We have been watching a new series on BBC2, Economy Gastronomy. It's quite simple - each week they look at a family who spend an ENORMOUS amount on food, mostly convenience food and takeaways. They then give them advice on how to shop (!) and then how to cook simple, healthy food on a budget. We end up shouting at the tv (I have to say that's a common occurence in our house)!! It's all too easy to say that cooking is no longer taught in schools, but such dishes that I learned to cook at school I never cooked again, and Malcolm certainly wasn't taught to cook at school!! Although our mothers never formally taught us to cook, Malcolm and I picked up the basics from them, as Stuart learned from us, and of course now there is an unending supply of cooking programmes, books and magazines. And as for producing cheap meals, perhaps the BBC could show what I did with these ingredients!
A leftover piece of feta cheese, the end of a cucumber, a tomato, some thinly sliced red onion (leftover from the previous night's dinner), some basil (from the 69p pot of supermarket basil that has been flourishing on the kitchen windowsill all summer) and in the bowl at the back, some foraged (free!!) raspberries and blackcurrants.
First I made a starter - thinly slicing the tomato (for Malcolm) and the cucumber (for me), cutting the feta into small cubes and chopping the onion. This was then arranged on plates, along with basil leaves.
I then seasoned them with rock salt and coarsely ground black pepper, and drizzled them with olive oil
The result - two tasty starters from bits and bobs!!
Next was the fruit - I decided to make a coulis. After cleaning the fruit, I put it in a plastic sieve (don't use a metal one, it can discolour the fruit) and pushed it through using my very high-tech gadget
Ok, it's not high tech - it looks like a darning egg! I saw Delia using one some time ago - it is just much easier than using a wooden spoon. After squeezing every last drop out of the fruit, I added a dessertspoon of icing sugar to both sweeten and thicken the coulis
mmmmm - yum, yum!! So what did we have with the coulis? The fruit bowl provided the ingredients for a fresh fruit salad - a quick, easy and economic pudding!
Reading this over, I guess it sounds like a bit of a rant and I know that a lot of people say they don't have time to cook ..... but for me, cooking comes first, then other things get done in the remaining time.
I've got off my soap box, and thought that I would end by showing you my little salt bowl and spoon, which you caught a glimpse of earlier in the post