Some of our meals are very inexpensive, particularly those based on eggs (from our own chickens) or vegetables and dried legumes.  At the other end of the scale, tonight’s meal might seem quite extravagant.

We had salmon which GMan cooked on the BBQ.  I buy the salmon from a large fish and chip shop in Caloundra and pay about $36/kg for it.  I buy 4 large pieces at a time and freeze them.  It works out at about $10 per piece, however, 1 piece is sufficient to serve the two of us.

Tonight I served it with sweet potato chips, cherry tomatoes and a creation which I call Waldorf coleslaw.  It is shredded cabbage, chopped apple and chopped walnuts tossed with some mayonnaise.

The sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes are free from the garden.  I mean totally free – they cost nothing to plant – both came up self-sown in the compost and they receive no supplementary water or fertiliser.  If I allowed $2 for the coleslaw I would be being generous.  So, we end up with a meal that cost $6 per serve.  While that is relatively extravagant compared to many of the meals I make and possibly out of reach for someone on a really tight budget, I am very pleased with the quality and content of this meal.