Jack Monroe

Peanut Butter Ice Cream, 43p

Posted by Jack Monroe | Feb 24, 2020 | Blog, Dessert, Entertaining, Recipes, Snacks & Treats, Vegetarian

Caster sugar is generally more expensive than standard granulated sugar (currently £1.19 for 1kg compared to 69p for granulated at the supermarket) – but a few years ago I worked out that I could make my own substitute for it. All you need is a small powerful blender, and a bag of regular sugar, and you can blitz it up to a finely ground sugar suitable for making ice creams and floaty-light cakes with. Admittedly the blender is an initial investment, but I use mine every day for making soups from scrappy leftovers, hummus from cans of chickpeas, light and creamy batters for pancakes and yorkshire puddings – so it’s well worth digging into your pocket for in the long term, if you can. This recipe is from A Year In 120 Recipes, my 2014 book of seasonal, thrifty recipes, available here. Serves 6 from 43p each. Prices from Tesco, correct at time of writing. This recipe is not sponsored, however I make make a small fee if you click a link and make a purchase. 4 egg yolks, 56p (£1.69/12 medium free range eggs, Tesco) 160g finely ground sugar, 11p (69p/1kg, Silver Spoon at Tesco) 400ml double cream, £1.33 (£2/600ml, Tesco) 220g crunchy peanut butter, 55p (85p/340g, Stockwell at Tesco) First separate your eggs, and set the whites aside. You can use these in scrambled eggs,...

Cornish Yarg Fish Pie, £1.11 [ITV This Morning EXCLUSIVE]

Posted by Jack Monroe | Feb 21, 2020 | Blog, Fish, Recipes, Spuds, TV

I was asked to make a fish pie for ITV This Morning ‘with a Cornish element to it’, so I opted for a healthy dollop of Cornish Yarg in the mash. Yarg is one of my favourite cheeses; it was brought to prominence by a couple called Alan and Jenny Gray (Yarg is ‘Gray’ backwards!) around 30 years ago, after they found a recipe dating from 1615 in a dusty old book in the attic. I love a bit of foodie folklore, so I happily went and found some, but if you can’t get hold of it, you can...

Tips To Reduce Your Food Waste: Love Food Hate Waste x Jack Monroe

Posted by Jack Monroe | Feb 20, 2020 | Partnerships, Recipes

I’ve partnered with Love Food Hate Waste for their #FlungTogetherFood campaign this month to help raise awareness of the need to reduce food waste. You can find out more about Love Food Hate Waste here: lovefoodhatewaste.com and get involved with the #FlungTogetherFood challenge by sharing your creations on Facebook or Instagram and tagging @lfhw_uk Do you know how much food you throw away in your household every week? As a former foodbank user, I am almost fanatical about not throwing food away. I take leftovers home from restaurants, wrapped in napkins and stuffed in my handbag. I have a jar of butter...

Come-To-Bed Parmigiana, 74p

Posted by Jack Monroe | Feb 14, 2020 | Blog, Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Healthy, Lunch, Pasta, Recipes, Vegan, Vegan Recipes, Vegetarian

Almost three years ago now, I turned up to work late, sleepless, an incoherent babbling wreck chewed up by an 18 month landmark court trial and with bright copper dye fading from my wiry, tousled mania of hair. I left my walking stick in the lobby, and limped in to work…to find a hand thrust towards me in a polite gesture of welcome, a smile, a curt hello. She introduced herself. I apologised seven times for my lateness and my pulled-from-a-car-wreck appearance. She was firm and professional, and she smiled at me again. And I felt that self-same car...

Stand By Me.

Posted by Jack Monroe | Feb 8, 2020 | Blog, Videos

Bear with me please, for what I am about to do. Some of my longtime readers may know that when I was a single mum, living on delayed, suspended and cancelled benefits in this hellscape of a smashed-up welfare system that we have in the UK, I held an ‘open house sale’, like a yard sale without the yard, and I sold everything I owned. Everything. My sons bed. My own shoes. Almost all of my books, clothes, crockery, the light fittings, everything. And my beautiful, wooden, upright piano. I stopped singing that day. Poverty literally took my voice away, like Ursula with her manic grin, strangled it out of me. I have since learned that it is a relatively common response to trauma, but, eight years on, that brings me very little comfort. I used to write my own songs – the last few I ever wrote were about living in that scenario – ‘Whistlestop Tour’, ‘Girl On The Radio’, ‘All Out’ and others. I don’t know where they are these days; probably buried in a box with my dismissal letters from the fire service and the late-night emails from a senior officer who was trying to save my job, and me. This year I have decided to do brave things, partly as a sense of righting some wrongs, and partly to continue on this trajectory...