Just because times are tight, it doesn't have to mean that your belt has to be too. Smarter shoppers all over the nation are waking up to the notion that with just a little thought and application, they can make their household budgets go further without having to compromise on taste or quality. There are simple steps to minimising waste and expense, and our webchat with financial expert Jasmine Birtles and Love Pork's home economist Clare Greenstreet will show you how to take them.

From common sense advice on budgeting and forward planning to getting up to speed with the inexpensive essentials everyone should keep in the cupboard or the fridge, Jasmine and Claire have the answers to all your questions about how to turn a sour economic situation into a sweet treat for your wallet-and your family's taste buds. After all, why stump up for herbs or veg when a packet of seeds and a window box can get you both for a fraction of the price? Clare will also be talking about different cuts of meat which can be overlooked but are often better value for money. Canny consumers won't want to miss out on Clare's delicious suggestions for recipes on a shoestring, so for those and much more, log on the chat.

For more information visit www.lovepork.co.uk

H: Glen Thompsett
J: Jasmine Birtles, financial expert
C: Clare Greenstreet, Love Pork's home economist

H: Hello and welcome to the Food and Drink Show, I'm Glen Thompsett. Now then, as we're constantly reminded by the media, times are tight, but that doesn't mean to tighten your belt - that doesn't have to be the same as well, does it? Smarter shoppers all over the nation are waking up to the notion that with just a little thought and application they can make their household budgets go further without having to compromise on taste or quality. There are many simple ways to minimise waste and expense but what are the inexpensive essentials everyone should keep in the cupboard or in the fridge? Now for some common sense advice on managing the family food budget, I'm joined today by financial expert Jasmine Birtles, and Love Pork's home economist Clare Greenstreet, welcome to the program both of you

J: Hi

H: Starting with you first of all if we can Jasmine; we're hearing all this negative bad news in the media about the economy and how much of a mess it's in and sure enough we are in a bit of a state at the moment

J: Yes

H: What can we do though to help in terms of consumer and shopping?

J: Well very good point, and this is something that I think everybody across the board is thinking how can I cut back on my day-to-day expenses, and really there are lots of ways of doing it, certainly when it comes to food shopping.  It's going back to the old-fashioned ways of planning ahead, planning meals and doing a shopping list and sticking to it. You know, it's extraordinary how these very, very simple things work because what we've got into a nasty habit of doing is just going to the supermarket and going oh I'll have one of those, I'll have one of those - whatever, and you come out and you think what have I got this stuff for? Bags and bags of stuff, so it really is about thinking again - we stopped thinking before, we have to start thinking about what we're doing, look in the cupboards that you've got - what can you use up there? What have you got in the fridge, because you could find actually you only need two or three things just to add to what you've already got in the fridge, and then going for - I wouldn't say necessarily cheap things but better quality but value, better value things, better value cuts of meat, raw foods - buying vegetables and fruit loose rather than all packaged up and certainly not going for pre-prepared or you know ready-made stuff.  And going back to basics really

H: Clare Greenstreet, of Love Pork - I was always told by my mum when I left school, when I left home rather, and went to live on my own - never go shopping on an empty stomach

C: How true is that?

H: Is that true?

C: Absolutely, we're all guilty of that, if you go when you're hungry you buy twice as much

H: So pork, we're talking pork aren't we today, but a very, very reasonably priced piece of meat isn't it?

C: Excellent value for money, pork is yes and the thing is, what I tend to find - we've been chatting about this, is that people just don't make the most of the product. We're all very familiar with buying a roast joint, and cooking it on a Sunday, or perhaps having chops, and that tends to be as far as we think really

J: Yes

C: But there is so much more that you can do with a product

H: Ok, don't forget this is a live webchat today, be nice to have your comments and ideas, and any questions you'd like to put to our guests today. Feel free to fill in that little box at the bottom of the screen there, click the send button and your messages will come straight through to me here in the studio and I can then of course put your questions to our guests. It's all about budgeting though isn't it, you say make that shopping list, but how many of us Jasmine actually go to the shops with that shopping list and stick rigidly to it?

J: Well very few, and one of the reasons of course is that the shops now are very clever at stopping us thinking really, that's the best way I think I can put it, it's marketing. They actually employ psychologists who will tell them, oh if you do something this colour then people are more likely to buy it, if you put it here they're more likely to buy it. So the thing to do is to be on your guard when you go shopping, so if you're in a supermarket for example, look up and look down rather than just at eye level, because they often put the cheaper, you know less branded goods - maybe the supermarkets own or value brand at the bottom or at the top, where you don't immediately see them, but the expensive stuff is at eye level, so that's one thing to look at.  Watch out for buy-one-get-one-free things - sometimes they can be worth it, sometimes, particularly if you can freeze one of them, but quite often they'll do it with things that frankly you wouldn't normally buy, so if you wouldn't normally buy it, don't, but also something I like doing and I know a lot of people enjoy, is going say at a certain time of the day when they put all the discounted stuff, quite often discounted, you know stuff in the freezer section

H: It's all late in the day stuff -

J: Absolutely, and much of that can be really good if you - I mean fish, meat, whatever, buy it, stick it in the freezer, use it later on. So there are ways of being clever and you know, fighting back, if you like, because of course they're businesses, they want your money, and what we want to do is spend as little as we can, but still have the same quality of life

H: But should we go out bulk buying, because in a way that is what you're implying, get all these 2-for-1 offers and you know, stash the freezer up - is that what you're suggesting, bulk buy?

J: Yes within reason, it depends, it depends what it is and it depends on your own situation. Now for example if you live on your own and you buy you know, 6 million oranges, well you may have a little bit of a problem there you know, unless you've got a juicer. Actually juicing is another good way of using stuff up. But when it comes to dry goods, and of course things like toilet rolls, all the things that are going to last for years and years, yes, buying in bulk generally is cheaper. If you use a lot of rice for example, buy a big thing of rice rather than the little ones, and I think that the secret is really that when you're in the supermarket or wherever you are, maybe a market, have a look at the price per kilogram, or price per 100g and that's the way that you can really tell which is the cheaper one, so you might have a small one, a small thing of rice which might be 50p and another big one that's £2.00 but if you look per 100kg - per 100g, you'll find that actually the bigger one is much cheaper

H: Got a question come in from Jenny here, Jenny thanks for getting in touch with us so quickly on the program, this one to you Clare in fact - "what essentials should I have on my shopping list? What are the store cupboard staples?" What sort of store cupboard staples should I have within my shopping list?

C: Well I think you need to have the real basics like rice, and pasta, and also pulses, things like you know beans and peas and lentils and those sorts of things are excellent ways of making a stew go further, and also staples in your freezer, you know if you've got vegetables in your freezer or meat in your freezer or whatever

J: That's useful

C: So you can, you know, if you've got chops individually frozen for arguments sake, you can take them out one at a time rather than having a whole pack of 4 which you may not use

J: And also sauces, we were talking about this earlier because both of us use you know curry sauces or stir fry sauces, and that's a brilliant way of using up what's in the fridge or using up leftovers. I do stir-fry's all the time

H: Do you?
J: Yes.  Sometimes, you know I'll come home and think what have I got, can't think - and then I think actually I've got a load of vegetables, I'll do a vegetable stir-fry

H: But it's using your imagination isn't it, I mean looking into the fridge, looking into the cupboard and thinking what can I actually make rather than -

J: Go out and buying

H: Yes exactly

J: Yes exactly

H: Or ordering take-away which is an expensive option -

J: Quite

H: Well sauces are a marvellous thing, you know, I mean as Clare was saying earlier about using up leftover pork for example

C: Yes

J: And just do a curry sauce and there you are, and you can put more vegetables in to bulk it up, and it's better for you anyway to have more vegetables, bit of rice, and that's a whole family meal done in one

H: The great thing of course with pork is that you know, you can still - you can get a nice piece of meat by getting pork without sort of scrimping and saving all that cash

C: Absolutely, because it is such good value, if you sort of think about the range of cuts that there are, the standard roasting joint that we would normally go for would probably be leg which you know tastes absolutely fantastic, but there are other cuts that you might not have thought about which are shoulder and collar - which are there in the butcher shop, on the supermarket shelves, and roast them in exactly the same way, and they are very, very economical, and you know, extremely good value for money

H: Ok, I've got a Sunday roast coming up, I've got friends and family coming round for Sunday lunch

C: Yes

H: What should I be doing, going out and buying that sort of - that bit of pork, that joint of pork?

C: Yes. I mean start off with a joint, and I would definitely, I would go for leg of pork or loin of pork, and it's so easy, everybody tries to you know make hard work I think of cooking. I mean you can see here there's a huge array of cuts here

H: Ok so let's go through some of this, the shoulder, you've got the loin, the belly, the leg - obviously there's the basic cuts aren't they?

C: Yes, yes

H: Ok

C: I mean you would tend to go for leg and loin would be your roasting areas, whereas shoulder and the belly you tend to treat slightly differently by cooking them for a longer length of time, in a slow way. So let's start with the leg, so we're going to roast it, it's very simple, they tend to come as boned and rolled joints, which are ready to go in the roasting pan, and if you want excellent crackling, it's really easy - nice dry rind, deep scoring with a sharp knife, smear of oil, sprinkling of salt, into the oven. 

H: Ok

C: So it's not tricky

H: For those of the very observant of you, watching, you'll know that we have food on the table here which we'll discuss, and it smells wonderful, I've got to tell you, we'll discuss that very, very shortly. Let's go through some of your questions that are coming in here from Pete Davis. Pete says "I know pork mince is cheaper, but it often just doesn't taste as good. Are there any secret recipes or certain ways to cook that it works best?"

C: Yes I mean it's a case of you know complementing. Pork absorbs flavours terribly well, if I was going for something like mince I may make them into a burger for instance, and then cheese and pork go exceptionally well, so I'd probably cube up something like some red Leicester cheese, put the pork mince in, maybe a spoonful of apple sauce, and either make that into sort of meatballs or burgers, and what you can do is if you've got meatballs you can cook them from raw, you don't need to pre-fry them, so if you put your sauce into a saucepan, drop the balls in, cook it for 20 minutes / half an hour, you're ready to go, big pile of rice, and you're away

J: What about spices, do you use those much in pork?

C: Yes I mean I actually think that pork curry is delicious, really underrated, but I mean I think that a pork curry tastes absolutely delicious

H: You don't hear it very much

J: You don't

C: No you don't, not at all, no

H: That's a good point, very good point

C: But again, you know, if you're trying to make it a little bit different you could put cubes of - I would probably use shoulder or collar for a curry, and something like butternut squash or sweet potato in with it, and a jar of curry sauce or some curry powder, couple of cans of tomatoes, and you know it's that simple

J: Bob's your uncle

H: And away you go

C: Yes

H: What about making that sort of Sunday joint go a little bit further than just Sunday though, you've got your family, your family of four, typical family of four, you want to make that Sunday joint go a little bit further - do you buy an extra large bit of pork for a Sunday roast?

C: Yes I mean I would seriously think about that because there are some good deals around and it's worth making, you know, the most of those, or you could stuff the joint with a good quality sausage meat, or breadcrumbs in a black pudding sort of mix - anything like that, so obviously you're making that prime meat go further. But if you buy a bigger piece then you've got some slices leftover, and here's just a small selection of ideas

H: Ok

C: That you could perhaps try

H: Well I'll tell you what, we'll come back and take a look at what's on the table, answer more of your questions in just a moment because you've really got those taste buds crackling away here now

J: Crackling!

H: So what we're going to do is take a look at Clare actually in the kitchen with some tasty recipes. Check this out

Footage

"We're all familiar with the cuts like loin and shoulder, but here's a selection of cuts that you may not be familiar with, and we've got the loin chops, this area here's the collar, and this is from the shoulder joint, and the belly and the ribs we have here. So I'm going to start with the roast leg joint here. Roast leg of pork would be the traditional cut that we would choose, for a family roast. And then what we need to do is to score it really nice and deeply, and I need a small amount of oil, that I'm just going to rub into the skin. Sprinkle it with salt, and then it goes over into the oven, and here's one already cooked. So if you've a couple of slices leftover from that lovely Sunday roast, why not try a pork frittata, add our cooked pork and cooked potato and beans, this is a great one for leftovers. Pour some eggs into there and the herbs and then we just cook that until it sets; pop it under the grill.

So another idea of what we can do with this left over pork; again cut it into nice big chunky strips and I have got some red onion cooking away here and I am making it into pork fajitas. A handful of mixed peppers and in goes the strips of pork. Such a great value meat is pork. Nice big spoonful into our fajitas.

This is a really quick pork, sweetcorn and noodle soup. I have some pork stock bubbling away in the pan here in goes our cooked shredded pork, some fresh sweetcorn, some beansprouts and some noodles and we finish off with some spring onion and some coriander. Add all that together and just let it come to the boil. Then we have got our pork, sweetcorn and noodle soup.

H: You are watching the food and drink show, talking pork today making that meat and that budget go a little further in the current economic climate and Claire there in the kitchen with some wonderful tasty recipe ideas. What I did like there, Claire, was the fajitas. I never thought about using pork on fajitas.

C: This is the thing, we were just saying it is getting into a slightly different mindset isn't it, thinking what can you do with what you have in the cupboard really. They are obviously flour tortillas, you could use Chinese pancakes and finely shred the pork and eat those as you would with Hoisin sauce, it would be absolutely delicious.

H: Ok, I'll tell you what let's go through what we have on the table here because they really are some nice tasty looking dishes here, what have we got?

C: Well all I have done is I have literally taken sliced roasted pork and cut it into fine shreds and here we have got a rice salad, which would be ideal for a packed lunch or a lunch and I have made a dressing with that with using leftover smoothie. If you have got some that you haven't completely used...

H: A smoothie?

C: Yes just mix it up with a little olive oil and pour that on. You could put anything you like in there, I have got some mango and some sweetcorn with coriander and spring onion. So really, really simple.

H: This one here?

C: Caesar salad. You know, there is no reason why you can't have pork caesar salad. So it's simple lettuce, the shredded pork, dressing , I must admit I cheated and bought one, but my croutons I have made out of some bread that had gone completely stale. Just cut it into big chunky pieces drizzled it with olive oil pop it in the oven and you have made a very economical lunch time idea.

J: That is a fantastic thing because I regularly have bread left over and it is such a good thing to know how to do that. Can you freeze those croutons as well?

C: Yes they would be absolutely fine although they would keep quite a while in a tub wouldn't they.

H: Is it actually safe to freeze meat like that?

C: Absolutely either buy it from the supermarket in its raw state and put it into the freezer in sort of manageable size packages or if you have got meat cooked then I would suggest you cool it pretty quickly and then again put it into manageable sized portions and that will be fine to be used.

H: To buy something like that in a restaurant you are talking a lot of money aren't you?

J: Yes £6 or £7 I would think.

H: Easily. What would that cost you to rustle together?

C: We were saying about that. The lettuce I bought as proper lettuce and cut it myself which was under £1, whereas if you bought a bag of lettuce, pre-cut for you, you are talking well over £1. So you know it is just simple little differences. And the end idea is just the mixture that you might have to go in the fajita. Rather than buy tomato salsa make that simply out of a can of tomatoes. You know a chopped can of tomatoes add your spring onions in to it and a pinch of chilli and you are away. You have made it really simply.

J: And that is another of those staples, you know the question of what are the staples and I think at least one tin of tomatoes should be in your cupboard and also the eggs. The frittata isn't that a fantastic way to use leftovers, eggs is a great staple. I did some work with not wasting food earlier in the year and people kept mentioning if you put eggs in that you make bubble and squeak type things. It uses up so much and golly does it save you money.

H: That is what it is all about saving money. Questions coming in here we have got one from Beth "It is all very well saying different cuts of meat are cheaper but isn't meat like pork very fatty and bad for you no matter what cut you are actually getting with pork?"

C: That is not the case pork is incredibly lean these days, very comparable to other white meats. You can see the level of fat that is on the product, so if you cook a pork steak and you don't want to eat fat you just cut it off from what is on your plate. Anyway we are talking very low levels of fat because the pig has been bred that way. It is very lean these days.
H: Another one here from Foodari direct.com "What is in season at the moment? Does that make it better value? Would going back to eating locally make it more economical because it has travelled less distance?"

J: It should do. I think one of the things that is good really about the fact we are having to be forced to think about what we eat and spend on it is that I think we are starting to go with more seasonal food and more locally produced and locally reared food. Also of course with pork we are going for British reared pork, which is helping Britain of course.

H: I was going to mention this quality stamp that you should look for when you go to the butchers or the supermarket is there a specific stamp that we should look for?

C: Absolutely the quality pork standards on the screen there and basically it is a quality standard scheme that has been put together we know what has happened how the animal has been reared, what has happened to the meat so if you want to buy good quality that is the stamp to look for.

J: Yes seasonally produced food I think is the way that we need to be going. Isn't it interesting here we are now we are being forced to think again and go back to old fashioned values of making things, cooking things from raw and going with the seasons instead of expecting strawberries all year round, and let's face it they don't taste of very much at Christmas do they.

H: Alright as always time is getting the better of us. I am thinking of quick easy recipes that you know for people who may be living on their own or maybe students or you have got that little bit of meat left in the fridge from Sunday roast. Give us a few very quick fire recipes that we can perhaps come up with. Say half a dozen.

C: Well go to our website there are absolutely loads on there. But if it is leftovers you mean. Any of the ideas that we have come up with today but you can do stir-fry's, that is certainly something to go for. I don't know about you but I always have one courgette and two mushrooms in the bottom of the fridge so that is the perfect way of doing a pork stir fry, to use those bits and pieces up. We are sort of saying planning and thinking ahead that sort of thing

J: Sausage and mash that is a good one. If you are a student, I think why not sausage and mash or if you can't be bothered with the mash, sausage and a baked potato. Stick it in the microwave. Sausages there, baked potato do yourself some gravy. I like to do some onion gravy, just fry some onions, bit of gravy.... Oh yes.

H: Bit of HP sauce on the side

J: Oh yes.

J: Absolutely it is a good staple isn't it and it doesn't take long. Personally I go for chops If I am strapped for time I'll get some pork chops stick them under the grill sometimes with a bit of mustard and honey and few vegetables.....

H: Wonderful

J: 10 minutes, really it's 10 minutes - who needs pre-prepared meals?

H: I know what is for tea tonight then. I love this job. In terms of budgeting just as a final thing from you, if you like, Jasmine. How should we budget for that weekly shop? You mentioned at the beginning of the programme making that shopping list out.

J: Absolutely.

H: Is that the most important thing to do?

J: Well I think it is one of the most important things. It's sort of part of a holistic thing really. Really and truly we should be looking at the whole of our spending cutting down on all the essentials. Going online and switching our gas, our electricity, bank, insurance everything like that. Cutting down on the amount we are spending there and then looking at how much we have got left over all together, looking at what is coming in, what has to go out, what have we got left over and from that you can say to yourself well alright every week I can spend £40 on food let's say and so you have that amount. So everything has to fit in to that £40. I think once you get that figure, you say to yourself, that's what I can spend, then you can cut your cloth accordingly

H: Ok, well time has got the better of us. Jasmine Birtles and also Clare Greenstreet, thanks very much for joining us today on the program, and if you'd like further advice on smart shopping and for more great recipes, and download some top tips, go to the website www.lovepork - that's all one word, lovepork.co.uk. From all of us here, bye bye and enjoy your pork.

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