Alessi Max le chinois Colander

Generally I love Alessi stuff, but wouldn’t be sure about having them in my dream kitchen. On their own they are gorgeous, but my ideal kitchen is either farmhouse chic or industrail, full of stainless steel and not much colour. However, this gorgeous colander could be set to change my mind about them! I want it, but unforunately this is way out of my price range!

Chocolate rolo cake with Caramel Frosting

Doesn’t this look delicious? It was, but it wasn’t easy to eat, filled with chunks of semi-melted rolo, layers of sticky caramel, crumbly rich chocolate cake and gooey softness. And then the frosting, a thick sweet sticky chocolate caramel that was decadent and chewy. It may not be the most elegant of baked goods, but it makes up for it in sheer yumminess! 

How did I make it? Well, I kind of made most of it up myself, from a traditional 4x4x4x2 cake recipe. If you fancy a slice, read on!Ingredients 

• 8oz flour (self-raising)
• 80z brown sugar
• 8oz butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 packets of rolos
• 2 large galaxy choclate bars
• 1 small tin condensed milk
• Vanilla

MethodFor the cake, mix flour and a little baking powder together in a bowl. Melt butter in a bowl with the dark sugar – warm gently until sugar dissolves. Then add one of the galaxy bars broken up, slit and heat gently until that is melted. Mix into the flour and then mix in the eggs and vanilla. Drop in the rolos, and that is the cake bit done – simply bung it in the oven and cook on a medium heat until cooked right through. Leave in the tin!For the frosting, empty the condensed milk into a pan, and heat. Add a bit of vanilla and the second chocolate bar. Heat gently and stir to melt and combine chocolate. Once combined, keep heating and stirring constantly – every bit needs to be kept moving. You will have to keep heating and stirring until the frosting becomes sticky, golden and when dropped into ice water it makes a smooth but firm caramel.Once the frosting is made, pour onto the cake in the tin. Leave it to cool completely, preferably overnight, and you should be able to take it out of the tin reasonably well with a neat caramel topping!Beware – this rolo cake will no doubt have sunken caramel bits of rolo at the bottom – so may be chewy!

This weekend has been spent making lovely soft-yet-crunchy peanut butter and chocolate cookies, based on this recipe from the queen of all bakers, Joy.

I have also made rather delicious and (if I do say so myself!) somewhat perfect coffee cupcakes/muffins. So dense and sweet and deliciously moist! The recipe is from my coffee cake one here, which I actually think works better as a little cake.

This week has been tough. Very tiring, very hard, very stressful, and full of more tears than I want to admit. I’ve been good (excepting two salads…), but yesterday, having finally got some good news with Ben’s job too, we went out for dinner.

£24 for two people, at a delicious and rather lovely Indian restuarant.I do not regret this wayward spend of money for a minute.

Essentially, I suppose I am trying to make the point that whilst budget eating and eating well is very important, it should never be detrimental to your life. If you can afford it and you really fancy it, going out and eating is the treat you can spend your saved money on. Being happy and satisfied comes in many forms.

Tips

A couple of general budget eating tips I have come up with this week though…

1. Remember lunch. It is easy to plan ahead in terms of dinners - I found that in a major lapse of judgement, I only thought ahead for lunch for the first 2 days! Brain freeze!
2. Don’t slip into the habit of cheaper food meaning larger portions. Day 4′s dinner (I’ll write about it tomorrow) cold have happily only used half our sausages between us. We used the whole packet. For the record, this is entering the realms of gross overeating!

For day two, I had the same lunch as Tuesday – three tiered supermarket pate with cranberry, on crusty bread. My only complaint is that the bread always seems to be a little stale. I think I should go for crappy fluffy bread next time. ops, probably not meant to say that on a blog about managing to eat well a cheaply. It’s my weakness though!

Dinner for me was BBQ, which was free. But not very well cooked, so not worth mentioning.

More relevant was Ben’s dinner, Pork risotto made with the yummy real streaky bacon. Simply glaze the rice with butter and fry the onion and pork. Then it is a matter of slowly adding the stock. The Best description I have ever read is in Georgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy. It literally takes you through a lovely description of the point of risottos, as well as the method.

Day 3: Carbonara

I forgot to bring or prepare lunch. You see, it is hard to motivate yourself to be sensible and prepared when very stressed at work. I did my best to fix a bad decision though, and bought a salad from the sandwich shop. Low on lettuce, high on other ingredients and plenty of tuna. Very yummy! Adds £3 on the weekly bill!

Dinner is carbonara, although streaky chunky bacon doesn’t work that well. This is always a cheap fall back of mine, although personally I feel you need peas to make it an good, and we didn’t have time to nip out and buy some to top up our supply.

So here is how to make pea-free carbonara!

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti
• Butter
• Flour
• Milk
• Pepper
• Bay leaf
• Onion

Method:

At the same time, gently fry some onions (and mushrooms if you desire) with the bacon. When fried, set aside.

Make the sauce as follows. On a medium heat, melt a quarter of a pad of butter. When melted sieve in plain flour, string constantly. When the paste reaches a smooth paste, stop adding the flour. Stirring constantly, add the bayleaf and let it heat through thoroughly to cook the flour, else your sauce will taste nasty! Then gradually (never stopping stiring) add the milk, a splash as a time. Season with pepper and salt, and stir in the bacon etc (reheated). Oh, and you will need the spaghetti cooked too, I forgot!

Serve with pepper and maybe a fresh spring of oregano. Yummy! You could add white wine to the sauce too if you have some spare.

The rules:

• One large shop a week
• Everything bought must be reduced in in a sale
• Exceptions: Basics/everyday items, and specific necessary items with only one option
• If top-up shops are needed, they just come from the reduced section of my local supermarket!

Top tips:

• Reduced sections get topped up in the evenings. Suss out the specific times for your supermarket and haunt the aisles!
• Remember sales, but don’t just go for the first one you see.
• Stock up on essentials – I buy tons of tuna when on offer, the same with jar sauces etc for uninspired nights.
• If you do need essentials and none are on offer, buy in the biggest quantities you can manage for more money saving!

 Day 1

Day 1 was yesterday – as I spent £30 buying enough food to keep myself and ben going for the majority of the week.

Particular bargains:

• Pork mince, reduced. (89p!)
• Real streaky bacon, reduced (£1.54)
• Blueberries, reduced (£1.20)

I also managed to get reduced/sale juices, pate, chicken, vegetables, fruit, sausages and yoghurt. Oh, and a Burritto pack, which is great value when on offer and has the spices ready-mixed for you!

Big spends were the Apple Sourz which Ben specifically needed and which cost around £8.50 (on offer!) and the rose, which was half price. Without these big luxury items the food cost £20 for the majority of a week!

Meal one

Pork mince burritos. Simply left over sour cream, home made salsa (onion tomato and chili, all already in the fridge), mince friend with the pack spices and onion, and some left over lettuce! No photo, as it never looks great. The pork mince was such a vehicle for the spices, but didn’t add much flavour of its own.

Meal 2

Lunch today – a satsuma, then posh pate with cranberry on crusty bread. Who would have thought you could eat like this on a budget?

I also realised that this whole blog needs a bit of a rejuvenation – I simply need a new direction. So, from now on this blog is taking on a whole new theme. It will still feature the recipes and the gadgets, but on a budget theme. You see, I know that it is possible to eat well and to cook well on a real budget. So, I am planning to spend my weekly shop only buying items that are reduced or on sale (excepting basics). I will then report what I buy, and for how much!

Hopefully, I will then spend the week updating you with recipe ideas, money saving options and other such fun stuff! I’m quite excited, and it should save me tons of money!

So, I will leave you with one last expensive recipe! Here is my lovely lemon cream pasta with mushrooms.

Ingredients:

• Mushrooms
• Tagliatelle
• Lemon juice
• Basil
• Thai fish sauce
• Double cream
• Spring onions
• Smoked salmon (off-cuts would be fine)

Method:

Put the pasta on to boil, and season.

Chop the salmon. Also chop the mushrooms/spring-onion and set them aside.

Add the cream in a pan and bring to a simmer. Add a handful of freshly diced basil, and stir repeatedly to blend and flavour. Season with pepper. Add a big splash of the lemon juice and fish sauce (ignore the yucky smell), and keep stirring. Stir in the smoked salmon.

In a frying pan, fry mushrooms and half the spring onions in butter until soft and browning. Add a large splash of lemon juice and more basil. Beware, these will be very string flavoured, so only work in combination with the pasta and sauce!

Stir sauce, salmon and pasta together with some olive oil and a dash more lemon. Top with the mushrooms and the remaining unfried spring onion. Delicious!

To keep me going, however, I have been feasting largely on simple pasta dishes (can anyone tell me why pasta, mayo and tuna is so darn satisfying?!), and on work I have been steadfastly devouring the doughnuts! I’m sure my waistband will hate me for this, but in between getting back and heading north for a wedding on Thursday, this week just seems a bit of a non-entity!

I feel inspired now to make some donuts, but lets wait until I’m actually cooking properly, eh?!

Take: One pepperoni pizza

Add: Cherry tomatoes, onions, extra cheese (I had mozzerela and parmasan around the house), tuna, herbs.

It is incredibly easy to do – just add fresh veg and some stored cupboard herbs. The result – a delicious, and fairly healthy meal. Yum! Fresh tomatoes are often left off pizzas – and they taste fantastic!

Optional extras: Capers, anchovies, olives, pesto and more!