fillet, or practise pulling the skeleton off in one rather fancy move once it’s cooked. For the simplest, quickest fish meal (just don’t tell any celebrity chefs, who will only scoff at such simplicity) just put a whole mackerel or trout or some salmon fillets in the microwave for three or four minutes under a cover, turn them over and do it again while you finish the veg and some couscous, shout at your kids to wash their hands and come down, and pour yourself another glass of Sauvignon Blanc. By the time you’ve asked them three more times and put some cutlery on the table you are serving a healthy, colourful, delicious meal for the whole family. Have a go, see how easy it is, and start buying the real things instead of expensive oily fish pills. Bon appétit!
I am aware that this list borders on the Offensive to My Intelligence, and I am starting to feel Gordon Ramsay breathing fury and contempt down my neck. But I stick with it, knowing that a great many people still cannot think of anything to make for dinner, feel that cooking is an unfathomable challenge and an ordeal, and go to the chippy three nights a week to break up the microwave-meal monotony. Jamie Oliver has done wonders in making healthy cooking seem more manageable, but most people still cling to their three or four ‘safe’ dishes. If these dishes are quick, fresh and healthy then that’s absolutely fine.
Practise, Practise. It does get easier…
How confident you are when the time comes to rustle up something to feed your hungry brood depends entirely on how much time you have spent cracking eggs, peeling potatoes and playing with the electric whisk. No, not in that way…
I remember sharing a flat in college where we took it in turns to cook a big communal meal at the weekends. Apart from separating those who could cook while drunk from those who couldn’t, what really showed up was who had had some previous cooking experience at home and who hadn’t. Those who had were able to rustle up something edible and tasty out of the typical student ingredients on offer with no trouble at all. Those who hadn’t were terrified of the chopping, peeling, stirring and frying and ended up serving something that even slightly-the-worse-for-wear students couldn’t swallow.
If you didn’t have much practice as a child, don’t worry—there is plenty of time to catch up, and the more you get your hands dirty and stop being afraid to try new combinations and techniques, the easier it will be for you, and the more you will pass on to your kids.
Granny knew best: Cheap, healthy cooking tips
It is possible that your granny didn’t know best, and fed your dad on a well-balanced diet of fat, salt and sugar. In my own case this was partly true, but only because of the countries concerned: the Czech national dish is dumplings and fatty sausages washed down with strong beer, and Scotland is famous for having the highest level of heart disease in the world thanks to a diet of all things fatty and sweet, sweet, sweet. Oh, and whiskey.
But let’s pretend that the granny in this house did know best, and was one of many who could cope in times of financial hardship, half-empty shelves and rationing and still manage to feed her family of twelve a healthy meal for less than a fiver (in today’s money) a day. How? Well, once you’ve had plenty of the practice recommended above, and no longer eye your steamer with suspicion or fear the frying pan, you will be able to do at least some of the actual cooking. But the question remains: what, and how?
Here are some top tips that should keep everyone in your household, and your bank balance, in tip-top condition:
Make soups. If every ten-year-old were taught how to make a good soup, and then actually made and ate the stuff, there would be half the level of obesity and bad health we see in this country today. I’m not certain about this, of course, but there’s no doubt that soup is the king of cheap, healthy meals; and it’s so easy to make! Level One: just get a load of vegetables (carrots, potatoes, parsnips, leeks, etc.), chop them up small, fry them in butter and oil until they go a bit glazy and soft, pour on a couple of pints of boiling stock (which you can make from a cube if haven’t got round to Level Two yet, where you make it yourself), bring it to the boil and leave it for half an hour or so. Ta da—soup is served! Level Three involves the heady task of adding things like noodles (steady on…) or bits of meat left over from dinner yesterday. Soup costs almost nothing to make and one big pot with some hunks of bread is enough to feed a whole family very well. At about 20p per serving with almost no fat or salt compared with £5 from a chippy with the lard-levels set at max, I’d say we’re onto a bit of a winner here.
Use leftovers. Made too much pasta last night? Don’t worry; keep what’s left, and tonight you can heat it up and chuck on some beaten egg and milk until it turns into scrambled pasta. Or add it to that soup you made at the weekend. Or cover it with some cheese and tuna and bake it into a tuna-cheese melt. Leftover meat is perfect for pies, risottos, or just having cold with some bread or potato salad, and leftover veg is never a problem: I eat it for lunch, or, if it’s not very appetising-looking, I whiz it up with some tomatoes to make a kind of vegetable coulis thing to pour on top of pasta or couscous. Leftovers are the queen of cheap, healthy meals. Use them.
Don’t add salt. There is tons of hidden salt in lots of the food we eat, from bread to baked beans. Eating too much salt can cause high blood pressure, so keep to low-salt foods and don’t add any more yourself.
Remove excess fat. Skinning chicken is quite gross really, but if you can bear it, it will greatly reduce the amount of fat your family eats.
Grill, don’t fry. If you own a deep-fat fryer, then either get rid of it pronto or put it at the very back of your ‘kitchen implements I never use’ cupboard, along with the fondue set and the toastedsandwich maker, and just talk fondly about it from time to time. I have never, ever understood why people take beautiful healthy food and then throw it into gallons of hot fat. It’s criminal! If you grill, roast or lightly stir-fry your meat and vegetables instead of condemning them to Death by Fat then your family’s arteries and hearts will thank you for it.
Stop murdering the vegetables. There is a belief in this country that all vegetables, especially carrots and cabbage, are evil and bad, and need to be severely punished for being so…well, just so vegetably. This punishment can range from ten minutes to a whopping twenty in a pot of boiling water, until the poor things are drained of all vitamins, minerals, taste and texture, and resemble little more than wet papier mâché. Please can we all stop this brutality, and realise that vegetables are our saviours and should be treated with the utmost respect. Three or four minutes is ample time to soften most veg up enough to call it cooked rather than raw, and anything approaching ten is cruelty.
Buy local. Buying local, fresh food is one way to reduce environmental damage (no flights or plastic packaging involved here) and cuts out the amount of pesticides or other chemicals your family may be unwittingly ingesting. I know it’s lovely to have blueberries on your porridge every day—but this is the middle of January and they were in season six months ago! Buying local is good for the local economy too, which is an added bonus.
Keep things in proportion. There is some debate about the ‘best’ ratios of protein to carbohydrate to vegetables you should put on a plate. It really depends on the amount of exercise each person is doing and how much they are growing: active kids need lots of healthy carbs to give them energy; sedentary adults need less. If
