by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 24, 2023 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
A mixed vegetable quiche is a classic British dish that comes out very cheap with a bit of frugalisation. If you think quiche or flan sounds like something your granny makes, you could always call it a tart and feel all contemporary. If you decide to use the oil...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 20, 2022 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Christmas, Christmas Meal Plan 4, Meal Plans
Christmas Week Food. Lots of festive flavours & not many £££’s Christmas Meal Plan If you are on a tight budget, Christmas food can be very difficult, causing stress, and maybe even debt too. Happily, you can enjoy a delicious festive meal, and eat well for...
by Thrifty Lesley | Aug 20, 2022 | All Recipes, Puddings / Desserts
No Churn Chocolate Ice Cream You don’t need to make an egg custard and you don’t need an ice cream maker to make no churn chocolate ice cream. There isn’t a trace of an ice crystal crunch either. If you leave it to get fully frozen, take it out at least half an hour...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 11, 2022 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories
Cream of Cabbage Soup Cabbage is a very nutritious vegetable and has been eaten by people for 1000’s of years, currently consumed worldwide. One day last month, I had far too much white cabbage to be able to use it up before it went manky. So I decided to try...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 27, 2022 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories
I really like the carrot cake from Cheap Family Recipes. Like most carrot cakes, it doesn’t actually taste of carrots and I fell to wondering what other vegetables could be used in a similar way. At Christmas, I got lots of the very cheap vegetables on promotion...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 22, 2021 | All Recipes, Christmas, Less than 500 calories, Puddings / Desserts
I had surplus mincemeat from Christmas and decided to use some in a pudding. I have made chocolate roulades for some time and felt sure that swapping the cocoa for flour and using mincemeat and perhaps some apple too as the filling, as well as cream, would work very...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 18, 2021 | All Recipes, Christmas, Dinners
I was watching a programme on cranberries and what to do with them and one of the chefs talked about a creamy base of leeks, topped with a crumble mix. I thought it sounded really nice, but they hadn’t put that recipe on the internet for that programme, so I...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 20, 2021 | Breakfast, Dinners, Lunches, Sides
Soufflé Croûton Slice 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 16, 2021 | All Recipes, Meal Plan 1, Puddings / Desserts
Baked Marmalade Sponge This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. Are you following Meal Plan 1? If so, this baked sponge can be eaten at any time during the week when you need the calories. Would be lovely as a Sunday tea, or maybe after...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 1, 2018 | All Recipes, Christmas, Vegetarian Christmas Meal Plan
This spiced pot au chocolat, little chocolate pots, with a spiced biscuit or two, is from the Vegetarian Christmas meal plan. It’s even more lovely than I thought it would be! Pot au Chocolat Priced at Asda November 2018 100g bar of value plain chocolate, 30p 100ml...
by Thrifty Lesley | Nov 10, 2017 | All Recipes, Puddings / Desserts, Things You May Never Need To Buy Again
Gourmet ice cream A while ago, I experimented with a tin of condensed milk and discovered that condensed milk, double cream and thick greek yogurt make easy peasy gelato. That post explains in detail how to make it, and gives many different flavour options. No...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 18, 2017 | All Recipes, Dinners
I absolutely love the walnut butter I first tried making recently, either honey smoked, as in the original, or plain. Convinced it would make a lovely pasta sauce, I had a little play. Asda don’t sell sun dried tomatoes, so I’ve priced it at Tesco Creamy Walnut Pasta...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 29, 2017 | All Recipes, Lunches
I posted a little while ago about the recipes we cooked at the last U3A cooking group, including a gorgeous Pad Thai, and this creamy leek and cheese toasty. I was sure I had also posted the recipe for the toasty, but apparently not! So here it is. Creamy Leek And...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 21, 2016 | All Recipes, Lunches, Other
I found a delicious new taste today I am rather a big fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Whenever he brings out a new book, I invariably buy it. Not that I need much of an excuse to buy a cook book. I love Hugh’s approach to most things and I really love a great many...
