This tomato sauce is exactly what its name says – a wonderfully versatile sauce for all occasions. I make a large batch and freeze it in small jars or ice cube trays to use as the base for pasta sauces, soups, stews, or anything that could do with a bit of pepping up. It stands alone as a pretty decent […]
The star of the show in this paella is the simple coloured rice, cooked al dente, accentuated with bright red tomatoes and little green peas. This recipe is delicious on its own, or can be used as a base. Feel free to add chopped peppers, seasonal vegetables, any meat or fish of your choice, a glass of white wine, a […]
I love a good tomato soup, and quite often with the humble tomato, simplicity is key. So imagine my delight, yesterday evening, idly leafing through the iconic River Café Cookbook (Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers), and finding a recipe for Pappa al Pomodoro. I’d never heard of it, but fell in love instantly – garlic, salt, herbs, tomatoes and a […]
One of my favourite restaurants in Southend specialises in Keralan cuisine – and when I couldn’t afford it but really wanted a rich, spicy curry, I decided to make my own version. Aubergines are comparitively expensive to buy individually, so look out for the bags of three or four, and eat them all week! Serves 2: 2 aubergines a pinch […]
This is my take on Greek dolmades. I first had stuffed vine leaves at my grandad’s guesthouse in Southend, and deeply regret not pilfering his recipe before he passed away. I wrap mine in cabbage leaves, which will no doubt have him swearing at me from beyond the grave, but these go down well in my house. (Makes 20) at […]
Photography by Susan Bell. I knocked up this soup last winter. It combines onions and garlic for detoxifying goodness with chillies to fire you up, tomatoes and carrots for essential vitamin C, beans for protein and chocolate because it’s a solution to almost everything. (Serves 2) 100g dried black beans 1 onion 1 clove of garlic small red chilli […]
I’ve had a hankering for Curried eggs for the past couple of days, I’m not sure why… So tonight, I knocked this one together. Rich and simple, cheap and easy, this is set to become a Major favourite in my household… Ingredients: (Serves 2) 4 free range eggs 1 onion 1 tbsp oil 1 fresh red chilli or pinch of […]
Tonight’s dinner came courtesy of some chicken liver at the back of the freezer, and some veg left over from a photoshoot yesterday. Idly flicking through my cookbook collection to find a new chicken liver idea, I came across a bolognese in Save With Jamie. Mine’s not identical – I’ve left out the bacon and mushrooms and chicken stock for […]
I just received the following email and I haven’t managed to test this as I’m in Tanzania right now, but the combination of corned beef and red wine and tomatoes makes it a winner in my book! Thanks Tom! 🙂 “Hi Jack My wife is a big fan of yours and told me to drop you a line and see if you want to add this simple recipe to your site Very simple Corned beef Onion Tin of tomato Pepper Garlic granules Splash of left over red wine or Worcester sauce if you have it Spaghetti Pasta Simple spaghetti bolognaise that costs little and tastes great! Hope you like 🙂 Tom” Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
It’s sort of a muffin, sort of a pizza, sort of a ridiculously named open topped toasted sandwich bun thing. I don’t care what you call it, it was my late night munchy snack after 12 hours of travelling today, and it occurred to me that it would be a fab lunchbox alternative to sandwiches, a quick snack, or great […]
I had this lovely email yesterday, with a delicious soup recipe that sounds perfect for winter lunches or light suppers… If I was making it with what was in the cupboard, i’d use a veg stock cube instead of bouillon and trusty chopped tomatoes, but only because I usually have them kicking around! Thanks Andrew for sharing, I hope you all enjoy this one. Love your website and what you do for budget cooking and food poverty awareness. I made this the other day and it was lovely (and cheap): Spicy Tomato and Lentil Soup One small onion One leek One small carrot Tsp olive/sunflower oil 6 medium fresh tomatoes 1 tsp dried organo Tablespoon tomato puree Half tsp cayenne pepper Tablespoon veg bouillon powder (low salt) 200g Red lentils Method Put tomatoes in boiling water. Gently fry finely chopped onion, leek and grated carrot until soft but not brown. Use water from tomatoes to make up veg stock, skin and chop toms. Add toms, oregano, cayenne pepper and puree to pan and fry the mix until soft but not sticking to the pan (about 5 mins). Mash down and bit with potato masher (you can blend if you like smooth soup, I don’t). Add veg stock and bring to the boil. Wash lentils until water is clear and then add to soup. Cook gently until lentils are soft but still intact, add more water, seasoning as necessary. Great with […]
I had this email and recipe from Gill earlier this week, and it’s my kind of recipe – with no strict quantities or weighing or measuring! I have all of these ingredients at home so after what promises to be a busy day today, here’s what I’m having for my dinner… Hi Jack, love your blog and your tips! Here’s a great recipe, it’s cheap, filling, and everybody loves it! You need (in whatever quantities will suit your needs) Potatoes Cheese One tin of tomatoes (chopped, if cheaper, or chop own) Onion Salt & Pepper Slice the potatoes and the onions thinly. Layer in a lidded dish, interspersing with the cheese (can be grated, cheese that has gone a bit hard, even blue cheese works, so just whatever cheese you have, in whatever quantities you have). Season each layer. Half way through tip half of the tinned tomatoes in. Continue layering and seasoning. Finish with the rest of the tinned tomatoes. Bake for a couple of hours or so on a medium (about 170/180) heat. Or can be microwaved if you are in a rush. This dish is very forgiving in terms of how you cook it. Tasty enough to serve alone or have as an accompaniment to sausages, chicken thighs, etc., It’s a great standby ‘store cupboard’ dish! Hope it’s useful! Gill If you have a favourite frugal recipe or tip to share, email it to jackmonroe@live.co.uk Jack Monroe. […]
So I’m home from a much-needed rest in Brighton and back in the kitchen with my sleeves rolled up… One of the most popular dishes I’ve been asked to take on is the humble lasagne – and I’ve been putting it off, firstly, because I’ve Never Made Lasagne Before. Ever. But, i’ve eaten enough of it to know it’s made […]
Jack versus the ready meal, take two. (Mine’s the one in the silver container!!) Today’s challenge was to make liver taste nice. Yeah, I know. My only experience of liver was as a childhood dinner, and I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to this one bit. But onwards – perhaps my palate has changed… The ‘ready meal’ version, […]
For the full recipe, click here: Jack Monroe’s sausage casserole recipe, The Guardian. And in case you missed it or are curious, here’s the whole shebang about the free range sausages: Ethics vs Economics: Choosing free-range. Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe.
Based on my original Feisty Soup recipe, I’ve made myself a batch of this this afternoon to try to combat a very heavy cold. It normally works very well; the chilli blasts the sinuses, the lemon and ginger eases that accompanying stomach ache, the onion and garlic are packed with antioxidants and the carrots and tomatoes deliver a hefty dose of vitamin C… I’d rather have this than Lemsip any day. Ingredients (Makes 4-6 portions) 1 onion 2 cloves of garlic 1 teaspoon ground ginger or 1cm fresh 1 tbsp lemon juice 200g sliced carrots 800g chopped tomatoes with juice 300ml vegetable stock Pinch of dried chilli or 1 fresh chilli Peel and chop the onion, garlic, chilli and ginger and add to a large saucepan with the lemon juice. Cook together on a low heat, stirring frequently to disturb and stop them from sticking. When the onion has started to soften, add the tomatoes and drained carrots, and pour the stock over the top. Simmer for 10 minutes to combine the flavours and heat through. Remove from heat, and blend using a hand blender or jug blender. Serve hot! Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MxJackMonroe. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/agirlcalledjack My new book, Cooking on a Bootstrap, is now available to order HERE. This blog is free to those who need it, and always will be, but it does of course incur costs to run and keep it running. If you use it and […]
I woke up to find this recipe in my email inbox this morning, from Valentina, a reader in Uruguay. It looked so delicious that I couldn’t resist sharing it. I would make this with a Greek cheese (S*insburys do a Basics Greek style cheese that is a close match to feta, which would work well). This is my own creation, […]
This spiced chicken and mandarin tagine will serve us for two nights in a row – the chicken legs were a rare treat in this week’s shopping but I’ll get two nights dinner from them, plus a stock base for a soup or risotto on Wednesday. I still rifled through the bottom shelf to find the cheapest pack, and thought […]
People often ask me why I don’t buy items from the Reduced chiller at the supermarket: well I do, I just don’t tend to blog about them, on the basis that they aren’t dependable, and price reductions vary from supermarket chain to supermarket chain, and even store to store. However, on finding a packet of trout in my local supermarket […]
I knocked up this soup when I had a piteous cold last winter. It combines onions and garlic for detoxifying goodness with chillies to fire me up, tomatoes and carrots for essential vitamin C, beans for protein and chocolate because it’s a solution to almost everything. Plus dark chocolate and red wine are good for you, don’t you know? But […]
I make this for myself whenever I feel as though I am coming down with a cold. you know – when you’ve got that shaky, exhausted feeling and general self-pity. Instead of spending a fortune on various over-the-counter paracetamol and lemon drinks, I drag myself into the kitchen and cook myself a cure. This is called feisty soup for a […]
Gigantes Plaki literally means ‘Really Big Beans’! I’m heading back to my Mediterranean roots with this simple but delicious dish. I can have it for dinner, then lunch the next day and pulse any leftovers into a soup. It makes me chuckle to see these spicy butterbeans retailing for almost £5 per pot in certain supermarkets, when they’re really just […]
Proper Vegetable Masala Curry, 89p, serves 3-4 at less than 30p each. This isn’t vegan. I tried but my pre-first-work-pay-packet budget just couldn’t stretch to £1.99 coconut milk versus 32p of natural yoghurt. I’ve failed my Lent experiment but I’m happy to hold my hands up and say ‘have a fabulous curry recipe’ while I feel a bit guilty about […]
This is so simple that I feel cheeky calling it a recipe, but it’s one for all those folks that say to me, ‘Oh I’d love to make soup but I don’t know where to start.’ well, start here and see where it takes you. There’s even some chopping of vegetables involved, so brace yourselves. Tinned soup contains among other […]
This chilli is adapted from a beef chilli recipe by Gordon Ramsay. I simply left out the beef and halved the wine to make it cheaper – plus, of course, Mr Ramsay doesn’t use a tin of cheap baked beans in his version! I’ve tweaked and fiddled with it so much over the years that now it’s not Gordon’s chilli, […]
This spiced lentil soup is comforting winter food – I keep tinned carrots, tomatoes and a bag of lentils on standby for those evenings when the Small Boy is already tucked up in bed and snoozing and there’s not much else in the fridge or kitchen cupboard. I’ve used red lentils here, but brown lentils or green ones are just […]
