Lettuces for Less

Not sure if this should go in the Austerity Cook blog or here, but given it is about growing food rather than cooking, and concerns saving money, here it shall be.

We have a friend to thank for this tip. Thanks Louise.

Supermarkets sell cartons of 'living salad' for (in the case of Sainsbury's at least) £1. Buy one, harden the plants off with a few days outside and nights inside, then separate and plant them. We got 19 plants from one such container, all of which have proven healthy, and about half of which have been eaten already - they give you a quick start while your own seed-grown stuff is still on the way.

Another money saver that some gardeners won't be aware of: when you harvest a lettuce like this, leave a few of the outer leaves on the root, water it, and with luck you'll get a second plant in a few weeks.

Lettuce forms the basis of so many great things other than salads, so it's one of the must-haves in the garden. Cook peas fresh or frozen with a few leaves of green lettuce, some butter, and scraps of bacon fried till crisp and you have an approximation of petit pois a la francaise, a vegetable course in itself. They braise well in the oven too, again with a bit of bacon plus some stock to moisten things.

When you pay £1 a piece for decent lettuces in store such things can seem a bit extravagant; but when you have effectively paid about 5p for the growing salad jobbies they're a bargain. And if they are grown from seed we're talking a lot less than 1p each. Get growing.

Last of the Summer - Whine

Saturday, the first day of October (and as ever of the rest of our lives), another BBQ, if anything finer than the midweek effort. Again ours the lone smoke signal in the neighbourhood, which seems like finding gold in the garden and not bothering to pick it up. Could Strictly X-Factor's Got Apprentice Talent be worth missing such a pleasurable hour or two outside?

With my aversion to additives and to paying dear for sub-par factory stuff, I bought mince  and made three burgers with only salt, plenty of pepper, and a glug of olive oil. Would have been a drizzle but I'm a cook not a cock. Shaped in clean wet hands and into the holdy thing to grill over greying coals. Crunchy salad including our own beetroot and cucumber, the last of the season, skewers of courgette (ditto) and mushrooms, and time to eat slowly in the warm evening. My compliments to Doc Myers who introduced me to the value of toasting your buns/baps or other double-entendre baked goods on the barbie. A hint of extra crispness to the proceedings.

It was distressing to hear over the weekend of the rise in numbers of those needing food handouts. Hats off to the food companies providing supplies. Had to wonder how many among the recipients would have a better chance with more basic cookery skills though. Fresh, unprocessed (thus cheaper) foods seen in supermarket trolleys in direct proportion to perceived income of the shopper. Hats on to schools teaching food science and marketing for the last 20 years instead of cooking.