Don’t throw away the liquid from your boiled chicken! It can be used to make a lovely broth. Simply cover the base of a pot with olive oil or butter and heat. Add in a finely chopped onion, a chopped leek, a few celery sticks, a few chopped carrots, and a pinch of salt. Cover [...]

Soft, fried noodles make a great contrast to crisp beansprouts and fresh asparagus. This is a simple, quick, satisfying, great looking, and cheap recipe. I had soy sauce and vegetable oil; the remainder of the ingredients cost me less than €6 (Lidl and SuperValu). Use the vegetables you have: I only bought 100g asparagus but [...]

Asparagus is one of those vegetables that really is best eaten in season. It’s coming into season from around now until the month of June. It won’t have travelled as far so it should be that bit fresher and cheaper than usual. Asparagus has no fat or cholesterol and is high in amino and folic [...]

A few weeks ago, we started a list of resources for children, parents, teachers, and anybody who wants to learn a bit more about healthy eating and growing your own food. Food doesn’t get much cheaper – or better for you – than that. Teaching Resource #2: Irish Seedsavers Irish Seedsavers is an absolutely essential [...]

Earlier this week, CheapEats reader Frank promised he’d love us forever if we came up with a recipe for the fried chilli broccoli that his local Chinese offers. This might not be exactly the same but I think it may be close enough. And, as we missed Wednesday Wind-down yesterday, we hope this makes up [...]

Each trip to the supermarket brings a fresh disappointment.  I arrive in naive anticipation of new and interesting fruits and vegetables, only to be confronted by more of the same. Always the same variety of carrots, onions, broccoli, cabbages, leeks, oranges,  bananas, and apple, plums, pears…. Peppers, mangoes, pineapples, the same selection of berries. Leeks, [...]

Our reader Fiona asked if we’d feature turnips as our ingredient of the week. She gets an organic fruit and veg box delivered once a fortnight, and says at this time of year it tends to be heavy on the turnips. I don’t loathe turnips with the passion that they inspire in some people, but [...]

Aldi’s Super6 this week are asparagus, vine tomatoes, strawberries, mushrooms, potatoes and granny smith apples – all for 79c.  Incredible value, especially on the asparagus, which looks great. I also picked up a bag of black pepper and sea salt cashews, one of my favourite snacks, for only €1.69 for 175g.  The only other place [...]

I’ve really loved puy lentil week. I’m definitely going to use these little emeralds a lot more. To round off the latest “Ingredient of the Week” feature, I’m posting a recipe for a perfect, hugely comforting weekend dinner/ alternative Sunday lunch. I know a lot of people can be reluctant to give lentils a go [...]

Learning how to cook, Step One: Find a cook book with easy recipes and pick something, the ingredients for which you recognise and can locate. This cold cold week, easing into things, I thought I’d give Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Foods a go, given that it’s meant for people like me and the recipes satisfy [...]