Sput's recessionary cooking corner

[Sput]

Hello all, well I thought since Metro is on a dieting and beverage kick that I'd start a food-themed thread too. What recipes are people doing at the moment? Mine's got to be this Chicken couscous thing. It's cheap, cheerful, exceptionally tasty (first time round, reheating is not so amazing but still quite pleasant) and filling while being not totally unhealthy.

Also: does anyone know what's so great about adding lemon zest instead of just putting a bit more juice in? I can never tell the difference.

Finally, just to pre-empt things:

[Critique]

Mine is Spaghetti and Meatballs, at the moment.* It generally just tastes very nice, and you can make quite a few servings in one go, and freeze the rest for many more meals, so it's quite cost effective - and it's healthy-ish, I suppose. It doesn't particularly suffer from being reheated, either. And if you're lazy, you can use a Dolmio sauce and store-brought meatballs, and you don't get that much of a trade-off in taste.

However, if you're buying pre-made meatballs, you have to buy good quality ones. If you don't then you get soft meatballs, which are just processed meat, and it doesn't taste as nice.

I'm sure someone can make some sort of comment relating to 'balls' after this post.

*I don't actually use the GoodFood recipe, but in case the idea of spaghetti and meatballs is new to you...

[marksi]

The Lloyd Grossman bolognaise sauce in a jar is very good but salty - I add a tin of tomatoes to one jar of bolognaise sauce and it goes further but still tastes very good.

[lukey]

Hardly a revelation, but my contribution is to make bumloads of chilli and freeze a few days worth - added bonus of tasting better when reheated and takes all of 15 minutes to make.

[Nick Harvey]

Cooking? Is that what 'er indoors does when she's in that kitchen place?

[Lorns]

I love cookery programmes, and try to recreate them but more often than not, I don't have the ingrediants in my store cupboard, so I tend to improvise with what I have. So my Jamies 30 minute meal ends up being a Lornas 30minute mash up. Not always a success, so thank goodness for kebab on speed dial. At work I eat on my feet or run on empty. I like the idea of the graze box they're advertising on telly but don't wish to make regular orders. If I was to make my own up other than nuts and dried fruit what else would u add to make a nutritious filling graze box?