by Thrifty Lesley | Feb 22, 2023 | All Recipes, Sides
One of the u3a groups that I belong to has a group called Cookalong. In it, we decide on a theme, soups say, Easter bakes or, next month, hearty salads. We all make one, take it along to group, and all taste and talk about the various recipes. One month, we did...
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 21, 2022 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Stretch A Chicken
Spicy red lentil soup- Stretch A Chicken (7) This spicy carrot and lentil soup uses chicken stock made when processing a roast chicken carcass. The stock brings a great deal of flavour to the soup. If you don’t have any home made stock, use a good quality stock...
by Thrifty Lesley | Apr 6, 2022 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Other
Fresh Ginger Tea How To Make Hot Ginger Tea I use a small glass tea pot of 450ml to make fresh ginger tea. By far the easiest way to store it is freezing fresh ginger whole. I pop it in just as it is – not wrapped, not peeled, and grate it on a fine grater...
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 | Sep 24, 2021 | All Recipes, Breakfast, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 2, Meal Plan 4
Carrot & Sultana Loaf 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,...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 16, 2021 | All Recipes, Cakes and Bakes, Less than 500 calories, Meal Plan 1, Meal Plan 3, Meal Plan 7, Meal Plan 8
Oaty Biscuits. Delicious, very versatile and totally irresistible! This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. A very, very variable recipe, for oaty biscuits. Much, much too moreish – and although they are only 1p a biscuit, could make it not...
by Thrifty Lesley | Sep 16, 2021 | All Recipes, Less than 500 calories, Lunches, Meal Plan 1, Meal Plan 2
Lentil Soup, my go to lunch time soup This post was first written in June 2013 and updated in June 2021. I love this soup, it is my go to for a soup for lunch. I usually add a tsp of ginger paste from a jar, a tsp of garlic paste, and a tsp of turmeric to give it a...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jun 19, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Meal Plan 1
Chole Masala & Nan 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | Mar 21, 2021 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
An everyday curry base 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | May 3, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Less than 500 calories, Lunches
Peanut Butter Noodles. Add chicken or fish, or keep it vegan 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...
by Thrifty Lesley | Jan 26, 2020 | All Recipes, Dinners, Lunches
Butternut Squash, Ginger & Coconut Soup – GF, NF, DF & Vegan I had a butternut squash that needed using recently and decided to make soup with it. I thought I’d flavour it with ginger and lime. But in the end I went with some fresh ginger from a...
by Thrifty Lesley | Dec 6, 2017 | All Recipes, Christmas, Other
This recipe was first written in December last year after a meeting of the great U3A cookery group – we have such fun! Cookery Group We had the last U3A cookery group meeting of 2017 yesterday afternoon. Half a dozen people came and the noise level was pretty extreme!...
by Thrifty Lesley | Oct 22, 2017 | All Recipes, Dinners, Sides
Gajar Matar. Everyday vegetables wearing a sari Many, many years after getting the recipe for the Sweet Bean Curry from my lovely friend, I got this recipe from much the same place. His partner was making this recipe using a book I soon bought, The Food Of India. I...
