This is a sweet and flavoursome root vegetable soup, perfectly fortifying for those colder days.

Ingredients, for a large pot to serve four people:
half a cup of red split lentils
5 medium parsnips, peeled and chopped
5 medium carrots, scraped and chopped
2 small potatoes, diced but with skins left on
2 red onions, peeled and chopped
2 large sticks of celery, chopped
several sprigs of fresh rosemary (dried can be substituted), finely chopped or scissored into the pan
water to cover
salt and pepper to taste

Place the lentils in a large pan and cover well with water. Bring to the boil and turn down to simmer while you prepare the other vegetables. Add the chopped veg and rosemary and cover well with more water (cooking time is reduced if you boil the water in a kettle first). Once the vegetables are tender, mash thoroughly and add salt and pepper. Nice garnished with fresh parsley or finely chopped spring onions as in the picture above.

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Although a hot dish it is nice for summer days as the mint is refreshing. This does make a large pot – it worked out well for a family of four to have over two lunches, storing it in the fridge overnight.

Ingredients:
250g/6oz (half a standard pack) of spaghetti (value spag – 19p approx)
approx 9 or 10 cups of water/about 4 pints
4 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
1 large onion, chopped
5 sticks of celery, diced quite small
a good handful of fresh mint (or 3 teaspoons of dried – most frugal if from your own garden obviously – seeds here)
seasalt to taste

Break the spaghetti up into small pieces (about 6 cm./2 inches long) into a large saucepan. Cover with the water and turn up the heat to full. Bring to the boil while you prepare and add the other ingredients with the exception of the mint. Once boiling turn down to simmer for about 15 minutes until everything is cooked. Add the mint and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes and serve sprinkled with generous amounts of chopped fresh parsley (optional but it was really good!)

Soup and some bread has long been a staple, cheap meal… and you know what? It’s delicious and good for you 🙂

A wonderful, very cheap but nutritious recipe, using what veggies you have in the fridge/bits from the garden/whats on offer in the shops/local from the farm shop or market. Beware the supermarkets latest credit crunch cashing in “frugal” scam: selling apparently very cheap packs of things, which are actually just much smaller than usual amounts and not any different in price per kilo. Look to grow some of your own, even herbs on a windowsill, find out if there is a farm shop or farmers market near you – produce from these is usually cheaper and fresher.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons of vegetable margarine or oil
1 onion or leek, chopped
couple of cloves of garlic, chopped (optional)
1 large potato or two smaller ones, peeled and chopped – don’t use too many here. One or two gives thickness to the soup, more makes it gloopy and reminiscent of wallpaper paste… not what you want!
a mixture of veg of your choice. The pictured blender jug and very green soup had (leek, potato, garlic), 3 carrots, several broccoli florets form the garden, quite a few perpetual spinach leaves (leaf beet) from garden, dark green cabbage leaves also garden sourced 🙂 It also included small bunches of sage and parsley. Obviously this led to a very green soup. A focus on say parsnips and red peppers would give a nice pinky red one – a tin of tomatoes could be added too. Don’t forget wild foods – nettles make a nice inclusion to soup.
salt to taste
water to cover

Fry the onion/leek and garlic in the oil or marg. for a few minutes then add the potato and any other non-green leafy veg such as carrots/parsnips/peppers/cougettes etc. Cover with water and cook gently until the potato is soft. Then add any greens that are going in and cook for a few minutes. Alternatively at this juncture you can add the greens and turn off the heat, make sure the lid is properly on and leave it for a little while to slow cook without power (10 minutes onwards). Blend it all up and enjoy, maybe with some herb bread?