FORGOT THE STARTER?

HERE'S A TIP>>>

Staying in tonight? You have your main course and your dessert? But forgot the starter!

No bother.

Just pop in to your local Aldi – they have stores all over now. Get one of the bowls of Les Olives du Marché. They have a variety under the Crespo brand and the one I enjoyed lately consisted of pitted green olives with chilli and parsley. Top class and you get 110g, with cocktail sticks included, for just €1.79.

CHEZ ALDI

Chicken, Apple and Cider...

CHEZ ALDI

THE ALTERNATIVE VENUE

When the Irish pubs started to push up their prices on a regular basis, more and more people started to drink in the house. Could the same thing happen with eating out? Of course, it could. The alternatives are many. I tried one recently.

Could have been one of those evenings where a booking wasn’t available or where I just didn’t feel like driving into town, parking and so on. Instead, I popped over to the local Aldi. And Aldi is becoming local everywhere.

Starter was Breaded Camembert with Cranberry sauce (€1.99). Add in some leaves from a mixed pack (€0.70) and a little dressing and the cost of a very tasty starter works out at a max of €3.00 for two.

Main course was Chicken with Apple and Cider, taken from the Readers Digest 30 Minute Cookbook. Can't reproduce it here for copyright reasons but maybe it is available on their website (http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/ )

The main ingredients, all from Aldi (except the Creme fraiche) are: Chicken (2.00), Apples (0.32), Crème fraîche (2.00), Cider (a can costs 1.36, with some left over for the chef!). Allow 0.30 for bits and pieces and that brings the total for one of our favourite dishes to an incredible €6.00 for the two.

You could have a bottle of white wine. Aldi has a range from 4.99 upwards. But a pint bottle of Old Moor’s Cider from Devon (at 1.99 each) is recommended.

Dessert is no problem. Aldi has an ice-cream yoghurt with a raspberry ripple. Four pots cost €2.00. I used two along with some raspberries. Estimated cost for the two is €2.00 max.

Leaving out the wine and/or bottles of cider, the cost of dinner came to just €11.00. Of course that doesn’t include the costs of preparation and the time but overall it was very enjoyable and could well become a trend!