by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 16, 2023 | All Recipes, Dinners, Poaching A Whole Chicken
A quick and simple healthy chicken spaghetti recipe using Sicilian flavours. Juicy chicken, sweet pops of raisins, salty olives, crunchy almonds, luscious sun-dried tomatoes and zesty lemon – delicious! Good hot for dinner, with any leftovers for lunch the next...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 6, 2022 | All Recipes, Lunches, Round Up Post
School packed lunches – the dreaded chore! Can you feed a hulking teenager for 30p a head? Ideas for school packed lunches – many people with school aged children need them. Packing up a lunch box for children or an adult packed lunch is bad enough. It can...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jul 17, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Stretch A Chicken
Chicken & Sweetcorn Recipe for a tart – Stretch A Chicken (5) This recipe is part of a series on stretching a chicken to the max. I took one medium chicken of 1.5kg and made it feed a family of 4 for a week, with 7 different budget stretching chicken...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 22, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 2
Vegan Couscous Salad How to make vegan couscous salad This is pretty simple and doesn’t take long. Put couscous in a bowl with oil and water. Add grated carrot. Cook some green peas (1 min in the microwave from frozen will do it) and add to the couscous If you have...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 30, 2021 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 10, Meal Plan 2
Olive, Soft Cheese and Cucumber Sandwich First written in August 2013, refreshed and updated December 2021 For quite a few years now, once a month, I have coffee with a friend in The Baytree, one of the independent little coffee shops in Heathfield. We were talking...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 29, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2
Pasta with Olives, Tomato & Soft Cheese Post first written in September 2013. Refreshed and updated November 2021. This recipe makes a generous portion of pasta, dressed with olives, tomato puree and soft cheese. Very quick to make, just taking as long as the...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 27, 2021 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2
Raisin Biscuits Post originally published October 2013, refreshed and updated November 2021 These little biscuits are fun to make, especially if you make tiny hearts or teeny squares. Spice them up with cinnamon or mixed spice at Christmas time. Or see the variations...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 2, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 2
Cream Cheese Pizza With a little adjusting, I have made enough calories available to have an 8th day on Meal Plan 2 – which brings the cost down even further! Very pleased with that. How do I make Cream Cheese Pizza Mix the flour and yeast, salt and sugar, with...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 22, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
Panzanella with lovely sun ripened tomatoes. I’ve rewritten this post a bit, and taken some new pictures. Panzanella is gorgeous with very ripe, full flavoured summer tomatoes. In 2013, I tried Panzanella for the first time. I was looking through one of Hugh...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 4, 2019 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
Following on from the last post about a savoury loaf cake, I experimented today and came up with this vegan version. My silicone mini loaf tins arrived today. I said yesterday that I wouldn’t use all 12, but that’s exactly what I did do today! I’m really pleased with...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 3, 2019 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Dinners, Lunches
The U3A cookery group came round today. We have such fun, exploring recipes, stirring, tasting, baking and talking about flavours, options and possibilities. Not to mention the large amount of laughter and gossiping that goes on! This month, we made Peanut Butter...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 7, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners, Valentines Day Ideas
Vegan Valentine Meal I’ve been thinking about a celebration meal for this years Valentines Day and decided to do a vegan one this year. Two courses are from the archives, one, the starter, is a new, although very simple, invention. So we have a black olive and tomato...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 11, 2019 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
I’ve been enjoying these Couscous snacky lunchbox bites for a couple of weeks now. But I’ve been using a packet mix to make them, with added flavourings. I’ve had some lemon and coriander packet mixes in the cupboard for ages, from an approved foods order. That’s all...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 24, 2017 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches, Sides
I haven’t done a recipe for you for a while. I did a soup earlier this week using the juices from some boiled beef, miscellaneous veg from the fridge and some pearl barley. I looked at the container with the pearl barley in, and thought I may as well cook all...
