Easy Recipes, Hints and Tips for managing on a budget

Apple Cake

With so many lovely apples available from the trees, here is a very tasty and simple recipe for apple cake from BBC Good Food.

£1 dinners from the BBC

BBC Food have put together some recipes costing £1 or less per serving.

View them here.

Bean & Veggie Crumble

Here’s a recipe to make with your food bank supplies when it’s cheese week – perfect for a chilly day. Go to recipe.

Have you been cooking rice wrong your entire life?

Is there a bag of rice at the back of your kitchen cupboard? Rice is a cheap, filling way to make other ingredients go further – once you know how to cook it. Why not try this cooking method and see if you can get it just right! Go to recipe.

Pasta Bake

Pasta mountain in the store cupboard? Maybe it’s time for a pasta bake. This great little video from Brighton Food Bank shows you how to make white sauce from scratch. This is a really useful skill to learn! Go to recipe.

Egg Fried Rice

Our food parcels include eggs every other week. Learn to cook egg fried rice with this great little video from Brighton Food Bank. Go to recipe.

Nachos and Burritos

Check out these loaded nachos and burritos with easy homemade wraps! Made using left over bolognese turned into spiced beef beans…really easy, really delicious, really cheap. WARNING: you may want to make these wraps everyday, they are so good! Go to recipe.

Interesting veg

Pak Choi – Chinese cabbage
To cook, stir fry (2 minutes), steam in slices (2-3 minutes) or simmer in water (2-3 mins)

Red pointy peppers
Briefly stir fry or roast or grill them
Sweetcorn- strip off the outer husk, then boil (6-8 minutes) or roast (30 minutes) or grill (8-12) minutes

Green jalapeno Chillis
These give heat to a meat dish. For a chilli dish, cut up and fry them for 3 minutes on high heat with onions, then add tomatoe sauce, mince and any other ingredients you like to include and water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve with rice.

Courgettes
Fry in slices over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes, Cut into long wedges and roast 20-25 minutes. Large corgettes can be stuffed -cut in half, scoop out the flesh and chop it, fry onions till soft and add mince, stirring all the time, add herbs, tomato sauce, red peppers, and the courgette flesh and 100 ml of water. Simmer covered for 10 minutes. Spoon into the courgette shells, cover with foil and cook in the oven for 15 minutes at 200c, then uncover and add cheese and if you wish breadcrumbs. Cook uncovered for another 20 minutes.