gram flour pancake with salad
I’ve just finished the latest Eating Well on a Budget challenge, which was meant to be 12 days of eating on no more than £3.30 per day per adult (or £23 per week), also eating “good quality local seasonal food”. The complication for me is that I am now eating vegan food, which meant that I needed to eat some imported dried beans, but that’s OK, as they are probably actually lower in greenhouse gases than local meat.
Why did we set up this challenge? To show that it is possible to eat delicious, nutritious, local and seasonal food on a very tight budget. So how did I do – well basically OK, except that I found out it is pretty much impossible to eat out during this challenge, so I ended up taking four days out, although with two of them I only had the supper out. I was still eating vegan food, so I don’t suppose it was particularly high in greenhouse gases, but I did find myself eating bigger portions, particularly if someone else had cooked it, as it seemed ungrateful not to (and it was delicious and I am greedy, anyway), whereas when I was cooking for myself and keeping to £3.30 per day, I had to stick to one medium portion to keep within that limit.
The hardest bit was limiting myself when it came to the absolutely delicious local fruit and veg which are around at the moment: strawberries, asparagus, fresh salads. They are not cheap and it was hard to have only a few strawberries or three spears of asparagus (at 10p each!) I’m afraid I had lots of local cherries and strawberries today, now I have finished the challenge!
Breakfast was easy – the same for me every day: local gluten-free porridge with a bit of honey, with a cup of my now infamous tea made with fresh mint and crushed garlic (keeps the colds away – I’m serious!). Cost = 50p
Lots of pulses
I was very pleased that I managed to keep within the limit even though I used organic pulses, which are more expensive. I did eat a lot of pulse dishes, so it’s a good thing I really like them! Here are my favourites:
Cannellini bean casserole – cost 50p per portion
Makes 8 generous portions
500 grams dried beans (which I bought from Arjuna for £1.79)
3 large onions
several carrots (onions and carrots from Mayflower Produce, Littleport, from Cambridge Farmer’s Market on Sunday)
several cloves of garlic, also from Mayflower)
2 tins tomatoes from the co-op for 62p
dried bay leaves (from a friend), fresh basil and marjoram from the garden, rapeseed oil from Munn’s of Chatteris
You need to soak the beans for 24 hours, then cook them for around an hour (without salt, or they stay hard). While they are cooking, slice or chop the carrots and onions and sauté them (seasoned with salt and pepper) gently until the onions are a translucent golden brown. I like to cook up the tomato sauce separately, as the taste is much richer.
Tomato sauce
2 tins of crushed tomatoes
several cloves of garlic, crushed
chilli powder
salt and pepper
I put all the above ingredients in a frying pan and cook them over a fairly high heat until the tomato has thickened, adding the chopped fresh herbs towards the end. (You have to keep an eye on this to see that it doesn’t stick to the pan and burn.)
Finally put the beans, the tomato sauce and the cooked vegetables and season to taste. (I often add a spoonful of my daughter’s home-made spicy plum sauce, which is absolutely delicious!)
This is a dish in itself, but you can serve with rice or baked potato and some greens (a particular favourite of mine is spicy kale – red russian at the moment, 42p per portion).
spicy red russian kale
Gram flour pancake with salad and hummus
This was my absolute favourite dish of the week (25p per portion) – with home-made hummus (also 25p per portion) if I was hungry. You just beat up gram flour with water (and I add chilli as well as salt and pepper) until it is liquid enough and then pour it into a frying pan with hot oil. At this time of year, even with our cold spring, there are already local cucumbers from polytunnels, radishes, spring onions and salad leaves as well as outdoor lettuce. (I found some local tomatoes today, when I happened to go past the Oakington strawberry farm – I asked if they had used heat on them and was told no – they were just grown under glass.)
I must admit that I wouldn’t want to limit myself to £23 per week normally, but it does show that it is possible to eat well on that amount, even buying local veg and cooking from scratch. All the food was delicious and I wasn’t hungry!
Bev 29/6/13