• 500g (2 1/2 cups) long-grain rice
• 1 tbs peanut or vegetable oil
• 800g cooked chicken (I like to use a roasted one from the supermarket, shredded. You can easily shred cooked meats, by using two forks in a tearing motion on a chopping board.)
• 6 bacon rashes, rind removed, coarsely chopped, about 1.5cm squares
• 3 eggs, lightly whisked
• 8 green shallots, ends trimmed, thinly sliced diagonally
• 100g (1 1/2 cups) bean sprouts, ends trimmed
• 80ml (1/3 cup) light soy sauce
• 100g frozen pea & corn mix

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Ingredients:

• 300g green beans, ends trimmed
• 1/3 cup of unsalted, uncooked nuts (I like pine nuts)
• Tbsp olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, chopped finely
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup fresh parmesan cheese (sliced, shaved, grated, it doesn’t matter)

Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook beans for 2 minutes and drain. Transfer to a serving bowl.

Whilst you’re waiting for the water to boil, heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add nuts and cook, stiring for 2 – 3 minutes or until slightly browned. Add oil, garlic and spring onions and cook, stirring for one minute or until softened.

Add vinegar to frying pan and stir to combine. Pour mixture over beans and sprinkle with parmesan to serve.

Budget tips for this recipe: Realistically, this recipe would probably work quite nicely with almost any vegetable that was appropriately cut up (to account for the short cooking period) so you can try whatever is in season at the market which will keep costs down. Pine nuts work very well in this recipe, but can be expensive. Try slivered almonds as an alternative. If you can’t afford, find or don’t like fresh parmesan, skip it alltogether rather than substituting for the powdered form. The recipe is great without it! You can also try different types of cheese, but make sure it’s a hard cheese with ‘bite’.

Bon appetite!

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Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small brown onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 200g risotto rice
• 600ml vegetable or chicken stock, simmering
• 400g can peeled tomatoes, chopped (you can buy diced ones too)
• 1 1/2 tbsp olive tapenade
• 100g tiny black olives, pips removed
• 4 sprigs basil, leaves shredded
• 50ml dry white wine
• 30g unsalted butter or butter substitute (eg. nuttex or margarine)
• 75g parmesan, finely grated
• Black pepper (freshly ground tastes best)

Heat oil in a sturdy pot over medium heat; add onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add rice and stir with a wooden spatula until all the grains are coated with oil. Cook for a few minutes. Have the stock ready and simmering gently. Using a ladle, add enough stock to come almost to the top of the rice, but don’t drown it.

Stir until the stock evaporates. Continue adding stock little by little as needed, stirring most of the time. After 15 minutes, add tomatoes, tapenade, olives and basil. Continue stirring and adding stock. At 20 minutes, taste rice to check if al dente (still a little firm).

When al dente, remove from the heat, add the cold wine, stir and add the butter and half the parmesan. Season to taste. Cover tightly and leave to fluff up for 2-5 minutes.

Serve at once on hot plates, sharing the rest of the parmesan at the table.

Budget tips for this recipe: Macadamia oil, whilst more expensive than olive oil is better for you (has been proven to lower cholesterol, and is happily heated for long periods). You can substitute both the olive oil and the butter in this recipe for macadamia oil if you wish. The black olives are cheapest when bought in a jar at the supermarket and not from the deli counter. Use bin-end or cleanskin wine to keep the cost of this down. The very cheapest way to get stock is to make your own, but it’s very time consuming! For health reasons, I use and recommend Gravox liquid stock, but stock cubes work too.

Bon appetite!

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Ingredients:

• Fresh basil
• Beef mince (depends on how many you’re serving, but I use about 100g per person. I also prefer the heart-smart, low-fat option, but it’s more expensive)
• Onion
• Olive oil
• Dry spaghetti (or make your own if you want to keep costs down)
• Garlic (optional)
• Chilli oil (optionalish)
• Brown sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Can of tinned tomatoes
• Tomato paste (about three tablespoons)
• Red wine (optional – I use a bin end wine so it’s very cheap!)
• Cream cheese (low fat, optional)

Splash a bit of oil into a pot on medium heat. While you wait for it to warm, cut your onion up into small cubes. (BTW, if your mother didn’t tell you… keep an onion in the fridge to stop it stinging your eyes!). Put the onion in the pot with the oil and if you feel like it, throw some crushed garlic in too. Stir the onion until it turns slightly translucent, then add the mince. Brown the mince lightly, being careful to separate it all to avoid “chunks” forming. Add the tinned tomatoes and paste. Feel free to beat up the tomatoes with your spatula a bit íf you bought whole ones. Add a generous splash of red wine (some for you, some for the pot is an acceptable measurement technique). Reduce to low-medium heat but keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Fill another pot with water and bring it to the boil. Once boiling, add the chilli oil and about a teaspoon of salt. Put your spaghetti in the water, remembering to separate it with a spaghetti server or a fork. When your mince is mostly cooked through, add a very generous amount of roughly sliced basil, salt and pepper to taste and about two tablespoons of brown sugar. Once the spaghetti is cooked, drain it and return to the pot. Take a tablespoon or two of your sauce and stir it through the spaghetti. Serve the spaghetti onto plates in neat piles and top with the sauce. If you’ve chosen to use the cream cheese, apply a small dollop to the top of the stack. It sounds weird, but it works – the effect is similar to lasagne.

It’s worth noting that the chilli oil DOESN’T make this recipe hot. If you’re allergic or something, you can skip it – the sauce tastes great without it! It’ll just give it a mild tingle that you’ll soon realise bolognaise really misses!

Budget tips for this recipe: Again, this is a great recipe because in most cases you’ll have a lot of this in your pantry already. If you don’t want to buy chilli oil, but still want the taste, you can marinate some fresh cut chilli in olive oil (if you put the fresh chilli straight into the sauce it will be very hot). Alternatively, put chilli flakes into your water with olive oil and salt instead. You can substitute low fat beef mince for ‘regular’ beef mince in order to make the meal much cheaper, but remember not to use as much oil, as the fat in the meat will make up for it. Brown sugar is used here for flavour, but you can use white sugar instead if you already have it in your pantry. Again with the wine, I buy bin-end bottles, so they’re about $4 or $5 each and you can freeze the remainder to use next time, or drink it over dinner! I use my cooking wine for several weeks quite comfortably.

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• Butter (margarine will do fine, whatever you already have)
• One or two leeks
• Chicken or vegetable stock (about a litre – that’s about 2.1 pints)
• Butternut pumpkin (depending on how many people you’re serving for, a half usually does. I used two and made 7 meals from this recipe.)
• Paprika (optionalish – it makes a real difference)
• Salt and pepper (optional)
• Cooking cream (I use extra light, you can also use milk if you want)
• An orange
• Low-fat puff-pastry (I use pre-rolled sheets, but it’s more economical to make your own!)
• Garlic (optional)
• An egg

Slice the leeks and warm the butter in your soup pot while you’re doing it. If you happen to have garlic around, feel free to throw some crushed garlic into the pot. Put the leeks in the pot on low heat and stir ’til they’re coated in the butter. In the meantime, peel and cut the pumpkin into small cubes. When the leeks are soft and the whites are slightly translucent, put the pumpkin in the pot. Almost immediately, add the stock. Cover the pot, bring the whole lot to the boil and then simmer, covered until the pumpkin is very soft. Allow the soup to cool. Grate the rind from the orange and add it to the pot along with the salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Transfer everything to a food processor (or blender) if you have it, otherwise just mash it up! Add cream to taste. Cut the pastry to cover small ramekin dishes. Put the soup in the dishes and cover with pastry. Brush the pastry with the egg (whisked) and bake in the oven until it’s golden.

The effect of this is to have what looks like a small pie served to each person. When they break through the pastry, they’re greeted with a waft of the citrus from the orange plus the sweetness of the soup. Everyone I’ve ever served this to has absolutely raved about it, and it’s so very cheap!

Budget tips for this recipe: The good thing about this recipe is that you’ll often have lots of the ingredients at home already. If you don’t have pastry pre-made, just make your own. If you don’t have cream at home, or are watching the pennies or your waistline, it can be substituted for milk. Same with the egg, some of the warmed butter will have the same effect! If you’re so inclined, you can make your own vegetable / chicken stock in large batches and freeze it for future use. This is really cost effective, but is time consuming. I buy premade salt-reduced liquid stock (when it’s on sale) but you can equally make up your own from stock cubes, which will cost you less than a dollar (just watch the salt content of these). If you don’t have paprika in the house, try cummin or cinnamon. Finally, I use butternut pumpkin because it’s sweeter than your regular pumpkin, but you can really have fun with the flavour by experimenting with different pumpkin types! It’s cheapest, healthiest and tastiest to buy whichever is in season.

Remember to put whatever is left over into a container and into the fridge or freezer.

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