Cheap meals continue

Its turning colder here (5C during today) so thoughts are of warming meals. For Monday and Tuesday I took our a packet of pork sausages costing £1.50 (for 8).  There are cheaper but these are at least a bit "meaty" and don't just lay there limply all pink and flabby! 

Started of with a saute garlic, celery and some whole small onions. The shallot size things were last of our stored crop sculling around in the bottom of the bag. Added some paprika for colour and a few bits of our (hot) chilli to give a bit of internal warmth. Then the sausages to brown with a couple of very hard whole button mushrooms.  I'd defrosted a pack of tomatoe puree from the summer crop and added a good portion of that.  It all looked and tasted a bit intense so I had to water it down a bit.  Slid into the oven for less than an hour with some roast potatoes and parsnips. When it came to dishing up we found 3 sausages with the thick sauce each more than enough with some broccoli and peas brightening the plate.

The two left over sausages and sauce were added to some pasta the next day with a little more tomatoe puree and some sliced button mushrooms. A grating of hard cheese on top lifted the taste of pasta dish nicely.

I'd give you pictures but my food photography is awful.  I understand why there are experts who have all these weird techniques to make the stuff in magazines look good.

Wednesday's meal has been a half a kilo of diced lamb cooked with gravy and lots of root vegetables. It cost around £4 so I have to stretch it out.  When I looked in the pot today all the root veg was gone but the left over meat was tender and there was a nice thick gravy left.  I boiled up some more root veg (swede and carrots) with some lentils to get them going before adding it in to the pot with a chunk of leek.  As the oven is on, there will have to be roast potatoes to go with it besides which the quality of these cheap potatoes is bad and they go to mush if just boiled.

I made a crumble of red gooseberries from the freezer yesterday but as I overly influenced by the news programme on at the time deriding the over use of sugar in the British diet I did not put enough sugar with the fruit, in the crumble or in the custard. It was very tart!!! Ouch. Left over today will have to have over sweetened ice cream with it.