Jack Monroe - Thrifty Kitchen

MORE BY JACK MONROE

A GIRL CALLED JACK

A YEAR IN 120 RECIPES

COOKING ON A BOOTSTRAP

TIN CAN COOK

VEGAN (ISH)

GOOD FOOD FOR BAD DAYS

WINNER OF...

THE BBC GOOD FOOD AWARD

OBSERVER FOOD MONTHLY BEST FOOD BLOG

MARIE CLAIRE WOMAN AT THE TOP

FORTNUM & MASON JUDGES CHOICE AWARD

RED MAGAZINE INSPIRATION AWARD

OBSERVER FOOD MONTHLY PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR

WOMEN OF THE YEAR ENTREPRENEUR AWARD

WOMEN OF THE FUTURE MEDIA AWARD

EUROPEAN DIVERSITY AWARDS CAMPAIGNER OF THE YEAR

THE YMCA COURAGE AND INSPIRATION AWARD

DIVA MAGAZINE CAMPAIGNER OF THE YEAR

THE SHEILA MCKECHNIE FOUNDATION CAMPAIGNER OF THE YEAR

Jack Monroes crusading work on behalf of those in food poverty would be admirable enough on its own, but she brings something very special to her activism.

She burns with a holy rage, and rightly so. Her compassion, and sometimes painful vulnerability, seem to give her the resonant strength and passionate dignity of a warrior queen.

I think its her sensitivity that allows her to make her voice heard by those who may normally shut their ears to it without thinking twice.

Her obsessive, analytical brain means she is able to define the problems, and then come up with the solutions, succinctly. To me, she is like some sort of kitchen savant.

I cant think of another food writer with such a deep and instinctive understanding of the alchemy of cooking; she sees patterns and possibilities that can elude others. Jack is a culinary anarchist; one with a finely tuned palate and the stamina for untiring experimentation. She absolutely needs to get it right, and, she always does.

Nigella Lawson The Food Programme , BBC Radio 4

For my son, Jonathon, who has spent much of the last twelve years faithfully keeping ringpulls, picking up the postmans discarded elastic bands, pointing out bargains in the supermarket, popping another jumper on, rinsing margarine tubs, being my chief recipe tester (if he doesnt like it, it doesnt get past the draft stage), being happy with our little lot, and generally being hilarious, resilient, thoughtful, clever, generous and utterly delightful. I know I say it every time, but this could be the book that lands us our forever home. Maybe. If you tell all your friends about it, and I tell all my friends about it, well thatll shift eight whole copies. And thats a start.

Everything I do, I do it for you.

(Including mincing the mushrooms so theyre undetectable in the Bolognese.)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

In The Beginning

Ive been writing budget cookery books for almost a decade now. Its not what I thought I would be doing with my life, ten years ago, sitting in a Fire and Rescue Service Control Room answering 999 calls, and training hard to move over to the fireground in the next round of internal recruitment, but its where I have accidentally and then absolutely doggedly ended up. As I write this today, I am no longer living in the grinding, miserable poverty of my previous years, but I am still incredibly careful with how I cook, spend, shop and keep house. Partly as a way of life, partly out of fear of returning back to The Bad Times, partly because being a freelance writer is incredibly mercurial in terms of income and stability, and partly because more and more people up and down the UK and across the world are turning to thriftier lifestyles whether by choice or through a lack of choices and my work seems to be a little bit useful to some people. I hope thats the case here that you may find something within these pages to help reduce your shopping bill, expand your culinary repertoire, make use of odds and sods, be a little friendlier to the planet by making single-use plastics into many-years-of-use plastics, and more. And that the tips and tricks contained within give you a little breathing room in your household budgets, a little joy in your days, and a tiny flicker of peace when you go to bed at night.

Frugality can be exhausting, complicated and overwhelming; Ive tried here to make some elements of it genuinely enjoyable, simple and very gently life-changing instead. It wont make everything easier overnight, but it may make some things a little better, one day, one tin of budget tomatoes, one extra pound in your pocket, at a time.

The Here and Now

Almost a decade sits between me and my accidentally viral blog post, Hunger Hurts , where I documented the realities of life as a job-searching single mother in the pit of both a recession and depression, snarled up in a confusing and hostile welfare maze, clinging to my young son with an irrational fear of losing him because he was all I had in the world. I continue to talk and write about poverty because it is incredibly rare for working-class voices to break through to mainstream media platforms, and lived experiences of poverty are often shrouded in the apologetic whispers of shame, isolation, loneliness, depression, desolation and denial.

Over the last decade the queues at the food banks have grown larger, as they have been casually and deliberately ingrained into an informal support structure for the brutally decimated welfare and social care support system. Where once queuing for a food parcel in the sixth richest economy in the world would have been a stain on our national conscience, now its such a casual part of popular culture that collection baskets are in almost every supermarket, and used as background props in television game shows. While I vehemently abhor the need for emergency food aid in this country, I also urge people to support their local food bank, as and when you can. Proselytizing about the indignity of unmet basic human needs is futile when in the immediate here and now, millions of our neighbours are going hungry behind closed doors. First we feed the people, then we plan the revolution.

So if you can, and perhaps if you find yourself saving a little on your weekly shop with this book, donate to your local food bank. Pasta, rice, ambient meals like tinned curries, noodle pots and packets, tinned meats and fish, cereals, long-life milk, period products, hearty big soups, it all helps. Every item goes directly to a person in need in your community who, without your help, may have gone hungry. And until not one single person needs the help of a food bank or other community hunger-relief organization in this country, those of us who can afford to give a little to keep their vital and often literally life-saving work going, should try to do so.

And now, heres a handful of the recipes, frugal-living tips, zero-waste food ideas and other hopefully simple ideas that have kept me and my Small Boy who isnt so small any more going for the last ten years. I hope you find some of it mildly inspiring, a bit useful and adaptable for your own household needs and circumstances. Every one of these recipes has been given the thumbs-up from my 12-year-old, and most of them foisted on my friends and family, and Im genuinely excited to share every single one of them with you. Lets go.

FIRST, ASSEMBLE YOUR TOOLKIT

BASIC KITCHEN EQUIPMENT

This isnt a list of strict essentials by any means I always suggest that you start from where you are and use what you have to hand. Almost all of the recipes in this book use or are adaptable to the bare minimum of equipment; this list is an example of things that have made my life and cooking a bit easier over the years, but you definitely dont need to rush out and get everything at once. Most of these items are available cheaply from big supermarkets or high-street discount retailers, but do keep your eyes peeled in charity shops, thrift stores and boot sales as well I get a lot of my kitchen stuff secondhand, secure in the knowledge that if a 1970s enamel floral saucepan has survived in good nick for the last fifty years, itll probably serve me well for a wee while to come.