Pasta on the cheap

Pasta.  Most everyone loves it, from linguini alla vongole, farfalle, apple and walnut salad, to a good old spaghetti bolognese.  As a student, I picked up a 3kg bag of conchiglie for a few quid which lasted me three terms, plus a good few months into my first job.  Buy in bulk if you can and buy what's cheapest no matter what kind or shape. I've found wholemeal tends to be a bit cheaper and is better for you.

So without further ado, what did I find for the SupermarketValue Treatment® ?

Buon appetito

You'll notice this pasta isn't from my usual source of reduced items where "every little helps"  This find was from my local mini-market whose logo happens to be a tree in a circle.  Just to prove I'm not biased for or against any one supermarket.  Plus, obviously, it was reduced!

Cheap garlic, as we'll see, is not to be taken lightly.  I ended up planting one of the more sprouty-looking bulbs and it's coming along nicely.  The other bulb was split in half and pickled.  You could also use it to make flavored oils as well.

4 servings of fresh pasta for €1.25

Discount garlic.  Beware those little green shoots!

I'm going to keep this very simple, as I think the best thing to do to pasta is just that.

Tagliatelli all' oglio e olio.  (Noodles with garlic and oil)

Remove any green shoots from about 2-3 cloves of the garlic by cutting it in half and picking it out of the middle, as from bitter experience (literally) they don't taste good.  Chop finely and fry until soft in a few tablespoons of good olive oil. 
 Boil the tagliatelli for the requisite time, and drain.

Add the fried garlic and the oil to the pasta and toss.  Season with salt and pepper.  

That's it.

I got four servings out of this packet so some other budget pasta recipes I like and ate (other than spag. bol)

• Salt, pepper, butter, lemon.  Simple and fast.  I just ate it for lunch as I type this, 5 minutes from pan to plate.  Very tasty.
• Sliced sausage and tinned tomato & chilli sauce (see previous post) makes a nice warming arrabiata supper. 
• Tinned tuna, capers and cream.  Sweetcorn's cheaper than capers and also works

Other good budget pasta recipes to make are here , and here but my favourite cheap table-filler is pasta bake for using up leftover pasta.  A tin of value-grade chicken soup can be used as the base for a sauce of course.  Hmm... I've given myself an idea for a future post  (note to self, buy cheap chicken soup and value grade lasagne...)

Spanish Omelette on a package tour budget

Happy belated Easter!
Eggs are a cheap and versatile food, so they're ideal for budget cooking.  
  But  I don't need to tell you what sort of conditions battery hens endure.  This guy has already done that.  They also taste , well, not worth it.  So budget eggs are one budget ingredient I can't in good conscience use.

However... it's sometimes who you know, not what, saves money...


Spanish omelette, or Tortilla Espanola, is typically a thick cake consisting of eggs and potatoes.  You can buy this for around €3.99.  Hardly budget, and the one I tried from the supermarket was nothing like the ones I've had in Málaga.  So here's my attempt, with a nod to CB*

Ingredients

• Eggs - A friend of mine who keeps chickens gave me half a dozen free range eggs FREE!  I promised him some of my herbs and broad beans when they ripen (one of my other hobbies is growing my own window-box herbs and plants, but that's another story...) 

• Potatoes - One tin, about 567g -  €0.59 - This was the "supermarket" ingredient today.
• Onion - 1 large , finely chopped.  
• Garlic - two cloves, smashed with salt and roughly chopped.  
• Chilli powder, 1 pinch - paprika or pimentón is better, but this is what was in the pantry so...
• Chorizo - I got a small one from my local deli for about €0.80, and only used half.  The other half will be used later.  This is in contrast to the ones that cost about €3.99 from the supermarket.  So I call that a budget win.  Cheap sausage also works if you add more garlic and chilli.
• 1/3 a bird-eye chilli for colour and a liiiittle heat...  no more than that.  You could use scallions (spring onions) as well / instead.

Lastly the secret ingredient:

Turmeric.  This little root tastes oh so slightly bitter, but is creamy, with a subtle flavour.  It'llstain your fingers bright yellow when you chop it, or handle it in food, mind.  As CB* never said, but it's the sort of thing she would have said. you eat with your eyes as well as your mouth.  This helps both the presentation, and the flavour.  

 - Normally €1.39 from the supermarket, this was free(!) from my friendly neighbourhood greengrocer, where I like to shop, when I'm not testing out ready meals to improve... 

Method

Dead easy:  

•  Chop the onions and garlic finely, add lots of oil to a pan and sweat them off with a little salt and pepper.
• Lots of oil is the key to getting everything soft without it burning, spuds and all.
• I've gone for a few large knobs of butter for flavour instead of just 100% veg. oil  (see below)
• Chop the chorizo as finely as you can, discarding the casing, and add that to the pan.
• Meanwhile shred the potatoes on a box grater, or chop them if you like a more chunky texture.  Add them into the pan and fry them up.  

•  When the chorizo looks cooked and before the onions, spuds, and garlic burn, drain that oil off.  Keep it in an old jar or bottle, it will be full of flavour, and will be a vivid orange from the paprika in the chorizo.  
• Add the beaten eggs (no salt, it messes with the proteins in the egg) straight into the pan.  Check the colour the turmeric is giving it, below...

• Once it starts to look like it's cooked on the bottom (see above), 
• Carefully use a spatula to flip the whole lot over like a pancake, rather than the French way of making omelettes, which is to fold it in half.  
• Cook that for about the same time, so the eggs are cooked through.

*Munch*

Mine is a bit thin to be authentic, plus chorizo and chillies would be served on the side as part of another tapa, but ...this was still one dang good result.  I can't emphasise enough the subtle flavour the turmeric gives the eggs.  It eats as well cold with some of that all-purpose tomato chilli sauce I made in a previous post as it does warm.  
Some more (authentic) recipes for tortilla are here, here, and here. 

I think the moral of this meal is, supermarket value food is all very well, but real value is in talking to the people who rear the animals and grow the vegetables around you; give them a free hand, and you might get something back.
* - CB is an ex-girlfriend of mine who loved the "secret ingredient" turmeric so much, she practically made me add it to everything I ever made with eggs in it...