Tenner Week: Day 1: Learn a new recipe
Our latest Tenner Week theme is ‘Back to class’, and we’re trying a new type of lesson every day. For Day One it’s time for some home grown home economics – let’s track down and make a new recipe, as well as making a quick menu for the week.
If you didn’t do the Sunday stocktake yesterday then you might like to have a quick look around your kitchen for ingredients to use in your recipe. As you’re trying to stick to a budget of £10 for the week, the more stored food you can use up the better. Try not to buy any new ingredients today if possible so that you don’t start burning through that tenner too soon.
The easiest way to find a new recipe today is to put a few ingredient names into a search engine along with the word ‘recipe’ and hitting the search button. This usually brings up several options and hopefully at least one of them will be a recipe that won’t need to to buy any more groceries to make it.
You might also prefer to use a recipe site that lets you search by ingredient. Here are a few ideas:
- Cookipedia – UK site with a handy check-box search function
- BBC Food – Search recipes by ingredient using the A to Z
- BBC GoodFood – Small but handy collection of storecupboard recipes
- Delia Online – Delia Smith recipes organised by main ingredient
It’s up to you whether your new recipe is a breakfast, lunch, main meal, dessert, cake or snack. Whatever you like, as long as you try something you haven’t made before.
After you’ve decided what your new recipe is going to be, it’s a good idea to write up a menu for the rest of the week. If there’s anything nearing its use-by date then remember to cook that up first, and perhaps choose dishes that make the most of storecupboard staples towards the end of the week.
I’m going to find a recipe that uses up mushrooms and leeks today, as there are currently some looking a bit sad in the vegetable drawer of the fridge – waste not, want not. What are you going to cook?
Granola for breakfast, because it was there and easy. Lunch will be leftover veggie sticks and chickpea dip. I too have some sad mushrooms lurking the fridge along with broccoli and carrots. I saw an interesting dish on you tube which claimed to be a detox, something I can do in the rice cooker!
Some fruits from the garden for breakfast. Did a very good smoothie with some wild berries. Will try a new recipe of ratatouille and penne gratin for lunch, a pumpkin soup for dinner and some homemade cookies for snack.
Not really a recipe, but I did make coleslaw yesterday. I’d never tried vegan mayo before but really had a fancy for coleslaw, no idea the last time I ate it, We also made carrot cake pancakes at the weekend.