Enjoy Jack’s under-£ 25 festive feast

Over the next four sparkling pages, the Bootstrap Cook shares her mouth- watering and exclusive St Giles Trust Christmas dinner

This is a mash up between a stuffing and a nut roast, and means you don’t have to worry about making a vegan or vegetarian option. It looks like stuffing but it’s packed with protein. The cranberry adds flavour but also binds it together. Everyone wants to eat this.

Ingredients

200g fresh bread

Three large onions

One tsp mixed dried herbs

20g lard, melted, or

40g baking spread, melted, for vegan / veggie option One can of mandarins, drained and chopped

– reserve the juice for my bread pudding dessert 125g cashew nuts, soaked in two changes of cold water for 1hr minimum each to remove excess salt

Two tbsp cranberry sauce

Salt and pepper

PLUS washed clean peels from parsnips, carrots and potatoes, chopped up very finely with a heavy sharp knife.

Method

First peel your onions and top and tail them, then cover with generously salted water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover. Simmer for around eight minutes.

Meanwhile, blitz your bread into crumbs in a food processor or chop into 1cm dice with a bread knife or sharp heavy knife. Blitz your veg peels or chop up very small. Drain and dry the nuts ( either toasting in a dry frying pan for a minute or rolling under your palms between the folds of a tea towel for a minute). Chop the nuts finely – in a food processor or with a heavy sharp knife. Mix all together in a very large mixing bowl and set aside.

Remove the onions from the water – if you want to be extra frugal you can keep the water and use it to make your gravy, or boil it down to a manageable amount and pop it in a jar in the fridge as a starter for your leftovers soup tomorrow!

Chop the onion finely and add to the mixing bowl with the bread, veg and nuts. Mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl; the drained mandarins, cranberry sauce and melted baking spread or lard. Add to middle of the dry ingredients and mix well – it should be stiff but not impossible; if it’s a bit dry or crumbly, add a dash of the reserved mandarin juice. If it’s slightly sloppy, add some more bread.

5. Lightly grease a loaf tin and transfer your mixture into it, pressing it down and into the corners firmly.

Bake in the centre of the oven at 190C for 50 minutes – it may be made in advance and reheated, or chilled uncooked and put in the oven an hour before the main meal is due to be served. It will keep in the fridge cooked for two days, uncooked for two days, and leftovers can be frozen for up to six months.