9 Budget Meal Ideas to Consider
If your food expenses are hard to bare, it’s time to do something with it. You should start planning your meals in advance. It takes a bit of time, but it will help you balance your budget. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Make a menu
   You should decide on the recipes you would prepare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Write down a list of items that you need to buy. Once you have a plan, you will stick with it while doing the shopping. This will save you from unnecessary expenses.
2. Check your kitchen cupboards and freezer
   Before you go shopping, you should check the supplies in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Is there anything you could cook next week? Is the expiry date valid? Considering the answers to these questions, you will have a clear understanding of what needs to be purchased.
   When looking for the available products, you should focus on the recipes you’ve picked for your weekly menu. This will save a lot of money and keep your meal well-balanced.
3. Make your meals based on products that are on sale
   Before cooking something, you should buy all the necessary ingredients. Check store flyers, newspaper inserts, and coupon sites in order to discover any price reductions. You may be surprised at the excellent price offers available.
   Large supermarkets often put a great number of products on sale once or twice a week. Some of these items are even sold below cost to attract more customers. Planning your meals around the discounted products will save you a solid amount of money.
4. Have at least one meatless and fishless meal a week
   Beans, lentils, dried peas, eggs, peanut butter, and canned fish turn out to be the source of great protein. The prices of these products usually don’t make your wallet cry. On the Internet, you can find a lot of meal recipes, which don’t involve meat.
5. Add more grains to your ratio
   Grains such as rice, pasta, barley, and couscous are quite cheap, which doesn’t make them less useful for your health. You can use them in multiple recipes, including soups, stews, and salads. Mixed with other products, they can be incredibly good solutions for breakfast and dinner.
6. Avoid recipes with expensive ingredients
   Some recipes require specific ingredients which cost a lot. You can’t afford such recipes in your weekly menu. Is it possible to replace the expensive ingredient with a cheap one? Can you use different ingredients without changing the main concept of the dish? For example, you can put stewed vegetables with mushrooms into a pie that used to involve some meat. Or you can cook some fish soup using a cheaper sort of fish. You can figure something out to make a classic recipe more affordable. In most cases, the taste doesn’t get worse.
7. Look for seasonal recipes
   Some products are getting cheaper during the hot season. For example, you can buy fresh vegetables and fruit of good quality and at a good price during the summer months. This way, you can enjoy healthy products without damaging your budget.
8. Keep leftovers
   You should be careful with leftovers. Don’t rush throwing them away. Instead, you can have them later on. For example, if you are cooking roast beef with vegetables for Saturday dinner, then you can make ham sandwiches for breakfast or make ham salad for lunch the next day.
9. Make up a shopping list
   You should have a well-developed meal plan ready before going to the store. Write down a list of products you need for every single recipe in your weekly menu. Don’t skip anything but don’t try new items while doing the shopping. Your task is to buy everything you need without overspending.

Make Your Favorites
It may take some time to develop a budget meal plan that would work for you on a regular basis. Don’t be scared of experiments. Eventually, you will discover your favorites. This will make your life much easier as you don’t have to think about what to cook each time you are hungry.
Healthy yet delicious eating does not have to cost you a fortune. Just take the time to plan your meals every week. You will most likely end up saving money in the long run. You will also save a lot of time that could be spent on other important tasks. By the end of the day, meal planning on a budget shouldn’t be hard to do. A little forethought will help you put together delicious and easy-to-prepare meals that allow you to stay within your budget.

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You can eat it on its own, use it as a base for more complex desserts, or make it in popsicle molds and dip it in frosting.

What kind of chocolate to choose for ice cream?

When choosing chocolate, you should always pay attention to the percentage of cocoa in the recipe. The largest assortment, of course, in confectionery stores. There you can get a large pack at once or the right amount by weight.

If you buy a bar in a regular supermarket, be sure to look at the cocoa content in the composition, not on the front of the package, it can be very different.

What is a water bath?

It’s essentially a gentle way to heat or cool a product. In this case, hot is needed to melt the chocolate without overheating it. Cold helps to cool the ice cream base faster.

To make a hot water bath, you need to take two pots of different diameters or a pot and a bowl. Pour water into the larger one and put the smaller one on top. Important: Water should not touch the bottom of the upper pan. The product on top will gradually heat up due to the low boiling water on the bottom.

The chocolate does not need to melt completely. When you see that the main mass has already melted, remove the pan from the bath and stir the chocolate intensely with a spatula.

A cold bath is easiest to make in a large rectangular baking dish by pouring ice in there. The ice cream base will need to be poured into a wide-bottomed container, placed directly on the ice and refrigerated, stirring constantly. The thinner the layer of cream, the faster and more evenly it will cool.

Chocolate ice cream
Delicious and not cheesy ice cream made with real chocolate and English cream. Recipe for the ice cream maker.

Ingredients
100g of 70% cocoa dark chocolate
70 grams of egg yolks
140 grams of sugar
25 g cream 33%
665g 3.5% milk

Instructions

• Prepare hot and cold water baths.
• Melt chocolate in a hot water bath.
• Place sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan, add cream and milk. Bring to a boil.
• Meanwhile, mix the yolks with the other half of the sugar.
• Whisk continuously and pour half of the milk mixture into the yolks. Return the milk-tempered yolks to the ladle with the rest of the mixture, and, stirring constantly, cook until 82 degrees.
• In three rounds, mix the resulting English cream with the chocolate. Make an emulsion with an immersion blender.
• Heat until it reaches 85 degrees. Then immediately strain through a fine sieve into a wide mold standing in a cold water bath. Cool as soon as possible and leave in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

Prepare in an ice cream maker according to the instructions.

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If you are wary of working with raw eggs, you can make the cream based on pate a bombe or exclude the yolks altogether. In the first case, you will need to heat the eggs to 60 degrees, which is well below the pasteurization threshold. In the second, work on the flavor of the cream, which will become flat if you leave only mascarpone and cream.

Today I’m going to talk about the easiest way to make a very tasty and beautiful tiramisu without eggs in the cream. You won’t even need to turn on the oven and cooktop.

The cream for tiramisu usually consists of mascarpone, heavy cream, egg yolks and sugar.

When removing the yolks, be sure to find an extra ingredient to make the flavor richer. I suggest you add a cream liqueur, such as Baileys. I’m sure most of those who try the dessert won’t notice that there are no eggs in the cream.

I also use sugar with natural vanilla, you can take extract, the main thing is not to exclude vanilla at all and do not replace it with vanilla. To balance out the taste, I put very little sugar, there is enough in the liquor and cookies as it is. Keep this in mind if you like very sweet desserts.

Serving tiramisu
Properly made tiramisu comes out light as a cloud, so it’s not always possible to get such a beautiful piece out of the mold as in my photos. However, you can do it if you are as careful as possible and cook in a split or disposable (e.g., foil) mold.

If you don’t have a goal of serving the dessert that way, you can assemble it in a big beautiful mold, put it on the table and give out big spoons to everyone. The main thing is not to turn away, or you might not get anything left.

Another no-fail option is serving cups or glasses. Cook right away in them. It will be nice and handy to eat.

No egg tiramisu

Ingredients
38-40 pcs. savoyardi cookies
Filling
300g of espresso
60g of creamy liqueur

cream
335g cream of 33%
15g sugar with natural vanilla or more
Vanilla extract is not needed if the vanilla is in the sugar
335 g softened mascarpone
100 g softened cream cheese
60g of creamy liqueur

Instructions

• Mix hot espresso and liqueur and cool to room temperature.
• Whip the cream and sugar until it reaches maximum volume, no longer. The whipped cream will begin to shrink in volume and gradually separate.
• Using a paddle or spatula, mix together the mascarpone, crème de menthe and liqueur. Carefully add the cream with the same tool, or with a rubber spatula if mixing by hand. Place the cream in the refrigerator.
• Place a layer of cookies soaked in coffee and liqueur in the mold. It is important to soak very quickly, otherwise the cookies will lose their shape.
• Cover it with 1/3 of the cream and smooth it out.
• Lay out the second layer of cookies and the remaining 2/3 of the cream. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge overnight.
• Just before serving, sprinkle with natural cocoa powder.

Notes to the recipe

1. It’s easy to substitute the same amount of mascarpone for the cream cheese.
2. When serving, you can garnish the dessert with fresh berries on top or just put some on the plate.

Bon appetit!

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It turned out to be a very interesting ice cream with a delicate coconut flavor and a juicy filling under a crunchy chocolate crust.

Vegan “ice cream” is made with a variety of products. I chose a combination of pre-soaked cashew nuts and coconut cream familiar from lemon-currant cashew cakes. Next time I’ll try making it with a silk tofu base, for sure the ice cream will be creamier.

There are also recipes using chickpeas and even cereals, but I’m not ready for that kind of experimentation yet.

When using cashews and coconut, it’s important to watch the amount of water so you don’t get too many ice crystals. You need to dry the soaked nuts well and don’t substitute cream for milk. If you can’t find cream, pour the coconut milk into a clear container and let it stand. It will separate and you can gently skim the thick, fatty part off the top.

Frosting for popsicles

The ideal is to cover the ice cream with tempered chocolate. But the magic shell, which is the name of the most popular frosting for home use made of chocolate and butter, will also work.

You can use any kind of chocolate, even white. It is very important that it is tasty. Therefore, I most often choose confectionery chocolate.

Vegan Popsicle with Berry Filling
A delicious egg-free, dairy-free popsicle with a juicy berry filling and a crunchy chocolate coating

Ingredients

140 g of raw cashew nuts
180g of cold coconut cream
1-2 tbsp sweetener to taste
2 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
180g of thick cold jam
200 g bitter chocolate
2 tbsp grape seed oil

Instructions

• Rinse the cashews well. Put them in a plastic or glass bowl and pour drinking water over them. Leave them in the fridge overnight.
• Drain and pat the nuts dry with paper towel.
• Place the cashews, coconut cream, sweetener, salt and vanilla in the blender bowl. Whisk without letting the mixture overheat to make a smooth cream.
• Place 1/3 of the white cream in the first cell of the mold. Place a layer of jam on top so that it does not reach the walls. Insert popsicle stick. Add the white cream to the top.
• Fill the rest of the cells in the same way and smooth the surface with a spatula or wide knife.
• Frost completely.
• Melt the chocolate in a water bath or in short intervals in the microwave. Add the butter, mix well.
• Pour the frosting into a bowl slightly wider than the popsicles.
• Take the popsicles out of the mold. Dip each one in the frosting in turn and shake off the excess. Place on a silicone mat. If you work slowly, it is better to keep the pieces in the freezer and take them out one by one.
• Leave for 30-40 minutes, then serve. Can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container.

Recipe Notes

1. To reduce the calories per serving, you can assemble the dessert in a mold with smaller cells. Make, for example, small bars or stuffed animal figures.
2. Try making popsicles with tropical fruit jam, it will go well with coconut.
   The grape seed oil in the icing can be replaced by melted coconut oil.

Bon appetit!

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And today it will be a little slice of an impossibly delicious and tender espresso brownie! There are only 6 ingredients: cocoa, butter, sugar, egg, flour, espresso coffee, and optional chocolate chips! A very appealing and simple composition!

So, ready to spend just 6 ingredients and 40 minutes of your time? I think I’ll hurry up and make it! And you enjoy watching my second recipe video.

INGREDIENTS
Butter – 200 gr.
Sugar – 200 gr.
Espresso coffee – 10g (about 2 tablespoons)
Eggs – 4 pcs.
Flour – 180 – 200 gr.
Cocoa – 70 gr.
Chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, if desired
A pinch of salt

INSTRUCTIONS FOR COOKING

• Preheat oven to 175g. Line a baking dish (about 27/27cm) with baking parchment.
• Melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds.
• In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar. Then add the espresso coffee and stir to combine.
• Next add the eggs and mix.
• Then add the flour and cocoa and mix again.
• And at the last step, add a pinch of salt and chocolate chips as desired. Mix everything thoroughly.
• Pour the ready batter into a mold and bake in the oven for 30 minutes if you want the brownies to be a little moist inside, and 40 minutes if you like them more crispy.Take out of the oven and let cool completely and only then slice. Done! Bon appetit!

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The classic recipe for lemon curd
The classic recipe differs between French and American pastry chefs. At least in the sources I’ve come across.

The French one is made without butter. It is added when the curd cools to 45 degrees and then whipped with a blender.
In the American version, the butter is immediately mixed and heated with the rest of the ingredients.
I’ve tried different ways and found no argument against the second option, while it’s obviously easier, so I make it this way.

How do I add zest to lemon cream?

I’ve come across 3 ways.

• It used to always be written that you had to grind it with sugar for maximum flavor.
• Then I saw an idea from professional pastry chefs to put the zest in a sieve through which the custard will be rubbed. In that case, the zest is usually removed in fairly wide strips.
• I have the most handy and very durable Microplane citrus and spice grater. It makes thin, flavorful strands, and I put them in the cream instead of all the ingredients.

If you make baked goods and desserts very often, look for frozen zest, it will help save time. But I do not recommend dry in bags, fresh is tastier.

How to use lemon curd?
It’s great on its own or as part of a variety of desserts.

You can

• Serve it on toast, croutons, scones, croissants, pancakes, and even pancakes,
• make lemon custard for cake (remember the perfect lemon cake on the blog?),
• add to Pavlov’s cake to compensate for the excessive sweetness of the meringue,
• use as a filling for cupcakes,
• make a cookie sandwich (kind of like a lincer),
• make a French lemon tart or an American lemon tart with meringue (you know how they differ?).

Lemon Curd.

Ingredients

93 grams of egg yolks
150 g sugar
57g dice butter
93g fresh lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest
1 g salt

Instructions

• Mix the yolks, sugar and butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest and salt. Stir well again.
• Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, making sure to grab the sides and bottom.
• Cook until the temperature reaches 82-83 degrees. The cream should thicken, but slowly drain from the spatula. Under no circumstances should it be allowed to boil.
• Rub the kurd through a sieve and pour into a large low container, cover with foil so that it touches the surface. Cool to room temperature, then place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours to allow the cream to stabilize.

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