Cooking on a Budget.

After my last post detailing the extravagance and opulence of three Michelin Star dining it's time to come back down to earth a bit. Much as it would be lovely to eat like that every day (not to mention have the talent to be able to cook like that) it is simply not practical. With the global financial crisis/recession/depression never being far from the front pages of most newspapers, many people are opting to try and save a bit of cash on their food bills. The question is, can this be done without sacrificing the quality of your food and the enjoyment of eating it or does cheap food always taste of cardboard?

I think cooking cheaply but well is possible and what's more, it can be quite fun too. If you look at it as a challenge, creating a meal for minimum cost can be very rewarding too. So what is the best strategy to do so?

For the sake of a slogan, I'm going to call my outlook the Three Ps: Planning, Preparation and Pasta.

Let's look at planning first. Planning a week or so ahead with meals is an obvious choice. That way you can take advantage of larger quanities at more economical prices/multiple buy offers.It also means that you're less likely to shop while you're feeling peckish and so will stick more strictly to your list. Fewer visits to the supermarket also means you are less likely to get seduced by the glitzy offers they put on to catch your eye (or will get seduced less often - either way it's a saving). The really motivated among you might also plan according to special offers and multi-buy savings in different supermarkets although for me, this takes just a wee bit too much planning! Some big shops will also give discount vouchers so they can, in essence, match the prices of their competitors. These are well worth using in the future. From a shopping point of view, planning what to eat will also mean you won't be distracted by multibuy offers that you don't need and are just buying because they're there.

Plan to cook in bulk as well. When I lived on my own I struggled with cooking for one. Packaging is designed to hold more than one person can use and despite my best efforts, I often found I could not use all the food I had bought. Wasting food is a big no-no in my book too. Not only is it a needless waste of money but at a time when the world's food resources are being ever more stretched, it is horrendously unfair too. Cooking in bulk is a good way round this. Leftovers can be consumed later in the week, frozen and used much later or had for lunch in the coming days. It's always a bit of a moarale boost when you find a portion or two of something nice at the back of the freezer when the bank account is running on empty and the prospect of living off cornflakes until payday is looming large.

Planning will lead naturally on to preparation. Prepare your meals to ensure as little waste as possible. Got a sauce that needs half a carton of something? Have something later in the week that will use the other half. This goes for vegetables too.

Also covered by preparation; be prepared to try new things. The most obvious example of this is different cuts of meat. A rump steak is about a third of the price of a fillet steak and, if treated carefully, still bloody good. Experiment with new ingredients that can be obtained more cheaply and be prepared to spend more time preparing food to utilise these. To return to the meat example; some cuts of meat such as oxtail are delicious but need to be cooked slowly in order to maximise the texture and flavour.

If you're prepared to put in a bit of effort, growing your own will also be a net saving. I have friends that grow almost all of their vegetables and now that they are over the startup costs, they are saving a fortune. Now I appreciate that not everyone has a garden but remarkable amounts can still be grown in pots. Even if you don't opt for veg, herbs can be cultivated on a window sill. Again start-up costs are more than standard packets but long-term the savings should be greater. The same can be said of small vegetables like chillis.

Finally, be prepared to think on your feet and be creative. This especially applies when you find ingredients that might be on the cusp of going off. Rather than throw them out, use them and even if you don't need the result right away it can be frozen. Milk that's about to go off can quickly become macaroni cheese. Mashed potato can be frozen and is a good way to store potatoes that are on the turn. Finally, every student will tell you, pasta sauces can take just about everything and still be tasty.

This brings me neatly on to pasta. A repertoire of pasta sauces will ensure that you rarely, if ever, have to throw out food. It also means that small amounts of ingredients can be made to go much further (returning to the point about bulk). Dried pasta also has the great advantage of lasting for a long, long time so it can be bought in bulk and stored for ages (and if the massive bags supplied by the supermarket are good enough for an Italian I used to live with, they're good enough for me).

Pasta aside, other forms of dried carbohydrate such as rice, oats, barley, cous cous and polenta are great ways to bulk out a meal to make the more expensive ingredients go further. Recently I have been looking into various forms of cooking from around the world as a way of adding flavour, interest and variety to some of my standard bulk-cooking dishes and making the whole process a bit more exciting.

Naturally all these ideas are simple enough on paper (well screen) so over the coming weeks I will be posting up some of the recipes I use to cook in bulk and try to save a bit of cash.

In the mean time, I would love to hear the ideas and strategies used by anyone reading this to save a bit of money on food.

TFB

Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road

Since this is a blog about food and drink I thought my first proper post should be fairly spectacular. What therefore could be better than a trip I had last year to Restaraunt Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road, one of only four, three Michellin Starred restaurants in the United Kingdom. My girlfriend and I went there on my birthday last year. While I have always loved food and cooking, for her food was very much fuel and cooking a chore... until she met me. Since then, she has inherited my passion and become a rather accomplished cook. I have always admired Ramsay, his style of cooking and his passion for food. Therefore to eat at one of his restaurants was a long-standing ambition, as was eating at a three Michellin Starred place. Combining the two was a dream come true with interest.

It was incredible. Easily one of the best meal I have ever had.

I have longed to go there for years. To me it represents the pinnacle of modern British cooking. The best it can get... And then a bit better.

It didn't disappoint. It surpassed even my wildest dreams.

The food was unparalleled. Flavours, textures, aromas, appearances and even temperatures were subtly and expertly combined to yield mind-blowing results. Everything was done with a forensic attention to detail from the initial amuse buche to to final mouthful. The only word I can think of to describe it is perfect and even that doesn't really do it justice.

The staff were amazing too. All of them were charm personified. There is an old joke about the more expensive a restaurant is, the more rude the waiting staff are. This couldn't be further from the truth. All were extremely good company providing good conversation and gentle banter to supplement the service. All were also clearly passionate about the food too; explaining the dishes perfectly (we were also very amused by one of the waiters who slipped from a French accent to his native Glaswegian when he got excited and passionate. It was nice to hear a voice from home!).

I must admit, I was nervous when my girlfriend told me where we were going. I thought the whole experience might be a bit stuffy and intimidating given the reputation of where we were going. Fortunately, I needn't have worried. The staff put us at our ease at once and ensured we had a wonderful night throughout. It can be summed up in one incident as the table was being set for dessert; my girlfriend and I were holding hands (as you do) and made to get out of the way. The waiter responded before we had managed to move, "Don't worry, a romantic moment is a romantic moment; the cutlery can move!"

What sealed the night as one of the best ever was the attention to detail. My girlfriend mentioned once, in passing, that it was my birthday. At the end of the meal the maitre d' came out bearing a fresh sorbet with a candle in (it would have been ice cream but for an allergy I have. This fact was conscientiously borne in mind throughout the entire meal). Once we had finished, he gave us a personal tour of the kitchen and introduced us to Claire Smyth (who I have admired for years). Getting in there and seeing the brigade in action was incredible. According to my girlfriend, my eyes looked like they were about to fall out of there sockets. Unfortunately an upshot of this was that the well chosen, eloquent words of praise and gratitude I had prepared on the way in completely deserted me and I barely managed to grunt out a sentence. It is one of the very rare occasions in my life where I have been totally and utterly speechless.

Think what you will of Gordon Ramsay (or his media persona at least), the man can't half run a restaurant. Royal Hospital Road has been bestowed with many accolades (not least three Michelin stars) and, in my opinion, richly deserves all of them and more. Last night was a truly sensational and magical experience. I'm still struggling slightly to comprehend it. If you get the chance to go, go. Go without hesitation. If you have something to celebrate; there's your excuse. If not, the one of the best dining experiences in the world should be cause enough for celebration.

TFB

p.s. I am very aware that this review has only a paragraph on the food. This is not a reflection on the food but acknowledgement that every other aspect of the experience was equally as brilliant. Also, the quality really does defy description. I could write pages on the subject and still not do it justice so instead I'm going to end with my initial description. Perfect!

First Post

"I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink." Not my words but the opinion of James Bond when he sits down to dinner with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. I do share his sentiments though. Food and drink have always given me tremendous pleasure. At first most of this came from eating. I am lucky enough to have a mother that is not only a good cook but was prepared to make most meals from scratch almost every night. This I'm sure was inherited from her mother who never failed to have at least two courses to hand and was a foodie long before it came into vogue.

For most of my young life I was content guzzling food, ideally in copious quantities. That's not to say I was indiscriminate in my consumption; I was fairly exacting in what I liked although was perpetually game for trying new things. However when I hit my mid-teens something changed. Almost overnight I decided that I was going to learn to cook. This was for two reasons. Firstly; I knew I was going to university soon and I thought I should probably become a bit more self-sufficient. Secondly; I had heard a rumour that cooking impressed girls and (as any sixteen year old lad will tell you) impressing girls was fairly high on my priority list!

Many years have passed since then and cooking has ceased to be merely a means of seduction and become one of my greatest passions. Not only do I enjoy the outcome of cooking (eating) but I have grown to love the process as well. I love experimenting with ingredients and trying to create new dishes. I get genuinely excited when I try out new flavours and techniques. Cooking is one of the rare occasions where I develop a nerdy enthusiasm for the process as much as the outcome. That said  the disposing of the outcome isn't too unpleasant either... most of the time!

My interest in drinks followed a similar pattern. Like all young people I was curious to try alcoholic beverages. When I did, they weren't too bad. However me being me, I was desperate not to be part of the herd; therefore I decided that I rather liked Gnuness and whisky. Since that point I have learned a lot about my favourite drinks (not always from books) and have worked hard to understand and appreciate not only their flavour but the ethos behind them.

All of this has lead me to the firm belief that the process of experimentation with food and drink, as well as being a pleasure in itself, is a means to gaining great pleasure from what otherwise could become a fairly monotonous daily chore.

Over the coming posts I am going to attempt to share my love of eating and drinking with you. I will do this by reviewing restaurants that I have had the good fortune to eat in along with recipes and my musings on the world of eating and drinking.

For now I will leave you to go and get a snack while I prepare further posts!

TFB