Wonderful recipes for meals that are delicious and cheap to make, from destitute gourmet Sophie Gray.

Seasonal vegetables, inexpensive staples and a small amount of good-quality lean protein, teamed with a delicious seasoning – these are the keys to culinary economy for busy cooks. From the author of the very successful 100+ tasty $10 meals comes a new essential cookbook full of simple, cheap and scrumptious recipes for every household. We all need recipes for affordable meals we can manage to make on a week night, that the household will love and that use ingredients we already have. So the recipes in this book are useful not only for families, but for flatters, students and retirees too.

Maintaining the destitute gourmet principle that stylish food shouldn't have to cost a fortune, Sophie Gray presents more than 100 fashionable recipes that each cost less than $15 to make. The recipes are not only cheap and tasty they're pretty healthy too, using the dg principles of shopping smart, eating healthily and in season, and making a little of something luxurious go a long way, from oven bakes, slow cookers and curries to pasta, stir fries and pizza.

SAMPLE RECIPES

Stromboli
serves 4–6
Stromboli is a rolled stuffed bread, packed with savoury flavours – it's a great way to make a little bit of something go a long way. This stromboli uses roasted pumpkin – or you could use other roasted vegetables such as kumara or capsicum or a combination left over from a previous meal and a small amount of spicy sausage. Cost: $8.32

Ingredients

For the dough:

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp oil
½ sachet instant yeast
½ cup warm milk
½ cup warm water

For the filling:

1 Tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4–5 large button mushrooms, peeled and sliced
1½ chorizo or other spicy sausage, thinly sliced
¼cup tomato paste
1½ Tbsp pesto
2 cups cooked pumpkin, diced and roasted in a little oil until tender, or use leftovers
1 cup grated tasty cheesegrated parmesan cheese (optional)
a handful of fresh basil leaves
extra grated cheese for topping

Method

To make the dough, place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the warm milk and water and stir into the dry ingredients using a large spoon.

Turn the dough on to a floured board and knead, adding extra flour if necessary to prevent it sticking to your hands or the board.

Knead until smooth and springy (around 5 minutes).

Place the dough into a clean greased bowl, cover with cling film and microwave on low power for 1 minute.

Rest the dough for 10 minutes then repeat. After the second rest the dough should have doubled in size.

(Alternatively, set aside in a warm place until doubled in size.)Preheat the oven to 210degC. Grease a baking sheet.

While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion, garlic, mushrooms and sausage and cook gently until soft.

Place the dough on a well-floured bench and roll out to a rectangle roughly 40cm x 30cm (around the size of a Swiss roll pan if you don't have a ruler handy).

Spread the dough first with the tomato paste then with the pesto.

Scatter on the roasted pumpkin and the mushroom and sausage mixture.

Add the cup of grated cheese, a little parmesan, if using, and the basil leaves.

Roll up the dough from the long side like a Swiss roll. Carefully transfer to the greased baking tray, cut a few slashes in the top with a serrated knife and top with the extra grated cheese.

Rest the stromboli for 10 minutes then bake for 20–25 minutes or until golden.

Cook's tip: Basil is simple to grow in pots or in a sunny patch of garden and it is most prolific in late summer and autumn, so harvest the leaves before the weather turns cold and make pesto.

Process the basil with a few cloves of garlic, some nuts – cashews or almonds are cheaper than the traditional pine nuts – enough olive oil to produce a paste-like consistency and a good grating of parmesan. Freeze in ice-cube trays to use throughout the winter.

Lemon chicken stir-fry with cashews
serves 4
Tangy lemony sauce and the scrunch of cashews is a great combination, not too exotic for the conservative eaters but interesting enough for the adventurous. Cost: $10.91

Ingredients

a dash of sesame or rice bran oil
2 boneless chicken breasts, skin removed and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated ginger
1 large stalk celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled, cut lengthwise and thinly sliced on the diagonal
2 cups (approx. 1 head) broccoli florets
2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
⅓ cup (approx. 1 average lemon) fresh lemon juice
1½ tsp chicken stock powder dissolved in 1 cup boiling water
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp honey
1 cup green beans – frozen are fine
1 Tbsp cornflour mixed with 1 Tbsp cold water
a handful or two of roasted cashews
cooked rice for 4 people
Method

Heat the oil in a wok or heavy-based frying pan. Add the chicken in batches, stir-frying each batch briskly until sealed (white on the outside but still raw inside). Remove from the pan and continue with the next batch until all the chicken is sealed – add a drop more oil to the pan if you need it.

When all the chicken is sealed, return it all to the pan and add the garlic, ginger, celery, carrot and broccoli. Add the soy sauce and lemon juice and stir-fry for a minute or two, then add the chicken stock, brown sugar and honey and stir-fry until the vegetables are almost tender, then add the beans.

When the beans are cooked, stir in the cornflour mixture and taste to check the seasoning, adding a little more brown sugar or honey if desired. Toss in the cashews just before serving. Serve with cooked rice.

Author Biography

Sophie Gray is the face and inspiration behind destitute gourmet. She is a popular speaker and teacher on food, family life and finances, and writes regularly for Taste and Food, facebook and her blog. She is married to Richard and they have two children, Isabella and Jack. Sophie works fulltime communicating the destitute gourmet philosophy from their home in Auckland, New Zealand.