Caitríona Redmond: Make my easy sausage rolls in under an hour

Plus: how to get past the early jitters of living with less

In my early days of living on a budget I thought it was a solitary affair. I was bogged down with how living on less made me feel. 

Think less domestic goddess and more harridan due to the stress. Irish people don’t like to discuss financial hardship and I felt like I was living in a cycle of stress and worry over household bills and paying for groceries.

I shyed away from the school gate when collecting the kids for fear of being invited to go for a coffee that I couldn’t afford. Instead I’d hang back a little bit away waiting for the kids to come to meet me.

The school was over 2 miles away and the bus was beyond my budget so we often trudged home in the cold and wet. The weather matched my humour.

As I started to write and share my experiences I discovered that my sense of financial loneliness was something that many people shared. I felt less alone and more emboldened to lay the bare truth of living with less.

It is and was difficult, hard and spirit destroying. I could feed my family well on less but the emotional cost was a different matter altogether.

The strength that I got from knowing I wasn’t alone kept me going for weeks on end. Sometimes it was as simple as a message from somebody saying they’d tried a recipe and were delighted it worked.

My extended family and friends were aware of how difficult I was finding things but anxious not to intrude or overstep the mark. I’d get a phone call saying there were berries to be picked for jam if I’d like some, or a text saying there was a great deal to be had in a local shop.

The extended network of money saving and cent-pinching folk became part of the web of support that kept me going.

People who knew what it was like and who I didn’t have to expose my feelings to by way of explanation. My people were family, friends, and anonymous strangers willing me forward in my endeavours. They still do.

Reaching out for advice continues to be one of the most powerful tools in my kit for living on a budget. Last week in my family WhatsApp, we shared the cost and the benefits of an industrial bag of rice.

Of the four sisters we each saved €15 on the cost of feeding our families. Each of us has a very different budget. Our work and family dynamics are diverse but we all share a love of eating well without food costing the earth.

There was a great sense of accomplishment as we divvied the rice between the houses. So much so that we resolved to keep an eye out for the next bulk food bargain so that we can benefit again. We were all buoyed for another week.

The value in sharing the physical cost and the mental load of living on less can never be underestimated.

Home Truths

How much would it cost for you to start over with a blank slate in the morning? The idea of opening my kitchen presses and finding nothing inside fills me with dread.

Over the years I’ve built up my stores of herbs, spices, and unusual ingredients. Every week I pick up something new (but small) or replace an ingredient that I’ve used up. The kitchen stores go through a cycle of reuse and replacement.

If I was to place a value on the items that I have in stores it would be in the several hundreds of euro, I’m not kidding. For someone on a budget it feels excessive to be ‘hoarding’ my ingredients and not using their value straight away.

Yet the herbs and spices instantly elevate and transform my meals from the mundane to exciting, every single day of the week.

Faced with an empty press and a small amount of money to spend, filling the stores doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Prioritise the staples such as rice and pasta, and for seasoning salt and pepper. 

Build up your stores over time, otherwise the weekly shopping budget could be in for quite a shock!

Sausage Rolls

recipe by:Caitriona Redmond 

A quick and easy take on a classic.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 35 mins

Total Time

 50 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 250g sausage meat

• 1 apple, grated

• 1 medium carrot, grated

• 1 roll of frozen puff pastry

• Egg or milk for coating & sticking the edges of the sausage roll.

Method

1. Preheat a fan oven to 200oC/gas mark 6.. Cut the pastry into 2 long rectangular pieces.

2. Place the sausage meat, grated apple and carrot into a mixing bowl and pick off the leaves of the thyme into the bowl as well. Using the spoon make sure all the ingredients in the bowl are well mixed.

3. Visually divide your rectangular pieces of pastry in half, lengthways. Then divide your sausage meat equally between both pieces, making sure to place it on the right hand side of the pastry.

4. Make sure you leave at least 2cm gap at the top. Using a pastry brush, brush around the outside of the rectangles with the egg. Fold the "empty" side of the pastry over the "full" side. Press down the edges to seal the pastry on all sides.

5. Lift your sausage rolls onto a pre-lined baking tray. Brush the top of the rolls with more egg wash - this will give them a nice shine when baked.

6. Using the sharp knife confidently slash the top of each roll about 7 times. This serves 2 purposes, the first is to let the meat cook evenly and the second is it makes it easy to neatly cut them when cooked. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes.

7. Leave to cool before eating. Sausage rolls can be eaten warm from the oven or will keep for lunch the following day if kept in a sealed dry box in the fridge.