Hello Dear Reader,
If you ever think food isn’t important then think of those who don’t have any. Food is rooted at the centre of our culture and how we cook, and what we eat says a lot about who we are. I had this moment of depth last night, over a glass of wine watching the Twitter feed from the MADs in London. As ever, it was an honour to be a finalist in Best Thrifty and Best Food blog. The wonderful Ricky at Skint Dad won best thrifty blog. Please pop over, take a look and say Froogs sent you xxx The food bloggers are an accomplished lot: A Mummy too, which is a proper grown up foodies blogger. Her recipe index is comprehensive and a great go to site for families with children, not only to feed but to involve in cooking. I love the complexity of the Bento boxes, and the competitive edge too of Eat Amazing. What a lucky lot her children are and what a creative mum she is. Gourmet Mum has a lively approach to getting her family to eat healthily and her recipes are fresh and easy to follow and always beautifully lit and photographed. Finally the lovely Crazy Kitchen, who makes the home cooks among us look like we’re just not trying. Her food is as professional as her slick and professional website. Her recipes are easy to find and even easier to follow. Please drop by to their websites and say hello.
Then there’s Frugal Queen. My photos are poorly lit, I use a £60 camera covered in cheese sauce and without superfast (not round these parts until the end of 2015), I often have washed up, had a shower and got ready for bed before the photos have uploaded. My recipes are simple home cooking and they are certainly nothing fancy. With that in mind, I’m immensely grateful that you read, that you follow, that you chat to me on Facebook, that you tweet and retweet and I’m incredibly humbled by the emails you send me. Every day, over the site receives over 11,000 page views and each month over 37,000 unique visitors log in and read.
I don’t always write about food but is is so important.
It changes lives and cements families. So many of my memories about my family are about the food my mum fed me. We didn’t have much and in some cases, we didn’t have enough but we never went hungry. Food was always plain, never shop bought, always homemade, filled us up and did us good. She was and is an incredibly good cook and then and now that food is not just delicious but nurturing and comforting. We take it for granted, but there are families out there who don’t like to, can’t or won’t cook for each other and generations of people are growing up without the skills to eat well. That’s ok if you have money, someone else can cook it for you, either Mr Marks or Mr Spencer can make your meals for you, even Mr Morrisons can add to your table. That being the case, where’s the heart and where’s the love in the making of that meal?
Here’s my simple recipe for Veggie Lasagne - serves 6.
Pre- heat the oven to 160C.
3 stalks of celery finely diced
2 onions finely diced
2 large courgettes cut into cubes
1 tin of sliced mushroom - or five fresh ones, diced.
4 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 heaped teaspoon of chopped garlic
1 heaped teaspoon of mixed herbs
salt and pepper
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
3 tablespoons of oil
You can add any vegetables to this, what ever is in season so long as it chopped small enough to sit easily between the layers. I made a large lasagne for everyone else and a small gluten free one for me. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat all of it in one meal.
- Fry the ingredients above for 10 minutes, stirring continuously.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and seasoning.
- Bring to boil and then simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes.
Make the cheese sauce.
3 heaped tablespoons of corn flour
50g of butter
3/4 litre of milk
salt and pepper to season
100g of grated mature cheddar
- In a sauce pan, heat the butter
- Stir in the flour until it forms a ball
- Add the milk and cheese
- Stir over a medium heat, continuously until thickened.
- Remove and leave to stand.
Assemble the lasagne
- In an oven proof baking dish or casserole or pie dish.
- Pour some oil into the bottom
- Place sheets of lasagne to cover. I don’t pre-cook. I make my sauce quite wet so the lasagne can soak this up, softening whilst cooking.
- Next layer of vegetable sauce
- Next a layer of lasagne.
- Now sause
- Then lasagne
- Finish with a liberal pouring of the cheese sauce. You could sprinkle some cheese on top. We ate ours with lettuce, grated cheese and some chopped red pepper.
- Place the casserole dish on a baking tray, in case of spillage and bake for thirty minutes. I usually take it out after 25 and leave on the side for fifteen minutes before serving. Other wise it’s just too hot to eat.
Simple, cheap and a really simple supper. It keeps well in the fridge and makes a great ding cuisine for another day. I write because I really believe that we can all eat well enough, even if we have a tiny budget, not a lot of time, or money and only a few skills. It’s great that there are foodie families out there, eating lovely food but it’s also great that families are creating bowls of soup, hearty stews of simple veggie lasagnes. I also want to save families money so they can save up for or keep their homes or make a small wage work really hard.
Thanks everyone for voting, for Parentdish and Kenwood for sponsoring and for Sally Whittle, without whom, the blog awards wouldn’t exist. Thanks so much.
Over to you Dear Reader, what difference does feeding your family well mean to you?
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxx
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I'm glad to hear you were recognised at the blog awards, Froogs, but not at all surprised. I can't get enough of your blog. I've just started reading back through every entry, as I only discovered you recently. I've had a look at loads of other blogs but none of them, for me, seem to have the immediate appeal of yours. The way you set it out every day, never miss a day and always have photos, is very readable. You have inspired me in a lot of ways. I'm awestruck at your energy to work a full-time job, renovate your home, and fit in the gym, the cleaning, the blog, days out giving cookery classes etc etc. It has made me re-examine some of my attitudes and habits and inspired me to limit my food budget and get more creative. Keep going, and bless you!
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I am very interested in your veggie lasagna. I have been stretching ground meat by adding spinach. I think I may stretch farther and probably eliminate it with the diced veggies. I have 2 meatless dinners a week. Your lasagna will be added to the menu. I enjoy cooking for my family. Over the years I have learned so many ways to eat frugally and healthy. I cringe at some of the early meals I made when there was little and no money, survival food. Almost every meal started with a 21 cent box of elbow macaroni and powdered cheese. They were so uncreative. If I knew then what I know now. Thankfully, for todays technology there are sites such as yours where struggling families can find pleasure in cooking knowing they can place a frugal and healthy meal on the table. We are in a good place financially, but I still enjoy cooking frugally….I guess that may be why we remain in a good place.
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Being real is what we love. No stupid adverts or links going against the frugal grain. Your blog is human, not some slick mass produced looking thing that turns me, for one off.
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Ha, when I first glanced at your top picture, I thought, oh, oven baked chicken thigh with melted cheese, yum:)
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Congratulations on your win - it is thoroughly well-deserved. I hope you don't think this is too backhanded a compliment, but some of the other food blogs are a little TOO slick, and it is more inspiring for me as a reader, as a busy mum, to see realistic photos and know that I can achieve the same results. Continuing to love your blog, and here's to yet another year of blogging success - every person you help to achieve a more secure financial future is a success story, and worth far more in the grand scheme of things than any awards, I think but it is nice to be recognised, and you are a very worthy winner xxx
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I enjoy your blog immensely! I think your photographs are lovely, and the food ALWAYS looks delicious! There are many times that as I'm reading your daily post, and looking at the gorgeous food, that I think: “I wish I could stay with them for a while and learn to cook like Froogs!”. Seriously, you are an inspiration!
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I am blown away by your viewer/visitor numbers. I'm hoping to crack 1,000 page views at http://newframereference.blogspot.com and that is a blink of a day in your world. I like your recipes, but I also like the context you share your information within. Sure, anyone can get a meal on the table with the help of a deli counter but the act of cooking and then sharing your creations with loved ones feeds more than just our bodies. My 13 year old made “eggs in a window” this morning for us. While no perfect, they were tasty, and made with her new learned skill. My older kids are pretty good at creative cooking-mainly throwing together into a meal what you might still have left in the cupboard or fridge. Congrats on the award-I'm a new regular reader.
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I always find your posts as comforting and wholesome as your food looks……we are on a tight budget now due to my ill health and hubby being at home to care for me after working a 50/60 hour week for years…..huge changes at home and we have found comfort in searching low budget food items and I am cooking more and more when up to it….its rewarding and takes my mind my mind off things……
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Your blog is probably the one I've been reading for the longest. Other “aesthetic” and perfect blogs bore me after a while. Your content can be ripetitive -food,budget,food,health- but that is exactly what interests me! Your content is efficient and makes me believe I can do everything you show. Be it cheese sauce or saving for a purpose that is dear to me. The way you do it is obviously as important ad the content itself, and I too am glad there are no silly ads popping up while I'm reading! Very much so!
Bonne continuation!
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Looks fab - going to give this a whirl x
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I LOVE this post.
Feeding my family is everything to me because Food is Love.
Keep doing what you are doing x
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A thoroughly deserved win Jane, well done x
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Food is our biggest expense after our mortgage. Through careful shopping, changing supermarkets to the lower priced ones and cooking everything from scratch, we have cut our food bill in half. Also, cooking a variety of meals means that we no longer crave takeaways and this saves a fortune. Being organised and batch cooking means that we can take out a ready made home made meal from the freezer before a busy day, so say if we know we won't be home until late the next evening, in the time it takes to cook up some pasta and heat up a bolognese sauce from the freezer, it's quicker and much cheaper than going to the local chippy. We look forward to our home made meals in the evenings. It brings the family together to enjoy something delicious and enjoyable. I love your blogs about food because it's good, everyday, sensible home cooking that everyone can manage, and also able to achieve on a fairly low budget. Congratulations!
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'I use a £60 camera covered in cheese sauce' this made me laugh a lot! Your photos have always been great, you show lots of stages of what you are cooking which is brilliant for those nervous of recipes! Im going to try this recipe I love veggie lasagne. Even the little things like making the cheese sauce you have shown us in detail how you do it. The unfussiness of the recipes and methods are what i come here for, its down to earth its not expensive. We need to eat every day, sometimes we just dont the energy to care what; its just fuel as you have said. Make it healthy, make two lots, freeze some. I made southern fired chicken last night, it wasnt perfect but it tasted amazing (way better than KFC). A lot of us agree with the core things you blog about and thats why we come back. Keep it up Froogs, your blog is awesome.
Lucy
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I agree MargoBowBells. Froogs posts remind us about how important family values are and they offer a comforting port in a sometimes stormy sea x
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Congrats, Froogs, and thanks for the mention 🙂 x
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thank you for your kind comments about my blog - slick and professional are 2 words that I would never use to describe myself, my food or my blog, so thank you for that. I can assure the reader above that may think some food bloggers are 'a little TOO slick', that it is far from the case here - it's just simple, inexpensive, family food, usually photographed quickly with a flour covered camera whilst 3 kids and a husband wait patiently to be fed.
Congratulations on your win, keep up the good work!
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Your blog is always one of the first I read, froogs. Part of what I like about it is your emphasis on helping others work their way out of financial troubles, and no one needs a fancy camera or glam images to learn those important skills!
And your posts about your home(s) and DIY projects are lovely and inspiring. I always think your home looks like a place where a visitor would feel comfortable straight away, and not all homes are as home-like as that!
I'd love to attend one of your cooking classes, which I think are just brilliant. And so generous. A few years ago I tried to convince a “local food” group in my small town that offering free cooking and preserving classes in the church hall would be a very useful way to use donated funds. No one agreed. Very sad!
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I have already been cooking for 50+ years, and what I like especially about your blog is the variety of recipes you have, most all of them different from my everyday recipes. I enjoy a lot of variety and you give it to me, with pictures! And your recipes are reasonable: thrifty, easy, and something that is attractive enough to make us want to eat it! I'm so happy to have found your blog fairly recently and can't wait for newest edition every day. I'm sure my husband enjoys something different every once in a while also. I've already bought the ingredients I was missing for the Firey, Spicy Pork BBQ and can barely wait to try it-just need to find some pork at a decent price soon. I also enjoy talking to people all over the world, who mostly face similar problems to my own-how to keep meals interesting year after year, how to do it with prices rising frequently, and how to do it with sometimes flagging energy of our own as we get older. Thank you for writing for us.
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I came to your blog originally because (1) you were writing from rural England; (2) the word “frugal” gets me every time; and then I stayed reading because you are so real and unaffected, and, even tho I don't always know all the ingredients (who knew “courgettes” were zuchini?!?), I love your cooking and recipes!
When I make veggie lasagne, I just substitute slices of zuchini for the noodles, and don't put hamburger in my sauce.
Thanks for entertaining me all these years!!
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A brilliant post and one that really resonates with me. 🙂
Yours is a brilliant Blog, one we can all relate to, you tell it like it is.
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