Vegetables

Meat is the most un-frugal of all ingredients. On a student budget you can only realistically afford two or three meals a week with good quality meat, or five/six meals with bad quality. Luckily, my lovely mate Connie is a vegetarian and, as we eat most of our meals together, I’ve saved a fair bit of money adhering to her diet.

Cooking vegetarian meals does call for a little bit more creativity in the kitchen, but we see it as therapy. You’re always happier of an evening after you’ve eaten a home-made meal. With some help from the spices and seasoning mentioned in last week’s blog, your frugal veggies can be elevated to an exciting and substantial level. Plus there always seems to be loads of leftovers that provide easy lunches for the days that follow.

In Brighton there are many, many fruit and veg markets every day of the week. I usually head in to town every week to stock up - and go towards the end of the day when they're giving away things cheaper or even for free. Most shops or markets have a bargain basket or half-price shelf that are perfect for students - you can make the easiest soup in the world by boiling up whaterver’s in that basket with a veggie stock cube...

Shopping in markets also help you to be seasonal in your shopping. Not only is this better for the environment - as we are eating what’s grown on our shores, but it’s also generally cheaper and healthier as they haven’t had to be shipped over from some far corner of the world.

My recipe this week is for a vegetarian curry. A lovely lentil dhal to be exact - pimped up with some autumnal, iron-rich kale, and the easiest side dish of India. This one’s a good-un I promise.

Lentil Dhal

Kale - 3 big leaves the size or your forearm (or a bag of spinach would be more traditionally Indian)

1 onion

5 cloves of garlic

1 thumb-size piece of ginger

250g - Red lentils

1 veggie stock cube

450ml - Boiling water

Any spices you can find (I used ground cumin,turmeric and dried chilli)

For the Chapatis:

100g - plain flour (Or 2 tbsp per person)

3 (or so) tsp of cumin/mustard/caraway seeds

1/2 tsp of salt

Cold water

1. Wash the kale then chop off the woodiest part of their stalks. Roughly chop and stir-fry briefly (about 5 mins) in a little bit of oil then set aside for later.
2. Next, chop up your onion, garlic and ginger. Get a big saucepan hot, lug in a bit of sunflower oil an gently fry your magic 3 ingredients.
3. Soak the lentils for 5 minutes in cold water whilst the kettle boils. Drain them, then add them to the onion etc. Stir for a bit then add the stock cube and the boiling water.
4. Boil for 5 minutes then turn the heat down to simmer for 30. Add your spices now, give it all a quick stir then leave it be.
5. When the curry’s blipping away, it means it’s chapati time. Put the flour and seasoning in a bowl and trickle in a little cold water and stir with your fingers until you make a little ball of dough. Knead it around the bowl until it’s clean then leave it to rest until the curry has but a few minutes left.
6. Then get a frying pan hot with a little oil in. Roll out nuggets of the dough in to whatever size and thickness you like - then fry in the pan until golden on both sides.
7. Serve the dhal and chapatis with rice, yoghurt, mango chutney and whatever accompaniments take your fancy.