Amelia Freer - Simply Good For You

Eat. Nourish. Glow.

Cook. Nourish. Glow.

Nourish and Glow: The 10-Day Plan

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10 per cent of Amelias proceeds from this book will be donated to Women Supporting Women, an initiative from The Princes Trust, to ensure that no young woman is left behind. Women Supporting Women is a passionate community who are committed to changing the lives of young women, giving more young women in the UK the skills and confidence to live, learn and earn. We provide the right help to nurture, empower and inspire young women to build their own positive futures through employment, self-employment, education or training. For more information please visit https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/support-our-work/major-gifts/women-supporting-women

With an ever-increasing strain on our household finances, finding ways to eat well without it costing a small fortune is a top priority for many. Thankfully, with some canny planning and a little ingenuity, it is absolutely possible to create delicious, healthy meals on a limited budget.

If budget, rather than time, is your main priority, avoid buying a lot of prepared ingredients. Instead, wash, peel and chop fruit and vegetables, soak and cook dried pulses and grains (you can do this in bulk and freeze them, cooked, in batches), season meat yourself, prepare sauces and dressings from scratch, and avoid buying too many ready-meals.

Making packed lunches and snacks to take with you and always carrying a refillable water bottle are also huge cost savers.

Frozen produce is often cheaper, and no less nutritious, than buying fresh. Plus, there is less risk of food wastage. Some supermarkets hold a much broader range than others, though, so you may need to shop around. Take a look at Kitchen Staples & Shortcuts on for a list of favourites.

Meal planning and sticking to a set shopping list can help prevent waste, but its useful to have a few strategies up your sleeve for using up sad ingredients too:

VEGETABLE SOUP: Great for any odds and ends of cooked or raw vegetables you have lying around. Saut an onion and a little garlic, add the chopped veg, pour over just enough stock or bouillon to cover, and simmer until tender. Blend and youre done. Also see my Bottom of the Fridge Vegetable Stew on .

FRITTATA: The sheer variety of ingredients that can be thrown into a frittata makes this a staple meal. Bits of cheese, grated or chopped veg or herbs, leftover pulses or chopped meat anything goes.

STIR-FRIES: Good for using up vegetables, chicken or prawns.

GRAIN SALADS: Leftover cooked grains (with the exception of rice, which I dont keep because of the potential risk of food poisoning), can be transformed the following day with a handful of chopped greens/herbs, tomatoes, cucumber, lemon juice and a glug of olive oil.

OVER-RIPE FRUIT: Can be stewed into a compote (delicious with a dollop of yoghurt and nuts or seeds for breakfast), or frozen for smoothies.

Find out about local market dates and times (traders often sell off produce cheaply towards the end of the day), supermarket bargains (and their potential discounting times) and independent shops with great offers.

I go to Middle Eastern and Arabic shops or the world food aisle of bigger supermarkets for cheap bulk spices, dates, nuts and tahini, for example. Online retailers may also offer good discounts on bulk food cupboard staples.

A few supermarkets and online companies are now offering wonky vegetable boxes, which are a more cost-effective alternative to their cosmetically perfect equivalents.

Getting shopping delivered, or signing up for a weekly vegetable box, helps avoid going to the shops and thus being seduced by the displays and offers of nice, but not essential things which can really add up.

I know this is far from an original piece of advice, but the price difference between seasonal and out-of-season foods, particularly fruit and vegetables, is enormous. There are plenty of resources online to help you know when different produce is at its peak.

If there is any chance that you could grow some of your own food, this can potentially make a sizeable impact on your outgoings on fresh fruit and vegetables in the longer term, whether its just a few herbs on a windowsill, or going so far as to apply for an allotment. Cut-and-come-again salads seem to give me the best return on investment!

A big dent in the weekly food budget can come from buying enough good-quality protein sources, especially fish and meat.

• You can spend less on meat per portion by choosing the cheaper cuts. The best person to speak to about this is your local butcher, if youre lucky enough to have one, although here are a few pointers on various economical cuts to look out for:

(Beef) Brisket, rump, (Lamb) Shoulder, (Pork) Belly, neck.

(Beef) Shin, chuck or blade, leg, (Lamb), Shoulder, scrag and middle neck, (Pork) Chump, cheek.

(Beef) Flank, rump, (Lamb) Chump, (Pork) Chump

• Choose more plant-based proteins (such as nuts, seeds and legumes), free-range eggs or natural yoghurt. Buying less meat overall is not only potentially good for the environment, but can also save money.
• If youve got a freezer with space to spare, consider speaking to local farmers or farm shops about buying your meat in bulk. Many will sell a box of cuts at a discount, such as half a lamb, and youll know exactly how that animal was raised and where it came from.
• Bulk out meat dishes with additional pulses or vegetables. Lentils, finely chopped mushrooms and grated carrots work particularly well in mince dishes, for example, and a big stew can be bulked up with the addition of plenty of chopped vegetables, beans and the odd potato.

I am going to keep this simple. Because I think that simplicity is important in todays busy world. And if, like me, you are feeling a little weary of all the discordant advice that surrounds healthy eating, you can be forgiven for thinking that good nutrition has become too complex and faddy, and best avoided altogether. I assure you that it isnt and it doesnt need to be. It can, in fact, be simple.

Far from being a bible of hard and fast rules, I hope that this book will instead be a refreshing dose of common sense. A real-life reference guide of varied and tempting recipes that have speed, ease, affordability and balanced nourishment at their core, while celebrating everything that is wonderful about food. After all, food is one of the greatest simple pleasures in life.