Aaaaaah, it’s been bloody AGES since my last recipe. Apologies. First I was finishing a PhD, then I was doing a residency where I was travelling to Yorkshire most weeks and cooking on the go, then I was POOR, and I couldn’t afford to experiment with food. And now I live in London. And am even poorer really, except the difference is I have less time because 2 hours of my day is commuting. But determined to get back on the food blog wagon. (WAGON). So expect a series of CHEAP EATS, for making in bulk and reheating for lunch or dinner. This week I have lentil chilli and this fine recipe; butternut squash and chickpea curry based pretty faithfully on a Good Food recipe. Served with rice in the evenings, or with a pitta for lunch.

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 35 mins | Serves: 4

Nutritional Info: 393 kcalories, protein 14g, carbohydrate 71g, fat 8 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 9g, sugar 16g, salt 0.94 g

NB I got this info off the recipe and I’m too tired to work out if it includes the rice or not, so when I record it, I just add on 50g of basmati rice, which brings the meal to: 571g kcalories, 110g carbs, 9g fat, 18g protein, 376mg sodium, 16g sugar.

Chop up the butternut squash. This is the worst bit of the recipe. From here on in it’s plain sailing. I chop squash the lazy way: slice off sections horizontally, so you have a load of cross section disks, then chop the skin off the sides with it laying flat, you end up with octagon-ish bits of just flesh, which then I section into chunks. Top Squash Tip.

Add the oil to the pan, heat, then add the squash and sautee until browning, about 10 mins

Then add the onion and the garlic, stir, and soften for 5-10 mins more

Add the curry paste, pop it on a high heat, and get it all lovely and covered and fragrant

Then add the stock, stir well, and simmer until squash is almost perfectly soft. Pop your rice on just as it’s getting soft-ish. About 5 minutes for basmati, and 10-15 for brown, before you think the squash is at almost.

Add the chickpeas and tomatoes (I used tinned), stir well, and simmer for a last 5 mins.

Just before serving, stir through chopped coriander. Serve with rice and soya yoghurt. Or pitta. Or naan. Or chapati. You get it.

Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 30 mins | Serves: 2

Nutritional info: 514kcal 63g carbs 20g fat 15g protein

Obligatory ingredients pic:

First up, set a pan of salted water on the boil. Then pop the oil and butter in a pan, melt together, add the mushrooms and fry until brown and yummy.

Add the pasta about half way through browning mushrooms

Add the thyme, garlic and balsamic vinegar to the mushrooms, cook for a couple of minutes

When that’s reduced, add the wine and do the same

Then add the cream and half the parsely

reduce until nice and thick, and add the pasta when al dente, keep cooking until it’s… well, risotto texture. Damn.

Serve with the rest of the chopped parsley on to. It’s not half bad. And tastes lighter than risotto.

So, how to:

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 25 mins | Serves: 4
Nutritional info: 494 kcal, 32g carbs, 28g fat, 12g protein

Ingredients pic (less the wine, and pictured for one)

Prep the onion, garlic, weigh out the other things, make the stock, and cube the butternut squash to approx 1cm cubes. Be careful not to slip with the knife on the squash. I do this all the time. Unfun.

And then, before you start, toast your pine nuts, watch them carefully in a dry pan and brown all over, then tip out.

Next, melt the butter in a large pan, add the onions, soften, and then add the garlic and stir for a couple of minutes. Here are some pictures in case you can’t imagine how that looks:

Next, add the cubed squash, stir around for a couple of minutes, then add a good splash per person of white wine. Let that reduce a little, then add the veg stock (it should just about cover the squash), add the nutmeg (to taste), bring to the boil, and simmer gently until the squash is soft. MEANWHILE

Start the water boiling for the tagliatelle, and about 5 minutes in chuck it in the water with a bit of salt. When the squash is soft and lovely, blend it with 1/3 of the chives, and return to the pan with the cream, stirring through. (NB. I later discovered it was better to blend with the cream and then heat through)

Once the sauce has warmed through, hopefully the pasta should be done, add it to the pan, with 2/3 of the pine nuts, and 1/3 of the chives. Mix together

Then dole it onto plates, scattering the remaining chives and pine nuts over the top.

Doesn’t look mega appetising, but it’s warm and filling and tasty. So, y’know, whatevs.

Serves: 6 | Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 30 mins
Nutritional info: 227 kcal, 35g carbs, 7g fat, 8g protein

Ingredienty:

Prep: get the stock boiling. Chop the onion, cube the tomatoes, crush and chop the garlic, break up the spaghetti, drain the chick peas, chop up the beans into 1-2cm pieces.

Get a big pan, put the oil and onion in it. Soften the onion. I have illustrated this in case you are uncertain.

Add garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes more.

Add everything that isn’t the rocket.

Bring to the boil, simmer for 15-20 minutes, until pasta is done.

When the spaghetti is cooked, stir through the rocket. Season to taste. Serve.

How easy?

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 35 mins | Serves: 4
Nutritional Info: 350 kcals, protein 16.4g, carbohydrate 68.5g, fat 3.1 g, saturated fat 0.3g, fibre 8.3g, salt 2.66 g

Ingredients pic: missing garlic and lemon, 1 too many potatoes, 1 too few tomatoes, and 2 two few chillies, because I made those changes as I went along:

First off (I’ve spared you the picture) pop 1 tsp of sunflower oil in a pan over a med-low heat and soften the onion, garlic, and chillies together for 5 minutes or so. Then add the chopped tomatoes, garam masala and tumeric, and fry over a medium high heat for a couple of minutes, to get it fragrant and stuff.

Then add the stock and lentils, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Then add the sweet potato chunks, simmer for 15 minutes or until tender (but not completely mushy)

I decided to blend mine a bit, but only a bit, and I think this was a really good choice, leave some chunks, but just give it a whizz. A bit of mashing would work too, if you don’t have a hand blender.

Then add the spinach, stir through until wilted.

Season to fuck. Seriously. LOADS of salt. Taste it as you go, but that brings out the flavour. Then add the squeeze of half of or a whole lemon to taste.

And serve. Mmmm…

Serves: 4 | Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 35-40 mins

Nutrition:  (I can’t imagine my tweaks have changed this too much) 241 kcalories, protein 9.7g, carbohydrate 39.6g, fat 6 g, saturated fat 1.6g, fibre 7.4g, salt 1.86 g

Ingredients pic: (I have been known to add a half a leek per person, too, works nicely)

add the oil to a pan and soften the onion and garlic

Then add the carrots, celery and parsnips, and continue to soften

when beginning to get tender, add the lentils, bay leaf, tomato puree, 3/4 of the stock, and a healthy dollop of marmite.

around about the same time, chunk your potatoes, put them into some salted water and start them off

the pie mix should be gently bubbling away, simmer for 25 minutes, or until lentils are tender. You can speed this recipe up by about 15 mins if you leave out the lentils, but they are worth it. Add more stock if it needs it. You want gloopy. Gloopy pie mix.

Just as the lentils are nearly cooked, hopefully your potatoes should be ready. Mash them.

To make the mash, once the potatoes are well cooked, drain, put about 1/2 a tsp of butter per person, a little seasoning, and a generous splash per person of alpro soya cream in (trust me on this, dairy consumers, its slightly vegetabley taste comes into its own in savoury dishes) and if you’re feeling posh a tiny bit of rosemary. Mash.

Then clean out that pan (or if you’re the kind of fancy person with more than 2 medium pans, just get a new one) and set some water on to boil ready for the green veg.

Hopefully your pie mix should be nice and thick now. Spoon it into a casserole dish.

And using a spoon and fork, very thinly spread the mashed potato on top, it never goes as far as you think, so be sparing to begin with. The technique I use is teaspoon of mash, and sort of spread it from the spoon onto the pie using the reverse of the fork. Leaves a nice texture, too.

Your water should be boiling now, chuck in the broccoli (and about 3 minutes later the green beans). Pop the gardener’s pie under the grill when you start the greens. Dunno what heat, mine just seems to have an ‘on’ or ‘off’ mode. Put it on ‘on’.

I totes have a gas oven now. I sort of haven’t gotten used to it yet. Much more unpredictable.

Anyway, all being well, veg and pie should be done at the same time. Drain the veg, serve with the pie which should be lovely and crispy on top. That’s it. Tasty, easy, cheap, vegan. Yes.

Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 15 mins | Serves: 2
Nutritional Info: 467kcal, 44g carbs, 27g fat, 12g protein

Ingredients:

Prep everything. Then pop the pappardelle on the boil in salted water

While that cooks, soften the onion and aubergine in the olive oil. This is when I’d chuck in some mushrooms if you feel like bulking it out a bit.

Meanwhile, gently toast the pine nuts (keep an eye on them and keep moving them around to keep from burning the damn expensive things, remove from the heat when almost-tanned)

After 8 minutes in, add garlic to the aubergine/onion and fry for 2 minutes more

Then add the artichoke hearts, capers and sundried tomatoes, and heat gently

When the pasta is al dente, drain, and add the aubergine mix to the still-warm pan. Combine.

Season, and serve sprinkled with torn basil and toasted pine nuts. Drizzle with a little oil, flavoured ideally. et voila!

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 30 mins | Serves: 4-6
Nutritional info: Per 1/4 335kcal 51g carbs 10g fat 12g protein

Ingredients:

Soften the onions and garlic for 5-10 minutes

add 3/4 of the oregano and the paprika, stir for a minute

Add the bay leaf, drained tinned beans, squash, stock, and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the squash is just getting tender

Then add the french beans and sweetcorn and simmer for 5 minutes more

Just as the green beans are ready, season very well (I used one and half tsp of salt and loads of pepper), add the last bit of oregano, and serve!

Very filling. Good stuff.

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 15 mins | Serves: 4-6
Nutritional Info: (per 1/4 with 1 tbsp yoghurt): 211 kcal 27g carbs 8g fat 8g protein

Ingredients:

First off, gently soften the onion for 5 minutes or so

Then add the garlic, chillis, and cumin, stir for a minute or two

Then add the chopped tomatoes, oregano, beans (I used black eyed ones), passata, sugar, and season well. Simmer for 10 minutes

Just before serving, chuck in most of the chopped coriander, squeeze in the juice of 1 lime. Check seasoning.

And then serve with a dollop of yoghurt, and the last bits of coriander:

Close up!

Serves: 4 | Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook time: 15 mins
Nutritional Info: (I think this includes chapatis) 452kcal, 45g carbs, 4g fat, 8g protein

Ingredients:

First off, use the oil to soften the onion and garlic

Add 1/2 a tbsp of the curry powder to some salted boiling water, and then boil the diced potatoes until tender

meanwhile, add the remaining curry powder to the onion/garlic, stir for a minute or so, then add the tomato, season, and simmer.

meanwhile 2: add the tsp of mint sauce to the yoghurt and stir in, another cheaty thing, but tastes well nice, actually. You might want to grate in some cucumber too, that would be nice.

Once the potatoes are tender, add to the tomatoes with 2 tbsp of mango chutney, stir and heat through

heat the chapati as per instructions, then serve the potatoes (2 wraps per person, about 350g of potato mix for 2 wraps) on a bed of shredded lettuce, or maybe some spinach, or just on their own. Scatter with chopped coriander, drizzle with minty relish and a bit more chutney if you want, fold and eat!