Gujarati pizza

A night out with the girls yesterday: two friends - a chef and a fellow food writer who was researching a piece on budget eats in Bristol. We ended up in a takeaway with a couple of tables called Tiffins which I can see is going to be my new favourite place.

An Indian takeaway in a student town needs to appeal to the locals and the proprietors Nick and Jay have very cleverly come up with an Indian - or more specifically Gujarati take on student staples like pizza, kebabs and baked potatoes which they top with one of their really excellent home-made curries. (See Nick's flashy spinning technique with the pizza dough above - quite worthy of an Italian!)

We literally stuffed ourselves with cheese topped garlic-bread with chillies, one of the pizzas topped with Saag Paneer and Kheema (weird but good) and a couple of veggie curries and rice all served with quite the best fresh coriander chutney I've ever eaten (with chillies and coconut but I'm not sure what else). Jay says if I go back she'll tell me how to make it. We finished up with two heavenly little pots of homemade kulfi - one with mango, the other with pistachios and saffron so I'll try and see if I can find out the secret of those too.

The bill for the 3 of us came to just over £20 which was pretty amazing and reminded me just what fantastic value and how delicious Indian veggie food is. Great inspiration for meals at home too.

Pizza night

Yesterday My Other Half was on cooking duty. "Shall we have pizza?" he asked.

Actually that wasn't a total cop-out. He always doctors them in such a way that they taste home-made. And how many of us have time to make pizza from scratch - apart from occasionally, at the weekend with kids and that's entertainment, not just meal preparation. I mean you can't start beating yourself up about pizza.

He found a good bargain at our local Waitrose, not necessarily the best place to go for bargains - a giant Vegetable Fajita Pizza for £3.99 instead of £4.99. Maybe that was one innovation too far, even for Waitrose's gastronomic thrillophiles. It had - and I quote - "a crisp and airy base (quite nice, not unlike a focaccia FB) topped with subtly spiced tomato sauce and loaded with grated Monterey Jack cheese, chargrilled yellow peppers and piquillo peppers, finished with sour cream and sliced jalapenos." Italians - and lovers of the English language - would have shuddered but it was surprisingly tasty with the addition of some extra garlic, capers and fresh basil (also reduced) wilted on the surface at the last minute.

It would actually have fed three, even four at a stretch but we managed to polish off the lot between us thus breaking one of the cardinal rules of frugal eating which is to remove potential leftovers at source so they don't get eaten up.

Cheaper than a takeaway or going out for a pizza though.