I was thinking about this sort of thing earlier, I agree about the cheap pesto. I have only ever made my own when I've had extra money to buy basil, I'm currently growing it from a sad supermarket plant that I separated and repotted. I found out how to do this from a gardener I follow on IG. I have spent extra before on these plants and then they have immediately died and been wasted/money lost.I was just thinking this last night. I’ve actually not had beans on toast for ages (toaster gave up the ghost and I’ve not got a new one yet).
My exact thoughts were. I’d rather have beans on toast than look at her cookbooks.
I’m actually a decent cook. If I’m cooking in the slow cooker I like to make a meal with 5 or 6 ingredients
Personally I think people who struggle with cooking and are on a low income. What would work is recipes that only use a few ingredients. Ones that could also be easily tweaked. So that people know how to cook a main meal every night of the week let’s say.
It is also sometimes far easier to pick up a jar of pesto sauce for example than faff around making kale or salad bag pesto.
At the moment I’m getting meals 3 days a week from a community group who are helping people in this area.
The meals are all home cooked and simple. For example last week I had a Chinese style veg curry that clearly used frozen veg but it was really nice. 4 or 5 ingredients tops. No faffing.
I would also like to try and figure out a way to make up a useful set of basic herbs/spices in smallish amounts for a reasonable price, it takes so long to build up a set when you can only get one at a time.
A set that would be useful for as many things as possible while not being too intimidating for those new to cooking, ideally packaged in a way that could be supplied to foodbanks.
There's been so many excellent contributions to these threads along these lines. I would happily begin putting some kind of resource together if anyone else wants to get involved? I'm not working and shielding at the moment so have time to devote to this.