Nigella on a Shoestring

Tuesday, September 16. 2008

Sunday is a day for worship, and my personal Jesus is Nigella Lawson.

Now, lovely as she is, her recipes aren’t exactly for the money conscious.

They’re littered with scallops, truffle oil and obscure ingredients.

However, I chose Coq au Riesling, and trundled to the supermarket to get

my ingredients.

I substituted cooking bacon for lardons, used chicken thighs for chicken legs

and used loose mushrooms – which are always cheaper than boxed.

I won’t bore you, dear reader, with every ingredient, but suffice to say a recipe which

would have cost about £12 cost me £7 (including wine) when I substituted the full-

price ingredients for supermarket own-brand.

I did decide that Coq Au Blue Nun would be a bit pointless, so, at a fiver a bottle

Riesling isn't exactly a bargain.

My other bits of shopping were also value products, which included own-brand

teabags at 31p for 80.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t tapped this unknown source of money saving.

I wondered why they don’t have the prestige of Tetleys, PG Tips or even mighty

Yorkshire.

I realised why when I tasted it.

You know the kind of tea you get at parish halls? The colour of a puddle?

All I can say is that there’s a difference between saving money and false economy

and it’s a dangerous dance between the two.

This week, I’m going to concentrate on having own-brand, value products.

Wish me luck, it could get serious…

Posted by Alice Murphy in Champagne lifestyle, lemonade budget at 16:02 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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You've inspired me. Last night I made my own Coq au Riesling on an even tighter budget.

Pigeon au White Lightning.

It was rubbish but at least I had half a bottle of premium strength cider left to wash the taste (and feathers) away.

#1 Steve - not the tramp but still poor on 2008-09-18 09:37 (Reply)

Glad I could be of help, Steve.

I imagine the White Lightning gave a lovely appley taste to the pigeon.

Although, Wokingham's pigeons seem to exist on a diet of cigarette butts and dropped food so perhaps that overpowered it somewhat.

#2 Anonymous on 2008-09-19 12:42 (Reply)

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