What are the most cost effective foods to make at home?

mandy47

I make my own jam. Usually get 1 or 2 jars from our home grown blueberries (too many to eat) and about a dozen plus jars from blackberry picking. I get my jam sugar using supermarket vouchers from a much "valued" survey site. Free jam to last the year plus a few to give away. 

Katkin, I make a batch of curry stock that I can add various spices and ingredients to for a variety of different curries. Saves loads of time and so easy. Traditional recipe tastes wonderful.

katkin

mandy47 said:

Katkin, I make a batch of curry stock that I can add various spices and ingredients to for a variety of different curries. Saves loads of time and so easy. Traditional recipe tastes wonderful.

It's handy, delicious and versatile isn't it.  A bit odd to be putting cabbage into a curry thing but it seems to give it body / texture and it's a good way to hide veggies! 

Fancy "posh" granola is another one. It's flexible enough to use up store cupboard items and because its based on cheap oats it can be bulked out. There's some really indulgent recipes out there but even just the basics like dried fruit, nuts and honey makes for a luxury breakfast / topping for yoghurt, ice cream etc. Love it mixed with fresh grated apple and yogurt Swiss style 

London_1

Soups of any sort, and cake and biscuits home made are well worth the effort It doesn't have to be GBB standard but a victoria sponge cake or a few scones are a lot cheaper than buying shop bought stuff

GaleSF63

Brie said:

leftatthetrafficlights said:

Condiments, jams, chutneys etc are also cheaper to make depending on your access to raw ingredients.

I think the main thing is looking at the time things take and also storage - part of the savings with cooking things yourself is the ability to make lots at once from a relatively small amount of ingredients which is no good if you can't store the stuff! I once bought a ys sack of onions and made onion marmalade- absolutely fabulous and very cheap but I ended up with 15 jars of it - managed to get it in the cupboards but it certainly impacted what else I could make! 🤦‍♀️😂

That's the problem - cost of ingredients!!  a friend makes jam every year but has to buy everything and so each jar of jam ends up costing 3 or 4 times the price of good quality stuff from Tesco.  And, unfortunately, is no where near as good.  

But for those that can make good stuff the secret is to find like minded individuals with different stuff so either you are exchanging ingredients or end products, i.e. trading a couple of onion marmalades for some strawberrry jam.  I'm keeping an eye on freegle and next door for anyone with too many apples so I can make sauce, chutney and cake.  I'd be happy to give some back to the tree owner if necessary.

It might be worth asking on Freegle/Freecycle if anyone has apples they don't want. It doesn't occur to everyone that someone may be able to use their fallers.

-taff

Found it

https://fallingfruit.org/

Bishi

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. They have been really helpful. Unfortunately we don't have much storage and only have a small freezer (60/40 smallish fridge/freezer) so the big batch cook things don't work very well for us at the moment, but I'll definitely be trying out making my own flatbreads and naans and going to look for some free fruit! Thanks again everyone

goldfinches

I second a lot of what others have already said but thought I'd add that making your own fruit cordials which can be stored in the cupboard is very economical if you use foraged fruit e.g. blackberries etc.
I made this recipe very successfully last year and still have half a bottle sitting in the cupboard waiting for the next picnic with friends Blackberry and Vanilla Cordial - Farmersgirl Kitchen I used vanilla sugar and some extract rather than a whole pod and also suggest keeping back about 100g of the sugar and then tasting for flavour and adjusting rather than adding the whole lot in one go.
If you fancy making your own alcoholic drinks I can recommend these two recipes Blackberry liqueur (Crème de mûre) recipe | BBC Good Food and Sloe gin recipe | BBC Good Food.
The other suggestion I have is to try making the little expensive additions that make ordinary food more of a treat. I made the pickled blackberries from this recipe and they were a lovely addition to salads Brie and pickled blackberry toastie recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (sainsburysmagazine.co.uk).
This hot sauce was so good that I could imagine it being a hit poured over ice cream Scotch Bonnet, Pineapple and Mango Hot Sauce Recipe - Great British Chefs. I made it with just one jalapeno chilli and it was still a bit fiery for my wimpy taste buds but it was delicious and kept well. I used a reduced pineapple and mango which meant it was quite good value too as I only had to buy the limes.
Last of all this jam by Delia is easy and delicious and despite what she says mine kept for months Quick Bramble (blackberry) Jelly | Recipes | Delia Online.
I have also seen suggestions from Edd Kimber to try flavouring it with star anise Edd Kimber’s recipe for blackberry and star anise chocolate cake | Baking | The Guardian and did try that last year but found that the star anise needed to be left in the jam in the jar to make the flavour discernible so am going to try again this year with a larger amount and see if that makes it better.

Brambling

Goldfinches i liked the look of the Scotch Bonnet Pineapple and Mango Hot Sauce but think I'm going to wimp out of adding ten scotch bonnets that number frightens me    and i don't mind a little spicy 

I'm not a whiskey drinker but make an exception to homemade blackberry whiskey, it reminded me of port and worked added to roasted figs or peaches 

Katiehound

I'm told that the blackberries out of the blackberry whisky jar make blackberry & apple pie/ crumble into something rather (decadent??) special! I ate mine with ice cream- sozzled blackberries I mean, without the crumble.

Blackberries seem to be the one fruit that you can  infuse in whisky as it has such a strong flavour. it's good stuff.

in_my_wellies

I make soup from gluts of anything, whiz it up and pour it into mugs.
I freeze the mugs and get one out at breakfast time. It's thawed enough to microwave by lunchtime and saves washing up
(I do have a very ancient chest freezer, 1983, so usually have space)

Another vote for blackberry cordial at this time of year, thanks Goldfinches for another recipe idea.