A Girl Called Jack may just be the cookbook you use most this year

It’s hard to believe it’s just over a year since I first came across Jack Monroe. Since then this feisty single mother who struggled to feed herself and her small son on £10 a week has become a superstar, campaigning for Oxfam, appearing on TV and being courted by a raft of national newspapers from The People to the Guardian. The New York Times even had a profile about her the other day.

And now she’s brought out a book named after her blog A Girl Called Jack.

Having written a budget cookbook myself I was curious to see how she handled it and the answer, as usual with Jack, is immensely impressively given that she’s neither a cookery writer or a chef “I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest cook” she writes "but I can sweat an onion and sauté a mushroom with the best of them". She goes on to  make the valid point that “in an age of glossy ‘food porn' on our televisions watched while stabbing ready meals with a fork there seems to be a disheartening disconnect between fantastic nutritious food and the myth that one needs a fancy kitchen and seventy ‘store cupboard essentials’ to cook them with. It’s simply not true. "

To prove her point her recipes are admirably simple and straightforward, using the minimum of ingredients. An easy chicken satay made with chilli, peanut butter and yoghurt. Chicken with diet Coke. Saag aloo with tinned potatoes and frozen spinach. It's affordable and do-able.

I decided to road test a couple using the same ingredients to keep down my food costs. Like Jack I shopped at Sainsbury’s, choosing the cheapest 'Basics' options.

The first was her version of spaghetti carbonara called car-Brie-nara that didn’t have any eggs - a misprint, surely? And lemon juice with bacon?  Brie instead of parmesan? And half a large tub of yoghurt? I wasn’t at all sure it would work. Well it did and very tasty it was too. And surprisingly healthy. There was no extra oil although I added a tablespoon as my bacon (a selection of offcuts) was leaner than the streaky Jack suggested. And no extra salt. The surprisingly large amount of yoghurt also means that unlike a carbonara any leftovers could be eaten cold, creating an instant lunch to take to work the next day.

I looked for another recipe that would use up the Brie and bacon and found a courgette, tomato and Brie gratin. That was also a great success though I only used half the amount of tomato Jack suggested and reckon you could simplify the recipe by cooking the rice by the absorption method* rather than like a risotto (though it’s good to know you can make such a good risotto with ordinary long grain rice). I also suspect the amount of liquid in the recipe should have been more than 200ml despite the added tomatoes though I like the fact that the stock gives the dish a deep savoury umami taste without the need for any other seasoning. And surprisingly the Sainsbury’s stock cubes (only 25p for 10) are MSG free - better than many more expensive brands.

In fact having often recommended in the past that readers should trade up as and when they can afford to I was impressed by how good the Basics range was. 500g spaghetti for 30p, a kilo of white rice for 45p (that’s roughly 3.5p a helping), 670g of cooking bacon, enough for 5 meals, for £1.10 - you could spend twice or three times as much and not eat any better.

Jack’s advantage is that having been limited by the tightest of food budgets she had to work with what she could afford - and being an instinctive rather than a professional cook sees no reasons why certain ingredients shouldn’t be combined together. Salmon paste with pasta? Tried that one too and it was surprisingly tasty thanks to a hefty chilli kick (I used a couple of chillies from a jar I found in my local health food shop - less costly than fresh). Mandarin oranges in a chicken dish? Why not? They’re cheap, add flavour and contribute to your 5 a day. If you’re buying low cost ingredients you need to add extra oomph any way you can - and Jack certainly does.

I’m not going to ask permission to run the recipes I tested because I think you should invest in the book. Even if it stretches the budget this week it will save you a lot in the long run. Buy it, use it and enjoy it. It’s a cracking good read apart from anything else.

* Boiling it with twice the volume of water to rice until the water is absorbed.

Could you live below the line?

On Monday a major campaign kicks off called Live Below the Line to show that it is possible to feed yourself on £1 a day for 5 days - i.e. £5 for the whole week.

As I'm not taking the challenge (a long-standing few days away with my husband) I feel a bit hypocritical about urging anyone else to do so. Particularly as I know that I could have offered to do it another time but it's not easy to find the time when you make your living out of eating and drinking (no, I don't expect any sympathy for that!)  I have the luxury of choice about the matter. Many people don't.

Anyway if you're feeling inspired to have a go there are plenty of tips on the livebelowtheline.com website including a downloadable recipe book and video testimonies from those who did it last time.  And some ideas on this blog like my 2 meals to make from a 15p bag of carrots post though some of the spicing might take the recipes over budget.

Jack Monroe whose blog A girl called Jack I flagged up a couple of months ago has been active in promoting the campaign on radio and TV - she's consistently shown that it's possible to not only eat cheaply but well. Possible, but no joke when you have to do it all the time.

If you want to support her or anyone else who's doing the challenge or one of the partner organisations you can do it through the Live Below the Line donations page.

A couple of great frugal blogs

I don't want you to think I've entirely forgotten the main point of this blog which is about eating frugally, not just fasting on the 5:2. And I've recently discovered a couple of blogs that do that job incredibly well.

One is A Girl called Jack written by a single mum who feeds herself and her son on £10 a week. Ten pounds! It's also far more than a food blog but covers politics, volunteering and other aspects of life in Southend. Her latest post is on a delicious-sounding fig, rosemary and lemon bread she made for 26p. And there's a great post about how the price of supermarket basics is sneaking up.

The other is written by a guy who calls himself The Skint Foodie which is more food-focused but is particularly interesting in that he's used the blog to overcome his mental health issues, an admission he makes in this admirably frank post.

It's also beautifully written - how's this for a line? "I turned love into hate, respect into pity, affection into disdain."

And he ends up. "At the heart of the concept of recovery in mental health is the idea that for anyone to have any kind of meaningful life these three elements must be present: hope, control and opportunity. If you're an alcoholic mentalist on the dole those things tend to be in short supply. Writing this blog and volunteering have, in the last year, given me a glimpse of all three."

Humbling.

PS He also has admirable taste. There are many good, simple recipes on the blog like this Indian takeaway substitute.

12 things you need to start your 5:2 diet

It’s pretty obvious that any diet is doomed to failure if you have the wrong things in your fridge but it’s slightly more tricky with the 5:2 diet where you eat ‘normally’ 5 days a week. The temptation to pitch in to that half open bottle of wine and leftover cheese can be overwhelming. To counter it you need to have some food - and drink - to hand that won’t cause you problems on fast days:

Assuming you have basics like eggs, spices and herbs anyway this is what I’d lay in:

Low fat yoghurt or fromage frais
Surprisingly low in calories so perfect for breakfast along with some fruit - though choose your fruit carefully (blueberries are a good choice). The yoghurt I’ve got (Waitrose organic low fat natural live bio yoghurt) is just 57 calories per 100g - which is a fair amount of yoghurt. Fat free fromage frais is even lower at 50 calories per 100g

Fizzy water
You need - or rather I need - something to drink at the time you might normally be having a pre-dinner glass of wine. Chilled sparkling mineral water on the rocks with a dash of angostura bitters and a slice of lemon does the job. Most of the time, though I found I was craving a sherry tonight.

Lemons
In tea or water as above. Good for squeezing on stir-fries and salads too

Crispbreads
You need something for the times when hunger pangs become intolerable (in my case about 4 in the afternoon). Low calorie crispbreads come to the rescue. I have two - Ryvita Multi-Seed Thins at 37 calories a slice and super-tasty Peter’s Yard crispbreads at 34 calories each which compensate for not having bread.

Some kind of low calorie dip or spread
Surprisingly there are more than you’d think - some not even labelled low fat like Waitrose’s oddly named ‘Distinctive crab paté’ which is only 78 cals for 42g. So about 28 calories for a tablespoonful. Sainsbury’s annoyingly twee but quite tasty Be Good to Yourself red pepper houmus is 65 calories per 50g and Garlic and Herb Philly Light, for which I must confess a guilty weakness, 46 calories per 30g. So a crispbread and a smear of one of these will get you through a wobbly moment.

Cucumber - good for dunking in the above - just 10 calories per 100g

Red and yellow peppers - ditto though slightly more calorific at about 32 calories per 100g. Good for stir-fries too

Instant miso soup
Comforting when you’re starving and when a coffee or tea just won’t do. The brand I’ve got (Clearspring) is only 17 calories per sachet

Fry Light or other low calorie olive oil spray
One of the hardest things I find is doing without olive oil and salad dressings. (Think about it: a tablespoon of oil is over a fifth your daily allowance on a fast day.) This will at least make sure whatever you’re cooking doesn’t stick and give it a bit of flavour. And only 1 calorie a puff

Balsamic vinegar
I was really surprised at this one. Balsamic vinegar is only about 5-7 calories a teaspoon. Which will basically dress a small watercress or watercress, rocket and spinach salad which are virtually no calories at all.

A pack of frozen prawns
Preferably the small North Atlantic ones which will give you the illusion you’re eating more than 2 or 3 king prawns will. 61-67 per 100g.

Some decent tea
So long as you have it without milk, tea - and infusions - are the friend of the 5:2 dieter. Maybe make this the time you get into leaf tea if you’re not already. The whole ritual of making yourself a pot feels like a treat.

What would you suggest for the 5:2 storecupboard - or fridge?

How do you handle fast days on 5:2?

Given the interest in my post on the 5:2 diet I thought I’d post again passing on the accumulated wisdom of . . . er . . . just over 2 weeks dieting.

So, how often do you eat? Seems to vary a lot. Some seem to manage an entire day without eating before they have their evening meal. Others including Michael Mosley don’t eat between breakfast and dinner. That has the advantage you can have a decent breakfast, a bowl of porridge, say or a couple of boiled eggs but I still find it a long time to go without food. Maybe that will ease over time but I find being hungry immensely distracting and can’t think about anything else.

So I eat - just as I normally would. 4 times a day. Breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. I’ve tried doing without anything between lunch and supper but get ravenous around 4-5pm. So I have a snack of a crispbread and some low calorie hummus. (Low cal red pepper hummus has less than the original kind)

For breakfast I’ve tried a boiled egg and a crispbread - a bit meagre even though the crispbreads are the wonderful Peter’s Yard’s. (A seeded Ryvita would be a cheaper alternative). I prefer a bowl of low fat yoghurt and blueberries, which keeps me going for several hours.

For lunch I’ve experimented with soup (low cal but not particularly filling), big salads and crispbreads, raw veg and hummus. Cheese, for me, is a no-no. You can’t really have more than 30g and I find that incredibly frustrating.

Dinner is a bit more cheering. Stir-fries work best I think (prawns are really low cal) or some steamed or baked fish and veg though obviously you can’t allow oil (119 calories a tablespoon) or butter (205 calories an ounce) anywhere near it. Or potatoes. Or rice . . . . (You can see one can get quite tetchy by this time of day) Large Asiany soups (without noodles) are also quite satisfying. And if you haven’t blown 300 calories already you could have a calorie-counted ready meal.

If you’re looking for inspiration there are some delicious recipes from food writer Xanthe Clay who is also on the diet here, some 200-400 calorie recipes on the BBC Good Food website and a good ebook I’ve discovered called The 5:2 diet book by Kate Harrison, downloadable from Amazon at £2.56. Money well spent.

5:2 - the perfect frugal diet

I told you I'd be back sometime and here I am. Back to frugal eating but with a slightly different slant. Semi-fasting 2 days a week, otherwise known as Intermittent Fasting, the 2 day diet and the 5:2 diet. Ironically I’ve actually lost 5 lbs (just over 2 kg) in the first 2 weeks which is rather apt.

A food writer friend of mine had lost a similar amount and was raving about it as perfectly suited to the indulgent lifestyle we foodies enjoy. (Not expecting any sympathy, obviously, but it’s taken its toll and my weight has been creeping up relentlessly over the last 5-6 years.)

Apart from a brief spell on Weight Watchers after the birth of my son I’ve never managed to diet successfully but 2 days a week - even with a limit of 500 calories (men are allowed 600) a day is totally do-able.

The theory is that fasting twice a week rather than 24/7 confuses the brain and prevents it conserving fat rather than burning it up. (Normally as you lose weight your metabolic rate slows.) it also apparently discourages it from producing the hormone IGF-1 which makes the body focus on repairing and renewing cells rather than making new ones. No, I don’t fully understand all that either but read this article by Dr Michael Mosley, whose Horizon programme kick-started the craze, for  clarification.

So what can you actually eat? Not a lot if truth be told, unless you want to save up your allowance for one relatively normal meal - as many do. Effectively no cheese, no booze, no bread, no butter, very little meat and not much fruit. You can however fit in eggs, fish, low fat dairy and dips and loads of veggies. And there’s always the cheering thought that you can resume normal eating the following day.

When I say 'normal' of course I mean most people’s normal not a massive blowout to compensate for what you missed the previous day. I find it’s made me more conscious of what I eat and so I’m reining back a bit generally although this two week period has included a hugely indulgent weekend in Portugal.

I haven’t felt dizzy - some apparently do - though I felt a bit light-headed on the first fast day. I have felt hungry so find I need 3 meals plus some kind of snack which means the maximum I can eat at a sitting is 200 calories. I've actually quite enjoyed devising ways of getting round that. I've also felt much more clear-headed and energetic.

The other benefit is you eat less therefore you spend less. So frugal in the conventional sense too.

I’ll be posting occasionally to let you know how I’m getting on and pass on any useful tips.

Return of The Frugal Cook and some musings on veg

Well, here I am back again. You might well wonder why when I already have two other blogs (Food and Wine Finds and The Cheeselover) but the fact is that more people still visit this blog than both of the other two combined. Which some might say is an reason for not blogging at all but, ever the optimist, I'm not taking it that way.

The other reason is that we're by no means out of the woods economically. A lot of people are losing their jobs. Even more - and I'm thinking of recent graduates - are having trouble finding them. Money is tight for many people who have never had to think twice about what they spend or may never have got round to acquiring cooking or shopping skills.

I'm not going to be overly ambitious about this. I probably won't post more than two or three times a month but I hope it will be useful and occasionally inspiring - not least for the very helpful comments that visitors have always left on this blog.

So, to start with, a reminder about the virtues of farmers' markets which are at their best at this time of year. And here (above) is what I bought at ours the other day. It came to £6.60 which I think is pretty good and will certainly keep us in veg for the week. To give you a price comparison a small vegbox from Abel & Cole would cost £7.99 + 99p delivery. The 580g of runner beans I bought for £1 would have cost twice that in Tesco and I doubt would have been half as fresh. So it's a good deal.

I also like the fact that having such great produce I can build whole meals round them, cutting the costs of the other food I buy. The onions actually cost more than I'd pay in a supermarket but because they're large and sweet I can use them for an onion-based dish like Jill Dupleix's baked stuffed onions with parmesan cream or even, given this unseasonal weather, make a creamy onion soup.

The cabbage witll make a slaw and a stir-fry, the courgettes can be grilled, anointed with oil and served with feta and the beans can be cooked as a veg or sliced and frozen for less plentiful times. Or use them as I did today, to make this variation on a salade niçoise for a quick, healthy lunch for one


Mackerel, tomato and bean salad
Serves 1
150g runner beans, trimmed and sliced
4-5 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
2 tinned mackerel fillets, roughly broken up*
1 tbsp finely chopped onion, spring onion or chives
About 2 tbsp oil from the mackerel can or jar if it tastes nice, otherwise use olive oil
A few drops of wine vinegar or lemon juice
Salt and pepper
A heaped tablespoon of parsley or a little chopped mint if you have some

Trim and thinly slice the runner beans, put them in a saucepan and pour boiling water over them. Bring back to the boil add a little salt and cook until tender but still crunchy (about 4 minutes). Drain and rinse with cold water and pat dry. Put in a bowl with the cherry tomatoes, mackerel, chopped onion or chives. Drizzle with a little oil a few drops of wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper and lightly mix together. Scatter over some parsley or other fresh herbs if you have some.

*Another economy. Mackerel is cheaper and more sustainable than tuna!

Any other good ideas as to what to do with runner beans which are at their peak - and lowest price - right now?

To eat better, eat less . . .

I've made a couple of purchases in the last couple of days that were not strictly frugal but they weren't extravagant either.

One was two very small punnets of raspberries (from a farm called Pixley Berries which makes fruit cordials) which I bought from our local greengrocer. I didn't weigh them but I would doubt if they were more than 125g each which at 99p a punnet wasn't cheap. But they had auch a fabulously intense flavour you could eat them on their own so no need for cream or even sugar. Worth every penny.

I also picked up four packs of back bacon at the Bristol Wine & Food Fair for £10 (plus a very fetching pink hessian bag). I have to say I was seduced by the name - spoiltpig - but in fact it was produced by a company called Denhay whose bacon I've been buying for years. Spoiltpig is a very clever rebranding which underlines the fact that their bacon is reared humanely (it's Freedom Food endorsed). It's also extremely tasty - dry and savoury without that awful milky goo that oozes out of cheap bacon when you fry it. I had a brilliant bacon butty yesterday made with 2 rashers instead of 3 so reckon I didn't spend any more than I would normally have done. (You can apparently buy it in Morrisons and larger branches of Budgens)

It reminded me that one solution to cutting back your food budget is simply to eat less. Easier said than done, I know, if you have hulking great teenage boys or alpha males in your family but for the rest of us cutting back a bit is no bad thing. And it still remains possible to treat yourself to the foods you enjoy and support small producers who need your custom in the process.

Do you have any particular weaknesses when it comes to pricier ingredients?

So are men frugal?

There's an interesting trend I've been noticing over the last few weeks and months which is that almost all my followers and most of the people who comment on this blog (with a few honourable exceptions) are women. Does that mean men aren't frugal?

I think it actually says more about the dynamics of blogging than about frugality. Women are more prone to support and get involved with a blogger they like than men are, I would say but there is an interesting point here which I was discussing with a colleague on a work trip I've been on this week (hence the gap in posts) which is that men are frugal in a different way.

Her husband for example sweeps up all sorts of discounted 'bargains' in the supermarket when he shops which she says aren't really bargains at all because they all have to be eaten up in the next couple of days. Mine does the same. He also rarely eats up what's in the fridge while I'm away (his argument being that 'he doesn't know what's in there')

On the other hand I've another male friend who's a genius at cooking from leftovers. (But he's the only one I know)

Men, I reckon enjoy the hunter-gatherer aspect of frugality. Bagging bargains. Going off and killing or catching things, foraging for wild foods. Although there are of course exceptions, women generally have a more domestic take on the subject. They're better at handling a household budget, planning a week's meals and using up stocks. Which is why the man traditionally handed the woman the family's housekeeping money.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong . . . Male readers, do come out of the woodwork and tell me how frugal you are. Women - tell me how you leave it all up to your man. Or not . . . What happens in your household?

Some more frugal eating tips

This time from the excellent US food and drink site epicurious which is offering '35 easy ways to stretch your food dollars'

Seems like everyone is affected by the credit crunch . . .

I'm in transit now till Friday when I'll be back in Bristol and looking forward, I guiltily admit, to a bit of good old English drizzle.

Viva la frugalista!

Goodness, it’s getting so hip to be frugal. You could hardly open a paper over the weekend without getting a pageful of budgeting advice. The Guardian and Observer are running a pull-out series on How to Save Money (which mentioned Beyond Baked Beans). The Times Cook Jill Dupleix offered some cheap fish recipes in the Sunday Times (delicious, but not that cheap. The recipes came in at roughly a tenner for four which isn’t frugal in my book) And the Indy ran a big feature on the new ‘frugalistas’ which inevitably included celebs wittering on about how fabulous it is growing vegetables and rearing pigs. There’s even a blog called Frugal Fashionista which tells you how to look like Sarah Jessica Parker without a Hollywood paycheck. And a frugal version of Wikipedia called fruwiki.com . . . (I’ll be putting up links to some of these sites later this week)

The most entertaining site I think though is a blog called The Frugalista Files which is published by the Miami Herald and features the self-styled Frugalista Natalie McNeal who apparently tries to spend one month a year (February) spending practically nothing. I think I’d chose a different month - February is depressing enough anyway - but it’s not such a bad idea . . .

How long do you reckon you could live off the contents of your storecupboard, fridge and freezer without topping up?

Standing out from the crowd/Marmite

Walking past the butcher just now made me think there's a lot to be gained by doing the opposite of what everyone else does. Bank holiday weekend coming up - what's going to be in the shops? Burgers, kebabs and marinated chicken. What does the smart frugal cook do? Make a stew. Bake a pie. Use the cuts that nobody else wants (well nobody except the people reading this blog!)

Lamb breast I noticed had come down to £4.76 a kilo - that's about 43p less a kilo than it was last week. There were large organic guineafowl on sale for £4.99 - with care that's enough for six helpings and some quality stock.

Checking out the weather forecast this weekend looks like it's going to be chucking it down in the West Country anyway so it's not exactly ideal barbie weather. What are your plans, foodwise?

Now Jamie's cutting back

A press release from Jamie Oliver's (or possibly Sainsbury's) people dropped in my inbox to announce that Jamie would be fronting a new 'Feed your Family for a Fiver' drive. He's a good bloke, Jamie, but you have to admit it's a bit ironic being paid 1 or 2 million pounds, whatever it is by Sainsbury's, to tell us how to survive on a shoestring.

And Sainsbury's could presumably have lowered their prices at any time to help the cash-strapped families they're suddenly so concerned about. As I point out on my student website beyondbakedbeans today, take a look at some of the other prices they're charging for fresh ingredients. 99p for a cucumber! You have to be joking.

So on the one hand we have one millionaire celebrity chef (Jamie) telling us to tighten our belts while another (Delia) tells us to go out and spend, spend, spend to save time. It's a bit like Labour turning out to be the party of big business and the Tories turning all touchy-feely and green.

It's a topsy-turvy world we live in.