Your accommodation is sorted. You're in now. First things first, you're hungry.
E (my daughter) wants to cook for herself, and my aim is not to just give her a pile of recipes, but to teach her how to cook. So this is my list of store cupboard basics, things I always make sure I have, because I know I can make something interesting out of the most basic and cheap ingredients.
Spices and condiments:
- Olive oil for frying and salad dressings
- Salt and black pepper
- Balsamic vinegar
- Sweet chilli sauce
- Jars of minced garlic and ginger
- Cumin
- Stock cubes (MSG-free)
- Passatta (blended tomatoes)
- Soy sauce
- Thai fish sauce
- Mayonnaise
- Curry paste
And the other usual basics:
Brown sugar
Teabags
Milk
butter
Flour
Rolled oats for a quick and cheap breakfast
Plus some fruit, veggies and a bit of meat to get started on her first meals.
I'll cover how to spend less on cleaning products in another post.
Christina writes: I would say red wine vinegar would be a good basic vinegar because real balsamic vinegar is prohibitively expensive (if you check the ingredients on the bottle the real stuff will not contain any caramel at all..very, very hard to find). I find the stuff that passes for balsamic vinegar is too sweet for a basic vinaigrette.
ReplyDeleteTalking of which, it is much cheaper to make your own and you can make a large quantity in one go and keep it in a closed jar in the fridge. Here's how:
1 tablespoon (or dessert spoon or tea-spoon: depends on the final quantity you want but the proportions remain the same) of vinegar.
Add into it a splash of salt and pepper and let it dissolve, then add half a teaspoon (more or less) of French mustard.
The add 3 tablespoons of olive oil (or a mixture of olive oil and rape-seed oil). Beat it with a fork and hey presto: vinaigrette for any salad.