The Bank holiday turned out to be a glorious weekend: good because I had a lot of mouths to feed. We had friends various over for most of the weekend so I needed to make our food shop go a long way.
The Bank Holiday also heralded the start of a new, cheaper, Morrisons.
They’ve cut the prices on over a thousand of your favourite products: these are new every day low prices on the things you buy every week. Although we’re cutting prices, we’re not cutting corners: you’ll still get award-winning meat and fish, still get trained butchers and bakers, still get the best of fresh on Market Street and still get friendly Morrisons service. Look out for the yellow markers when you shop in store. For more information about the price cuts, visit the Morrisons website.
Our store has also just had a new facelift so it was good opportunity to eye up the swanky new fresh produce cooler system, the new look fish counter and a much better layout. There were lots of staff on hand to direct you if you got lost, and the shelves were all stacked to bursting. I was mightily impressed.
When we moved into our new home, the design wizard behind Thrift and Prudence, in addition to a reindeer for the Guest Loo, gave me a copy of a recipe book called Goodbye Mrs Beeton. An excellent example of 1970’s recipes and the sort of food my husband loves to eat. In honour of cheaper prices, thriftiness and making meals go further, I thought I would share one of his favourite Friday Night Suppers, the Hardup Pie.
It’s a good recipe to tailor to suit your cupboard. If you have no leeks, add carrots instead. You could add more stuffing to make it go further. or add in more browned-off vegetables, or mashed veggies. You could use squash or sweet potato for the topping though it won’t need as long.
- 454g or 1 pack sausagemeat (£1.55)
- 1 box stuffing, made up according to instructions (87p)
- 1 red onion, finely chopped (17p)
- 2 slices smoked bacon, chopped (83p, 2 packs for £5.00 currently)
- 2 leeks, trimmed and sliced (66p, 1 pack of three 99p)
- about 2 tbsp butter (10p, £1 per pack)
- 4 potatoes, washed (90p, 2.25 per bag)
- Fresh parsley, chopped (20p, fresh bunch £1.00)
- Seasoning (did not price)
- Make stuffing in a large bowl according to instructions.
- In a non stick pan, fry the bacon bits until crispy, then put to one side, keeping the juices in the pan. Tip onto stuffing.
- Fry the diced onion in the bacon juices until soft and golden then add to stuffing.
- Add the sausagemeat to the stuffing and blend it all together. The easiest, if stickiest, way is with your hands.
- Take an ovenproof dish (mine is about 20cm rectangle enamel pie dish) and smear base and sides in butter.
- Layer the leeks in the bottom of the dish.
- Add the sausagemeat mixture and pat down.
- Finally, slice the potatoes lengthways and layer on top of the sausagemeat. Season well and dot with remaining butter.
- Cover the whole dish loosely with a lid or foil (again, I did not cost this element) and put in the oven at 180C for about 45 minutes.
- Check that the potatoes are cooked, remove the foil, return to the oven at a higher temp of about 200C for 15 minutes to brown potatoes.
- If cooking in the Aga, you need to bake on the grid shelf on the floor of the roasting oven for about 45 minutes, with the plain shelf on the second set of runners. Check that the potatoes are cooked before removing foil and cooking on the plain shelf for the last 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are brown and crispy.
This comfortably serves four but could serve a family of five or even six if you factor in children’s appetites. Based on serving 4 people, that makes a serving £1.32 per head.
Disclosure: I was compensated with Morrisons vouchers for the purposes of writing this post as a #morrisonsmum. All opinions are my own.
That looks very filling and tasty too. Commenting for myself @kateonthinice and on behalf of BritMums and thanking you for taking part.
Mmm, sounds so nice I might be inclined to make with a premium sauasage meat (chill and wild board currently my favourite). Love recipes like this that you can make budget or tone up!
Totally Sarah- the great thing about this recipe is that though it’s thrifty, if your budget is more generous, you can go premium all the way, make your own stuffing or buy premium stuff. It’s very adaptable.