cheap recipes

I had a flash the other day. It must have been going around because emzeegee had the same idea. The secret is cheap recipes.

I have an enormous cookbook collection. A book for everything, and I love every book. Since undertaking my saving task I noticed that many of my books require specialist ingredients. Expensive, beautiful foods that will make you a meal to remember. A meal to remember while you are crying over your credit card statement, in your rented house.

I needed to find a better source. I looked at what was about. Recipes for the people- Better Homes and Gardens, Good Taste, Delicious, Nigella, Jamie etc. Even they would have me out there buying eye fillet or salmon ($28 per kg), creme fraiche, proscuitto, gourmet cheeses, raspberries, blueberries..

Then it struck me. It's not about the ingredients, it's the recipe. I'm reading expensive recipes. So I changed what I am doing. No more out spending time, energy and money trawling for cheap ingredients. Do my research at home and find cheap recipes.

What makes a recipe cheap? Few ingredients, and not much of the expensive stuff. In main course and savory meals, you must look at what the bulk of the meal consists of, and what binds it together. Rice, potatoes, noodles, lentils, polenta, burghul and cous-cous bulk out a meal cheaply and beautifully. Utilising seasonal veges also makes a recipe quite cheap. Meat, cheese, prime pieces of fish or the need for protein portioned, like you get in a restaurant, will blow your recipe budget.

When you bake (if you do) then eggs, butter, chocolate, nuts, almond meal and honey will get you. These luscious ingredients make your baking luxurious and indulgent, which is why you would bother to make it in the first place. But the generations before us baked cheaply and filled the biscuit jar three times over for the cost of a flourless chocolate torte.

Out came the old Country Women's books (again!) and the vintage Good Housekeeping books, which I kept for the pictures. A quick scan and I found Asian, Middle Eastern and Jewish cuisines particularly lend themselves to cheap eats. In fact, the trend for peasant cooking like Italian, provincial French, Spanish and Portugese, brings us an abundance of great recipes. Out came clippings and old copies of anything I had from my Mum.

And I found a gem. Yum-yum Cake, from Joan Campbell. It's very easy and has water in it, for crying out loud. How cheap is that? Start with

1 cup raisins
1 cup sugar
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and cloves
1 1/2 cups water
50g cocoa, sifted
pinch salt

Combine these ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the boil, simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool.


Then stir through
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
3 drops vanilla

Pour into a prepared 21cm ring tin and bake at 180c for 35-40 minutes.

When it's cool glaze with
150g dark chocolate
1 tablespoon honey
60g butter
which you have melted gently together in a bowl over hot water.

The glaze will bust your budget, but it was hard to go cold turkey on the first cheap recipe! Because there's no eggs, it keeps well for about a week. If it lasts that long.