the last gasp of summer and a delicious seasonal salad: kisir (bulgar wheat salad)

kisir: bulgar wheat salad

When I am trying to be thrifty, frugal and healthy, I take my own lunch into work. It saves me money and I am less tempted to splurge on expensive sandwiches and junk food. (I say less tempted advisedly. It doesn't always work as a preventative measure!) But there are always days when I can't always be bothered to prepare lunch or think up new ways of tantalising my taste buds and when I am offered an alternative where someone else has come up with delicious ideas for lunch, then I am often tempted from the path of thrift!

an open mind to the awful weather gave me broad bean hummus!

broad bean hummus

Deciding what to cook for Sunday lunch, I decided I wanted something fresh and summer-tasting, on the basis that is actually summer and the sun had come out. I bought a shoulder of lamb to stuff with something suitably summery; I hadn't quite decided but was plumping for feta, fresh oregano and mi cuit tomatoes and planning on serving the whole dish with my herby tomato and mint sauce. I was rather looking forward to what I thought might be a winning combination.

i love my lunch! my favourite roast chicken sandwich

leftover roast chicken and salad sandwich

These days I think that my middle name might be "Thrifty" unlike the more pedestrian "Emma" that my parents saw fit to bestow on me. But I am all about trying to save money, especially when it comes to food budgeting.

As I have mentioned before, a really good way to do this is to roast a chicken for Sunday lunch and think of delicious ways to use up the leftovers. One of my favourite things to do is to make a roast chicken salad sandwich to take to work as a packed lunch. The tangy, smoky mayo dressing goes beautifully with the chicken and adding a little (or in my case a lot) of salad, makes this quite a substantial meal.

this week I shall be mostly eating . . . couscous salad with houmous and spiced lamb

lovely lunchbox roast lamb couscous salad

So in best Jesse from The Fast Show stylee, This week I 'ave mostly been eating . . . (pause) . . . couscous salad with houmous and spiced roast lamb. Actually this was last week and the pullover and wellies were optional!

Last Sunday, we had a wonderfully aromatic slow roasted spiced lamb shoulder. I had bought a far larger piece of meat than I needed to feed us, but with the knowledge that the leftovers would be put to good use . . . a creative lunchbox meal to save me from myself. I spend far too much money at sandwich bars. While some of them are very nice, it makes sense to save a little money if I can: (by my reckoning I saved about 20 quid last week, which can go on other important things in life . . . such as red wine!).

oh! my darling spuds! (my perfect potato salad)

my perfect potato salad

This is for George, who unwittingly set in chain a process of events that made me realise that I loved to cook, write and share it all and led to me setting up this blog. Yup, Bat Boy (sorry, private joke) it is all your fault. But thank you anyway!  

There are times when I can be quite impulsive, but other times when I like to go away to think about things. .. for years . . . and years. It is a real case of the penny not actually dropping, as it is slowly edging along in miniscule increments that is my glacial ability to slowly mull things over.

If any of that doesn’t make much sense, what I am trying to say is that I had never made the connection between my love of cooking, my nerdy need to track down the “perfect” recipe (or the version that tasted best to me) my pleasure in the pleasure of others and my enjoyment of writing about it.

a favourite sandwich: hot-smoked salmon and goat's cheese

hot-smoked salmon and goat's cheese sandwich

My favourite sandwich is a pure serendipity; the happy accident of what I like and what is usually in my fridge. It is merely the assembly of slices of fresh sourdough bread (homemade, she says smugly), a smear of goats cheese (I include the rind as I like its tangy flavour and velvety texture), layer with a few slices of baby plum tomatoes and sprinkle with flakes of hot-smoked salmon.