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Now we are in recession everyone needs a copy of Rose's best selling book, The New English Kitchen. Click here.
Rose's top ten tips for Savvy Shopping and cooking
1. Ask your butcher for chicken and beef bones - they're free. Roast them until brown and then make a stock adding 2 sticks celery and 1 onion. One good chicken carcass will make 1.5 litres of gelatinous stock. Stock is a fantastic base for soups, rissotos and stews. Beef stock is more delicate.
2. Buy a box of over ripe tomatoes from your local street market, they virtually give them away. Make a tomato sauce using garlic, basil or oregano, sugar to taste and plenty of olive oil, you can't cook it for too long, it just becomes thicker and more delicious. Sieve afterwards and you have the base for curries, bolognese or just a plain sauce for pasta or to top a pizza. Store both stock and sauce in discarded plastic milk cartons. They freeze beautifully and when frozen you just cut the carton open and heat.
3. Avoid supermarkets and shop locally. For fruit and vegetables charter markets are always much cheaper than supermarkets. My own researches show that you'll save a minimum of 35% - and usually a lot more.
4. Don't throw away over ripe apples, plums and berries. Stew them and turn into a fruit compote for breakfast.
5. Don't fall for 'two for the price of one' deals. All this means is the supermarket has doubled the price for a given period and then halved the doubled price. Amazing isn't it.
6. Make your own bread. It's quick, easy and so much better tasting than shop bought. It's also much cheaper.
7. Turn stale bread into breadcrumbs for coating chicken thighs, veal escalopes and fish. Also can be used as a base for soups and stuffings.
8. Throw away nothing. Invest in a mincing machine as an attachment to a food processor, and turn the leftover roast lamb into a base for shepherd's pie. Ditto; the beef into cottage pie and bolognese. While you're at it invest in a sausage stuffer and ask your butcher for some sausage skins when you buy the pork from him.
9. Render down pork and beef fat and use to roast potatoes in.
10. Make your own ice cream, it's a doddle. Cheaper, better tasting and better for you. Children will be amazed too.
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