Homemade crostini

One of the economies that gives me most satisfaction is my homemade crostini bases. They're one of those things that are invariably overpriced in smart delis - you can pay £3 plus for a pack.

If you bake them yourself you can make them for about 80p. You just need a stale(ish) ciabatta or similar shaped long loaf - I tend to pick up mine reduced in the supermarket. Slice thinly and place on a couple of baking sheets that you've drizzled with olive oil, moving them around so they get evenly smeared with oil then drizzle a little more oil on the other side and bake in a medium hot oven for about 10-15 minutes until crisp and golden - or a cooler one for a little longer. I'm lucky to be able to shove mine in the AGA but to save fuel just cook them when you have the oven on for something else.

Once they're cooled keep them in an airtight tin - they'll happily keep for a week or so. And you can spread them with any kind of dip or paté for a snack, nibble with drinks or an easy first course.

What's your favourite way of salvaging stale bread?

Cut price bread

If you like good bread - which we do - you normally have to pay a fair bit for it. This country loaf (above) is normally priced at £2.50 in our local deli but my husband, who is determined to prove he's a more frugal shopper than I am, picked it up yesterday for just £1.25 because it had been left over from the previous day

Being a traditional sort of loaf it was still perfectly fresh. We froze half of it and have been using the other half for toast.

Even at the higher price it wasn't a bad buy. Large loaves are much better value than small ones for some reason. I've paid two quid in the farmers' market for a loaf half that size. (Not that I've shopped at that stall again!) Any that's left over makes great croutons and breadcrumbs - with or without an AGA ;-)

If you've got a freezer, as thank goodness we finally have, it's well worth buying cut price loaves for Christmas and stashing them away

Croutons and crostini

Bread is central to our life here in France. Like the French we buy it every day which means endless bits to use up. The village baker makes really great sourdough baguettes* which I slice at the end of the day and put in the freezer. When I have a big batch I make croutons or crostini.

The difference between the two is that crostini - bases for patés or spreads - need to be crunchy whereas croutons need to be baked hard, especially if they're going in a soup. Otherwise you get soggy bits of bread floating around. So the croutons are best baked plain and unadorned (at about 180°C/Gas 4 for 15-20 minutes - slightly longer from frozen) while I spray the bread rounds that are destined to be crostini with a fine mist of olive oil before I bake them. Both keep crisp in a sealed container for about a week.

Yesterday - apart from the morning bread purchase - was a real leftovers/storecupboard day. Various odds and ends of charcuterie, hard boiled eggs, cheese and a salad for lunch. A jar of Provencal-style fish soup with rouille I unearthed in the cupboard for supper. With the croutons and some grana padano as I didn't have the more usual accompaniment of gruyère. It worked perfectly well though.

* In the UK I use ciabatta.

Can you be frugal and ethical?

Heated discussion over the lunchtable yesterday as to whether you can be frugal and ethical? I.e. if you're on the breadline you're not going to be fussy about whether your food comes from. It's been raised in connection with the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall/Jamie Oliver chicken debate and I can see it applies here too.

Most people who are on a truly frugal lifestyle have a budget to stick to and don't go buying organic shoulders of lamb, even if they use every bit of it. Point taken. If I'm serious about this book - and this blog - we'll have to spend a week on a genuinely tight budget. No eating out (see yesterday's post) obviously.

In the meantime I have to admit the lamb was great. I studded it with garlic, smothered it with dried rosemary and oregano, crushed with salt, pepper and a little cumin and roasted it for 4 1/2 hours, giving it an initial blast at 180°C/Gas 4 then turning the heat right down to 130°C/Gas 1. You have to keep pouring off the fat after a hour or so but the low temperature is great as it means the pan juices don't burn (so long as you chuck in some wine or stock once the fat has gone) and you get a brilliant tasty sauce at the end. I say sauce rather than gravy because I don't think gravy goes with this style of roast.

I also found a use for the unloved spelt bread. Bases for the smoked haddock paté. Sliced it, cut it into bite-sized squares, sprayed them with olive oil and baked them. Problem was the oven temperature was so low it took them about 45 minutes to crisp up by which time they were the consistency of a ship's biscuit. Everyone gamely crunched through them hoping they wouldn't break their teeth on one. But I think it would work with a higher cooking temperature and shorter cooking time. Not that I'm going to buy that bread again.

In praise of smoked haddock

Phew! I was so busy planning and shopping and cooking yesterday I didn't have time to post. A productive day, though.

First, I managed to restrain my natural instinct to stock up as if it were Christmas when we have friends round. Or rather when the neighbours do. I'm just providing the main course. I decided what it should be in advance (slow roast shoulder of lamb) and stuck to it. A good buy - for organic meat - at £14.82. A similar sized leg of lamb would have been at least £10 more expensive

I also bought two large fillets of smoked haddock from the local fish shop (Fishworks) to experiment with. I haven't cooked it for a while but it lends itself beautifully to leftovers. Which is just as well as it's expensive these days. I paid £12.60 for 850g including a 10% discount which you can get simply by signing up online to their Seafood Club

I cut up the fish and poached it in water. (Just cover with cold water, bring to the boil and skim off any white frothy scum then simmer very slowly for 5 minutes) then removed the fillets, slipped them off their skin and carefully flaked them. (This is the tedious bit. You have to watch like a hawk for bones. The best way is to run your fingers over the fish to make sure you haven't left any behind)

I made a kedgeree with a third of the fish. Found I didn't have any curry powder so spiced it with turmeric, coriander and a pinch of cumin and chilli powder and served it with a cucumber raita.

I folded the next third into a small amount of white sauce which I made from soy milk* as my husband is dairy intolerant. Infused the milk first with half an onion (used the other half in the kedgeree) which gave it a bit more flavour and grated in a bit of parmesan which curiously doesn't seem to upset him. This we can have on toast for supper tonight with more cheese on top like a fishy Welsh rarebit.

With the final third I made a kind of smoked haddock paté/ brandade by blitzing the remaining fish with butter and a little milk, just enough to make it whizz easily in the blender and seasoned it with lemon juice, chilli powder, black pepper and a pinch of mixed spice. (No nutmeg or mace in the cupboard which would have been ideal). That will do for little hand-round toasts with drinks before lunch. So the fish will have stretched to 9 portions which isn't bad.

On the debit side I found some uneaten leftovers lurking in the fridge which I should have checked before I went out shopping, including some thawed frozen raspberries I was going to use for a pudding and never got round to. Hadn't fortunately gone mouldy so I simmered them up into a fruit compote which we can have with yoghurt for breakfast. There was also the best part of a bunch of celery (shall braise that to go with the lamb), some leftover puff pastry (could be used as lids for the creamy smoked haddock - an instant pie) and some sprouting seeds. (They're gone I'm afraid. Would be cheaper to sprout your own)

There's also a very elderly loaf which is possibly rescuable for breadcrumbs if I remove all the crusts, cut into cubes and whizz up in the blender (can then be frozen) and some very heavy spelt bread which I can't for the life of me think how to use. Heavy ethical issue here - should you chuck away food you don't like?

Blimey! It's hard work this frugal eating.

* Incidentally it's much cheaper to buy soy milk off the shelf than in the chill section. Saved about 30p there.