicer. With a big jar of Sainsburys pasata you can make up quite alot of sauce that you can freeze so it works out quite good value.

Also, I personally recommend red onion to include in the sauce or Spanish onion. Standard onion can be abit overpowering but each to their own.

To be honest, you can make a passable pizza without even making proper dough - just mix white flour and water and roll it into a base, add tomato puree, add cheese (even chedder can do), and go to town on the toppings. Whack it in the oven for half an hour (important - must be thin crust) or more and you're sorted. No yeast necessary. It's not brilliant, but it's a filling meal, and can be quite tasty with the right toppings (eg: tuna and sweetcorn, ham and pineapple, strands of mince left over from last night with sliced mushrooms and lots of seasoning). It's better than a lot of branded frozen pizzas, too - I've always found that supermarket own brands are superior to most name brands. Pizza express are particularly bad.

I have a pizza I can make in 10 minutes flat - for the dough just use SR flour and cold water, mix as minimally as possible, then line a greased baking tray with it. Takes a bit of practice to get it right but it makes a damn fine pizza.

I used to make the dough in the bread maker (it has a setting for that) but it takes bloody ages, isn't really an improvement over the above and in any case needs to be cooked properly on a heavy platter thing or whatever.

Passable perhaps but with just that little effort you can make something splendid and can have loads of leftover sauce that will be 10x better than anything you can buy in the shops.

Last time around I reheated the sauce I had frozen while adding some red wine. Best pasta sauce ever! Hic.

The main thing is that cheese is expensive... I've seen sainsburys basics mozzarella... No idea how bad it'll be, but might be worth a punt, and can always drown it in olive oil if it tastes horrible.
Sweetcorn and mushrooms are cheap, meat tends not to be. I've only got like 18 days I know to feed me, but still every meal adds up.
What I've done a few times is bought a whole chicken, had roast, + roast spuds + mash and peas + gravy. for 2 nights using the breasts. Made a white sauce with mushrooms and garlic with the leftovers with pasta for 1-2 nights and then made a soup from the carcass adding leek, onions (browned), peas, mushrooms and a few spuds and it makes a very tasty filling soup that lasts a good 3 or 4 days. So that's essentially a weeks food for about a tenner or so

Aldi's is passable so I'd go with theirs if you can.

There's a funny thing I've noticed with some younger relatives we have - although they're perpetually skint, they go to town trying to cook very complicated things from only the most expensive ingredients.

The effort is appreciated and the food is OK, but it seems strangely extravagant and unnecessary. And when they can't afford or can't be bothered with that, they eat nasty takeaways, where they could have had something simple and nice for less money.

I'm sure it's due to these cooking shows on TV. Everyone reckons they're a master chef all of a sudden.

(The Mozzarella comment made me think of this )

I never cook anything extravagant, but if I've got the money, I'll cook nicer things. Use better ingredients (where necessary).
I can make a mean mexican, but a lot of people would complain that I make it too hot, something I usually do by accident more than anything.
But yes, homecooked food is usually much nicer than take-away stuff, less greasy and cheaper, it's just convenience really.
There's a chicken place near me, that does a chicken burger, chips, and 3+ chicken strips (it varys depending on busyness) for only 3 quid. Which is pretty darn good after a night out.

Do any of the major supermarkets sell cheese-less pizzas for those of us who can't stand the fucking stuff?

not sure but a ready made base and some tomato puree cant cost that much.

Oh and plain flour is what you need for dough yeah?
I've got some of that already

Who knows. It's probably the same case as with sandwiches: if you don't like mayo, get to fucking fuck and make your own, you picky fuck. Fuckers.

I use bread flour. Better taste for a start. But others may disagree.

As usual people who disagree with me are wrong. FEEL MY WRATH!

Harsh but fair.

I have a lot of plain flour. I'll just use that

Stolen from a website somewhere:

Onions + mushrooms + tinned tomatoes + herbs (some combination of sage, thyme, parsley, marjoram and oregano is best. Two are usually enough) + chilli and/or tonnes of pepper + garlic + whatever veg/meat/fish you have mixed in (optional). Add to pasta. Cream over yourself. All the ingredients are cheap, and you can make an absolute tonne of it and eat it over the next several days to a week (depending on meat/fish content).

Omelettes with chisps and salad/peas.

Baked tatties with beans - lots of protein, carbs, and some sugar for energy. Add butter/margarine and you've a bit of fat and vitamins.

Sausages (don't go bottom of the barrel, but one up is fine) sliced and fried in cajun + pitta bread and peppers/salad/rice.

Fried onions with sage added to grilled sausages in a part baked baguette.

Frozen beef burgers grilled and topped with tinned pineapple, with peas/beans/rice

flour + milk + a little sugar. Make a batter (consistency of thin porridge - slightly melted mcdonalds milkshake) and dip tinned pineapple in it. Fry on both sides for a cheap, tasty and relatively nutritious dessert / snack.

Frozen beef mince can be deceptively tasty (and the consistency actually makes for easier sauce-y things like bolognese than fresh mince), non-shitey, and good value. It's been ages since I bought any though, so I'm not sure which to recommend.

Mackerel (sp?) or kippers can be grilled for your fish fix - they're cheap, and not the most delicious or versatile fish, but they're good for you. Possibly an acquired taste, as they're powerful. Anyway, they're a good source of some fairly difficult nutrition when you're on a budget.

Check with local butchers if there are any. You never know what they can turn up, and most are honest enough - they need to be. They're a better source for bargains and discounts than the supermarket, also.

Porridge! Oats are cheap as hell, and with a bit of sugar or honey (oh, honey is a wonder food, by the way. If you can get honey and/or yoghurt at a good price, they'll be the best bargain of your life - they're ridiculously good for you as long as you don't go nuts with them. And an unfinished jar of honey will outlive you if you seal it), porridge becomes a much less depressing breakfast. It'll keep hunger pangs away for the best part of a working day, and leftover oats can be used for baking if you're so inclined.

Baking! The easiest thing in the world to bake is a flapjack. Melt butter in a saucepan and add golden syrup (roughly equal proportions - salted butter is fine). Add oats and stir together until the mixture is very, very thick with oats, like moderately congealed porridge or thick cement. grease a baking dish or cake tin (or narrow-ish casserole dish) and pour the mixture in. Bake for about half an hour and allow to cool (flapjacks are one of few baked things to be better when cooled), and you have a cheap and delicious snack/dessert that'll be good for a week and edible for longer. It's important to treat yourself, so don't feel bad.

Speaking of part baked baguettes, they're a bloody godsend sometimes. You can get two for about a quid in any supermarket and even most corner shops - shove them in the oven at about 180 for 10-15 minutes, or higher for less, or lower for more, it really doesn't matter as long as you check on them now and then. They can be filled with anything and make a great lunch, or split in two or three for rationed snacking, or broken and used as dipping devices, or filled with chicke or tuna or egg or sausage for a filling, cheap and piss-easy meal.

Sometimes you're not actually hungry at all, but just want the comfort and distraction of having something to hold, chew and eat. Apples are great for this, as they're satisfying to hold and manipulate, satisfying to bite into and chew, and are quite solid, and though not the most nutritious of fruit, still better for you than biscuits or a pastie or whatever.

Er... anyway. Shutting up, now.

Heh. It's true, though. You can eat the finest dishes from the purest, freshest and most exquisite ingredients cooked by the greatest chef ever to walk the earth, but nothing they ever do could ever be as good at for the body and soul as a home-made bacon sandwich at the right moment.

Never buy cheap sausages. "Earhole, eyeholes and arseholes" as my old butcher used to say. If the sausage is just made of a nasty meat paste, just say no.

Ditto cheap ham. Somethings in life are worth the extra and I'd rather not have them at all if they are bad.

I'd usually do a fair few of those things anyway.
Cheap pasta sauce/ chilli is easy peasy. I tend to mix sausages and mince depending on if there were any reduced and price etc... but chopped up sausages make a decent meat content to a sauce.

Can't stand fish... so stear clear of that.

Baking is good fun, cookies and shortbread are also very easy to make, and pretty cheap, if I remember correctly... well shortbread is anyway, and is quick and only has like 3 ingredients.

baked/microwaved spuds and beans = always good. better with cheese, but you can't always get what you want.

if I make a batter, I'd probably do toad in the hole, with peas and gravy or something like that.
But our kitchen is very limited at the moment, we only have one pyrex dish that can go in the oven and no trays.... a pizza is probably as far as I can stretch with oven required foods.

I really need to do a shop and stop just getting a tin of toms and having that with pasta

Cheap baking trays can be purchased in larger Tescos. Won't last that long but will do the trick.

When you've spent three weeks eating nothing but increasingly stale bread and plain spaghetti, a bit of ground up eyeball masquerading as meat is a bloody orgasm in a collagen case.

But yes, if not that desperate, avoid.

you can get them new weird mesh tray things for a couple of quid as well. And there great for things like chips and pizza which you dont want stuck to a flat surface.

Ah, that did the trick! Nasty gluey mess left on her fingernails, but then despite what some people think, no-one really looks at fingernails.


Dunno. These weren't that long though. I'm rather surprised she bought herself fake nails, as she isn't one of those girls that does makeup, nail varnish, all that kind of thing. She's the functional, low-maintenance type. Which suits me

On the food front, we've had more Quorn than meat recently. I've discovered that the fake mince is dry and horrible and needs plenty of water added, but the fake chicken isn't that bad. Bit rubbery and bland, yeah, but flavour can be added by other means.

Additional on the food issue, I've started to get all our bread from the Polish shops. Well, the good, clean Polish shops nearby, the ones which happen to be the ones that welcome non-Polish people. My girlfriend was sick of the bread that's available in England, and on a random venture to a Polish shop noticed that they stock the type of bread that is also commonly available in Germany, stuff like rye bread, sourdough, pumpernickel, the thick and heavy breads. Really makes you feel filled-up after a couple of slices.

Well if they use some of their stock, I'm sure the counters would come up lovely.

If anyone is desparate for a cheap pizza, Icelands £1/£1.50 ones seem to be far nicer than any other supermarket ones, and they have a bigger range too.

I love the ASDA make your own pizza.. They are quite nice and fresh..

These are my favoirite foods... mmmmmm

Also part baked baguettes are great for cheap paninis with cheap ham, cheese and tomatoes

I ALWAYS look on the ingredients list on the back of sausage packs. Anything less than 75% meat is a no no. Good sausages normally break down the percentage into the cuts of meat used too ie 45% shoulder 35% belly.

I'm going to try making sausages soon. I need to buy a hand-cranked mincer from ebay.

Yes, I accept your bid
\

I ahve never had the urge as we have the best buthchers ever, in our town

Nothing beats homemade sausages. I made some boerewors a while back, then hot smoked them. Spicy, meaty, smokey fantasticness.

It's about the journey, not the destination.

True... The Pork and Black pudding ones are to die for...

Will there be times on your sausage journey when you look back and only see 1 set of trotters in the sand?

There'll be no sets of trotters once I've minced the pig into sausagemeat.

You going snout to shitter on your mix doc?

Fuck no, I'm far too snobbish. Pork shoulder, DBSnappa recommended to me. It has the right fat content apparently.

Shoulder plus a bit of belly.

Yeah Craster. I've never made my own but the ones I've enjoyed the most have had both those cuts.

Those are the times he carried the pig home.

Before mincing him into sausages.

Mr Russel's joke was much better than mine.

But yours was first, which makes it technically... earlier.

I got what you need.

Also: add Chinny's pizza to SA's chisps on the list of Things I'm Now Desperate To Try.

Does nobody else refer to the Taste The Difference-style ideas-above-their-station sausages as "poshages", then?

Hang on. Cheese is expensive, but Olive Oil isn't?

There's a Dimlie for that:

I do now.

Not making a proper pizza dough is something that will never, ever be done in my house. We went to a restaurant in Liverpool and had pizza - it was very obviously of the "just flour mixed with water" variety. Won't be going back (especially because it took them so long they could've make a proper dough and let it rise at least twice). Yeast does something magical that's an absolute necessity.

My recipe is dead simple - 3 cups of flour, 270ml of hand-hot water, 2tsp salt and 2-3tsp yeast (depending on how deep and/or explodey you like your pizzas). Knead it up, let it rise, bash it down, let it rise, split in two, put in freezer bags, freeze one and leave in the fridge for 24 hours; that does something super-sorcerous and results in a shiny, gloopy dough that's massively stretchy. It's the Stretch Armstrong of doughs.

I have a bread machine with a 'just dough, thanks' setting. Takes a faintly ridiculous 90 minutes. I'd like to knead it myself - it'd be quicker for one - but the thought of having sticky hands that I can't instantly get clean winds me up, never mind the actuality. I hate being stuck in a situation, if I don't have the freedom to wander off and do something else I get frantic quickly.

Edit: Fixed the water quantity.