Beef Stew and Homemade Sweet Chilli Sauce with a twist!

The kids, Brian and Grandpa were served beef stew with mashed potatoes tonight. The weather has been so mixed and it has been quite cold so a good, hot stew seemed appropriate...and Grandpa likes stew a lot!

I cooked the beef as normal: I covered the cubes with flour, salt and pepper,and fried in hot oil until browned and sealed and then added an Oxo cube, stirred, added chopped onions, sliced carrots, 2 bay leaves and a sprig of thyme. I poured in some red wine and let it bubble over a hight heat. I then made up a mix of beef stock, Oxo and tomato puree and poured it over the beef. Once it came to the boil I turned it down to a slight simmer and added some thyme leaves off the stalk and some black pepper. It was left, covered, on a simmer for 2 hours and then served with creamy, buttery mashed potatoes. It was polished off really quickly.

I had prawns instead(shrimps)as I thought buttery mashed potatoes and beef weren't really conducive to losing weight and as I'd also walked for miles today I was pretty motivated...and shattered! I decided to have them on their own but with a little sauce so I set about making my own sweet chilli sauce and the twist was using sesame oil...really amazing, particularly with the prawns. I think I'll have this tomorrow too but add peppers, onions and either noodles or rice.

Sweet Chilli Sauce with Sesame Oil
1 whole red chilli, seeds removed
2 cloves garlic
Ginger, peeled and roughly chopped, around 2 inches
Tablespoon sugar
Good big pinch sea salt
Around a tablespoon white wine vinegar (added a little more near the end)
Around Tablespoon and a bit more of sesame oil

Put chilli, garlic and ginger into blender. Blend well and then add sugar, salt, vinegar and sesame oil. Blend on a low speed then turn up to high. Scrape all the ingredients together and add a little more vinegar and oil if needed. It should be thick but still liquidy.

Empty into bowl, scraping out all the bits of chilli and garlic that have clung to the side. Taste and add more sugar/salt if required. This is a spicy version so watch out...a little goes a long way. The smell is divine.

This would be great as it is, cold as a dip or with chicken or fish or even as a marinade, but I heated up a tablespoon in a frying pan and added a good handful of prawns, emptied into a bowl after a few minutes of quick stir frying and sprinkled with black pepper. It was really, really good.

Feeding a Family of Five for Fifty Pounds

Can it be done? I wasn't sure. Considering my usual weekly food bill was well in excess of £100, particularly since the rising cost of food, I was doubtful. But I was also resourceful: I looked for bargains and found ways to use up leftover ingredients. I always checked the price per gramme or per item against other brands to get the best deal. I took some chances on cheaper ingredients and tried out some dishes that I might not usually have cooked. I think I learned quite a few things;

• I learned that cooking in bulk with fresh ingredients is a lot cheaper than cooking small dishes every day and a lot of food tastes better with age so cooking large quantities doesn't just save money.

• I've found out that a medium sized free range chicken can last two meals, if not more.

• I'm delighted to have realised that all leftover food can be made into at least one of 3 dishes: a soup, a pie or a casserole.
  

• I saw that some items need to be purchased at the higher cost to ensure quality but equally, some non-brand, cheaper items are just as good, if not better.

Some weeks, I found myself way below the fifty pounds; this was due to bulk preparation on meals that take to a freezer really well, e.g. lasagna, curry, stews. Other weeks, I was a little above but used what I had saved from previous weeks shop. All in all, I stayed within the fifty pounds. I'm still a novice however and will continue to find new and innovative ways to save money on family food bills.