by Thrifty Lesley | May 11, 2025 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories
This banana bread comes together very quickly and isn’t complicated to make. It’s super delicious still warm from the oven so the chocolate pieces are still melted, ooh, yum!. Add pecans to it too if you like! It will keep for 7-10 days, so is great for...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 18, 2024 | All Meal Plans, Celebration Meal Plans, Christmas, Vegetarian Christmas Meal Plan
If you are on a tight budget, Christmas food can be very difficult, causing stress, and maybe even debt too. No need to get into debt, when with a bit of extra planning, you can enjoy a delicious vegetarian Christmas festive meal, without spending a fortune. Re-Priced...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 15, 2024 | All Meal Plans, All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Celebration Meal Plans, Christmas, Christmas Meal Plan 4
Christmas Week Food If you are on a tight budget, Christmas food can be very difficult, causing stress, and maybe even debt too. No need to get into debt, when with a bit of extra planning, you can enjoy a delicious festive meal, without spending a fortune. If you...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 9, 2024 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories
Baguette – crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and with a lovely texture that’s chewy and delicious. Would you like a foolproof baguette recipe? And what’s more, it’s an incredible 9p per baguette. Weekend Baguette Recipe I’ve called it a weekend...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 26, 2023 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Sides
Did you like the look of the avocado, tomato and orange salad yesterday? It’s one of my absolute favourites, and when we have it, it is often with this delicious no-knead focaccia. The focaccia is at its very best, straight from the oven, as many things are. It will...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 25, 2022 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Love Your Leftovers, Round Up Post
Bread is the most wasted food item. WRAP says that 240 million slices are thrown away every year. I find that such a huge number, that I had to break it down to something that I could visualise. So I divided it by 22 slices into loaves. Nope still too big. 365 days,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 30, 2021 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 10, Meal Plan 2
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 about food, as we often do, and one of us...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 20, 2021 | Breakfast, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Sides
I went to a Cookalong recently where we all took a different soup. I tasted 10 soups that day, which was fabulous! All of them very different. One of the members also brought Mary Berry’s Wonderful Soufflé Croûtons, which truly were rather wonderful. I...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 24, 2021 | All Recipes, Bready Things, Breakfast, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2, Meal Plan 4
This post was first written in October 2013. Re-written and refreshedin September 2021. If you take 250g flour, some yeast and water, you can add many, many different things to it and get a lovely loaf, with 4 portions, to use for any meal, as an anytime snack or...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 24, 2021 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 1
When building Meal Plan 1, there were enough leftovers for a friend to issue a challenge to make an 8th day. The challenge was accepted and this delectable morsel is part of that 8th day. It was quite fun trying to use up the odd bits and pieces of this and that and...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 1
A lovely, slicing, easy to make fruit loaf. Use any dried fruit you have. Cuts into 12 slices at 8p a slice First published in June 2013, updated June 2021 How To Make an Easy Fruit Loaf Line a 2lb loaf tin and heat the oven Stir all the dry ingredients together. In a...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 12, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
This recipe is inspired by one I found in a recipe book first published in 1994. Amazingly, it’s still in print, and extremely cheap too! There are loads of good recipes in the book, several of which I’ve made since buying it. Spaghetti with Lentil Balls...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 4, 2021 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories
I like a banana bread, but today, I was looking at my fruit bowl and wondered if other fruit could be used in place of the bananas. How about apple bread I thought? Ooh, or spiced apple bread? How can I make apple bread healthy? To make the apple bread healthy, I...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 28, 2020 | All Recipes, Christmas, Love Your Leftovers
Part 3 of our attack on those Christmas leftovers. more turkey ideas Using stale, dead, bread, that’s been whizzed into breadcrumbs, use the zombie burgers basics, and add some finely chopped turkey, ham, beef. Add in some stuffing if you have any, a sprinkle of...
