Boston baked beans

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour 40 minutes Serves 8

Cost per person: 56p

This (above) makes a big pan of beans, plenty for six or even eight people, so it’s great for a kitchen supper with friends. It tastes best made a day ahead, and the beans need soaking the day before that. Eat with greens – buttered cabbage is good – and toasted slices of Doris Grant loaf. Fancy more meat? Grilled pork chops or preservative-free sausages will go down a treat.

Ingredients

500g dried haricot beans, soaked overnight

5 rashers streaky bacon (about 75g), chopped

2 onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tbsp English mustard

375ml chicken/turkey/pork stock or use the bean cooking water

5 tbsp tomato ketchup

3 tbsp molasses, black treacle or muscovado sugar

A dash of chilli sauce

1 thick slice of bread, made into breadcrumbs

1 tbsp olive oil

Method

• Drain the soaked beans and cover with cold water again. Add 1 tsp salt and bring to the boil. Simmer until really tender, about an hour (the exact time depends how old the beans are).

• Drain the beans, keeping the cooking water in a jug. • Heat the same pan and add the bacon. Cook over a medium heat until the fat runs, then add the onion.

It’ll seem a bit dry, and you can add some oil if you like, but it should be fine without. Fry gently for 10-15 minutes, until the onion is tinged with gold.

• Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute, then add the beans, mustard and stock or cooking water. • Simmer until slightly creamy, then stir in the ketchup, molasses, treacle or sugar, and the chilli sauce. Season and allow to cool and chill (or freeze) until you’re ready to eat.

• To serve, preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6.

• Tip the beans into an ovenproof dish and scatter with breadcrumbs. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake for about 30 minutes, until the crumb crust is golden.

Skirt steak with homemade oven chips and red cabbage slaw

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour 5 minutes Serves 4

Cost per person: £1.60

A proper steak supper (below), using one of my favourite cuts, the skirt.

Skirt steak has a great flavour, it is very lean and it is tender as long as it has not been overcooked and is sliced across the grain (the long fibres in the meat). The chip recipe is based on one by the food writer Barney Desmazery. Adding lemon juice or vinegar to the cooking water gelatinises the starch, making for a crisper chip.