One Woman Dinner: Pasta With Honeyed Savoy, Bacon, Carrot And Chilli. 25p for a generous bowlful.
Well this is what I came up with this evening. Every now and again, my body *wants* meat. While a vegetable based diet is low cost and healthy, sometimes a big craving kicks in and won’t go away until I’ve had some. I’m on my own tonight, no Small Boy, and heading out to meet and interview a band that are playing in Southend in half an hour. Here’s my solution to Single Woman Dinner, in five minutes, for 25p. Portions can be scaled up depending on number of mouths to feed! Sweet, spicy, meaty, filling carbs and sneaky vegetable goodness; I’m definitely putting this one to paper.
Ingredients:*
Spaghetti, 50g, 4p (39p for 500g)
Savoy cabbage, large leaf, 4p approx (80p for a whole one, peeled mine apart and it had 22 leaves…)
40g Smoked Cooking Bacon, 7p (£1.09 for 670g)
1 tsp honey, 2p approx (99p for a jar)
1/2 an onion, 3p (Part of a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1)
1/2 a carrot, 3p (Part of a 1.25kg vegetable pack, £1)
2 tsp of lemon juice, 2p (60p for 250ml)
1 chilli, free, (grows on my window ledge!)
How To:
1. Break the spaghetti in half and place in a saucepan with boiling water to cover. Simmer.
2. Dice the bacon, and slice the onion and chilli. Cut away the hard stalks from the middle of each Savoy leaf, and chop finely. Taking a separate sauté pan, cook the bacon, onion, chilli and garlic together on a low heat. I didn’t need to add any oil as I deliberately chose a more fatty cut of the bacon pack, but you can add oil if you feel the need to.
3. As the bacon cooks, add grated carrot and the chopped Savoy, and the lemon juice.
4. Stir honey through and serve hot. 🙂
Make It Posh variations:
Add cream and heat through before serving for an additional sauce.
OR: Replace the lemon juice with the juice and zest of half an orange, and add chopped fresh thyme.
OR: Replace the carrot with grated Parmesan, and the onion with a red onion, if you’ve got money to burn. 😛
And in case you’re wondering, this is what £1.09 of cooking bacon looks like:
Jack Monroe: Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
*(All prices quoted are Sainsburys or Sainsburys Basics where available, correct at time of publication. Costs checked against ASDA SmartPrice, Tesco Value, Morrisons Value and Waitrose Essentials ranges. Some variation between supermarkets but most items widely available at similar prices.)