A really good way to save money on food shopping is to reduce the amount of meat you buy. Meat is often expensive, and it is not that good for us to eat excess of it anyway. By replacing it with proteins such as beans and pulses, both your purse and body will thank you.
Stews are one of my favourite budget meals, but I was not sure if this would work without the juices from the meat, so I set myself the challenge this week of making a stew with a deliciously rich and flavoursome gravy, but without any creatures.
Using red wine and flour as the basis of the sauce, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the stew was thick and bursting with the familiar slow cooked flavour I have always got from using meat, but for half the cost and calories. This recipe would work equally well with vegetarian sausages or any kind of bean.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 can of cannellini beans.
1/2 swede
2 carrots
2 parsnips
1/2 butternut squash
2 potatoes
2 handfuls of red lentils
2 bay leaves
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
800mls vegetable stock
200mls red wine
2 tablespoons of plain flour
oil/salt/pepper
Directions
Finely chop onion and crush garlic. Heat a good lug of oil in a flameproof casserole dish and fry onion and garlic on a med heat for 5-10 minutes until they begin to brown and soften.
Stir flour into onion mixture to coat. Add red wine and bring to the boil, scraping any bits of onion/flour off botton of the pan with a spoon as it heats.
Chop all veg into chunks and place in pan. Stir to combine with sausage/onion and pour over veg stock to cover. Stir in tomato puree, lentils, cannellini and add bay leaves.
Season with black pepper and place lid on dish. Place in the oven at gas mark 5 for 2 hours, checking occasionally that liquid has not dried up. Add extra stock accordingly if it has.
Stir in some gravy granules to thicken if necessary and serve with warmed soda bread.