Cheap & Easy | 3 Valley Vegans

3 Valley Vegans recently held a cookery demo which showed how to make affordable, nutritious and tasty vegan food. With the plethora of new processed vegan food being rolled out by supermarkets and established brands, it’s worth remembering that homemade meals are cheaper and more nutritious than prepackaged alternatives.

Stocking up on a few ingredients will ensure you always have the basics to hand when planning a meal. A few essentials to keep in your food cupboard include:

Dried beans/pulses
Pasta
Rice
Wholemeal flour
Tins of tomatoes
TVP (dried soya mince)
Nuts and seeds
Dried herbs and spices

Most of the above are cheap to buy and can be purchased in bulk.

mix of fruit and veg

Measurement units: recipes that you come across might list ingredient quantities in units that do not relate to how you normally measure quantities. One useful guide to converting between different ingredient measurement units can be found here: https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/homes/cooking-measurement-conversion-tables

Essential utensils for cooking at home:
2 sharp knives
Rubber spatula
Efficient peeler
Wooden spoon
Chopping board
Pots, pans, bowls, plates, cutlery etc..

Bulk buying is one way of saving money and reducing packaging waste but is only worth it if you actually use what you buy! One way around this is to club together with relatives, friends or neighbours and share out the order. Real Foods (amongst others) offer bulk buying on their website.

Food Co-ops are not for profit community ventures which exist to enable a group of people to buy produce they might otherwise not be able to afford direct from the suppliers. Suma is an obvious example for people living in or around the Calder Valley since it is strictly vegetarian, relatively local and offers a ‘Food Buying Group‘ service .

Asian supermarkets are often cheaper for many vegan food items such as tofu, peanut butter, jackfruit, pulses and beans. If there isn’t one local to you, there are many online stores that will deliver straight to your door.

Foraging is a good way to discover foods such as fruit and mushrooms and if you know where to go and what to pick, it’s hugely satisfying to use fresh ingredients that are truly local and totally free. Falling Fruit maps the location of fruit bushes and trees in local areas.

Incredible Edible is, of course, Todmorden’s very own contribution to the concept of growing food in public spaces for the benefit of the community. Their map is available to download here.

Love Health, Hate Waste is an online resource offering plenty of vegan food items at reduced prices. Their products are often past their ‘Best Before’ date which is how the company can sell at such low cost but that shouldn’t put you off as it is just a guideline and the food can still be enjoyed.

We have a few budget recipes for you to try and there are a wealth of other blogs and websites with recipes and tips for vegans on a budget. Here’s are a few worth visiting:

veg and spices The Stingy Vegan

Minimalist Baker

Cooking on a Bootstrap

Vegan Society Budget Meals

Veganuary Budget Meals

One Green Planet Cheap Meals

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion (Lidl 7p)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or more to taste. (Can use ‘Jif Squeezy Lemon’ but that is more expensive than a fresh lemon, comes in plastic packaging and contains preservative.) (Lidl fresh lemon 20p)
• 2 tablespoons oil – olive oil best but not essential (Lidl 9p)
• 1 teaspoon salt or tablespoon of shoyu (Note shoyu is not GF) (2p)
• 1/2 large head of cauliflower (Lidl 48p)
• Large bunch of fresh parsley or two tablespoons of dried parsley (3 packets of Lidl fresh cut parsley £2.01)
• Fresh mint leaves (half the quantity of parsley) or one tablespoon of dried mint (2 packets of Lidl fresh cut mint £1.34)
• NOTE – I used fresh lovage from my garden instead of parsley and mint for the demonstration.
• Optional – 3 fresh tomatoes (Lidl fresh tomatoes 48p)
• Optional – 6 pieces of sun dried tomatoes soaked in water for 30 minutes (don’t soak if bought in oil).

Preparation:

1. Finely chop the onion and transfer to a large bowl
2. Juice the lemon and add to the onion along with oil and salt/shoyu. Stir thoroughly and leave to marinade while carrying out the next steps.
3. Slice and chop the cauliflower into rice-sized pieces but it still works if the cauliflower pieces are bigger. If you have a food processor, a quick spin of florets (big chunks) of cauliflower will reduce them to rice-sized pieces easily.
4. Finely chop the fresh herbs.
5. If using fresh tomatoes, quarter and then cut in half again.
6. If using sun dried tomatoes, drain and slice into strips or smaller chunks.
7. Thoroughly mix cauliflower, herbs (and tomatoes if using) with the marinaded onion.
8. Tastes even better if prepared a few hours in advance.
9. Leftovers will keep for a day or two.

Health:

Cauliflower:
• 29 calories per serving
• excellent source of vitamin C.
• very good source of vitamin K and folate
• good source of vitamin B6 and potassium
• anti-cancer properties
• fairly high level of antioxidant phytonutrients
Parsley:
Contains vitamin A, K, C, and E, thiamin,riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12,pantothenic acid, choline, folates,calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese,phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and copper.