It has been a pretty good year. Last summer I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a room I shared with my son, still burning from the year or so of hardship that had me typing through angry tears that poverty isn’t just having no heating, or unplugging your fridge and turning your hot water off. As I said then, poverty is the sinking feeling when your child finishes his one Weetabix and says: “More, Mummy? Bread and jam, please, Mummy,” as you’re trying to work out how to carry the TV to the pawn shop, and how to tell him that there is no bread and jam.
It is as true today for half a million families in the UK as it was for me. Poverty is an experience that stays with you for life – every unknown number that calls, every unexpected knock on the door has me hesitant on a good day, scrambling to hide at the top of the stairs on a bad.
But in the past year, life has changed beyond recognition. I’ve ticked “go on Question Time” off my bucket list and watched, gobsmacked, as my accidental cookbook wedged itself into the bestseller list. Home has changed. We’ve moved house, doubling the size of my family to two grown women, two small children, two cats, two guinea pigs and three fish. I’ve moved from growing a few herbs on my window ledge to grow-bags of potatoes, rainbow chard, radishes and rhubarb, and at the end of each no-two-days-the-same, I’ve baked, roasted, steamed, sauteed and stirred to create dish after dish after dish. I’ve donned a set of chef’s whites and worked in a professional capacity a few times.
I finally feel as though I have my feet on some sort of level ground. And it feels good. To answer the oft-asked question: I’m no longer living on a food budget of £10 a week (although I do it as an annual fundraiser for Oxfam’s Live Below the Line challenge). But I learned to cook and eat well without spending an awful lot of money, and I stick to those principles. You won’t catch me putting lobster in my mac’n’cheese, at any rate.
Jonaki’s baba gosht
Jonaki Tandoori, in my former home town of Southend-on-Sea, made a fabulous lamb and aubergine curry that they called baba gosht. This is my approximation of it and, just for you, I ate about 10 portions to make sure I got it right.
(Serves 2 generously)
2 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil
2 bay leaves
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated, or ½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin
A pinch of salt
2 large onions, finely sliced
4 fat cloves of garlic, chopped
1 fresh red chilli, sliced
300g lamb neck or fillet, diced
1 large aubergine, diced
400g chopped tomatoes
300ml water
A fistful of coriander, chopped
Put the oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the bay leaves and let them sizzle to release their flavour. Reduce the heat to low, and add the cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, cumin and salt. Fry for one minute, then add the onions, garlic and chilli. Stir to combine, and cook over a low heat for about 8–10 minutes to soften the onions. Keep stirring to prevent sticking – you want the onions soft, sweet and melting to form the sauce.
Add the lamb and the aubergine. Continue to cook over a low heat, stirring regularly so the meat is sealed on all sides, then pour over the tomatoes and 200ml of water. Crank up the heat to bring it to the boil, boil vigorously for one minute, then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the lamb is tender. Check periodically and add a splash of water if it starts to dry out.
Scatter generously with coriander and serve with fluffy basmati rice or naan.
Charred cumin green beans with a mint and yoghurt sauce
These green beans are a brilliant side dish for an autumn barbecue, or mixed with fresh spinach for a delicious salad.
(Serves 4)
200g green beans, fresh or frozen
1 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil, plus extra to serve
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground cumin or garam masala
2 fat cloves of garlic, chopped finely
A few mint leaves
150g natural plain yoghurt
A fistful of coriander or parsley, finely chopped
Zest or juice of ½ lemon
A pinch of chilli flakes
Top and tail fresh beans (If using frozen, defrost in warm water, then rinse in cold).
Heat the oil in a frying pan, or better still, a griddle pan. Add the green beans and cumin and cook over a high heat until the beans are softened and charred in places.
Stir the garlic and mint into the yoghurt.Serve the beans atop your chosen herb, with a drizzle of yoghurt, a little extra oil, a grating of lemon zest or a dash of juice, and a scattering of chilli flakes.
Courgette chocolate cake
Vegetables in cake came into vogue a few years ago, but I got into it when I had a glut of courgettes last autumn. Desperate to use them all, I made soups and sauces, then smuggled a few into this chocolate cake. I’m glad I did – it’s delicious.
(Serves 6-8)
2 courgettes
150g dark chocolate or 50g cocoa
Zest of 1 lime
250g self-raising flour
75g sugar
A pinch of salt
75ml oil, sunflower or groundnut, plus extra for greasing
3 eggs
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark four. Wash the courgettes and grate them into the centre of a clean tea towel. Wring out as much moisture as you can over the sink – they hold a lot.
Grease a loaf tin.
Grate the chocolate into a large mixing bowl. Add the flour, lime zest, sugar and a pinch of salt, and mix thoroughly.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the oil. Add the courgettes and crack in the eggs.
Stir well to combine, then pour the mixture into the loaf tin.
Bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Come-to-bed carbonara
If you’re cooking this with the intention of impressing someone special (and I certainly was), put on some Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald, pour yourself a glass of wine, aim for a relaxed focus and enjoy yourself.
(Serves 2)
4 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g streaky bacon, chopped
1 sprig of rosemary, leaves chopped
20g butter
100ml white wine
160g spaghetti
4 eggs
100ml cream
A fistful of spinach
50g hard, strong cheese, grated, to serve
A generous grinding of black pepper
Put the garlic, bacon and rosemary into a medium saucepan with the butter over a low heat. Add half the wine, stir in slowly as the butter melts, then add the rest and stir again.
Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the spaghetti and cook according to the packet instructions (usually 8-10 minutes).
Separate the eggs, reserve the whites for future use, drop the yolks into the sauce and beat in quickly. Remove from the heat to prevent the sauce splitting and stir in the cream.
Before serving, drop the spinach into the pasta water to wilt. Drain and rinse the spaghetti and spinach together. Tip back in to the pan, toss with the sauce and split between two bowls. Scatter over the cheese and grind over the pepper.
Sardine rillettes
This chunky, rough pâté is best served a little cooler than room temperature and smeared on warm toast.
(Serves 2)
1 onion
2 x 100g tins of sardines packed in oil
A fistful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
100g soft cream cheese
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
Peel and very finely dice the onion, then dice it some more, then dice it again until it’s minced, virtually undetectable.
Remove the sardines from the cans, keeping the oil. Carefully open each one down the back and belly with a small sharp knife: remove the backbone and any large, visible bones, discard, and put the flesh into a bowl.
Mash the sardines with a fork, then add the onion, half the cream cheese and the parsley. Grate over the lemon zest, squeeze in the juice, and mix to form a rough paste. Add more cream cheese, tasting as you go, until you have a blend that pleases you. Season to taste.
This column was amended on 15 September 2014. An earlier version of the Courgette chocolate cake listed 50g dark chocolate only, rather than 150g chocolate or 50g cocoa.
- A Year in 120 Recipes by Jack Monroe is out on 23 October (£18.99). To order a copy for £15.19 including free p&p, go to theguardian.com/bookshop
