Tasty white mush

It's slow cooker weather, so today I thought I'd make a rice pudding. Never done one before, but how hard could it be? Checked a few recipes, got a vague idea of timings and proportions so off I went.

I chucked in 1 mug of rice (just Tesco value stuff), 3 mugs semi skimmed milk, half mug demerara sugar and about a tsp of vanilla extract. Slapped it on low and went out. Came back 4 hours later to find it was cooked, and tasted awesome, but was pretty much so solid it needed a knife and fork to eat it. The child still enjoyed t, and as she's currently alleging famine every couple of hours, having this should hopefully fill her up a bit longer than usual.

Got 6 portions from it, costing approx 15p per bowl. Bargain.

There'll always be lentils

I'm currently trying to use everything up in the cupboards, and so lentils will be featuring heavily. Which is good, because I do enjoy a lentil.

So today was garlic lentils with rice and sprouts. Shitty photo, but you get the idea.

The red lentils were done in the slow cooker with a carton of passata, masses of crushed garlic, one chopped onion, about 6 chunks of frozen spinach, two handfuls of frozen mixed peppers and a paprika flavour pot. Can't be bothered working out costings, but I got 6 portions from it, so probably around 25p a portion, if that. The child hates it, but hey ho, all the more for me. Two portions are in the fridge, 3 in the freezer, so it'll be appearing regularly over the next few weeks.

Pasta fakeanara

I am trying not to shop this month for anything but the essentials. Although quite how one defines essentials is obviously up for debate. Anyway, it's led to some unusual meals, some awful ones and a hell of a lot of cup a soups that were hiding at the back of the cupboard. Occasionally, there's also been an absolute delight. One such lovely meal was a carbonara inspired pasta. I didn't have any eggs, so did a bit of improvising and came up with a really, really enjoyable dish. The child wants to have it again, so it was clearly a hit.

Not the prettiest dish, but who cares if it tastes good?

I chopped up some cooking bacon, friend it til it was crisp(ish). Put it to one side, then sauteed a small onion and 2 garlic cloves in the bacon fat. When soft, added a tablespoon of gluten free flour, stirred through and then added milk to make a thickish white sauce. Once cooked, chucked in a couple of handfuls of parmesan, added the bacon back in and served with gf pasta.

Costings:
200g gf pasta - 48p
200g cooking bacon - 20p
1 small onion - 6p
2 cloves of garlic - 10p
300 ml milk - 13p
About 100g parmesan - free, as it was donated by a friend.
Tablespoon of gf flour - 3p

Total cost £1.00 exactly. Made 3 portions, and obviously if you don't have a shitty health issue then the pasta would be way cheaper.