by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 8, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2
First published in August 2013, revised and updated in September 2021. Have you ever made pesto using fresh vegetables? It was quite a revelation when I discovered it. I’ve found that I can make something that I like to call pesto (Italians wouldn’t!) with...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 19, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 1
This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021 I love this recipe, chickpeas in a tomato sauce. It can be spiced in any way you like, with whatever you have, and served with fresh cooked, fluffy nan. It won’t be as authentic if you use...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 22, 2021 | Dinners, Less than 500 calories
I made these lovely honey soy chicken drumsticks recently, using Aldi chicken thighs instead of drumsticks. I prefer thighs really, I think they are the best cut on a chicken, much more succulent than a breast, and a lot of flavour. Thighs do have more fat than the...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 8, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Stretch A Chicken
I really fancied a BBQ pizza one day and wondered what I would need to use for toppings. Having made some vegan BBQ sauce that was really successful a while previously, I wanted to use that and decided to use it as the base sauce instead of a tomato one. Well, wow, it...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
This curry base recipe is a very useful one to have in your repertoire. Endlessly versatile, you can add pretty much any protein to it. Curry Base Recipe To make the curry base, start by frying off a finely chopped onion. You can use any fat to do it. Ghee is...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 3, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
These peanut butter noodles don’t take too long and are really yummy, we’ve had them several times now. You can really stretch out a few shreds of chicken with this. I’ve done it with noodles and spaghetti, both worked well. Ingredients for Peanut Butter Noodles...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 13, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Love Your Leftovers, Lunches
I went to Canterbury Christmas Market with the U3A last December. One of the things I did there was to browse in the Oxfam book shop. Lots I wanted, of course, and I bought 3, couldn’t carry any more! One of the books I bought was a very sweary one called Thug...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 1, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
I have been exploring swapping out the ragu layer of a lasagna for many other different things. The first was made using a really good lentil ragu which I thought would work well as a lasagna. It was very successful and inspired me to think of lots of other...
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 | Mar 10, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
Another entry for the library of lasagne – a tomato one. This is one I made a while ago and posted on Facebook, but didn’t write a proper post Tomato Lasagna Serves 4. Priced at Asda March 2019 Ragu layer 1 large onion, finely chopped, 75p/kg, 8p 200g carrot,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 22, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners
I recently made a really good lentil ragu. The flavour was strong enough that I thought it may well make a good lasagna. This is the result and it was very good indeed! It will freeze well, so is something you can batch make. Lentil Ragu Lasagna The prolonged cooking...
by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 20, 2019 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Lunches
I haven’t made this for the longest time. It’s a recipe from my notebook that I got from Weezl, she of Cheap Family Recipes fame. I made it again this week and am enjoying it on a slice of my home made granary bread, toasted, for breakfast. Do give it a go, super...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 23, 2019 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
This recipe is inspired by one I found in a recipe book first published in 1994 – The Vegetarian Pasta Book. I’ve been making, and adapting, lots of recipes from it. Amazingly, it’s still in print, and, as a bonus, extremely cheap too! Cabbage, sultana and nut...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 22, 2019 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 11
A Trio of Vegetable Hummus The U3A cookery group met at my place on Tuesday this week. One of the many things we did was a vegetable hummus made from green peas from Izy Hossacks book, The Savvy Cook. It was utterly delicious and has inspired me to make many different...
