Do you have a favourite recipe from your childhood?  Something that brings back nostalgic memories of mum in the kitchen?

Today I share The Shopping Sherpa’s recipe for her mother’s corn fritters.  The Shopping Sherpa is one of the most frugal and innovative cooks I know, determined to make her budget stretch by a $35/week food budget as part of #frugal15. I drool at her food pictures.

This is a recipe from my childhood: Mum often made these for us as a weekend lunch or dinner. Quick, simple and delicious!

Her recipe didn’t include the chopped spinach: that crept into my recipe after a flatmate introduced me to his family’s version, which was much more colourful (you can see the beginning of his version below Mum’s recipe in the photo).

If you have children who are vegetable-phobic, you can leave it out. On the other hand, you can add more colour (and cost) by including some chopped semi-dried tomatoes into the mix.

Corn fritters are incredibly versatile. When I find haloumi on special, I often serve them for brunch with avocado, fried haloumi strips and tomato relish: not quite as frugal as the plain version, but a delicious treat, and much cheaper that buying them at a café.  I’ve also been known to use them as a burger patty, and pile the salad ingredients and salsa between two halves of a roll.

I chose this recipe because today is Cooking for Copyright Day, a day to highlight ‘the fact that in Australia, while copyright is limited to 70 years after the death of the creator for published works, for unpublished works copyright lasts forever.’ This includes hand-written family recipes…

(On a related note I love the assumed knowledge in recipes from previous decades: many recipes I have from my mother include instructions like ‘cook until brown on both sides’, ‘add enough flour’, ‘cook until done’ or ‘stir until mixed’.)

Ingredients

For the corn fritters

425g can creamed corn
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
Small cup of flour
Salt and pepper to taste
Handful of spinach leaves, chopped (optional)

To serve

4 carrots
60g spinach
4 tomatoes
60g cheese
4 tsp salsa

Method:

1. Mix egg in a medium-sized bowl.
2. Add the corn.
3. Stir everything else in.
4. Cook on a greased skillet or in a greased frying pan until brown on both sides.

Serve with chopped tomato, cheese sticks, spinach leaves, grated carrot and a dollop of salsa. Or whatever salady-type vegetables you have on hand.

Can of creamed corn*: $1.20
Flour: 25c
Baking powder: 8c
Egg*: 40c
Spinach: 30c
Salt and pepper: 2c
Olive oil spray: 5c
Carrot: 12c
Spinach: 99c
Tomatoes: 55c
Cheese:  53c
Salsa: 51 c

Total: $5.00

(*If you choose to use Home Brand corn and cage-laid eggs these costs will be cheaper. I prefer to pay the extra for locally-produced corn and free-range eggs. )

Do you have a favourite, frugal recipe?  If you would like to share a guest blog post, please contact me on weekendparent88[at]gmail[dot]com.