The Canny Lass

Okay, so we’re off to a flying start with my first real post of this new Canny Lass website. And today I’m going to talk about saving on dinners.

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1970 and was brought up on meat and two veg for every evening meal. That could be stew, carrots and potatoes; fish, peas (yuck) and potatoes; chicken pie with veg; or sausage and mash with carrots or beans…you get the gist. By the very late 70s and into the 80s, more ‘exotic’ food was becoming available in the new supermarkets and tv chefs were showing British people how to cook ‘foreign’ food. Believe it or not we only knew pasta from the tinned spaghetti that Heinz made (we had it for lunch on toast) or dried macaroni that was used in macaroni cheese. There were no home-made breads or Thai Green Curry or meatballs and pasta. Olive Oil was something that was used medicinally. However, by the 80s my mum was able to buy more and more different ingredients so was able to make lasagne and curries and Chinese stir-fries. Food was also expensive, but starting to get cheaper by the time I was a teenager. Our food world really opened up.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s to explain why even now my view on a good meal always includes meat… even pasta dishes, with the exception of macaroni cheese. It’s an ingrained viewpoint and one I have to shift if I’m going to save money on meals.

I’m not a vegetarian and I’m not a vegan. I love eating meat, but meat is expensive and I’m at the point now where I’m looking to cut down on the amount of meat we eat to save money. I almost wrote to save the planet too, but I’ve yet to be convinced a vegetarian or vegan meal is better for the environment than a meat diet. They still have food miles (if not locally bought veggies) and insecticides . But I digress.

Anyway, in the spirit of cutting down on meat laden meals (as delicious as they are), tonight we are having tarka dahl for dinner with rice. I got the recipe from the Feed Your Family for 20 Quid website, which is a fantastic resource of great cheap recipes courtesy of my fellow countrywoman Lorna. She also has a couple of recipe books out that I would recommend. I use them a lot. Lorna also has a Facebook page where you’ll find videos of her making delicious meals and treats. Please pop along and sign up to her website, you’ll not regret it. She also advertises money off items and sales, so she’s worth following. I estimate her lental dahl recipe will cost me approximately £2.31 a head (going by ASDA prices) to make, excluding the rice.

My 17-year-old son, who wants to be a chef, is going to help me. I’ve said I’ll start teaching him how to cook. He works as a kitchen porter at a local hotel and the chefs there are also going to train him, which is fantastic. However, they often don’t have time. I think it’s really important that youngsters learn how to cook as it’s much healthier and cheaper for them to cook from scratch. Anyway, I’ll let you know how we get on.

Okay, I’m finishing here with a quick tip. I’m hoping to pass on some tips I learn as I go along. Here’s my first one.

Top Tip

If you’re making home-made steak pie, use sausages to bulk out the pie. This is a tip my mother (who is 80 this year) learned from my grandmother and it works beautifully. It means you don’t have to buy as much of the costlier meat.