Miss South's budget recipes for winter soup and butter bean hummus
This is a close approximation of a week's worth of meals for me, though here all the dishes serve two, so the ingredients for breakfast, lunch and dinner came to roughly £40 from one of the big four supermarkets. Even more careful shopping could bring down the costs still further.
A good breakfast means lunch doesn't need to be so substantial as to make you sleepy afterwards. I tend to be eating at home, but all these dishes could be taken to work especially if you have a microwave. Soup is easy, uses up bits and bobs and if you eat seasonally, you won't get bored of the same thing all the time, but my favourite is pearl barley and vegetable.
Winter vegetable and barley soup
onion 1
carrot 1
celery 1 stalk
leek 1, halved and sliced
swede (or celeriac or squash) ½, diced
parsnip 1, diced
stock 1.2 litres
pearl barley 100g
parmesan rind or grated (optional)
salt and pepper to season
curly parsley to serve
Dice your onion, carrot and celery and sweat in a little bit of oil or butter until softened a little bit. Add in the sliced leek and your choice of starchy veg. I often buy a bag of stew veg as it's a cheap way to have a choice of vegetables. Add about 570ml of stock and then add the pearl barley and simmer for about 40 minutes. The barley should swell but shouldn't absorb all the liquid.
I keep my leftover parmesan rinds in the freezer and simmer in soups for flavour, but if you don't have them, simply serve the soup with grated parmesan on top or leave out and add more seasoning. Chop lots of curly parsley and add to the hot soup each time, but don't re-heat with it in.
Butter bean hummus and Ryvita
I very rarely eat bread because commercial stuff goes off quickly and a loaf is bulky to freeze and too much for one. I prefer Ryvita as it's cheaper, versatile and stores well in a tin. I add toppings in warm weather like this homemade butter bean hummus that needs no expensive tahini.
butter beans 1 tin
garlic 2-3 cloves, roasted
salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco or chilli product of choice
lemon juice 2 tbsp
water iced, 100ml
olive oil 1 tbsp
The easiest way to do this is to put the beans, garlic, seasoning, Tabasco and lemon juice in a bowl and blitz with a stick blender, adding enough ice-cold water to loosen it to your consistency of choice. Looser means you can dip into it with carrot sticks as well as spread it, but you probably won't need all the liquid. If you don't have a blender, use a large bowl and a fork or even a potato masher to squash the beans, adding the water as you go. Drizzle the olive oil on top to serve either way. This gives the flavour but saves on the cost of olive oil.
Miss South blogs at northsouthfood.com