Broke Vegan, Broke Vegan Speedy and Broke Vegan One-Pot are three recipe books by Saskia Sidey, a chef who trained at Leith’s School of Food & Wine. All feature super-simple recipes for people on any budget. There are also tips for batch cooking and feeding crowds on a budget.
The truth is that most people can’t find nor afford swanky indie health shops and farm shops. So these kind of books can help people cook delicious plant-based food on low incomes, using affordable ingredients that you can find in any store. Between them, the recipes include:
- Cauliflower lentil tacos (from the speedy book)
- Any berry muffins
- Chille con veggie
- Cauliflower nuggets
- Back-of-the-fridge fritters
- Any vegetable tart
- Leftover porridge flapjacks
- Freezer-friendly burritos
- BBQ corn ribs
- Sloppy sweet potato chilli
- Baked tahini bananas
- Broke churros
- Peanut butter & banana peel curry
- Roasted tomato & onion puff pie
- Nectarine raspberry cobbler
- Golden syrup steamed pudding
- Saucy chocolate pudding
Saskia Sidey is a food stylist, recipe developer and food writer. She trained as a chef at Leiths School of Food and Wine.
the rising prices of everyday foods
Food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe recently launched her own Vimes Index, saying that supermarkets had used inflation as a cover to raise the prices of everyday goods (like apples) but kept existing prices for luxury goods (like champagne). Jack was recently contacted by an elderly gentleman who had eaten a teaspoon of toothpaste for his dinner, to fool himself into thinking he had eaten something.
Tesco responded by saying their own prices are affected by rising energy prices. But this is because big supermarkets use oil from lorries (bringing foods from central distribution houses miles away (that are heated by oil) and many foods are made from factory-farmed animals (powered by fossil fuels) and palm oil (lots of oil to fly them to England from Indonesia). That’s why walkable shops that sell seasonal foods is a good idea. Also learn where to find, share or grow free food.
The Vimes Boots Index is a warning shot to retailers who keep their £7.50 ready meals and £6 bottles of wine at the same price for a decade, while quadrupling the price of basic stock cubes and broken irregular grains of white rice. This issue isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. Jack Monroe
