Easy chunky fish chowder

Having taken some fish snaffled up from the bargainous CFC out of the freezer yesterday  with the intention

A mere £3.75 for all 4 fish fillets.  :-)

of making my crunchy topped fish pie, I realised tonight as I got home late from work that I really just could not be bothered.  So - what to do with the fish?  A nice chowder would suit the freezing outdoor temperatures nicely I figured, and should be easy to knock up.
Atypically for me I didn't then embark on a 2 hour research project comparing the relative merits of each and every recipe on the interwebs but I adapted this one from the BBC good food website and made it even easier and chunkier.

Chunky Fish Chowder
EVOO
2 sticks celery - diced
1 leek - sliced then the rounds sliced in half
500g spuds - diced small as I didn't bother peeling them.  I used waxy spuds as that's what I had and what I prefer
1 litre fish (or use veg) stock

Skinning salmon is easy, cod - not so much!

Zest of 1 lemon (if you haven't got a lemon in the house feel free to leave this out - I wasn't convinced you could taste it in the final product tbh)
1 tsp cornflour
2 salmon fillets (my pack was 260g) - skinned and cut into chunks
2 cod fillets (my pack was 220g) - skinned and cut into chunks
300ml full fat milk
150g sweetcorn - defrost if frozen
2 heaped tbsp Greek yoghurt

Soften the celery and leeks in the EVOO for 5ish mins while chopping the spuds.
Add the spuds, stock and lemon zest.  Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.

Stir the cornflour into a small amount of cold water and add to the pot.
Once the potatoes are soft (up to 15 mins) use a masher and crush them into the soup a bit.  How much is up to you.  It saves getting the FP out though!
Add the milk and sweetcorn and warm up.
Add the fish and cook gently for a few minutes until done.  Don't boil or the fish will fall apart.
Serve - I put a little more lemon zest on mine.  The original recipe suggests chives but I didn't have any.

Tasty, easy and filling, I enjoyed this greatly.  Helped warm me through too.  :-)
As I'd used reduced fish it was a cheap dish for me to make and I just used veg that was to hand, so no need to shop especially for this dish.

Meat Cooking for the faint hearted #2 - Ox Liver and 'Bacon' hotpot

Except it was leftover roast gammon not bacon.  Chap had done the roasting the previous Sunday and had smothered the half joint [another pre-easter CFC bargain at £2 instead of a tenner - I couldn't believe it when I saw that that's how much what is effectively a big lump of ham costs normally!  What a rip off.] in English mustard and I think; a wee bit of honey.  I'll have to check that detail with him. - Yep - honey
The Ox liver was also a CFC clogging-up-my-freezer-space meaty bargain at something like 40p so I took the opportunity to combine some leftovers with the frugal liver to create a hopefully tasty dish for t'Chap [who had ended up getting sent off to Plymouth for work meaning he would be back rather later than usual] and reclaim some of the freezer space for veg stuff.

This was loosely based on a recipe I found here, after googling Ox liver.  Top pointers seem to be that it's the toughest of the livers available therefore needing a long slow cooking method, but is also the 'tastiest' - should you like the taste of liver.  Bleargh.  Even back in my meat eating days I detested liver so this was going to be an interesting cooking experience!

Ox liver & Gammon Hotpot

1lb Ox liver

2 sml / 1 lg onion - sliced
1 md carrot - chunked
1 lg / 2 sml sticks celery - chunked
4-5 big (but not the flat field type) mushrooms - chunked
2-4oz gammon in little chunks
1 heaped tbsp seasoned flour

Parsley

Thyme
S+P
Stock
Potatoes - sliced

Put oven on to heat at gas 3 - or if it's my oven which I know is shite at low temps use 3.5-4.

Slice the liver and toss in the seasoned flour.  Ha - damn sight easier said than done.  Liver is damn messy - muchos blood, not pleasant at all.  In fact it's pretty damn manky I'm afraid.  If you're a veggie that's squeamish don't do liver is my advice!  Anyway - having sliced the [literally] bloody stuff next comes the flouring - I feel I may have done this bit slightly wrong.  I dumped the flour on top of the liver and stirred.  This gave me a passable imitation of lumpy concrete in a fetching [NOT] pink shade.  Hmmm - promising thus far then!

Place your gooey icky pink mix in the bottom of the casserole - oh sorry - that should read 'lay the liver in the base of the casseole'  lol. 

Mix the veg and gammon together and put over the top.
Sprinkle the herbs over [the recipe said sage and of course the day before making this was when I moved the pot of sage from outside the front door to down the allotment so I used what I had] followed by S+P. 
Pour stock over until just on/over the top of the veg.
Top with thin slices of potato arranged in a pretty pattern- or chucked on any old how - it doesn't really matter and depends how much time you wish to dedicate to aesthetics.

Put lid on and whack it in the oven for 3.5 hours then uncover for another half hour to crisp the top.

That's it.  Apart from the whole unexpectedly large amount of blood and the flouring bit it actually wasn't too bad - chopping veg is kinda second nature and it's a dish you just bang in the oven and walk away from rather than one you have to hover over constantly.

Chap enjoyed it but did mention he'd have liked some tomato flavours in there.  It had crossed my mind to add a good tbsp or 2 squirt of tom puree to the stock - esp. as I was using veg stock cubes not having beef ones in the house and evidently they aren't going to have the same flavours or depth of flavour for a meat based dish.  This being the first time I made this though - or any liver dish in fact I was wary of tweaking it so didn't.  Hey ho - I know for next time.

My verdict - it didn't seem that exciting a dish when made to me - perhaps mixing the meat and veg more as well as the addition of the aforementioned tom flavour would work better.  Also - I need to work on my 'flouring the meat' technique I think!  :-D  Not bad for a first timers offal effort though.

Meat cooking for the faint hearted #1 - Slow Cooker Sos

Don't fret - I haven't fallen off any wagon and am still a non-eater of meat [although I am an eater of fish making me a pescatarian not a true veggie.]  The Chap is however an eater of meat and it struck me that apart from bacon or a steak I really know naff all about cooking actual meat dishes.  Granted I could probably muddle my way through a roast with the help of instructions on the back of the label but it's not something I know - which irks me somewhat considering how much I like cooking.  I went nearly all veg at 16/17ish so before I really started cooking for myself, only returning to eating fish at uni.  [Prawns were the only thing I never gave up - one Marks & Spencer Prawn and Mayo sarnie a month kept me on the straight and narrow the rest of the time.]  Not having eaten the stuff for so long whilst I learnt most of my basic cooking skills means there's a distinct lack of meat dishes in my repertoire.
This is all kicked off due to the Chaps rather good haul of CFC bargains from the Co-op the day before they were shut for easter.  He got a plethora of sausages, ox liver, lambs liver, diced beef as well as a gammon joint and a couple of big rump steaks.  Nearly all of it ended up in my freezer and when it started to become impossible to fit my frozen sweetcorn in I decided it was time I did something about it and cooked some of the damn stuff for him.  First up then was a basic sausage [sos / snag / banger - you're choice of colloquialism] casserole.  Long ago I'd kept a recipe from a jar of sauce of some kind and this then was my basis for this slow cooker dish adapted to fit the ingredients to hand.

4 sos - ours were Lincolnshire ones [whatever that signifies - I'm afraid the niceties of that side of it are a bit of a closed book to me]

1 red and 1 white onion - it's what I had - or use 1 large white one etc, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped / minced
EVOO
Mushrooms, chopped (3ish)
Tin chopped toms
0.5pt veg stock
White wine
Red lentils - 2 wee scoops - which was 6 tbsp
1tsp dried thyme
1tsp smoked paprika
Small handful greens - spinach / chard / sea beet / whatever you have to hand

Cook the sausages a bit - to help them keep their shape in the SC.
Heat the EVOO and add the onion and garlic.  Fry gently to soften.
Add the mushrooms and cover then cook gently a few minutes more.  Tip the lot into the SC and whack it on High to heat up.
Add the toms and juice from the tin, a splosh of white wine and the stock; made with boiling water as this will help the ingredients get up to heat faster.
Add the lentils and the thyme and paprika and stir all together.  Judge the amount of liquid in there; the lentils will swell so if necessary add a little more wine and/or stock to ensure there's enough to cook them in.
Chop the sos into inch-ish long chunks and add to the SC.
Cover and turn to medium or low depending how long you've got.  Mine ended up having rather longer than needed with 6 hours but it won't harm it.  Just make sure the lentils are properly cooked through.
Stir your greens in and re-cover to let wilt for a few mins before serving.

See - it's easy!! Admittedly using a pre-formed thing like a sausage seems a wee bit cheaty but it was what we had to hand after the CFC sweep bargain night - these cost us 40p a pack of 8 making this a deffo tick in the 'frugal' box.  They seemed quite 'solid' sausages - not too spongy - actually containing some meat!  Which I think will have helped them keep their form in the SC.  Otherwise the chap enjoyed it and I can [just about] claim that I can make sos casserole.  Kind of...  ;-)

The art of living frugally #1 - food shopping

I don't pretend to have any hard and fast rules for a magical fix, just what I've done myself to help stretch the money in these lean times.*

Keep awareness of your options - try to remember a few key points when out shopping. It's my golden rule to always ask myself 'Do I need it?' Particularly where food is concerned. If you're a bit of a foody like me then your eye will be drawn constantly in the shop by the exciting lovely things [lovely things sweetie darling, lovely things] on display, cunningly designed to attract you and make you buy them. With food costs ever rising and the higher VAT making its presence felt we could all potentially do with a little more awareness of our actual needs when entering the shop as opposed to what we'd like. Obviously whilst it is theoretically possible to live off oats and the occasional lime to stave off scurvy; you really wouldn't want to. I'd imagine it'd make you fairly ill after any length of time as well - even with the lime! [ We are not advocating this diet btw. Or any in particular - just offering a few common sense tips on saving some pennies here and there.] So use your common sense and strike a balance.

So - golden rules of food shopping.

1.) Check the CFC - always! Whilst entering the store knowing what you need is a good plan you can be flexible if items on offer are those you'd otherwise buy at a higher price another time. In particular fresh veg, bread and for me - cheese, are things to look out for. Next - is the discount worth it? If it's a pack of crumpets that's now 60p instead of 65p then the answer's a pretty clear No! [A real 'reduction' I've seen btw!] Will you eat it before it becomes inedible? [Applicable to both CFC and full price purchases - we throw some hideous amounts of food away annually in this country alone - let's not add to that when you've just spent your hard earned cash on it.] Now I'm not too rigid about 'best before' dates [helped by the fact that I don't eat meat] but there really is no point buying something only to eat maybe a quarter of it and throw the rest away. (Bear in mind that the product does not magically know when the clock ticks over to midnight of the day after its' 'best before' date so will not therefore through concerted effort turn green and illness-making on you.) The freezer is your friend. If it can't be frozen 'as is' can it be cooked - either prepared ready for use (eg tomatoes into passata) or made into a big batch of soup etc and frozen that way? Then you have the added advantage of several 'ready meals' [but homemade therefore correspondingly nicer] on hand ready to go. [I will mention that I freeze stuff that's supposedly 'not suitable for home freezing' using my common sense and have had no probs so far. This is your choice though.]

2.) Home cook/make - almost all of the time this works out cheaper than buying premade. [Unless the CFC has any startlingly good bargains - see pic!] Even more so if you do this then take a frozen pack to work for lunch rather then spending £2-3 a day on a lacklustre sandwich. Or make your own sandwiches if that's your preference- it'll still work out cheaper and you can have the filling exactly how you want; not how some overpaid ad-exec/marketing/nutitionist bod thinks it should be.

3.) Buy in bulk / loose - but always work out if it's a better price. I have a loose food shop near me and some stuff can be much cheaper from here. Then I can get as much as I want too - so if needed I can bulk buy or if I only need a small quantity I'm not tied to buying a whole pack at an inflated cost as I might be in the supermarket. Things like herbs and spices are way cheaper in here too, as well as in the local health food shop. Which neatly brings me onto the next point -

4.) Shop around. I know locally which shop is best for washing powder, which for gravy granules, which for frozen sweetcorn. Not owning a car I walk everywhere anyway so am not tempted to get everything in one massive shop at a supermarket. If you want to save some pences you need to be prepared to trail around a bit - but on foot or by bike. It doesn't work if you spend all your savings on petrol driving around!

5.) Get what you pay for - sounds silly I know but a lot of the time people can't be bothered or are too self concious to open their mouths and point out when something isn't right. Recently I had 2 seperate instances where packs of items didn't contain the stated number. One was a pack of 6 pitta breads - it only had 5 in. I phoned Co-op and they sent me a £1 voucher in the post. As these were the value pitta breads costing 26p that's nearly 4 packs back - not bad! The other was an Aldi pack of 15 yorkshire puddings - only contained 13. They gave me a full refund and we'd already eaten the 13 yorkies. :-D

Now I'm most deffo not suggesting we turn into whinging bastard customers [yes - I've worked in retail before - can you tell] but if you've paid for something and not received it then point it out. Companies should be happy to put it right.

6.) Don't be a snob. There's nowt wrong with most 'value' ranges. Most of them are exactly the same thing from the same factory as the supermarkets own brand 'regular' item. When it comes to things like pasta and rice how different can they be? Yes - some value items may be less than great - S'bury's veg stock cubes being a case in point [incredibly salty; inedibly so] but stick with the basics and you'll be safe enough, or learn which are worth buying as I have. If there's no 'value' option available the store's own line will nearly always be cheaper then a brand name.

7.) Grow some food. You'll have to have been taking a sabbatical on the moon to have not seen all the GYO stuff about recently. I think there's enough out there on the subject that I really don't need to add much to it. Suffice to say you don't need an allotment - any bit of garden, patio, pots, hanging basket, sunny windowsill could yield anything from some runners in a pot up a wigwam of canes - doesn't need a lot of floor space, or just some herbs on your windowsill. Seeds are cheap as chips compared with what we pay for the end product in the shops. Try it.

Also don't forget the potential for free food growing in our hedgerows and coastlines - get some proper foraging guides if you want to do this though. I take no responsibility for any self poisoning incidents!

*This was shaping up to be a monster post so I've split it into this predominantly food orientated one and the next thrilling installment - non-food orientated stuff. Woop eh??!