big bad blog

http://www.platters-restaurant.co.uk/

Quality over quantity or quantity over quality? This place give you both and then some. The slightly high prices are more than justified when your plate arrives with what could probably feed you for a week. Its great food too, with a wide selection of same-day caugh fish, from the simple classics fare of cod and salmon to the seabass and lobster with around twenty different types of fish.

http://www.havanagoodtime.co.uk/souk_contact.php

If lively atmosphere and exotic munchies are required, the souk fits the bill perfectly. The souk serves up morroccan cuisine in a traditonal setting, traditional in this case meaning more bright colours than you can shake a stick at, a healthy buzz of the conversation and hosts that endevour to actually meet their guests instead of merely being food dispencing robot waiters. Its a place that gets you up close and personal with your friends, the noise around you and the furniture makes it a requirement and happily puts you in a perfect position for pilfering a portion of your fellow diners dinner as soon as they’re distracted. The food is as good as the atmosphere and reasonably priced too. Well known dishes such as cous cous done properly and new tastes to explore, with a menu set up to allow you to sample a variety so you don’t feel bad about risking missing anything.

Still a little unknown by a lot of people, lentils are awesomely cheap, full of protein and carbohydrates and idiot proof to make.
buy lentils. dead cheap at about 20p to put more lentils on your plate than you can deal with in one sitting. Red ones are more common, but the same vague gist of this applies to most beans and pulses and suchlike (not all mind you, some beans need funky preperations like soaking in water overnight, so check the label)
stick a pile of lentils in a pot of boiling water, enough so that the water covers the lentils, plus a little bit. Stick in whatever spcies and flavourings you like and then boil them for a couple of minutes, then turn the heat down and taste every so often to see if they’ve reached the consistancy you like. Drain off the water and then eat…

Lentils are kind of dull, although quite edible on their own, so put some flavour in there

• Some chopped tomatos or tomato puree and basil or oregano will give it a nice italian spagetti taste
• for a spicy indian dahl, stick in some garam masala, chilli powder, tumeric or tikka masala powder and some coriander
• if in doubt, whack in whatever herbs, spices, sauces or vegetables you’ve got lying around and see what happens.

and oddly enough lentils actually taste better reheated….if you leave them in the fridge they absorb all the liquid and spices and form a thicker, tastier goo.

first off, learn the joy of the various staple carbohydrates. Enough rice to feed you for a day costs about 5p and cooking it pretty much consists of putting it in hot water. Learn to use these as the core of your meal with the rest of ingredients to add flavour and

Typical foods good for this include rice, pasta, lentils, potatoes, noodles etc.

learn how to make some cheap simple sauces from scratch to add to these. A tin of chopped tomatoes and some italian herbs makes a quick, cheap (about 20p a head for a big plate of pasta and sauce) and healthy dinner. Make big batches and freeze them so you can just microwave them and stick them over rice or pasta etc.

work out how to get the best out of special offers, especially to stock up on things you would be buying anyway. But on the flip side, don’t be tempted to buy something because its on special offer without checking its actually a bargain first.

Supermarkets usually put a hefty discount on things going out of date (especially if they bake fresh bread etc. in house, they practicly give it away an hour or less before closing). Its still good food and can usually be frozen so it’ll keep a long time.

a bowl of cereal makes a good meal, especially since its around 30p even for a posh cereal.

don’t eat out unless you really have to. £10 for a pizza is hard to stomach when your hard on cash and know you could have made enough food to last you a week for the same price.

going vegetarian can be a cheap option since meat is so expensive. Lentils have half the protein density of steak, but at about a twentieth of the price.

and don’t skimp on the vegetables. Make sure you’re getting a wide variety of fresh made foods (and aren’t deep frying it all in lard then serving it on a bed of salt) you don’t have to worry too much about nutrition too much.