Gourmet Cooking need not be expensive. By spending a little time preparing the right ingredients you can create refined dishes that will delight your guests, and which won’t cost a fortune. And many of these ingredients may be used in simple, easy, dishes too, so that you and your family can eat well for less every day.
Flavoring Savory Dishes
The simplest ingredients can be enhanced by a few good quality additions:
- Unrefined Natural Sea Salt such as the French Sel de Guerande adds a wonderful flavor to savory dishes. As you only need a little the cost per serving is low despite the relatively high price of a packet when compared to refined white salt.
- Crème Fraiche adds a wonderful, rich flavor to sauces, casseroles and other savory dishes. Just a little stirred in during the final stages of cooking can transform a simple meal into a gourmet dish.
- Homemade bone stock costs next to nothing, and is a wonderful staple to use in all your soups, sauces and savory dishes. Make it in bulk and freeze in small quantities for an instant ingredient to enhance your cooking.
Pasta and Lentils are Gourmet Ingredients!
These bulky staples aren’t usually considered to be gourmet ingredients, but home made fresh pasta can form the base of a mouthwatering meal which costs very little indeed as its only ingredients are egg, flour and salt. And while Puy Lentils from France are a little more expensive than standard green lentils, their flavor is far richer and better. Use Puy Lentils to transform vegetarian dishes, and to bulk up meat dishes, especially in recipes that call for cured or salted pork as the flavor of the lentils perfectly complement the fatty, salty flavor of the meat.
Sophisticated Salads for Nothing
Tempted by those colorful and tangy salads in the store, but put off by the high prices? By scouring a flower garden, and by taking a walk in the countryside, it is possible to collect a far fresher salad that has all the flavor, texture and color, but which costs nothing. They key is to get to know Edible Flowers for Salads and also Wild Greens for Salad.
Sourdough: The Cheapest Bread is the Best
It looks good and tastes good, and the really great news is that it is easy to make sourdough bread from just flour, water and salt! It takes a little time and patience, but the results are well worth the wait.
So what is on the homemade gourmet budget menu? How about homemade lasagna accompanied by wild leaf and flower salad and freshly baked sourdough bread? Gourmet cooking for less is fun and saves you dollars!
