Easy peasy gammon squeezy!

As well as being lazy and greedy, I am also cheap. My husband is a lucky man.

That’s not 100% true. For some things I spend like there’s a bottomless pit of pennies in my garden (there is not.) but for the most part I am a sensible Susan when it comes to pennies. This is a pretty new thing for me. Having a decent wage after growing up in the ghettoooooo meant every payday, for a very long time, felt like my birthday and it was treated as such. LET’S GO SHOPPING. Anyhow, i’ve got a grip now and I like to see how little I can spend while eating as much delicious stuff as I can. It’s a fun game.

Saving money on food can be a challenge, but with a few simple tweaks to your daily routine, you can cut back on unnecessary expenses and make a big impact on your bank account. One of the easiest ways to start is by meal planning and prep. Take some time each week to plan out your meals for the next few days, and then prep as much as you can in advance. This will help reduce food waste and eliminate last-minute takeaway runs, although sometimes these are necessary for retention of sanity.

We don’t have kids (a sadness) so I only have to worry about feeding us 2. My favourite way to spend chuff-all and make life easy for a few days is with a 750g gammon joint. I get it from Tesco for £4.75 but I reckon it’ll be cheaper in your Aldis and your Lidls. I get 3 nights dinners for the both of us out of the fellow!

Night 1 - Roast gammon with cauliflower cheese. Take your gammon out of all the packaging and stick in the air-fryer. 180 for 30 minutes. While that’s doing it’s thing cut the florets off your cauliflower. Put in a pan of cold water with a big pinch of salt and then go and sit down until your air fryer shouts at you. Once the air fryer has sung the song of it’s people, turn your gammon then stick on for another 30 minutes. Put the heat on under your cauliflower and get a medium sized sauce man out for organising your cheese sauce. Add 75g of butter to the pan and stick on a medium heat. Add a big pinch of salt and pepper, a crushed clove of garlic, half a teaspoon of dijon mustard and a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika. Let the butter melt and then add 75g of plain flour. Stir through and let cook for a couple of minutes, moving the dry buttery flower mix around so it doesn’t burn. Slowly start adding in around 500ml of milk, it’ll go lumpy but keep whisking and it’ll get there. Take at least 150g mature cheddar and grate it up, weigh out at least 30g grated parmesan. (I say “at least” as per some people like things cheesier. You do you, Boo.) Keep about a quarter the cheese aside for topping. Stir the cheese through the sauce and leave her until you’re ready for her. Now! Check on your cauliflower! It’ll take 5/10 minutes to come to the boil and you want to cook it to your own preference. Paul likes it mushy - he’s weird. Drain your cauliflower and arrange in a layer on an one proof dish. Top with the cheese sauce, then the leftover cheese. Once your gammon is ready it needs to rest for 10 minutes, so the cauli-cheese can go into the air fryer to crisp up real nice while the gammon is having a think. If your dish doesn’t fit in the air fryer then just grill it! I cut the gammon in half so you’ve got a half moon shape to let cool then wrap in foil and fridge it for tomorrow! Slice your gammon up as thin to thick as you like and go! Bulk up with more veggies/chips and this could easily feed 4.

Night 2 - gammon carbonara. This is delicious but also takes 10 minutes which is a delight. Take your half moon of gammon out the fridge and cut in half so you’ve got 2 trivial pursuit-esque segments. They’ll be quarters and not sixths like the actual segments from the game but you know what I mean. Re-foil a segment and stick back in the fridge. Chop the gammon quarter up! I cut into 6 slices, then cube each slice - you want it to be the same size and pancetta/lardons! Stick a big glug of olive oil into a large pan (I use a tefal wok!) and put on a medium heat to let us heat and crisp up. Cook pasta - long stringy of any persuasion! It’s the law to make too much spaghetti isn’t it. I prefer tagliatelle but I ain’t your muvva. The sauce bit has a bit of a dealer’s choice element - it just depends on your own preference and how saucy you want it (oh matron). You’ll defo need 4 eggs, at least 60g parmesan and a heap of black pepper. I use 1 whole egg and 3 egg yolks but if you want it saucier use 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks and if you want it saucier still then add 4 tablespoons of cream. Mix your eggs, parm, a huge pinch of black pepper and the cream if you’re using it a bowl and mix up to make your sauce. Once your pasta is cooked switch the heat off from under the gammon pan - you don’t want your eggs to scramble. Take a mug and reserve some of your pasta water. Drain the pasta and throw in the oily gammon pan and toss around. You want the pasta to get coated in the oil. Add a knob of butter for super sauciness. Pour in your egg and cheese sauce mix (scrape the bowl - you want all that deliciousness) and a glug of pasta water and mix through. The heat from the pan and pasta will cook the eggs. It’ll either go shiny and silky and luscious, or it’ll look a bit scrambled eggy. Either way - it’ll taste amazing. Plate up then top with more parm!

Night 3 - gammon fried rice. An all-time fave! Use the last quarter of the gammon, some cooked rice (bagged stuff or make your own - dealer’s choice!) and whatever veggies you have at your disposal. Fry it all off in eggs, salt, pepper, MSG and soy and you’ve got a delicious tea! To make my rice I take a smallish cup, fill with rice then transfer to a pan. I wash and drain the rice 4-5 times until the water runs clear then cover with cold water and leave for half an hour. After half an hour I drain the cold water then add 2 cupfuls of whatever-cup-I-used-to-measure-the-rice-fuls of boiling water into the rice and put the heat on. I set a timer for 10 minutes and go for a sit down. After 10 minutes I switch the heat off under the pan, stick on a lid and let it steam cook for another 10-15 minutes while I organise my veggies. This time the I used lazy garlic, a red onion, red pepper, a leek and a big carrot. Chop them all up and set aside. Use 2 eggs and the egg whites leftover from the carbonara (if you kept them, it’s not a big deal if you didn’t!) and mix them up with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cube up your last gammon quarter into wee chunks. You’re reeeeeadyyy! Organise a hot pan with a big glug of oil. Add all your chopped veggies and fry off for a couple of minutes, then added the chopped up gammon for another couple of minutes. Push everything to one side of the pan then add the eggs and mix a wee bit to let it start cooking. Add your rice and mix through thoroughly. The hot pan will char the veggies and eggs a bit but that’s all delicious flavour, baby! Add in a pinch of salt, pepper and MSG and mix. Add a big ol’ glug of light soy sauce and a small glug of dark soy sauce and mix through. DONE!